You are invited to move beyond just hearing words and start actively listening for God's voice in your daily life. Commit to creating habits of prayer and Bible reading that deepen your intimacy with Him this week. Join us on Friday night to practice these conversations together as a community.
My name's David John Phillips. I have the joy and honor of getting to be the pastor here. No place I'd rather be, nothing I'd rather be doing. Thank you for choosing to spend your Sunday morning here with us today. If this is your first time, our *prayer* is that you experience and encounter the love of Jesus in a very real way, and it impacts every aspect of your life.
And you walk away knowing Him. Amen? Amen. Well, I'm excited about this series that we're starting today, Conversations with God. It really came out of we were supposed to continue the Corinthians series.
If you're familiar with how long we've been in Corinthians, it's been since like October. And we've gotten through 1 Corinthians-4. Praise the lord. Praise the lord. Hallelujah.
You know, and we're just diving in and it's applicable for our life and amazing but the March, we had a leaders meeting and we have an elders and deacons meeting at the end of every month and you know, ask them how, you know, what god's doing in their lives and what they see is going on in the church and what god's been putting on their heart and And 1 of the things that popped up the March was or no, February, sorry, February in preparation for what's coming up. So 1 of the things that popped up in the leaders meeting was just a call of our church to prayer. A feeling like our church body as a whole, when I say that I'm not saying you individually, I'm saying our body as a whole doesn't understand the importance of prayer and the need of prayer in our daily life and what that means for our relationship with God and how it plays a role in God's plan in the world and in our city and in our family and our relationships. And so, that came out in the leadership meeting and it was like strong and it wasn't even on my radar, but praise the Lord, that's why I have leaders and relationship.
I'm like, Man. And so God put it on my heart there. I said, Well, what if we do after Easter, we have a lot of new people coming Easter, and then we just go right into, after Easter, a new series called Conversations with God. Because prayer is conversation with God, right? And and so, they said, well, yes, that'll be amazing but then also, in order to help to teach the church to *pray* and to put, give an opportunity for us to put that into practice, on Friday nights, not only, so on Sundays, we're going to be teaching on conversations with God.
We started this a couple of Friday nights ago, but I'm putting it out to all of you guys. On Friday nights at Gabe and Moriah's house, we're having a church prayer meeting. And in order to teach our church what it looks like to "put into practice" the principles that we're learning on Sunday mornings. And what we're going to be learning is a conversation is 2 ways. It's not just about speaking to him, but it's also about listening.
And so in the prayer meeting, the first 20 minutes are each person is individually listening to what god is saying and then we put it into practice by praying into what god is saying and it's a beautiful thing to see the room begin to move in unity in prayer but then together as a church, we're going to watch and see how god answers that prayer not just on Sunday mornings but in the families of the people that we're praying for in our city and for the world. So you're invited because everything that we hear from the Lord, and I mean, don't know about you, but I believe God uses people to speak to people, right? Right? You came here to hear to hear from God today. Right?
Well, I mean, I pray it's it's not me that you hear. I pray that the Lord speaks through me today to impact you. But we don't just hear things. We're not just hearers of the word, but we're doers too. Right?
The Bible says, be a hearer and a. Doer. Doer and then our life is built on the foundation of the rock. We're just hearers. We're on "shaky sand".
So, we want to give you an opportunity to hear today then go put it into your and into practice in your life personally, but then have an opportunity for corporately us to put it into practice on Friday night. So, you're invited. The time is 05:45. 05:45 to 7. So, everybody shows up at 05:45, but at 06:00, we start getting quiet and listening, and we're writing down what God's saying, we're looking at scriptures, you know, and all that different stuff.
We give instructions, practical instructions, and then, there's a there's a focus of prayer. You know, we've been praying for revival and salvations. That's been the focus, right? And then at 06:20, we begin to pray what god's been putting on our hearts and it's just a beautiful, powerful, amazing thing. So you're all invited.
Kids. It's Bring going be great. Amen? Amen. Well, what if we don't all fit in there?
Praise the Lord, man. We'll do it. It'll just be great. You want to come. Okay, so conversations with God.
I want to invite you into my life. I want to invite you into a conversation with God that I had a long time ago that is still impacting my life today. I don't know, maybe you know my history, maybe you don't know my history. I grew up in the sticks. I mean, I'm talking, I grew up in the boondocks in the middle of nowhere.
