You are called to stop playing church and start following Jesus with your whole life. When you obey His word, even when it's hard, you lay the tracks for His grace to transform your relationships and impact your world. Embrace the crucible of leadership development today and let His sacrifice fuel your purpose.
My name is David John Phillips. I have the joy and honor of getting to be the pastor here. There's no place I'd rather be. There's nothing I'd rather be doing than getting to share the word of God with you. And I'm thankful that you chose to spend your first Sunday morning of 20 25 here with us.
Our prayer, and we've been praying this morning. We prayed Friday night. We I've been praying for over 7 years before we planted the church that when you come, you would encounter the power and the presence of God. That you encounter the love of Jesus in such a way that you're left "never the same", and you're also forced into the **valley of decision** because you can't encounter a real God and not be forced into the valley of decision where you have to choose whether or not you say, yes, Lord, all the more, or you stay where you are, stagnant and eventually die. God wants you to bear fruit.
He wants you to grow in relationship with him and be a life that transforms those around you. Amen? So if you wanna be challenged and you wanna grow in your relationship with Jesus, keep coming. If you wanna play Christianity, don't come back. Go to another church that's just gonna let you sit in the back row.
I'm not I'm not playing. God loves you so much. If you're seeking to know *truth* and you wanna you wanna understand about the details of Christianity before you make a decision, keep coming. Man, I love I love it when people are coming and seeking truth. But if you're just checking Christianity off your box, we're gonna offend you and your offense is gonna hurt other people because we tell the truth regardless.
And sometimes truth hurts, but truth's worth it because the only time that you're gonna experience freedom is when you receive truth, allow it to cut the junk out and walk forward in truth. You guys okay? Okay. You sure? I love you.
I really do. But I love you enough not to not to just sugarcoat stuff. *God's got a big calling on your life*. I mean, huge and it's bigger than just playing church. Amen?
Alright. Well, we're about to start a a new series. And before I start this series, I need to preface it a bit. I need to to prepare you a little bit for the series. I need to give you the why.
Okay? We are a crucible for leadership development. That's what real church is. A crucible is a container that holds and heats up metal to be liquid so that the impurities rise to the surface. You scrape scrape off the impurities, it becomes more pure and more usable in the hands of the master to be crafted into the object that it was designed and destined to be.
We are a crucible of leadership development. Those that say, yes, Lord, to coming here will be put through the "refiner's fire", not because I do it, but because God's do it does it because he wants to purify your life and scrape off the impurities so you'll be more moldable and usable for the purposes that God created you for and destined you to walk in. Every single 1. My prayer for you, for everyone that comes through here is whatever it takes for God, you to develop the character necessary for them to be able to walk in and walk out every single purpose you have on their life. Every single 1.
Whatever it takes for them to grow and develop and stretch in the faith necessary to walk out everything, to to live out the power necessary for them to walk out the purpose, because God is an impossible God that's created you for impossible things that require supernatural belief. Believe it or not, believe it or not, you're a leader. You're not just a leader. If you're a Christian, you're a leader and you're a world changing leader. If you're a Christian.
Because *Jesus* commissioned *disciples*. Disciples are Christians. Christians are disciples. They are the ones that said, I'm denying myself, picking up my cross and following you. Jesus commissioned them saying, go and make disciples of all nations.
That's not the great suggestion. It's the great commission. He commissioned you as a leader that is a world changer discipling nations. How do you do that? See, every single 1 of you are called by God, commissioned by the Lord of Lords, the King of Kings to make disciples of individuals and to be a part of making disciples of nations.
You've been drafted into a world changing team called the church. It's not a small deal. It's a big deal. And here's the thing, a
lot of you have never heard that before, so you've never believed it. Some of you have heard it and really shied away from the calling that God has on your life. And I don't care. You've heard it now. And I'm going to speak to you like the leader that you are until you finally do believe it and begin to stand up and walk out the purpose and the promise that God has for you.
You'll either believe it or get annoyed by what I say to you and run away because you're you don't wanna live out the purpose God has for you.
