You are not defined by your mistakes or the price tags others put on you. Rest in the truth that Jesus paid the ultimate price for you, making you valuable in God's eyes. Today, stop believing the lie of worthlessness and start living from the identity of being fully loved and forgiven.
Welcome to the Real Church podcast. Our mission is for you to know the love of Jesus and live out your God given purpose. Now,
join
us and listen in to the latest message from pastor David John Phillips.
Feel like in our culture today, we're always searching for love. I feel like we're searching to know love, searching to be loved, searching to feel love, be loved. But a lot of times, all we find is a temporary cheap substitute that lessens the blow of our insecurities for a time. *1 John-4:8 says, God* is love. In verse 9 and 10, it says, this is how God showed His love among us.
He sent His 1 and only Son into the world that we might live "through Him". Everybody say, through Him. Through Him. Amen. Verse 10, check this out.
This is love. Not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sin. So "God is love". Therefore, everything that he does is from love. And the height of his demonstration of love is Jesus.
Why? Because he loves you. Because You are valuable. Want that to sink in for a moment. You are valuable.
Let me put that in perspective. This computer I usually use a water bottle for this 1, but this computer This computer is worth whatever Let's say let's say something you go to the store to buy this computer, and and the "price tag" on it is about $1,500. It's a it's a MacBook Pro. It's expensive. Right?
Oh my goodness. So they put this price tag on it, $1,500, and nobody buys it for a while. Right? So they put a different price tag on it. They put, you know, $12.99.
Time goes by, it goes down to a $9.99. Finally, you go and purchase the computer for $999. Now, what is the worth? What is the value of that computer? Is it worth $1,500?
No. Because something is only as valuable as what someone else would pay for it. It's worth 999. Right? Someone is only as valuable as what someone else would pay for them.
Let that sink in for a moment. I think a lot of people have price tags put on them that say, maybe you have a price tag put on you that said you're worthless. Maybe a price tag put on you that said you're this or you're that. You're You'll never be good enough. A price tag of this or But see, here's the thing.
Jesus Christ, completely God, completely man, Jesus Christ died for you. The payment for sin is death and Jesus paid that price for you. Therefore, God died for you, so you are not worthless. You're worth the very life of God. You're worth the very life of God.
You are valuable. That's how valuable you are. That's how loved you are. And if God says it, it's true. Don't ever believe the lie again.
Don't price yourself less than what God says you are. Does that make sense? So good morning. My name is David Phillips. I am the pastor David John Phillips.
I'm the pastor here at wait, that's River of Life. That's the church in Louisiana. It's my dad's church. Just kidding. I'm the pastor here at Real Church.
We God birthed this vision in us 2 years ago. We moved here a year ago to do this. My wife and I, she's amazing. She's not in here right now. She's teaching a class called Next Steps, which is awesome.
I'll tell you about it in a second. Next steps well, actually, I'll tell you about it now. So next steps, if if you see God at work in real church, if you wherever you see God at work, there's this principle in scripture. Where you see God at work, it's your invitation to join him in what he's doing. Right?
So if you see God at work at in real church, then feel free after this service, say, hey, I wanna be a part of the dream team. What is the dream team? The dream team is real church. You saw the people that are welcome you in the parking lot, the people welcome you with the signs coming in, and they're like, they're smiling, they're awesome. The production team, the cafe team, the security team, the the band, amazing band.
Right? Could you guys just Oh my goodness. God is good. That is real church. They are just like Jesus gave his life for you.
They're following him and giving their lives for you on Sunday morning, so that you can know the love of Jesus and live your God given purpose. That is real church. So if you're interested in being a part, more than just a butt in a seat, interested in being a part, which we're thankful for for you guys here, then you can go to our next steps class right after service, 35 minutes is all. If you have kids, don't worry about it. They're they're safe and fun and having a blast.
We have snacks and and and everything, and you can see what your next step is at real church, or maybe you just your next step with Jesus, or your next step in life. It's a it's an amazing thing. So just think about that during the message. So today, I'm not gonna share the story of real church. I've been sharing the story of real church for for 2 years, since since God put it in our heart.
