You are invited to examine your spiritual readiness and ensure your life aligns with biblical truth. Embrace the favor of the Lord to overcome natural obstacles and keep your zeal burning bright for His purpose. Commit yourself fully to the work of the kingdom without holding back.
Well, good morning.
Good morning.
My name is David John Phillips. I have the joy and honor of getting to be the pastor here. No place I'd rather be, nothing nothing I'd rather be doing. And so thank you for coming. "I love you".
I love this church. And man, I'm proud. I'm proud to get to call this place home. And I'm I'm proud of you guys. We had a prophetic workshop yesterday.
And I I wanna say yeah. It was awesome. I wanna say we had 45 people show up for the prophetic workshop and spend 6 hours, 9AM to 3PM here being trained and equipped, and it was just absolutely amazing and wonderful, full of grace. And so this is this is Todd and Diane. Everybody say hi.
Hi. Yeah. They're amazing. I I'm very intentional. We're continuing our Corinthians series today.
And, you know, in Corinthians, it talks about prophecy and other things. So I wanted to to give the opportunity for you guys to be equipped by them. I'm very intentional about our soil. When you think of the the the soil, it's it's like the culture the culture of our church. Very intentional about what sows into the culture of our church, and how we what rocks we take out of the culture of our church, so that we can have a healthy soil, so that if God plants you here, you can flourish and bear much fruit.
Amen? And so I'm very intentional about what we allow to sow into the culture of our church because I want I want it to be kingdom minded. I want it to be biblical. I want it to be healthy. And they're going to fertilize.
They they have through through the prophetic workshop yesterday, we've already seen it if you were here, but today, they're gonna fertilize our culture well because it's the culture of the kingdom of heaven. Amen? I I know them well. I know where they come from. Part of my research was studying some of the leaders of the the network that they're a part of in Canada.
About 3,000 churches. I got to study Dave Wells, pastor Dave Wells, and pastor Joel Wells, and and Ian Bird. Pastor Ian Bird, who's over the network. Pastor Dave started the whole thing. Pastor Joel leads the church they've been a part of for 30, 40 years, you know.
And and they've just been radically faithful and shown a character that is is you know, character lasts. And they've shown that kind of character to stand and to last, but they also go into the different churches and train them and equip them in in prophecy. So I so want you guys to open up your hearts to hear and to receive from Todd and Diane. They're amazing.
Hi. Well, we're so happy to be here. You know, we were at very first when the first when the church first started, I think 4 years ago at the other school and we met some of you like Wanda who we saw again this morning coming in. So, we just sort of feel like we've been coming and keeping an eye on you guys. It's our third time.
We're so blessed, so blessed to see what's happening and you know, we did the workshop yesterday on prophetic and then David asked if we wanted to share today And so I asked him, I said, you know, David, I taught for 6 hours or whatever yesterday. Do you mind if I just prophesy? And so he said he was good with that. You know, and Todd's going to share share in the area of prophetic vision which goes along with that. But because I I do a lot of teaching as well as prophesying, I just felt like there's a couple things I'll teach just as I prophesy.
And 1 is is that when you hear a word that's coming from the Lord, it first measure is it has to line up with scripture. So that is a a careful guard that you have when you hear prophecy. The other guard, they talk about they say it's an inner witness of the Holy Spirit. So there's something about the word that's almost like bypassing your mind, but it's grabbing your heart. And then there's just the part that prophecy has to be judged.
So because lots of times prophecy is talking about things future and to come, It has to be judged. And so that's not instant. You're evaluating and you're waiting to see over time. Is this what's happening? But the good thing about prophecy of benefit is can actually give you a focus as a church.
Some of the things that are the now things, the next things to step into. So I'm just gonna do that a little bit as I share with you what the Lord put on my heart. And first of all, I'm gonna start with a scripture in Isaiah-61. I have a feeling that maybe you've had this kind of a word over you before, but it's called the year of the Lord's favor. And I believe I believe according to scripture that you guys are actually in a time of favor.
And that's something that you can believe for your personal lives, and you can believe that for your church. And so I'll just read a few verses here. It says, the spirit of the sovereign Lord, I'm changing it to say, is upon you, because the Lord has anointed you to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent you to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives, yay, and release the darkness for the prisoners, to proclaim the year of the "Lord's favor", and that doesn't mean you keep the favor for yourself. You're going to declare it, and you're going to put just declare that favor for your community as well as yourself.