But I'm gonna speak to you
from the eyes of what God says about you, and he says you're a world changing leader. A leader leads, and people follow, which means that you need to live a **life worth following**. How do you live a life worth following? You follow Jesus. That's the only way.
You follow Jesus. And as you follow him,
he leads you and prepares and disciplines and prunes your life to be able
to live a life worth following, which means the best leaders are the best followers. You can't be a good leader until you're a
good follower, because if you're not a good follower, you will
be a poor leader that creates poor followers. Because a leader creates what he is.
You need to learn to follow Jesus, to to be covered in the dust of your rabbi, and your *obedience* to the words of what Jesus says to you day in and day out will create a wake of purpose and power that sucks everyone around you into desiring a life of Jesus and then beginning to follow him and live out the purpose for their life too. That's the leader God's called you
to be. Every single 1 of you. Many are called. Few are chosen because few are willing to actually go through the process of being developed into what God's called them to be. And many give up their calling to others that are willing to pay the price.
Are you called? Are you willing to you are. Are you willing to walk through the process? To be able to walk through the process, you have to understand some principles. Maybe I'm a rapper.
Process. Principle. Anyway, you gotta understand some principles that are very important. Every time I say a p now, I'm gonna think about that. Gosh.
Alright. Those those principles, now you got you gotta begin to think like the leader that you are. That you don't just come to church on a Sunday to hear something and check it off your box like it's good and you and you're good to go. No. As a leader, you're a learner because when you when you quit learning, you forfeit the privilege to lead.
So you're if you're forever called to be a leader that changes nations, then you're forever called to continue learning so that you can continue leading the people towards Jesus that you're following. So you don't you don't just come in to church anymore and sit and say that was a good Sunday, a good service. No. You come and you bring notes. You pull out your phone.
And if you don't, then you go back and listen to the message. And you dive in and you look up every single scripture because you don't just listen to hear and say all that was good and and let knowledge pop you up. But you
listen to learn because you wanna become it. That's what leaders do. World changing leaders are intentional with what they hear and what they learn because they wanna become what they're reading. They wanna become what they're learning because
otherwise, it's just a waste of time, and leaders don't waste time. Leaders have a **strong foundation** because they build a lot. So you need a strong foundation in your life, And what it takes to build a strong foundation as far as principles and understanding, it takes a strong culture which takes lots of repetition. Some people get aggravated at me as a leader because I repeat myself a lot. I repeat different principles from the pulpit.
Here I go again. I repeat different things in our team gatherings and in our staff meetings, and then I repeat them over and over and over. Why? Because repetition creates confidence for you to be able to walk out that principle in your life. It's the Mr.
Miyagi "wax on wax off" principle that created Karate Kid into who he was supposed to be. In the same way, you need to go back and repeat the basics of the salvation, the basics of the bible, the basics of what God has instituted in your life. Because the basics are not shallow. The basics are eternally deep even though they're basic. So you should never get bored with the basics.
And if you ever get bored with
the basics and speak like you're bored with the basics of salvation, you are walking into pride and you're about to fall. Or you've already fallen and you're blinded to it.
So I'm doing a series called "back to the basics". I've done it before, and I'm a repeat it and do it again. And I don't mind repeating myself because I agree with scripture. And Paul wrote about it in Philippians-3:1, talking about repeating himself. You guys okay?
A little challenged? Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord. You guys rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things or for me to speak the same things to you is no trouble to me. It's a safeguard for you.
It's setting a strong foundation for what God's gonna do in 2025 for your life. And if there's a crack in your foundation and you just go on, then what you build will fall over. Peter says the same things. What's the second verse I gave you? 2 Peter-1:12.
What does Peter say? I'll read it from the screen. Therefore, I intend always to remind you of these things, these qualities. Though you know them and are established in the truth that you have, it doesn't matter that you already know them. Don't listen like you already know.