My wife moved here my wife and I moved here 6 years ago from the corner of Lovers Lane and Bayou Mason. We called it Bayou Mason. It's 15 minutes away from the closest town of 4,000 and an hour away from the closest city of 50,000 where the closest movie theater is. I'm from the Sticks. So growing up in that area, in that place, there's nothing to do except play sports and have girlfriends.
I mean, that's my friend group growing up in middle school and high school, it was all talking about who's cute and who's your girlfriend these days, you know, and what sports are you playing in this season. That's just it. Even my family, my extended family and cousins and everybody, they get aroused. Who's your girlfriend, Dave and John? I'm from the country.
They call me by 2 names, David John. Who's your girlfriend, David John? And so, sixth grade, seventh grade, eighth grade, I always had girlfriends. 2 to 3 weeks never lasted longer than that. Freshman year in high school.
I'm not saying that was good. I'm saying that's what I did, okay? And, but about the end of my sophomore year, beginning of my junior year, I remember having a conversation with God. And I remember thinking about my childhood best friend, Ryan Bradley, and his then girlfriend, Emily Elrod, who had been dating for a year and a half, almost 2 years. And when I saw them, they laughed together.
They were like friends, and they had fun. And I looked at their relationship and I'm like, man, that's. So I remember having a conversation with God. I remember praying and saying, God, I have had girlfriends for like 2 to 3 weeks and they're no fun. Like, we're not friends, you know?
And I see that and that's amazing. Lord God, I ask you to give me a girlfriend that is like a really best friend, that I can really have fun with and enjoy. And it's about the relationship, not just because she's cute. And that was the prayer of my heart. And it was about a year or less than a year later where Courtney and I began to date.
And that was over 20 years ago in February. 3 and a half years after we started dating, we got married. That was over 16 years ago in December. And I'm still bearing the fruit, the result of that conversation with God today, and it's good fruit. We have 4 amazing children, results of that relationship, and it's a beautiful thing.
*Prayer is communication with God*. It's speaking to Him and hearing Him. It's a conversation. So like for me and Courtney, as we've grown in relationship with 1 another, we've grown in maturity in our ability to communicate, there's more of a trust, there's more of an intimacy. We more easily laugh with 1 another.
We speak about things that we wouldn't have spoken about 20 years ago because we really know 1 another and trust 1 another, have been there through the "thick and the thin". But then also, we can say more by saying less as well. So if we're in a crowded room of people right here, she can give me a look and instantaneously I know exactly what she's saying. Not necessarily bad, mean, you know, but it's because I know her. I've been in relationship with her.
The the communication is matured because we have grown in intimacy together by spending so much time allowing the relationship to mature. Amen? Amen. In his amazing study, Experiencing *God* Has anybody ever done Experiencing God by Henry Blackaby? Got some Okay, the rest of you guys need to step up.
I'm just saying. Joking. All right. But it would be good. In his amazing study experience with God, Henry Blackaby says, and I quote, If the Christian does not know when God is speaking, he's in trouble the heart of his Christian life.
If the Christian does not know when God is speaking, he's in trouble at the heart of his Christian experience, his Christian life. Christianity is not just about speaking to God a few times a day, this paragraph that you memorized when you were a kid or that you just memorized, and then praying before breakfast, before lunch, and before dinner. I'm sorry, it's not. Those paragraphs that you memorize, those are good things. That's a good foundation to start with.
But Christianity is about having an intimate, daily, conversational *relationship* with God where you speak to Him and He speaks back. And you learn to hear His voice daily. Jesus said, My sheep know my voice. Let me give you a tough verse. Are you guys ready for a tough verse?
Are you sure? All right. John-8, verse 47. He who is of God hears God's words. Therefore, you do not hear because you are not of God.
*Jesus* said that. That's tough. Right? So that would mean that if I'm not hearing God's voice, or I really don't know what that looks like, I really need to evaluate my life and understand why I'm not hearing God. If you do not know God's voice, it's 1 of 2 reasons.
If you're not hearing him, it's 1 of 2 reasons. There's prerequisites to being able to hear God's voice consistently knowing what He's saying. The first, and you guys have heard this almost every Sunday for the last 6 months because I'm trying to train you in this. But the first is this, you must be born again. Now, to my Catholic friends in the room.