And provide for those who who grieve in Zion, and to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes, the oil of joy instead of mourning, and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair. They will be called oaks of righteousness. You will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the lord for the display of his splendor. Like Moriah was saying, it's not about displaying people's splendor. It's about displaying his splendor.
And 1 of the things that we look for in the prophetic is confirmation. So did you notice the first worship song had some words that came exactly from the scripture? And so we know that's the Holy Spirit wanting to speak and wanting to underline. Now I'm gonna go into some of the specific interesting things that I that I felt that are a challenge for certain groups. But I really felt, first of all, I saw I knew that there was a giant religious building that needed to be pulled down through a pair a prayer chain.
And so to the prayer warriors and to the worship warriors, I saw a rope going put over a **giant religious structure*, and it needed to be pulled down. Have you seen in tug of war where there's several people pulling on the same rope? That's what I saw needed to happen. So in order to have the freedom for the things that the Lord* wants you to walk into, sometimes there's a battle. And I actually feel this church has been called as an army, and everybody has a place and position in that army.
And it's going to take the strength of working together with the Holy Spirit to "pull that religious structure down", And it's 1 that is going to then create greater freedom, and it's worth the work to get rid of that demonic structure. I saw an expansion happening in your church. In fact, I had a very interesting picture because I saw couples coming up this side of the stage in wedding in wedding garments, and then I saw them go down the other side of the stage, and they were holding children in their arms. And I felt like the Lord was speaking of an acceleration, that there's going to be some some weddings coming up, but very quickly there's going to be families produced as well. And I feel like that is a word for your church as young families are coming in, but there's going be an, I think, like a *supernatural* acceleration, and that's an exciting thing to happen.
But I feel like God is building families as part of the foundation, and that's part of the focus is reaching and building into families. And I actually felt that even though this church has been very outreach minded and still will always have that part as the DNA, I really saw that there needed to be a pouring into families that happens right in this next season. Maybe some maybe some parenting classes, maybe some teaching in the area of of building good marriages. Right now, I felt like the Holy Spirit wants to pour right into the body to build such a strong foundation for things that that are to come in the future. I just saw that as as that happens, there's stable homes, there's stable families that there was just going to be a great outpouring of the spirit.
And even as we saw in the communion today, I just could see there's so many that are hungry for communion. There's so many that are hungry for community. And so as God brings you together, that's actually forming just a very strong foundation. And then in days ahead, I believe the outreach is going to be just amazing. But God's saying, build the foundation, and you're really going to just see the increase, but know that you're in the favor of the Lord right now.
Do you know what? When there's a time of favor, it's like you've got your pulse on the Holy Spirit. That gives you boldness to make declarations and to ask for the things that you almost don't want to say out loud. The big things. The things that God has to do, that you have to let the Holy Spirit partner with you.
So take the favor of the Lord. The favor of the Lord all also reverses what you see happening in the natural. So when economic times are tough, when it seems like this is not a time to build a business, in God's economy, it's time to build. When you've got the favor of the Lord, you take it and you run with it. And I just feel like God's saying this is your year.
This is favor for you, for your individuals, and also to spill out into those that are around you, to gather them in because we want to build up who Jesus is. We want to say he is a God that makes things happen for us. He is a God that works on our behalf. He's a God of favor. Amen.
Amen. Hello,
my aunt. No. You're Jack. Here we go. Come in.
Here's the. Well, I don't know. It's not mine. Thought she brought her coffee up and I thought, I can't believe you brought your coffee up here. I mean, there it goes.
Well, good morning, church. Morning. This has been an awesome morning already. I don't know how it can get better. Hallelujah.
David, where are you, David? Pastor David. But over there, there he goes. Alright. He gave me an encouraging word this morning before just before the service started and it it went something like this.
He said, I just want you to know. I just want you to know that no matter how bad you preach this morning, we still love you. I go, I go, where did that come from? I I know where it came from. So, *bless* you both.