Instead, listen like you're hearing it for the first time so it goes deeper than ever before. Because here's the deal, if you know and you think you know a principle, but you're not living it out so much that every time the opportunity for that principle to be shown, every time that there's you have enough influence to teach that principle, you're not living it out so much that and become it so much that it overflows out of your mouth and in parts into that person. You don't know it yet. You need to hear it again. You you need to have it repeated.
There's people who's like, oh, I know the gospel message. Oh, I
know about Jesus dying on a cross. Oh, I know about him rising again. But they've never shared the gospel with anybody, and they haven't done it in the last 6 weeks, which means they need to hear it again and again and again until their life is so saturated by it that it begins to overflow because you're beginning to live like the leader that God's called you to be. If not, step up.
A follower of Jesus. Jesus said, those who follow me will be fishers. I will make you into fishers of men, which means the closer you follow Jesus, the better you get at fishing for people. And if you're not yet, that means I need to repeat the basics again over and over and over until you begin repeating the basics to those that you're discipling, and they begin repeating the basics to those that they're discipling. And disciples are making disciples such that it affects a nation.
Amen? You guys okay? I'm not mad at you. I'm really not. I love you.
And I'm speaking to you like a father, challenging you to be the men of *God* and the women of God that God's created you to be. So back to the basics. Here's my challenge. As we go through this, we've created some resources for you on our website. Realchurch.us.
Click on the little hamburger, the little 3 lines. You click sermons, back to the basics. There's 7 videos that are similar material going through the notes. But here's the deal. There's also the notes.
You can click notes on there, and then there's an assessment. Don't get freaked out at the assessment. Leaders don't freak out at assessments. **leaders love accountability**. Leaders live for accountability because it helps them to get better.
So challenge yourself if that makes you nervous and step into the leadership even though your flesh is nervous. And let yourself be held accountable, elders, deacons, staff, team leads, dream team. My challenge to you as your pastor is to shift your bible study a little bit each week of this series to go through the notes and the assessment and rewatch the message. Go through every scripture yourself to make the basics go deeper. Covenant members, as your pastor, I'm asking you to do this.
Attenders, I'm asking you, hey, ask the Lord. You're invited to do this with us. Those watching later on YouTube, what's gonna happen when you click and turn in that assessment? It's gonna get an email to me. I'll get to read your stuff.
Not because I'm, like, checking on you or anything, but I wanna pray for you because I'm invested in your growth and maturity. Not only am I gonna read it, not only am I gonna pray for it, but for the duration of this series, I'm gonna email each 1 of you back because I'm invested in you becoming the leader God's called you to be. Okay? Deal? Shake on it?
Y'all funny.
Alright.
Part 1, *salvation*. *God*'s plan of salvation is to reconnect with his people forever. God loves people. God loves you. He loves you.
He loves your father. He loves your mother. He loves your sister. He loves your brother. I'm a rapper.
He loves your aunts, your uncles, your bosses, your coworkers. He loves those you love and he loves those you hate. *God* loves the people that did you wrong. Now, what's your role in that? *Ephesians-5:1* says, "be imitators of God" as dearly loved children.
So when you have an understanding of how much God loves them, you're supposed to imitate how much he loves them yourself so you can become a reflection of him to them. You catch it? Alright. Well, when I show you how much he loves them, y'all y'all don't freak out. *John-17:23*.
Jesus is praying. He's speaking to the father. He says, I and he's talking about us. So Jesus says, I and them, he means him and us. Okay.
I and them, and you and me, that they may become perfectly 1 so that the world, everybody say the world. World. The world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. So that means, not only did the father send Jesus to the world, but the father loved the world just as much as he loved Jesus. Now, the world the world is those that don't know Jesus.
We're we're of the kingdom of heaven. We're ambassadors of the kingdom of heaven. Not in the world, but not of the world, and sent to the world. *God* loves the world. The people that get on your last nerve.
The people that make work hard for you because they're persecuting you. The people that that try to
hold you back from sharing your faith or or try to make fun of
you when you try to stand for righteousness. God loves them as much as he loves Jesus. John prove it. John-3:16, for God so loved the world that he gave his only son. He valued them as much as he valued Jesus.