And I know you've heard, you know, there's a separation of Catholic and Protestant, And there's this rumor I hear because I've talked to a lot of Catholics in my life and I love Catholics. I've talked to a lot of them and you you say born again and they instantly, some of them instantly back off because they've heard a rumor about, you know, the Catholics and then you got those born agains. I just want to tell you, in John-3:3, Jesus himself said, No 1 can see the Kingdom of God unless they have been born again. That's from scripture from Jesus' voice. So being born again is a prerequisite to seeing the kingdom of God.
The kingdom of God is righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit. It's a prerequisite to having a relationship with God where you experience him day in and day out. What does it mean to be born again? Being born again, Jesus said you have to be born of water and born of spirit. It doesn't mean you've been water baptized.
There's a lot of people that have been water baptized as a religious ritual, but don't know God. All of you and myself have been born of water. Your mama's water broke. My mama's water broke. Right?
We were born of water. Born of *spirit* means that you believe that Jesus died on a cross and rose again to save you from yourself, from your sin, from your selfishness, and you need that forgiveness. But he rose again as well. And then you confess him as *Lord* with your mouth. You believe so much in your heart that that's the case that you confess him as your Lord.
Meaning, I'm not going to live for myself anymore and just do a bunch of religious things. No. You're the Lord of my life. I'm going to turn my life for you to you. I believe it so much in my heart I can't help but speak about it.
You're the Lord of my life, and I'm going to begin to follow you. That is the prerequisite to having a relationship with God where you can daily hear His voice. And as I was praying about this last night and in my room this morning, thinking about this moment, I knew that there would be people in here that as I'm saying this, you know you have not been born again. And I'm gonna give you the opportunity right now in the middle of the message to receive Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior. Don't worry.
I'm not going call you up to the front. I have more things to say in the message. I got more preaching to do. But I am going to ask you to acknowledge that that is the case. All right?
So first, I want us to just close our eyes and bow our heads and pray this prayer from the heart. Say this with me. If you need to be born again, I want you to say this with me. Say, Jesus. And we can all say it.
Say, Jesus. Jesus. I believe you died on the cross for my sin. Now, if this is you, if you're if if if you know you need to be born again, acknowledge this in your heart. Pray it's not the prayer that saves you, right?
It's the position of the heart and the confession of the mouth. You're say stating this, Jesus, I believe and you're my Lord. And there's an instantaneous thing where he gives you a new heart. He washes you clean and he moves you forward into relationship with him. He puts his spirit on the inside of you and it's important, it's a big deal.
So just make this confession, church. Say, Jesus. Out loud, Jesus. I believe. I believe.
You died for me. I died. And you rose again. And you rose again. And I believe I need you.
I believe to follow follow you. And not myself. So I ask you to forgive me of my sin. Come into my heart and make me new. Right now, I choose to confess you as my Lord.
Teach me what it means to follow you over what I feel. Because you're my Lord now. Lord God, I pray for those that prayed that prayer for the first time and meant it. Lord, that were born again right now. I pray that you would just seal, Lord, let them sense your presence in your heart that it matters, that it meant something, that they're "new in you".
Now, I'm not going to ask you to stand up or anything because I still got to preach, but I am going to ask you if that was you and you know that was real and you needed to be born again and enter into relationship with Jesus, would you confess it by raising your hand? I see you, man. Praise the Lord. You were the guy that I was thinking of this morning. *God* sent you here today.
He loves you and He cares for you. You're forgiven and you're brand new in Jesus' name. Would everybody give a big old hand? That's how much people love you and God loves you even more. Okay, so let's continue.
You guys ready? So number 1, got to be born again. Praise the Lord. Well, I'm going to assume we're all born again in here now. We all have entered into relationship with Jesus Christ and are ready for number 2.
Number 2, let's pull it up. You got to listen to your daddy. All right, so think about this. When you're physically born, do you come out of the womb communicating well? Kind of.
You can communicate and you can communicate 1 thing well, that you need something. That's what you're great at communicating. We are born infants great at communicating, crying about what we need, that we're not getting what we need, that we are hungry and we don't know why, that we're so overtired and we don't know what we need, we need somebody to put us to bed, we need somebody to make us rest, that we are constipated, we got a lot of junk inside of us that needs to come out, we don't know how to get it out, and it's hurting, so we cry about it. You guys see the parallels? Infants are great at communicating their need.