But today's not about real church. Today's about you. Today's about us doing whatever it takes for you to know love and live purpose. So today, that's what we're gonna do. *Amen*?
I'm gonna ask you a question. Do you believe God can use people to speak to people? Yeah? Cool. Do you believe God can use me to speak to you?
Alright. Well, here's what I wanna do then. I wanna pray. I want us to pray together. Maybe maybe that's not you.
Maybe you're like, you know, I don't even know if I believe in a God, and that kind of That's that's cool. Alright. That's cool. Well, just ask, hey God, if you're real, if you're there, would you speak to me today? But I wanna pray.
Just take a moment. I'm gonna pray for you, And I want you, in your heart, to pray for me. Because this isn't about me. It's not about this church, it's about you, and it's about God showing you and showing us just how much he loves us. Amen?
Let's take a moment to pray. Father, thank you for these amazing people. *Lord God*, thank you that you're here. Lord God, that you care about us. Lord God, it's so much that you sent your son so we could know you.
Father, I pray that you do whatever it takes today so that people understand and grow in a relationship with you. Father God, that maybe people start that or or just understand how much you love them. Let every single person that's here and listening online, let every single person walk away from today with a deeper understanding of your love for them. In Jesus name, amen. Okay.
So I am going to ask you guys the 2 most important questions a person can ever be asked. I'm not kidding. I'm serious. I'm gonna ask you guys the 2 most important questions a person can ever be asked. And I'm gonna set it up a little bit, because I'm supposed to.
Right? I'm a speaker. That's what you're supposed to do. Set up these things. So we're gonna turn in in our Bibles, if you have your Bible, you can turn to Matthew-16.
You can look on the the website there with the sermon notes. You can follow along there. I'm really just gonna tell the story because I like to tell stories. So you can go back and check me, make sure I was right, that kind of thing. I encourage you to.
It's important. So Jesus and His disciples, they're walking around because that's what they did back in the day. There wasn't cars and stuff. Right? This was 2000 years ago.
So everywhere that they went, they walked. And they're going, it says that they're going to Caesarea Philippi. I wanna take a moment to share with you about this town, this city. It was actually a place of commerce. It was a big city.
It was popular. Caesarea Philippi. You know, every city back then and even in some places now, there's a god of that city. And the god of this city's name was Pan. In Greek, it kinda means like, think of the word panorama or pantheism.
Right? All encompassing everything, everybody's in, you know, kind of bringing together pan. So that was the name of the god. And just outside of the city, there was this big huge temple to the god Pan. And behind the temple, there was this cave.
Alright. So this is the backdrop as Jesus is walking into the city. There's this cave. And inside of the cave, there's a pool. And back in the day, they didn't know how deep the pool was.
They thought it just went forever, you know, deep. In the sides of the cave, there's carved the the picture of the god Pan, but then also there's carved of many other gods because it's all encompassing. Right? It's the god Pan. And this cave, this temple, they called it the "Gates Of Hell".
Interesting. Right? So this is this is Caesarea Philippi, and it says, as they were going to Caesarea Philippi, so it's likely that they were at this spot with this temple and this cave in the backdrop when Jesus asked a very important question. The first question that He asked, this is not the most important, but it's important, He said to His disciples, He says, who's who do do people say that I am? And the disciples looked at Him, and I imagine, and they said and they said these words.
Some people say that you're John the Baptist. Other people say that you're Elijah or Jeremiah or some prophet. Now think about this for a moment. Like today, it's it's really the same thing. There's a lot of people, a lot of different religions, or different people that say that that Jesus was a a prophet or a good person.
I mean, we know a fact. Jesus walked the earth. History tells us this. We know it's a fact. Roman documents say, hey, Jesus actually died on a cross, on a Roman cross.
Right? He actually hung on the cross. Okay? So we know this. It's it's it's a done deal.