That whoever would believe in him would not perish, but have eternal life. For God did not send his son to the world to condemn the world, but that the world would be saved through him. Now, *Ephesians-5:1* again, be imitators of God as dearly loved children, which means we're supposed to value the world, value the people of the world. They're worth if they're worth the life of Jesus, then they're worth our life. They're worth your time.
They're worth your talent. They're worth your treasure. They're worth you sacrificing your comfort for. They're if they're worth Jesus dying for, then they're worth you dying for. I got people in my extended family that's like, you're going to Pakistan?
You'll go over there and die. They're worth it. I've been so captured by the love of Jesus for me and for the world that I'm going wherever he sends me, whenever he sends me, why ever he sends me, because my word is, yes, Lord. And I trust him. I'm just gonna play the the role in the race that he's called me to play because that's called being the leader he's called you to be.
What's your limit? Your limit shows your your lack of understanding of his love. So wherever your limit is of what you won't say yes to, face it and ask the Lord to show you how much he loves you in that area. And when he when you see that, then you'll be able to imitate your heavenly father as a dearly loved child. You okay?
So, *John-3*, let me turn there real quick. Verse 17. For God did not send his son in the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world be might saved through him. So the question is, who needs saving and from what? Who needs saving and from what?
Well, the easy answer everybody knows is sin. *Romans-3:23* says, for all have Sinned and healed. And Fallen short. Fallen short of the glory of God. Actually, the the the focus on that verse is the glory of God.
*God wants to restore people's relationship with him, wipe away their sin. Why? So that he can restore the glory of God in our life*. So we can walk in his glory from glory to glory, giving him glory. Amen?
So *Romans-4* verse 4. Now to the 1 who works, his wages are not counted as a gift, but as his due or as an obligation. So if I work, I want you guys to be able to share this with people when you're explaining this. I want you to learn it and understand it so deeply. When I work or when I say I hired you for a job for for $10 an hour, and you worked 10 hours for me, you would expect to get paid how much?
$100. 10 times 10. Now, would that be a gift to you or would it be an obligation? It'd be an obligation. Right?
It's not a gift. You earned it. There's a lot of people that approach Jesus and approach religion or in many religions in that way. I do my time. I pay my tithes.
I give my offering. I go to church. I read the bible. I do my 5 prayers a day in in, you know, Islam or whatever it is. So I I deserve for you to bless me.
I earned it. That is not Christianity. That's religion. You don't earn your relationship with God. You don't earn your blessings with God.
That whole, I I I want my blessing. Simmer down. You have an heritage because you're a son or a daughter, but you should have the heart and the attitude of a servant. Amen? Alright.
Now to the 1 who works, his wages are not counted as a gift, but as an obligation. Verse 5, and to the 1 who does not work. Everybody say does not work. Does not work. Does not work, But believes in him who *justifies* those who try really hard.
Is that what it says? Believes in him who *justifies* those who earned it. Those who think they're really godly and really righteous, those who are a good person. No. Believes in him who justifies the God.
So who does God justify? The *ungodly*. It's the person who recognizes, I am not like you, and I can never
be like you on my own. I'm a sinner in need
of a Savior. I'm ungodly. I can't do this. I need you.
The person that's still trying to earn it by doing "good enough" doesn't understand their need of
a Savior. And they will not be justified. It's the person who gets to the end of themselves and recognize recognizes they are not godly, and they need God. That's the 1 he justifies. Justified, just as if I'd never done it.
"Just as if I'd never sinned". So not only does he take away your past, but he also credits his goodness, his righteousness to your account to make you a new creation that is godly with the nature of your heavenly father. That's why it says, justifies the ungodly. His faith is counted or credited to him as righteousness. Righteousness means right standing with God.
Right relationship with the heavenly Father. And when you're in right standing, you walk out right standing. When you live in righteousness because of who you are, you "walk out righteousness". And to the extent you're walking it out, that's the extent you understand who he says that you are. Amen?