And now let's just be honest. *Spiritually*, when again, you're born and you don't grow to maturity, you don't know how to grow to maturity. Spiritual infants are great at communicating their need and crying to *God* about everything that they want and everything that they need and every pain hurts so bad and I don't know why. Why, why, why is this happening to me? Crying and whining.
*Amen*? Or oh me. Amen and oh me. *God* doesn't want us to remain spiritual infants, but He wants us to grow into communication, or in our communication with Him. What do we say when an adult, let's say, physically, an infant grows over time, is naturally going to get bigger, 5 years old, 10 years old, 15 years old.
What would he say when a 15 year old, 20 year old, 25 year old, 30 year old never learned how to communicate and can only scream about what they need? Like, can only cry when they're hungry, can only cry when they're constipated, can only cry when they need sleep, and doesn't know how to communicate in any fruitful way. What do we say about them? They have a severe learning disability. Right?
My fear is in the church, we have a lot of people with **severe learning disabilities** because they never learn to communicate. And so, I want to give you the tools to be able to communicate and grow into maturity with your heavenly *father. In John-15:7-8*, it says this, if you abide in me and my words abide in you. The word abide means like to remain. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, you will ask what you desire and it shall be done for you.
By this, my father is glorified that you bear much Fruit. So that you will be my disciples. Do you realize fruit means results? Results. God wants you to be **productive members** of society, not just physically, but spiritually.
He wants you to be productive members of his kingdom with much fruits, many supernatural, amazing results flowing from your life and impacting the world around you and it can't happen just like an adult can't be a productive member of society unless he learns to communicate. A Christian can't be a productive member of the kingdom unless he or she learns to communicate with the father. Otherwise, we'll be unfruitful. Did you catch that though? Like, not only that, he says, if you abide in me, remain in me, my words remain in you, you will ask what you desire and it shall be done for you.
By this my father is glorified that you bear much fruit, showing to be my disciples. Like, *God* is glorified when you grow in your communication level with the Lord that you get the results of your communication with Him. That you see the answers to your prayers. He wants to answer your prayers. It glorifies Him.
Let me give you an example. Another communication or conversation I had with God. This would be back in November 2022, so less this past November. We were having a prophetic workshop on a Saturday morning back in November. Don't let that scare you.
Prophecy is biblical. 1 *Corinthians-14* talks about words of knowledge and prophecy and words of wisdom and all kind of amazing supernatural things. All that is, is conversations with *God* about how to benefit and impact other people with His love. *Amen*? Amen.
Very simple. Okay, got past that. All right, so that morning, I wake up and I'm going to be intentional in my relationship with the Lord to spend time with Him, write in my journal, get in the Word. And as I'm doing that, Jackie Zifchek comes to my mind, 1 of the members of our church. Jackie, for the past about month at the time, had a tumor in her brain.
She had an MRI done, tumor in the brain, and it had grown to where it was in a certain part of the brain that was affecting her emotions, to where she uncontrollably would cry and uncontrollably emotions would impact her and it was affecting her ability to do her job and other things, and it was she was scared of dying, just to be blunt. And I'm in my time with the Lord and conversation with him, and I sense or I see his desire to heal her. I believe it. And I also sense that he wanted her to come to that workshop so that we could pray for her. And so I saw my father doing that as a child, seeing my father do that.
I believed what he was doing, but I also, just the fact that he initiated the relationship with me to show me that was an invitation for me to join in, co labor with him in what he was doing. So what did I do? That morning, at like 07:45, I pick up the phone and I called Jackie Zifchek. Hey, Pastor David, what are you doing calling me so early? Hey, Jackie, I just feel that you need to come to this workshop today.
I don't know if I could come to that workshop today. And you know, this tumor is crazy. I just break out into tears and is really a bit embarrassed about what's going on. And I say, Look, Jackie, in prayer, this is what I really felt. And if at all possible, I'm asking you, do whatever it takes to get there today so that we can pray for you.
Because I just really feel it's that important. And she said, Well, I'll try. Fast forward, I think the workshop's supposed to start at 9 a. M. She gets there at like 08:50.
And she's crying uncontrollably. The headaches are bad. The fact that she pulled herself up to even get there was a big deal. We pulled her behind 1 of the signs that we had so it wasn't obvious to everybody. Jerry, did you pray for her with me, was it just I think it was just me that time.