But really, *Jesus* then turned to them and said, well, who do you say that I am? That That's the most important question. I'm gonna let you in on 1 of my favorite things in the world to do. I travel a whole lot, I used to travel a whole lot, haven't really much since I got here because I've been focused on serving this city, because I love Clearwater, and and God told us to plant this church. And I'm excited about it, excited about the future here.
But here, maybe you're 1 of the people that I just kinda randomly went up and talked to because I love to just randomly go up and talk to people. I love to ask questions. I love to get to know people and and just learn about people. I I I study people. I'm a student.
And 1 of my favorite questions to ask people, sometimes when I'm on a plane or on a bus or just sitting in a restaurant, something, I'll ask them this question. I'll say And I'll phrase it just like this. I say, look, I'm I'm a student. And I really am a student. I study people and study theology, all kinds of stuff.
So I'm a student, and and I love I love studying like like about God and religion, and and what people believe and why. Would you mind if I I ask you a question? And some sometimes, or a lot of times people will say, okay. Yeah. Sure.
I was like I'll say, well, "what do you believe" about God and religion and all that crap? And I phrase it like that on purpose. Right? Because I'm not all like holier than thou, like, you know, do you believe the way that I do? No.
No. Right? I'm It's more, I wanna know what they believe and why. I really am interested in the person cause I really care about the person. And they can sense that.
Right? People know if you're real, genuine, fake, that kind of thing. So I ask them what they believe and why, and then they begin to share, and I start to ask questions cause I'm really interested. Part of real church, our DNA is communicate transparently. It's not I mean, you can ask me anything, and I'm just gonna I don't there's nothing to hide.
You can ask us anything. Right? But then part of communicating transparently is is not just communicating transparently, but it's also Communication is also listening. So listening with the heart of Christ. I'm not listening to that person as they're telling me what they believe.
I'm not listening to respond so I can win. I'm listening because I care and I wanna understand. K? So they're sharing with me, you know, what they believe a lot of times and and everything. I'm asking all these questions, but it's human nature.
If they feel heard, then they wanna hear. So they'll ask me, well, what do you believe? And that's that's when I I get to share the gospel. I get to share what I believe. Let me tell you what I believe.
You see, In studying religion, in studying theology, all these different things, I've studied a lot of different religions. I've I've interviewed a Buddhist monk in Thailand 2 years ago. I've interviewed Hindus in in India. I've interviewed animists in Africa. I've interviewed atheists on a nuclear submarine, nuclear engineers who are like, you know, so super smart.
I've interviewed agnostics of people that believe there's a God, I just don't know what it is. You know? I've interviewed Christians who don't live like they're Christians, and Christians who do. You know? And I I mean, all kinds of different denominations.
I've interviewed all these people and asked them and learned from them and all this kind of stuff. And what I have found is this. Usually, it's 1 of 2 things that a religion says, whether it's Buddhism or Hinduism, or Islam, 1 of 2 things. They basically say, number 1, you have to be 50.1% good over 49.9% bad on the "teeter totter of life" in order to make it to heaven, to nirvana, to your 70 virgins, to to the next best thing, the next best animal, the next best thought process, something like that. Right?
You have to be good enough. You have to do enough good things in order to And and if I'm a good person, then I can make it. So they either say that, or they say The second thing, they'll say, no, you have to follow this code of rules, these 5 pillars, this list of laws, these 10 commandments. You have to do these things just right. You have to do these sacrifices.
People still do sacrifices all over the world. You have to you have to pay this much money to get, you know, this right knowledge, or you have to follow these these rules. And if you do it right, just right, then you'll appease the God in the in the sky, and you'll make it to the next best level of thought, or you'll make it to heaven, or you'll make it to whatever the religion says. Would you agree with me? That's basically what every religion says, pretty much.
For me, or you know, even, there's a lot of *religion* that says you have to read your Bible enough and pray enough to appease the God in the sky too. But for me, there's no peace there. Because you never know if you've done enough. You never know if you prayed enough. You never know if you sacrificed enough.