Amen. You can't earn that. The penalty for *sin* is death. That's why Jesus died on the cross for you. But the gift is his *righteousness* when you receive it.
Watch this. Second Corinthians verse 5 or chapter 5 verse 16. It's 1 of my favorite verses actually. On the first Corinthians. From now on, therefore So from when on?
Now on. I don't care how you thought about other people and how you thought about yourself from before this present moment. From now on, therefore, we regard no 1 according to the flesh. Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer. What does that mean?
We used to think about Christ as less than he is. Some people used to think he was a good prophet. He's more than that. He's God in the flesh. Some people used to think, oh, he was a good teacher that died on a cross for us.
He's more than that. He's God in the flesh. Some people think, oh, he's God, and he died and rose again, but he's not really worth following. I got my life. No.
You're thinking about him according to the flesh. You gotta stop thinking about him according to the flesh and honor him for who he is. He's Jesus Christ who died and rose again so that you could confess him as Lord, king of kings, and follow him, and experience his life day in and day out. When you're born again, you you start thinking about Jesus for who he is. K?
So this thing we used to think about in that way. But it also says in the first sentence, we regarding we regard no 1 from now on, we regard no 1 according to the Blessed. Okay. So that means from now on, I regard everyone according to the spirit. When I was talking to you in the beginning of this message as the "world changing leaders" that you are, I was seeing you for how God sees you and speaking to you from his perspective instead of from your experience.
I'm supposed to see you for the world changing leaders that you are. I'm supposed to see you as the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. I'm supposed to confront what's not of him, but love you enough to speak what he says over you until you believe it and you start walking it out. That means even the person that did you wrong, you're supposed to understand that the reason that they did that was because they don't understand how much they're loved by God. They believe a lie, so they were just walking in a lie.
My war is not against flesh and blood. My war is against principalities and powers. The lie that they believe, the spirit behind the lie that they believe, so I can love them despite what they did or didn't do to me. You are not Okay. Watch this.
From now on, therefore, we regard Everybody say, no 1. No That's not just other people. That's yourself. You're not even supposed to regard yourself according to flesh anymore, but how God sees you. And to the extent that you regard yourself according to the flesh, that's the extent you're holding yourself back from walking in the purposes God has for you and being the world changing leader he's called you to be.
You're supposed to see what God says about you and stand confidently in that regardless of how you
feel and regardless of what has or hasn't happened to you because it ain't about that anymore. The next verse says, you're a new creation in Christ Jesus.
The old has gone. Behold, the new is here. All things have been made "brand new". Everything. You have been made brand new.
You're not that little kid anymore that got hurt by their mom or their dad or abandoned or whatever. And 40 years later, you're still dealing with that. That's not who you are. You are forgiven. You are new.
You got a new papa now and you can follow him fully. We're letting all of the past go. It's time to start living from what his word says instead of what society and your past tells you about you. You're transformed. Either the gospel works or it doesn't.
And if it doesn't, go party and have a good time.
The way the world says. If it doesn't work, go find something else. But if it really does, then you're really a new creation. You've really been transformed,
and it's time to step up and start following as the leader that he says that you are.
Is there any other way? Nope. We play this game called exploding kittens at home. It's a we don't really explode kittens. It's a card game.
Anyway, there's a card in it that says, nope. And you can cancel out any action. Nope. Courtney and I joke we're gonna carry around those note cards everywhere we go. Somebody does something, we just say, nope.
Oh, but is there any other way? Nope. No 1 comes to the father except through me. It's what Jesus said. Not me.
*Jesus*. Jesus said, no 1 comes to the father except through him. *Acts-4:12 says, there's salvation* in no 1 else. So how do you receive them? The basics of the gospel.
*Romans-10:9* and 10. Actually, turn there. It says, if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is *Lord* and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. That's more than just some little incantation where you say these magic words with your mouth and everything all of a sudden magically changes. It's not just you say these things.