We are so blessed to be here. I did have I did have a situation. I was a speaker at a Christmas banquet and we had to drive a couple of hours to get there and we had company. We took a couple with us. So, we're talking all and I'm trying to run through things in my mind, right?
And I got there and I don't eat much when I'm speaking. So, I just had this little bit of food and all this great banquet. So, I'm sitting there and and and my mind went blank like totally blank. I had no clue what I had written, what I was going to say, and and I was about to get called up to the stage and I went, oh my god, this is your worst nightmare, right? When I was a kid, if I was, when I was a teenager, if you gave me a pistol or a mic, I would have taken a pistol.
But I, I, I said, okay, Lord. I'm going to get up there. What's the worst thing that can happen? I said, well, I can be a fool. I'll be a fool and I said, alright, lord.
I will be a fool for you. You know what? It's a key. It's a key. I stood up.
I went up there and all of a sudden, boom. It was all there. I didn't and I'm not good at following notes. You'll probably notice that but I do have some notes here. So, I this is a great church.
I I don't know how how to really we we are always excited to come here. In fact, we'll any excuse that we can to get here, we will do that and so, we're really blessed to be with you and the fellowship here. We just we just love pastor David and Courtney. We love the other leaders that we know and it's just it's an awesome time of just connecting and sharing what god's doing and so, I I've heard it several times and and I and I already had that in my heart. This is a great church.
This is a great church and it's 1 of the greatest that I know. You're a young church. You're a really young church but you have an awesome foundation and you have a great vision but I want to challenge you today. You're going to have to "fight for that". Right?
It won't come easy. Moving forward, you're going to have to battle. Diane spoke. I didn't know what she's going to talk about. So you're going to have to do spiritual warfare.
You're going to have to stay focused. You're going to have to roll up your sleeves and work. And if you're willing to do that, your church will grow, will expand, its influence will be beyond your wildest dreams. And we just celebrated our fiftieth anniversary sorry, not me. Our church, we're only 46.
So, So, we've actually been there 45 years. We celebrated our fiftieth this couple of weeks ago. It was really awesome. We sang some of those old songs, you know, jump around and so it's cool but anyway, I it just put us in mind how far god has brought us in 50 years and and I want to say to you because you're a young church. It's worth it.
Amen.
It's worth it. Everything you put in, you get back multiplied. It's worth it. So don't lose focus. Don't lose heart.
Don't lose vision because that will carry you to where god wants you to go. So, I I'm going to actually start with *1 Corinthians-12* because I know that's where you are and I want to share a verse there. And Mariah did a great job this morning. I I thought, okay, well, leave me something to say and then but first 1 Corinthians-12 and verse 12 and 12 to 14. So, What is 1 Corinthians-12 best known for?
It's best known for the gifts of the Holy *Spirit* and and at the end, Paul says, eagerly seek the greatest gifts and yet I will show you a "better way". The context of the gifts is actually not it's the chapter is about unity. It's about love. It's about the same spirit. It's the spirit that we came into the kingdom, the same spirit is in each 1 of us and we are each 1 a part of the body.
Even the ones that we wouldn't consider the least important, the lord says, are the most important. So, it's in a spirit of love and of *unity* that we will be able to fulfill the call, your destiny, your call as a church. You will be able to do that. So, you need to resist all those other things that would break the unity, cause division, and will take the love out of your congregation, out of your community. I I read, I just read it here in 1 of the epistles.
If someone is causing division, Paul says, warn them. I know it's a gracious church but he says, Paul wasn't always that gracious. He says, warn them 2 or 3 times and then, ask them to go. Alright? Because unity, love is the foundation of the church.
Love for Jesus which is vertical. Love for 1 another which is horizontal. Those are the 2 greatest commandments. Don't forget that. So the scripture here, *1 Corinthians-12:12* to 14.
Just as a body, the 1 has many parts but it's all its parts, many parts "form 1 body". So, it is with Christ for we were all baptized by 1 *spirit* so as to form 1 body whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free, and we were all given the same spirit to drink. Even so, the body is not made up of 1 part but of many. So what I want to what I want to talk to you about this morning, what I want to challenge you with is what is your part? What is your part?
What can you contribute to the body that is going to make this body successful? What's your part? And if you don't know yet, God will show you. He will tell you. So I'm going to start with pastor David.