You never know if you gave enough. There's no peace in that because it's all about what you do. It's man trying to climb a ladder or woman trying to climb a ladder in order to make it to some god in the sky so they can have some kind of peace in their life because they know that they're in despair, or or or just life's not working, or whatever. So it's trying to make it to God. So that's why I chose Jesus.
That's why I choose Christianity. That's why I choose Him. Because, really, Think about this for a second. Do you teach a 2 year old to lie? No.
2 year old naturally, did you do that? No. I didn't do it. Do you do you teach a 2 year old to steal? No.
But a 2 year old naturally, mine? Give that back. No. It's mine. It's not yours.
It's part of our nature. We have a nature from birth because of Adam. We have a nature, a proclivity towards self. We want what we want. Right?
And we want to hide when we do something wrong. Period. So at our base, we're all at least thieves and liars. Right? So because of that, because of sin, we're separated from God, and there's no amount of being good because He's perfect.
There's no amount of effort that we can do to make it to Him. We can try and try. We can do this religion and that religion, but we can go to church. There's no amount of effort that we can do to make it to Him. So God, the loving God, looked down at us and said, you can't come to me.
So because of that, I'm coming to you. The Son of God became a son of man, so the sons of men could become sons of God. Jesus Christ. He walked the earth, lived a perfect life, never sinned, didn't live for self, lived lived for love. Love is sacrificing self for others.
Right? And for God. Walked to live the perfect life, but then the payment for sin is death. And Jesus died on a Roman cross, not because He sinned, but because we did. Jesus gave his life for us, and then 3 days later, rose again so that he could give his life to us.
*Jesus turned to the disciples* after he asked that important question, and he said, but who do you say that I am? That's my question to each and every 1 of you. Most important question a man can or a woman can ever be asked is, who do you say that Jesus is? In Romans-10:9, it says, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your heart that He died and rose again, you will be saved. It's interesting.
It uses that language for for a reason. Because, think about this, there's 2 words in the English language that don't go together. You know what those 2 words are? The word no, and the word Lord. Why?
Because whoever is the Lord of your life, you'll never say no to. So if you're still the Lord of your life and *Jesus*, *God* tells you to do something or to live a certain way or to to whatever, and you're still the Lord of your life, if it doesn't feel good As long as it feels good, you'll go along, and it's it's okay. It's no big deal. Right? I'm following you.
But as soon as it doesn't feel good, or it doesn't go with what you think you are, what you believe about yourself, or whatever it is, as soon as it doesn't feel good, you say, no, I'm the Lord of my life. I'm doing what I feel like doing. Because Noah and Lord don't go together. But if life hasn't been working, if you realize See, because because God is love, and the "fruit of love", the fruit of that is love, joy, peace, patience. Fruit of Him is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, meekness, self control.
So if we want that in our life, then instead of living for self and being the Lord of our own life, we give our life to Him. We give up. We say, I can't do this on my own anymore. I **surrender my life** to your Lordship. So then what it looks like is when God leads you to do something, He tells you to do something, and you don't feel like it, you say, I trust you Lord.
I don't want to do this, but I know what you say is good because you are good and you are love, and it didn't work for me leading my own life. So I surrender my life to you. I'm gonna follow you even if I don't feel like it. And you experience the best for your life. It's amazing.
It's wonderful. He is love. I feel like there are people in this room that don't know what that looks like. That don't never had a relationship with the 1 who is love, but that want to. And wanna give you the opportunity.
If everybody would would close your eyes and bow your head just for a moment. If you would say, what you're saying, it's hitting me in the gut. It's hitting me in the heart. And something about it, I know it to be true. I know that that's that's God.
And he's reaching out to you and he's saying, run to me. Stop running from me. I will give you rest. I love you. I will give you my peace.
If you want to give your life I'm not gonna call you forward or anything like that. Nothing like that. But if if if that is you and you want to give your life to Jesus for the first time, would you raise your hand? Would you raise your hand? I see it.
I see you. Raise it high. I see you. That's 2. That's 3.
I see you. That's 4. If you wanna give your life to Jesus for the first time. I see you. Alright.