Out of the "abundance of the heart", the mouth speaks. You actually have to believe in your heart that Jesus died and rose again and believe that he's worth following as Lord. He's worth saying, I'm a follow you instead of myself. I'm a follow what you say instead of what I feel. What I've always believed about myself, if it ain't what you say, then it ain't true.
I'm saying I'm doing what you say. What you what I've always believed about other people and how they treated me and how they've done me wrong or how they did me whatever it is. If it ain't what you say, I give you my opinions. I give you my truth. I give you the lies.
I give you everything. And I ask you to change it, and teach me what truth is. I'm following you as the Lord of my life. When you believe it's so much in your heart that it flows out of your mouth, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks, that's when you confess him as Lord. Don't just say what you don't believe.
You say it because you believe it. And if you really believe it in that moment, he transforms you from the inside out, washes your sin away past, present, and future, and puts the Holy Spirit on the inside of you to lead you like a father leads a son towards the purpose as he created you for. Everyone. And every time you trip, fall, hit a roadblock, he doesn't kick you while you're down, but he says, grab my hand, son. Daughter, let's keep walking towards your purpose.
And to the extent that you believe that he's good and he loves you, that's the extent that you'll raise your hand up and hold back onto his and keep walking and not blame him for your fall. Amen? Amen. *Romans-10:9* in the Spanish bible says, to confess him which means openly. If you confess him, if you confess him openly.
There's too many American Christians said this is this is my personal faith. Yeah. It should be so personal that it's public. *Jesus* did say, if you deny me before men, I'll deny you before my father in heaven. So if you don't follow him as Lord enough to be able to tell him, tell others about him wherever you go, if he asks you to, then you don't follow him close enough.
I'm saying you've gotta be willing to lay all of your relationships and everything on the line for the sake of him as Lord. No matter the cost, denying yourself, willing openly. And if that freaks you out, you get all nervous, that's okay. Everybody does. But it's still, I'm saying yes to you instead of me.
Even in my nervousness, I'm gonna follow you. Maybe you're a baby at that. That's okay. Just "fall forward". He'll pick you up.
Next time, you trust him all the more. He empowers you all the more. Amen? You guys okay? Alright.
I wanna do a a analogy done in here a few times to to demonstrate, the gospel, to demonstrate this clearly. Romans-4:7-8 says, blessed is the is the man, *Romans-4:7* and 8, whose, there we go, whose transgressions are forgiven. Transgress simply means that you cross the line. We all cross the line too many times with the Lord. Yeah?
Blessed is the man whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Blessed is the 1 whose sin the Lord will never, everybody say never. Never. Never count against them. Who is that?
Who is the 1 whose sin the Lord will never count against them? Talking to people on the street when I ask them that question, they say it's Jesus. I'm like, wait a second. Jesus didn't have any sin. No.
It's not Jesus. It's those who trust in Jesus as their Lord. Their sin was forever counted against him, Jesus, so that his goodness could be ever forever credited to us. Amen? Amen.
Jeremy, come here. Alright. Y'all give Jeremy a hand. Merrill, you got you a good looking man. I embarrassed her.
She just had to translate that in Spanish. Okay. This is no longer Jeremy. This is a balanced scale. This is the plate on 1 side.
This is the plate on the other. You see in your mind's eye the chain that's connecting the plate, the chain that's connecting you see that? You guys see that? This is the top of the scale. So if I push on this side of the scale oh, the the middle doesn't move, but the arms do.
So there we go. And if I push on this side of the scale okay. We we we're all calibrated now. Yeah. Okay.
The payment for sin is Death. It's not your good works. The payment for sin is death. Okay? Alright.
So if I put sin, all of your junk that you've ever done in your life, the things that you're ashamed of that you wanna hide, the pride that you didn't even know was pride, all the stuff, I put it on this side. It's heavy. Right? What's gonna happen to the scale? That's right.
It's heavy. Now what happens? Think of think with me here. On this side, I put some fervent prayer, and then I put some bible reading, And then I put some going to church. I put some generosity, some like given tithes and offerings.