Pastor David, what is your part? Well, you don't have to answer right out loud. He knows his part and he does it very well. As observed that, you wouldn't be here. This church wouldn't be where it was if it wasn't for pastor David and Courtney and the team that's being raised up around them.
But I'm going to say this, the main role of leaders is to discern the *vision* for the house. So, in that sense, they are the ears, the eyes, and the heart of the church. So that they can communicate that to you so that you can catch the vision and run with it. So his main role and Courtney's main role and some of the other leaders is to be continually casting and modeling vision. Vision.
Secondly, their role is to disciple. You thought because it's pastor David that he's primary call is to pastor you. No, it isn't. I'm sorry to disappoint you. I hope you're not disappointed.
His secondary role is to raise up disciples, leaders as himself to multiply, duplicate, and some of those will pastor you. So, in the beginning, when you're first starting out and you're a young church and you're starting, you do everything. Who is on the drums this morning? Pastor David, right? Who's here Friday night helping set up?
Pastor David. I mean, we were doing it all in the beginning. I'm not even going to list you all the things we were doing and you have to be careful with that and you have to guard 1 another because you don't want people running out of gas. That's called burnout and that is not healthy for the church. It's not healthy for the body.
You as a body don't want to burn out and you don't want to burn out your leaders and you don't want to burn out. How are you going to not burn out? *Vision*. Keep vision in the center part of vision is *revelation* by the Holy Spirit. So, you need to be in constant communion with the spirit of god.
*Isaiah-40*, everybody knows that verse. They that wait upon the lord shall renew their strength. It says, even the young men get weary. I'll take that. Even the young men get weary but those that wait upon the lord shall renew their strength.
They shall rise up on wings as eagles. They shall run and not weary. They shall walk and not faint And if you're going to have heavenly vision, if you're going to be able to see spiritually with spiritual, David, pastor David asked me, are you going to be taking any take my mic to my to my glasses here? So, he said, you're to take your glasses off and I said, no. And I said, well, maybe.
I'd had the thought that I would take my glasses off because *vision* is really dependent on your lenses. What lenses are you looking through? Alright? Are you looking through a worldly lens? Are you working through a self indulgent or self centered lens?
Are you looking through the lens of Jesus?
That's right.
Do you see yourselves, your brothers and sisters? Do you see the world that he gave his life for? Do you see them as Jesus does? Like out there, it's chaos, right? It's chaos.
Interesting. We've been staying in these different motels. Of course, we don't know till we get there. We go, okay, this is I don't know what we call it. Social services at home.
Everybody's on the dole, I think. So, so we're there and it's you know, if you are, you are. That's that's that's where you are but anyway, it's just showing us the need. People need Jesus. Need Jesus.
They need Jesus and the world, I'm sorry to tell you is not getting brighter, it's getting darker but I'm going to tell you the good news is the world gets darker, we get brighter. Amen. That is Isaiah-60, the chapter before, the 1 my wife was using, rise, shine, for your light has come. He has come. So, arise and shine because gross darkness is covering the world and I hate to let you in on this but it's actually going to get darker.
It's going to get darker. It's going to get more challenging. We need to prepare for that. Difficult times, challenging times, but in the midst of that we were talking last night about the outreach in Pakistan and India and Iran. And Muslim and and and Hindu countries where they had no some they had no never heard the gospel.
Didn't even know who Jesus was. Some of them were having visions of this man who they identified as god and then they found out later, it was Jesus Christ and they got, they were saved, right? They were saved. Nobody preached to them. Now, that's not the rule, right?
We need to be, we need to be speaking and living the gospel. But we are going to have such awesome opportunities not just in Clearwater already in Pakistan, India, these other places but god is sending us and some of you to the far corners of the world because he wants the gospel in every language group, every tribe, every nation before the end, he will do that. Hallelujah. Like I said, now give try and get back to my notes and where are we? So, that was the leader's part.
So, when you get your own, I talked about the revelation. Jesus said, Matthew-16:18, he said, on this rock, I will build my church and the Roman Catholic Church mistakenly identify then Peter must therefore be the first pope. Well, I'm happy to say there wasn't even a Roman Catholic church for the next 304 hundred years. So, that was not true. Well, Jesus is really talking about is the revelation of who he is.