Anointed her with oil because the Bible says, Lay hands on the sick, they shall recover. Talks about anointing with oil sometimes too, so we did it. And I just prayed a simple prayer. Lord God, thank you that you are the healer. In the name of Jesus, be healed based on what I heard in the Bible and in my time with the Lord, my conversation with God because you got to believe it enough to act on it and obey it.
She believed the Word of God through my voice that morning on the phone enough to, through the pain and through the issues, to get up and come anyway that morning. Did she not? Is this all true, Jackie? Laid hands on her, prayed for her. She's crying uncontrollably, and it probably wasn't because of the prayer, right?
But obedience, obedience to the Lord, obedience is our success. That's it. We got a workshop to do. Go to the workshop. She's not in any kind of situation to be able to continue the workshop.
She walks out. 1 of the guys in the workshop talks with her a lot, prays with her too. She leaves. She had gotten an MRI about 4 weeks before, tumor was there. This is what it is.
She got an MRI 3 weeks later, tumor's gone. All symptoms left. Doctors like, we got to do another procedure, but the symptoms are gone. She's like, why? There's no point.
She's healed. She's sitting here today. Like *Jesus* really impacts your life and really heals you. So, you know what? Why not?
That testimony encouraged some of you today. So while I'm not going to call you up, I still got some more message to preach. If you have sickness or pain, first, let me ask you this. If you believe Jesus heals and you're a Christian, would you raise your hand? That's perfect.
Put your hands down. If you have sickness or pain in your body, it could be as little as a headache, as big as a shoulder break or dislocated shoulder, cancer, tumor, blood disease, AIDS, I mean, whatever. From little to big, if you have pain in your body and you or a situation going on in your body and you need healing, would you raise your hand? All right, everybody look around. Look around.
If you raised your hand before and you have somebody by you with their hand raised, would you put your hand on them? Go ahead. Hey, at Real Church, we hear, believe, and *obey* because we're putting into practice what God just spoke. Right? Okay.
So I want you if you're praying for somebody, you have your hand on them, and you could be praying for somebody while somebody's praying for you. Just real simply, I want you to know Jesus is the healer. You're not. So it's not about how loud you pray or about how, like no. It's it's the act of faith.
Okay? So I just want you to repeat this after me. Say, thank you, God, that you're the healer. So in the name of *Jesus* be healed. Thank you, Lord.
Thank Lord. That you paid the price for this healing. In *Jesus*' name. *Amen*. Well, we praise you and we thank you for what you've done and who you are.
Now, I want you to know what I'm about to do. This is real church. Like, everybody say real. Real. Don't fake anything.
If there's nobody that was literally healed in that moment, there should be no hands raised. Do you understand? Okay. I want you, if before we prayed, you had a literal pain in your body, not if it was a disease or something, you'll have to go check it with your doctor, okay? But you had a literal pain in your body, not a headache either, let's not do headaches, okay?
But you had a literal pain in your body, I want you to check your arms, check your legs, that kind of thing. Go ahead, test it. If you need to stand up, stand up to test it. Like, really? This is weird for some people.
It's okay. Jesus loves you. Is there anybody that the pain is completely gone? Raise your hand high. Again, Mike?
Come on. Mike's been healed multiple times. Daniel, what was it before? And you can do what you couldn't do before without pain? Some of you with incurable diseases or some of you with stuff inside the body were healed, too.
I want you to go to your doctor. Now, if it just got a little better, praise the Lord, get somebody before we leave to pray for you again. Where God's at work is an invitation to join in with what he's doing already. Okay? So ask somebody.
It doesn't have to be me. Obviously, look, you guys prayed for each other. It's awesome. Jesus wants to do that kind of stuff. Ask somebody before have the humility to ask somebody to pray for you again.
We're the body of Christ and we can do that. God loves you that much. Amen? Amen. Okay, real church, right?
Yes. Beautiful. All right, so back to the baby. As adults, we want to grow to be fruitful in a society in society, and so spiritually, we want to be *mature* and to mature from a baby screaming about what we need and be fruitful in His kingdom. We want that, and God wants that.
And that requires conversation with God. So, for an infant to transition to being productive in their daily life, they have to pay attention to their daddy. They have to transition from just crying about what they need to begin to be aware of their surroundings and then begin to pay attention to their parents. And so, at first, the baby's crying and then it's quiet and crying and quiet and the parents are always talking. The baby's in the room with a bunch of other adults and older siblings that are that are conversing.