I put, you know, missionary journeys. What what happens to this? Oh, come on, guys. I'm I'm doing some really good works here. I'm working hard.
Like, I'm
being a good person. Isn't that
good enough to to like at least balance my sin out a little bit? Come on, man. Isn't God gonna look at me with favor 1 day because I
tried really hard? I'm I'm a good guy. Is that that's how every other religion says it works.
You do enough good and it balances out your sin. But the problem is the payment for sin is not your goodness. The payment for sin is Jesus'. The payment for sin is his life. The payment for sin is blood.
It's death. And your death ain't good enough because you're a sinner. Me too. So we put what happens then if we put the blood of Jesus on this side? What happens?
Alright. Does it balance out? I put the blood of Jesus on the side. Does it do that? No.
It doesn't do that, does it? What does it do? It goes all the way. Why? Because there's a credit.
It's not just equaling out your account. There is a credit of *righteousness* in your account. You understand? When you're born again, his blood goes on this side. It completely balances I mean, takes out your sin, and there is a credit of his goodness and his righteousness on this side.
You know how a lot of believers, a lot of Christians live in their relationship with God? They live like this. In their mind, in their mind's eye, that's how they live. They're like, man, I'm I'm I did good. I I I went to the altar this past Sunday.
I I confessed my sin. Man, I I I'm good to go now. And then Sunday night, get home and and and they mess up. They talk to their wife in a mean way or something. They get prideful.
They just get dumb. And then they feel like they're like this. And they're like, no. I gotta now I gotta be born again again.
And then they go mess up again.
And then and they feel like, man,
they they love they far from God.
And now they they gotta be born again again. How many times you gotta be born again? How many times can you be born again? Jesus paid for your sins once and for? All.
Amen? So blessed is the man whose sin is? Never counted against them. Remember Romans-4:5? His faith is credited as *righteousness*.
Do you understand? That's how good it is. You are in right standing with God because of what Jesus did. And to the extent that you get this, that's the extent when you mess up, you'll fall forward into your heavenly father's arms instead of hiding in shame and running from him, and having to start over every single time you mess up. Instead, you fall forward, learn from your mistake, and get up, and you're already further than you were.
Do you understand? Okay. So if this is the case, your shoulders are burning. I know. Are you good?
Okay. You got big shoulders. He works out. Alright. We got Jesus' blood on this side.
We got sin on this side. Now this is gonna make the religious people get really uptight for a second. It's okay. Just stay with me. What happens when you sin again?
Oh, come on. Doesn't it balance it out a little bit? Like, what what happens when you had a weak moment? We're in this world. Power of sin is still very much alive.
You're dead to it. You've been free from it, but it's still there. And you get distracted and you really mess up. Like, what happens on this side? Are you sure?
I mean, it doesn't balance out. Just so you know, the person that thinks it balances out a little bit, what sin is it? What sin is it? Which 1 would tip the scale? How many?
Which 1 are you saying is more valuable than the blood of Jesus? Which 1 is more weighty than the blood of Jesus? Oh, but pastor, wait a second. You're making light of sin. No, I'm not.
*Sin* is dirty. Sin is nasty. Sin sends a lot of people to hell. Sin is ugly. I understand the nastiness and the the unholiness of sin.
I get it. But I'm making much of His blood. See, you're not making you're you're not making light of sin. You're making light of Jesus' blood when you say that his blood doesn't outweigh what what others did. Do you understand?
I'm making much of what he did. His blood's that valuable. And when I honor it that way, it actually changes the way that I live. Because because I value it, so I never wanna step on it. I wanna "live for him forever".
Amen? Y'all give him a hand. See, that's grace. That's getting what you don't deserve. Grace also it doesn't just give you what you don't deserve.
*Grace empowers you to be who you can't be on your own and to do what you can't do on your own. Let me show you in scripture. Chap Timothy-2. No. Titus-2:11-12*.
Watch this. Says, for the grace of God has appeared bringing *salvation* for all people. So what appeared? Grace. What brought salvation for all people?