He's talking about the gospel on this rock. He is the Messiah. He is the son of god. He is the savior of the world. On this rock, I will build my church in the gates of hell will not prevail against it.
Don't believe everything you hear in the news. *God*'s keeping the the truth is upstairs. He's keeping their books. I tell my students, well, I used to tell my students, I'm retired now. I used to tell them, don't believe what you read in the history books because just remember who wrote them, you have to test everything, right?
And history is written written by the winners, not the losers. *God*'s a winner. He's keeping the records and we will see at the end of it all. We will see the truth, the records. So, the kingdom, I heard it, is like a mustard seed.
It is sown into the ground and it grows and it grows and it grows. It's like yeast that goes into the dough and it ferments the entire dough and it grows and it grows and it grows and if you look at history as recorded, you see the church, okay, it's doing okay here. It's doing not so good here and then it kind of we had an awakening and and you know what? We need we need revival. We need awakenings.
We need those and we are the precipice of a great awakening. Can I tell you that with utmost confidence that it is coming? Yeah. But the truth is, the kingdom of *god* has never receded. It has always advanced.
Always advanced. *Jesus* never lost a battle ever. So, even what the enemy means for evil, he uses for good. So, you can't beat that. Hallelujah.
How am I doing here? Okay. Members part. Okay. I'll challenge you with this.
When Paul and Silas were sent out as apostles, as missionaries, and the first missionary journey, they went from town to town, city to city, they were persecuted, they moved to the next 1, and so on. That's how it went. Then, the 1 Paul was stoned and possibly even died and was brought back but they got to Berea and when they spoke in the synagogue of Berea, the Bereans, the scripture says, were more noble than their brethren in the other communities. They said, come back tomorrow. We're going to search this out and see if it be true.
See if it be true. So, they took what Paul and Barnabas were teaching them. They went and they searched it out prayerfully and came back and said, we believe. Many were many were converted in that city of Berea because they were the ones that searched out for the truth. They wanted to know.
They didn't shut off because they were religious. They actually wanted to know. So, We're talking here about vision. We're talking here about purpose. We're talking about everybody's part.
So your responsibility is to "search it out" and test it in your own heart. And I said, what we do is we we need to be in the quiet place. We need to be prayerfully considering it based on Diane as Diane said, scripture and what the feel the Holy Spirit is saying to us and in confer with people that we trust and we do those things then we will have we will have an assurance that what we are doing and what we are believing is the truth. God has all those safeties for us but it's it's it's vitally important. Truth sets us free, gives us vision, helps us to move forward.
There's a there's a prophet. His name is Larry Randolph and he's actually losing his *vision* and he's he's prayed about this and god has not healed him but what god has shown him that as he was losing his natural vision, his spiritual eyes were sharpened. He could see in the spirit with more clarity. He could hear with more clarity and understand what god is, what season, what god is saying in this season. There was another group there called the tribe of Issachar said they were more noble than their brethren because they knew the times and the seasons and I think this morning, there's been so much talk about the Holy Spirit and the importance of the Holy Spirit and being filled with the Holy Spirit because *revelation* is by relationship.
You can't have *revelation* of truth if you don't have a relationship with the Holy Spirit. You don't have a relationship with Christ by the Holy Spirit. In fact, Paul says in Romans-12, he says, he says, sorry, 8, he says that the carnal mind cannot comprehend the things of god. It's not possible. It's like oil and water.
It's the kingdom of light and the kingdom of darkness. So, it's only by the spirit of god that we can understand the things of the kingdom and understand god and sometimes people say, well, I don't know. I don't know if I hear from god. I don't know if I've ever heard from god. I'm a Christian but I don't know if I hear from god.
I can assure you that if you are a Christian, you have heard from *god* because god gave you a *revelation* of who Jesus is, the savior and you heard that in your heart and you responded to that truth and you were saved. You were born again. That couldn't happen if you didn't hear the voice of god. Peter, when he spoke, you are the Christ, the son of the living god. He and Jesus says to him, Simon Bar Jonah, you are blessed.