It's not about a prayer, it's about surrendering. Prayer's an amazing start. Let's pray together. And if just pray this and mean it with everything you have, if you believe it. God, I'm a sinner.
Everybody everybody in the room, if you guys would pray this, just to support. God, I'm a sinner. But you you gave your life for me. I need you. I surrender my life to you.
I ask you to forgive me. I don't know what that looks like. But I wanna try. Help me. Thank you for forgiving me.
Thank you for loving me. I'll say this, I receive your forgiveness. I receive your forgiveness. *Amen*. Would you guys just give a hand clap?
4 people just. Now, I want everybody again, close your eyes by your head 1 more time. I'm not playing games with you. If you would say that you follow Jesus, you or you gave your life to Jesus 10 ago, 15 years ago, 2 years ago, 6 months ago, 2 weeks ago, it doesn't matter. You gave your life to Jesus, and things just haven't been working right, and it's because you've been following yourself.
You know it was real when you gave your life to Jesus a long time ago. But you've just been living for self, and you know that you're not, or you think that you're not right with God right now. I'm not gonna call you 40 either, but I just I just Would you raise your hand? Would you confess? That's me.
All over the building. I see hands all over the building. Lots of them. I love it. Alright.
Everybody pray this. God, I want to learn how much you love me. I want to learn how you see me. Would you teach me? *Amen*.
I got great news for you guys. I'm gonna I'm about to ask you the second most important question a person can ever be asked. I just asked you the first, it's who do you say Jesus is? When you get that right, you cross the line of faith. You accept him as your Lord and Savior.
You you begin a relationship with him. Now I'm gonna ask you the second. But like, you know, every speaker, you're supposed to set it up, so just give me a moment. I'm gonna set it up real good. The word righteousness.
How do you define that? What's your definition of righteousness? If somebody were to come up off the street and ask you, hey man, this churchy word, righteousness, what does that even mean? What would you say? A good, easy street definition would be "right standing" with God.
Right? Righteousness. Right standing with God. So I'm Let's say I have a scale, and I'm not saying you're supposed to do this, but just for the sake of the analogies, for the sake of this, go with me here for a moment, because it's important. And trust me, it's gonna be very encouraging.
Let's say we have a scale. Here's a here's a 1 right here. It's a righteousness scale. There's a 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, tens right here. So righteousness, you know, goodness, Jesus is goodness, he's a 10.
Right? He never did anything wrong, never sinned, nothing. He's a 10. A 100%. And a 100% right standing.
Right? That's that's who he is. Now, I'm not saying we're supposed to do this, but just for the sake of the analogy, go with me here. Let's imagine if we're judging people's goodness. Right?
So a "1 or a 2", that'd be a rapist or a murderer. Right? Would you agree with me? I mean, come on. They've done a lot of terrible things.
Man, they come on. 1 or 2. They got some good somewhere, but you can't see it. They just hurt so many people. Maybe a 3 is a drug addict.
They they they want to do good and they want to help and but they're so blinded by selfishness of the next high for me. It's real. 4, 5 or 6, maybe those normal people if there is a normal. You know, you wanna do good and you help and you you love your kids, but sometimes you just get so angrier. Or you wanna do good and and you love your wife, but you just still yell at her or or stuff like that.
You wanna do good and and you and you work well at your job and everything, but you still cheat on your taxes and still lie here and lie there and look at the next woman that walks by, pornography or whatever it is. That's normal people. There is a normal. Then those crazy missionaries and and and, you know, people like, oh my gosh, like holier than thou, people like 7, 8, you know, maybe Billy Graham or Mother Teresa is a 9. They got a lot of good publicity in it.
And then Jesus is a 10. The second most important question a person can ever be asked, and I want you to be a 100% transparent. I'm not gonna ask you to tell me, but be transparent with yourself. Answer it for yourself. On a scale of 1 to 10, how righteous are you?
Where do you fall? Told you it's gonna be encouraging. Right? So, if we're trusting in our own goodness, and what we've done, we're nothing. We're 0.