The baby's not understanding anything but is getting used to being in the presence of their parents. And then the parents are really intentional to look directly at the baby, catch eye contact, make hand motions and say, dad, dad, dad, dad, mama, mama. And there's a fight between is the baby going to say mama or dada first? It's always dada, I'm just saying. Usually, usually.
Fair enough. Anyway, but then the baby sees mama or daddy, mimics the movement of the mouth the best that they can, and responds and says, Dada. And the fact that the baby saw, heard, and then mimicked their daddy makes the parents go, Yay, praise the Lord. Look ahead. They take videos and they show everybody and it's awesome and wonderful.
Don't you know that spiritually, when we finally go from screaming about what we want to hearing God the first time respond and "mimic what he said" in prayer, God throws a party? The whole time, the baby's been trying to do it but can't say it and is trying this and that and the other. But finally, when he gets the words out, then the parents are intentional to teach the next word. They don't teach the next word until they learn the first word. And when the baby mimics the first word, then they teach the next 1, Mama.
And then the baby says, Dada and Mama. Then the baby is ready for the next 1, Bubba, sister. Then all of sudden, the baby says, No. Mine. So then we got to discipline, right?
But as the baby learns to pay attention to its parents and mimic what the parents are doing and saying, we realize that the baby is growing and maturing and being able to communicate better. And we are intentional to teach it the next thing. It's the same. Do you want to grow in your relationship with Jesus? Your ability to communicate with the Father?
Stop just speaking to Him and saying what you want. It's like a baby going, *God*'s like looking. Listen to what he's saying, and then say what he's saying, and you'll see the answers to your prayers. If we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that He hears us, we know that we have whatever we've asked.
That's how you mature. Jesus showed us the way. He was the Son of the Father. *John-5:19, it says, Very truly I tell you, John-5:19*, the Son can do nothing by Himself. He can only do what He sees the Father doing.
Because whatever the Father does, the Son does also. He taught us what it looked like to imitate the Father as a dearly loved child. *Jesus* also said, Apart from the Father, I can do nothing. Same here. He said what He heard the Father saying, did what He heard the Father doing, saw the Father doing.
What do you think we're supposed to do as Christians? The exact same thing, and we grow in our ability to communicate with Him as we learn to listen and see Him in our daily life. And what was already said on the stage by Chevy, when we seek Him in that way, we will find Him. I'm just telling you how to take your next step in your relationship with the Lord. Start seeking Him to "hear and to obey".
So, let's do this. I'm going skip a little bit, but I'm going give you another analogy here in a minute. Is that good? 4 ways, 4 practical ways to spend time with Him. To learn and to grow.
And your ability to communicate with the Father. Number 1, *pray*. Be intentional to spend time alone with God in prayer. And don't just make it your driving time. Don't just make it your time at work.
That's good times. Like in a conversational relationship with God, you want to *pray* continually, meaning you're inviting him and listening to him in every aspect, every moment of your daily life, but you cultivate that by having intentional time with him, just you and him. Mine and Courtney's relationship has grown, but it would never have grown to where it is if we only spent time with 1 another while we were on the go. We had to be intentional to spend time with 1 another alone, have conversations that only me and her talk about. And I encourage you, and this is gonna be hard for some of you, do that alone out loud, not just in your head Because that separates what's really your **prayers** and all of the distractions.
So talk with him and respond out loud, alone or by writing it out. I type almost as fast as I talk, so I do that a lot. *Pray*. And if you're intentional to develop a daily habit of prayer with the Lord, watch how it spills over to you learning to not just listen in your prayer time, and I'm not talking about prayer time where you're talking constantly. I'm talking about taking at least half of it to listen and then respond in prayer as He speaks.
Watch how it spills over in your life where you're hearing and speaking to Him all throughout the day, too. It's a beautiful thing. And then you're growing and maturing in your conversation. Number 2, ways to grow in communication with the Lord. The Bible.
This thing. *God* has already spoken through here. And not only that, like this is how he speaks. So like, for instance, when I read this word, I see how he spoke to Elijah. But god's the same yesterday, today, and forever.