He said, his flesh and blood is not revealed that to you but my father who is in heaven revealed that to you, to your heart. So, what I really want to emphasize here is a "heart to heart". Here with your heart, we've gone through some really rocky waters in terms of the prophetic in the last number of years. It kind of started probably with American election which we follow very closely by the way and as goes America, so goes Canada. So, we follow that and there was a lot of confusion and there was a lot of discrediting of of prophetic prophetic people because of the the contradictions and so on and and so it wasn't a healthy thing but now god is saying he wants us to be able to discern what is true and what is not true.
So, I will challenge you with this. In your quiet time, as you are prayerfully waiting on the lord, as you are worshiping, as you are reading scripture in that in that attitude, what god shows you in those times, you will see it confirmed by other people and other times, other voices And what you know to be true in secret, you will recognize in public. Now, there's always safety. There's always safety in checking with those you trust, right? Whether you're prophetic, whether you're talking about prophecy, or just did I hear that right?
Was it, is that true? Did that what that person spoke? Do you believe that? Those are good, healthy conversations to have but I'm challenging today to be good Bereans and to listen with your heart. This takes time.
This takes waiting on god. This takes a relationship with Jesus, a intimate relationship with him. So, all all the above. I mentioned, oh, yes. Alright, we're going to have to move on there.
Leave that. Okay, I want to I want to go to well known scripture, Proverbs-2nine 18 and this is really the pivotal scripture for this morning and I'm going to give it to you actually in 2 versions and I'm going to give you a paraphrase but Proverbs-2,918, it says, where there is no revelation, people cast off restraint. Where there is no revelation, people cast off restraint. The King James says, King James Version says, without a progressive vision, people dwell carelessly. Now, it may not be as accurate, the King James, but I actually prefer that definition and I have a prayer paraphrase here that I didn't write out for Dolores but I'll I'll just read it to you.
Says, without a current, progressive, revelatory understanding of god's plans and purposes in our lives, we lose our forward momentum, become complacent, and vulnerable to the enemy. Is that good? Yeah. That's good. Good because I wrote that.
I'm going to give you a few examples of scripture where where then particularly Israel where they lost vision, they lost control, they lost self restraint, they became vulnerable to the enemy. So, 1 of the immediate ones when the lord led them out, Moses led them out of Egypt through the miracles and so on, the parting of the Red Sea and then he got to Mount Sinai where he is going to give the law. Moses goes up on the mountain. Well, when Moses was gone, they had no revelation because he wasn't there. They didn't have a relationship with god.
Moses did but while he was gone, they're going after 40 days. They're saying, where is this guy? Where is this man? Well, this guy just delivered you from Egypt from miracle after miracle but that is how fickle human nature is. So, in 40 days, they already backslid.
They already coming down the mountain. They made their own gods. They're having a big party and and they think Moses thinks it's it's it's war but it's really the lord says to him, no. They're they're having they're having a party. They've already walked away from me.
No revelation, they walked away. And later on, they got to Cadish Barnea where they were supposed to cross the Jordan into Canaan, into the promised land that god had promised to their ancestor, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob and he was about to fulfill that promise and they got there, sent in 12 spies, 12 came back, 10 had an evil report. They said, yes, it's it is a very fruitful land but there's a big but. There are giants there and great walled cities. We are "grasshoppers in their sight".
That was the lens that they were using. They were looking through their own lens and they saw the giants and they saw themselves and they said, oh man, we're in trouble. We're not going there and yet, Joshua and Caleb stood against the majority and said, no. We are well able to do this. Those giants are "bread for us".
The difference being, they were using the right lens. They weren't looking at the giants. They were looking at god, Yeshua. They said, how much, what's a giant compared to? God, he just brought us through miracle after miracle delivered us, brought us through the Red Sea, drowned the army of the Egyptians in the sea, and here we are.
What are we afraid of, right? They had the right perspective. Why? Because they, the Bible says, they had a different spirit. They had a spirit that was aligned with the spirit of god.
They had a *relationship* with the Holy Spirit. So, makes a difference. Later, later, as they're traveling, they stopped to rest at a place called the 70 Palms and then it the cloud moved on. They were supposed to go, right? Well, there's some that didn't want to leave right away.