*Grace*. Grace did. Who is grace? *Jesus*. Alright.
Verse 12. Training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions to live self controlled, upright, godly lives in this present age. What is it that trains us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions? Is it your effort? No.
It's God's grace. Getting what you don't deserve, understanding the depth of what he did is actually what trains you to say no to ungodliness. In churches that preach the opposite, you gotta do, do, do in order to be, be, be. They're actually causing their people to send more and more and more. But when you understand the depth of his grace, you actually are training your people in righteousness and they begin to live more righteously naturally, supernaturally, because it's your supernatural nature now as he's your heavenly father.
Amen? So we live by, not by works, we're saved not by works, but by grace through? *Ephesians-2:8 9. By grace through faith*. Now, watch this.
Okay? **grace is the locomotive**. Grace is like the locomotive, the train. Faith is the tracks. The train don't work without the tracks.
Okay? *Grace* works. And if grace isn't working in your life, you don't understand grace. Not only does grace work to set you free, to forgive you, grace also works and you'll see the work of grace in your life. You'll begin to see *righteousness* happen.
You'll begin to experience life change. If grace ain't working, you ain't got grace yet.
You don't understand it yet to
the extent that you should. And it's by grace through faith. How does that work? faith is the tracks that makes grace work. Grace is the the power of God, and he co labors with you through faith.
What does that mean? He speaks his word. You hear it, and you believe it. When you really hear
it and believe it, there's life change.
When you really hear it and believe it, you're saved. You might not see the work for a while. You might not see the change for a while. You gotta stand in what he said. But if you really heard it and believe it, there will be work.
How does it look? A lot of times, obedience. **Faith is completed** by obedience. So you hear what God said. You hear the salvation message.
You believe it in your heart. You do the work of confessing it. The obedient part of confessing it with your mouth, and you stand in it. And then he says, hey, *God* speaks to you. You don't know it's God yet because you're still a baby.
Go forgive your mom. Your flesh says, ah. But deep down, you know it's God. So you take you don't want to. You try not to, but you take a step of obedience.
As you're taking the step of obedience, that's demonstrating that
you really did hear and believe. And that's "laying the track" for grace to come through and do a supernatural work of *reconciliation* and reconcile your mom to you. And then all of a sudden, she comes to
know Jesus more than you ever thought she could or she did or whatever it is, and God's supernaturally working. And you turn around, you're like, woah, "God did that". That's how it works, guys. Yeah. You get it?
Yes, sir. His grace wants to transform you. Now, last example, and I'm done. People like, how does this really work? Won't if I teach people this, won't they go out and send more?
It's like this. It's like if I owned a gas station and you on hard times. So you come in the gas station with your 45 because you need some bread for food and some bread for your wife and kids. And you hold me up, tell me to give you all my money in my my cash register. You don't know it, but I touched the little red button.
Cops are coming. I start giving you the money. You trip, fall, the gun goes off, shoots me in the shoulder. Cops get you. And you're going to jail, armed robbery, attempted murder, all kinds of crazy stuff.
You're gonna be put away for a long time. Now let's pretend that I take a the day off from my gas station, and we live in a world where this could happen. You're standing before the judge. George judge is about to put you away, and I stand up and say, hold on, judge. It's my gas station.
He did me wrong. I'm gonna trade my life for his. Let me go to jail for him. For life. Judge says, you sure?
Said, absolutely. "He's worth it". He's worth my life. Now you, oh my gosh. The gratitude when it really hits you of what just happened.
When you go back to the gas station, what are you gonna do? The person that goes back to the gas station and steals all the goods didn't understand what happened. They weren't transformed by it. But the person that goes back to the gas station and starts working the gas station, taking care of my wife and my kids and running the gas station trying to make it better than it was before out of gratitude because they understood what happened. "That's Christianity".
When you really understand what Jesus did, you'll take care of his wife, the bride of Christ, the church. You'll take care of his kids. You'll help make disciples. You'll help it grow.