Because our our our own goodness is junk. It's like filthy the Bible actually says, forgive me for this, but in the Old Testament, the Bible actually says it's the the Hebrew translation is like women's menstrual cycle racks, bringing your own righteousness to God. It's it's What? Like, really? Because it's you we're from birth, we're thieves and liars at least.
We're sinners. But there's good news. There's real good news. If you've given your life to Jesus, *Romans-4:8* says, blessed is the person whose sin is never counted against them. Now, ask this question because I have this conversation with a lot of people.
I ask this question all the time. When I say that, who I I I ask them, blessed is the person whose sins never counted against them. Who is that person? They'll say, Jesus. I'll say, no.
Jesus never sinned. He didn't have any sin to count against him. So who is the person whose sin has never counted against him? If you've given your life to Jesus, that's you. Your past, your present, your future sin, completely done away with by the blood of Jesus.
It was good enough. He died as your sin. You don't have to work after you accept Christ in order to continue to maintain. No. Paid for everything.
Everything. If you just gave your life to Jesus, those 4 people, your past, your your murder, if that's you, your rape, if that's even your rape, if that's you. That's how much he loves you. Oh, wait, preacher. You're making light of sin.
No. Sin's terrible. It separates people from God. I'm not making light of sin. I'm making much of his blood.
Come on. His blood is so much more valuable than sin is deadly. Has so much more life in it. When you trust in him, it wipes away everything 100%. Right?
*Blessed is the person who sin* is never counted. It's not about your works anymore. It's about his work. Yes. That's how forgiven you are.
Even you who haven't who gave your life to Jesus 10 years ago and forgot about that. You know the reason you forgot about that? The reason you haven't been living for him? It's because you forgot that you're forgiven. So I'm gonna ask you, remember I told you how righteous are you?
You had this number in your mind. You understand that. 2 Corinthians-5:1 verse 21. *2 Corinthians-5:21 says, he who knew no sin, that's Jesus*. Because Jesus knew no sin.
Right? Became sin for us, so he died as your sin. He didn't just die for you, he died as you. So that in him, so Jesus, who knew no sin, became sin for us, So that in him, and you gave your life to Jesus, so you're in him now. He who knew no sin became sin for us so that in him, look it up, it's important.
So that in him we might become the righteousness of God. Sounds almost blasphemous for some people. But if you're in him, it's not about your goodness. Jesus' righteousness, Jesus' goodness is given to you. That's what you receive.
So when God looks at you, when God looks at you, he doesn't see your crap anymore, but he sees the goodness of Jesus. You're in right standing, perfect standing with him. Right now, it's not about what you've done, do, or will do, but it's about what he did for you. So you are a 10. *Religions* try to make it about your work, and that's junk.
This is a relationship. Jesus It's about Jesus' work. So you rest in that. And people say, oh, well, how can you tell people that? That's that's "greasy grace".
No, it's not. Because when you understand how good, how much he loves you, and what he's done, when you fail, you don't wanna keep failing. See, when you don't understand this, you fail, you feel shame, just like Adam did. And you you fail, you feel shame, and you hide from him. And you try to go make yourself better, which you can't.
But when you understand what he's done for you, and how forgiven, and how right standing with God you are, when you fail, you "fall forward". You don't feel shame anymore because there's no condemnation for those who are in Jesus, and you get back up and move toward him. That's what you're accepting when you accept Jesus. The most important question is who do you say Jesus is? That's where you begin a relationship.
But you go into maturity when you understand who he says you are. You're his son. You're his daughter. You're in right standing with him. It's not about you anymore.
It's about him. That's how much he loves you. So you're no longer a 2 or a 3 or a 0. If God calls you *righteous based on his son*, then what right do you have if you're in him to say you're anything less? None.
Because his word's true and we're in him.
Thanks for listening to the Real Church podcast. If you have questions, comments, or would like to get to know us, be sure to check us out on social media by searching real church clear water or visit us online at www.realchurch.us. If you'd like to play a part in what we are doing, you can do so right where you are. Your prayers are powerful and effective. You can also be a part through giving.
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