They were so comfortable there. They decided to camp a little longer. So, what happened is the body of of Israel had moved on and they were straggling at the back. Well, what happened? The Amalekites came along and scooped him up.
So, the very people that god had delivered out of slavery Egypt are now in a worse place, slavery to Amalekites out in the desert, right? The straggle behind. They stopped moving forward. We need to follow the cloud when god says, move, move, right? If he says, stay, stay but be in tune with the spirit of god so that you know and I'm challenging you this morning as a community.
It's not on pass all on pastor David's shoulders and the other leaders here. It's on you as a body. So, Now, Jesus talks. He talks about in Matthew-7. He talks about 2 paths.
We have 2 choices. 2 paths that we can choose in life. 1 is a broad path. Broad path that leads to destruction. He says, many go on the broad path.
But the path to life is narrow. It's difficult and not many find that path, not many finish that journey. So, what is the difference between these 2 paths? Well, 1 leads to destruction, 1 leads to life, and but the broad path, this is how I like to see it. The broad path is actually downhill.
It's downhill. So, you get on the broad path. All you have to do to get on the broad path is stop moving. Right? You stop moving and you start coasting backwards.
There's no standing still. There's no standing still spiritually. If you stop pressing forward, you stop growing, you will start backsliding. That's plain simple fact. So, the momentum will be in reverse.
You will go back. You will end up in a ditch either without restraint which is license or you'll end up in formality which is religion. God hates religion. He hates religion because it preempts relationship. God's about relationship, not about religion.
So, Paul, he compares life to a race in a couple of places in first Corinthians but also in *Hebrews-12* and verse 1. He says, and of course, Hebrews-12 follows, it follows the *faith chapter where it talks about all the heroes of the faith and how they are now a great cloud of witnesses* and now, it is our turn. You say, it's our turn. Now, seen as we're accomplished about with so great a cloud of witnesses, let us run with patience, the race that is set before us. Often, he talks about the race and only 1 wins.
You need to strive. Did anyone ever win a race by standing still? No. Never. Never.
That's a sure way to lose. In fact, you get booed right off the court, right? So, we've got to keep that forward momentum. We've gotta keep our eye on the prize. He also says in Philippians, he said, forgetting the things behind, I press towards the call, the high calling of god in Christ Jesus.
I press towards the high calling of god in Christ Jesus. I want you to say this to yourself. I have a high calling from god in Christ Jesus because you do. You have a high calling of god in Christ Jesus. We are all ministers of the gospel.
No exceptions, right? And remember, Corinthians says, even the 1 we would consider the least is the most important. They will surprise you. You don't have to be Paul. I don't have to be Paul.
I don't have to be pastor David. I don't have to be Mariah. Right? I have to be me, the best version of me that god had in mind when he created me. That's my destiny.
That's my call. So, It's not all grunt and grind. It's not. When we're in the will of god, when we're pressing forward, yeah, it can be challenges. It can be even Paul got anxious at times.
The very guy that said, be anxious for nothing. He said, I have anxiety over the churches. He says that at another place. I go, okay. You're human, right?
We're human. We're human. So, we're not perfect but we are we are privileged to have the very spirit of god in us and greater is he that is in us than he that is in the world. We can do all things through Christ who strengthens us. These are the words that we need to go to when the devil saying, you can't do this.
You can't do that. You're too small. They're too big. I love the, I was going to talk a little about about King David because I thought, well, it's kind of cool, King David. So, he raised up an army.
He raised up an army of fearless warriors but initially, they were a group of just a ragtag group of people who were distressed, delusion, deluded, and they were in debt and they they just had everything going. Nothing was going right for them. That could be some of us, right? Was some of us? But they recognized in David a call of leadership.
They hitched their wagon to his wagon when he was in the wilderness running for his life. They stuck it through and because they did, guess what? That mantle of leadership fell on them. David, the giant killer, he raised up giant killers. They were giant killers.
In fact, they were more than that. They were called the mighty men. 1 guy, 1 guy fought off a whole army for a patch of beans. I mean, beans, lentils. He fought off a high not moving and this is this is mine.
This is my inheritance. *God gave this to me. I don't come* hell or high water. I am not moving. He defeated an entire army.
The rest of them came back when it was all over. They had to pry the sword from his hand. Now, that guy was either crazy or anointed. What do you think? He was anointed of god and he was bold, right?
Never say, Never give up. Winston Churchill said, never give up. Never give up. You only lose when you give up. You fall 7 times, you get up and go on and god will use your failure for your good.
Alright, I want to I want to close. I got I got to just pick a couple things here to close. Alright, I'm just going to I'm just going to make reference to the 10 virgins, 5 foolish, 5 wise, the 5 wise kept their lamps full of oil and they had oil to spare. They were prepared. That's a word for us.
That's a word for today, for the church today, alright? I just going to let's give you a quick idea here. You can think about, you can develop it but the early church, the 12 disciples, they traveled with Jesus for over 3 years, personally discipled by Jesus, didn't have a clue. They didn't. He was always saying, I can't believe you.
How long do I have to be with you guys before you actually get it, right? They didn't expect him to rise. They didn't believe he was going to be killed. They didn't think he's going to rise from the dead and when he did, they were surprised, right? They were human.
They were human but they walked with him. They were faithful. They didn't give up. On the day of Pentecost, everything changed. Everything changed.
That was the birth of the church, the early church in the day of Pentecost. The spirit of god was poured out on them and suddenly, Peter gets up and says, no, we're not drunk as you suppose because people they were falling over and the power of the spirit of god. They're speaking in tongues, doing all kinds of crazy things. Nobody had ever said. They didn't know that was going to happen.
Peter gets up. He prophesies. This is that which the prophet Joel spoke of like 700 years earlier, he quotes in the last days, I will pour out my spirit on all flesh and then he preaches the gospel, 3,000 get saved, and the church is birthed. Well, I'm just going to tell you this, that they grew by *revelation* and if you follow it through the book of Acts, *Acts-3*, he gets the the man is healed and in Acts-4, there's a shaking and in Acts-6, they they grew so much. They had to appoint deacons.
*Acts-15*, they finally settled the thing whether the Gentiles had to be circumcised and follow the law but it was a work in progress. How did they do it? They turned the world up in upside down in 1 generation with all their limitations. All their limitations, they turn the world upside down in 1 generation because they were dependent on the Holy Spirit. They heard from the Holy Spirit.
They built the church on the *revelation* of the church that God gave them because Jesus built that church that stand. So I'm as we close in prayer this morning, I just want you to I just want you to talk to god. Talk to Jesus about this and I'm I'm going to challenge you with this. If you're not clear on the vision, find out what it is. If you're unsure about some areas, prayerfully take that to the lord and let god make that real birth that in your own heart but if you today believe that this house, this vision is from god and you want to say, "I'm all in".
I'm all in. I'm all in. Then, I'm going to encourage you, be all in. Alright, don't be partway. Don't be lukewarm.
Be all in. Be on fire. You have the zeal here in this house. Paul says, keep your zeal. Do not lose your fervency.
Keep the *fire* going. Keep it hot because fire spreads. Right? Smoke spreads too but it's not nearly as effective. So, father, we just thank you.
We thank you father for what you're doing in our own lives. We thank you for what you're doing here in Clearwater and through Real Church and through the leaders here. Father, we thank you father that there is vision, that there is purpose, and there is fruit. There is fruit right in this room. There was fruit yesterday, *lord*.
Those that are hungry, eagerly seeking spiritual gifts. Why? So, lord, they can be of more service to you and to 1 another and to the community that you place them. So, father, I pray that that fire will continue to build. It will continue to to grow and that the influence of this house will continue to spread.
Lord, across this community, across this nation, and across the sea. Father, every place that you have foreordained that they will go and that they will sow and they will bear fruit. I pray and declare that over them today in Jesus name that as you raise them up as David's mighty, mighty men, his mighty band that they will not take no for an answer, that they will engage the enemy, and they will take him down, they will take him down because they know that god is with us and if god before us, who can be against us? So, father, I pray you strengthen the hearts and strengthen the vision and that it will be clear, it will be crisp, and it will "cut like a knife" through every defense of the enemy in Jesus name. Amen.
Amen. *Bless* you folks.
Thank you for tuning in today to the Real Church podcast. I pray that you walk away from today encouraged 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.usgiving, 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*.
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"Transcribed with Deepgram"