I see how he spoke to John. I see how he spoke to Matthew. I see how he spoke to Paul. And god's the same yesterday, today, and forever. And he's no respecter of persons, meaning he loves me just as much as he loves Paul because the Bible says he loves me, you, just as much as he loves Jesus.
So if he spoke to them in those ways, those are examples of how he can and wants to speak to you in your daily life here. So if you see it in scripture, you can seek it in your daily life. And the more that you know this thing, the more likely you are in your daily life to recognize when He's speaking because you have a reference for how He's done it before. If you don't know that to the extent that you know this thing, that's the extent you'll be able to recognize when God's speaking in your daily life. So daily get in your Word, because He'll speak through the Word, and He'll use the Word to train you on how He speaks in your daily life.
So vital. Don't worry if you don't know this thing yet. How do you eat an elephant? "1 bite at a time". So start small, but stay consistent.
And I would recommend starting in the book of John. Number 3. So pray, *Bible. Number 3 is the church*. *God* will train you to hear Him more clearly through His body, the body of Christ.
Now watch. A baby, a toddler, for instance. How does the toddler learn to communicate with the parents? 1 is paying attention to the parents. Number 2 is paying attention to its older siblings that know how to better communicate with the parents.
And so my children learn from their older siblings. Eden and Selah learn what not to do when they see Trip get disciplined for what he did. My Eden and Salah learn what to do when they see Trip get rewarded and patted on the back for what he did, right? In the same way, when we see our older brothers and sisters in the Lord that know Jesus and communicate with him way better than we do because we see the fruit of their life and they're experiencing more of God through their life than we are. Well, the Bible says, consider your leaders, consider their way of life, And imitate their faith.
Imitate the way they hear from God and the way they believe it and obey it. For God is the same yesterday, today, and forever is the next sentence. Meaning, if that's the way it happens for them, it ain't going be no different for you. You need to learn from your older brother and sister. How are you going to learn from your older brother and sister if you're not in deep relationship with them?
You need to be a part of a church. Connected in covenant. Not just sitting on a Sunday. Man, you serve together, you stick together. Get in small groups or go out to lunch afterward.
Ask people about their life. Invite people over to dinner. Get to know people so that you can learn from their relationship with the Lord and they can learn from yours. That's how we grow. You need brothers and sisters.
It's a big deal. If you're an only child, I'm sorry. Praise the Lord. It's no cut like you got brothers and sisters in the Lord. *Amen*?
*Amen*. So, yeah. Okay, pray, Bible, church. There's nothing wrong with you being an only child. I'm not saying that.
Give me mercy on that comment. *Pray Bible Church*, then also experience. Experience. You learn to hear God more clearly as you put into practice what you heard. As a matter of fact, you probably won't learn to hear God more clearly until you put into practice what you heard.
For example, 1 of the first things that we've taught all of our children is don't touch that "hot stove". When they get close to the stove, mama's cooking in the kitchen, they go to touch the hot stove, the first thing they hear is, And we back them away. And over time, they learn, Well, Don't touch the hot stove, right? And if they go to touch it, we spat their hand. Because I'd rather them be hurt by daddy in a controlled manner than them have blisters all over their hand.
How loving of me is like, I don't want to spat on him and be mad at me, but then let their life be hurt. It's terrible. That's hate for your children. Bible says, spare the rod, spoil the child. If you don't discipline your kids, you hate them is what the Bible says.
So, like, lovingly, I'm disciplining my kid because I don't want them to touch the hot stove but guess what? I'm never going to teach my kids to cook a chocolate cake if they don't obey me in not touching the hot stove. Because as they're cooking the cake, they're going to touch the stove, and they're going to get burnt. And then they're if they can't obey me to not touch the stove, you think they're going to obey me to not put in this much sugar? They can put way too much sugar and then way too much salt.
Next thing you know, it's not even going be a chocolate cake they're making. It's going to be terrible and it's going to rip their stomach to shreds and they're going to be burnt and ripped to shreds. Well, I teach my children what they're ready for, and I know they're ready for it by the way that they listen to me and obey me. Through experience. When we hear believe and obey, *God* shows us more.
And that's in every area of your life. I've got examples in my mind I want to give, but I'll let you have the examples and you work that out with the Lord. What is he telling you ant to? And you keep doing it. And you don't have a prayer that's answered that he wants to answer, but he's waiting on you to obey him in the ant first, consistently so he knows he can trust you with the answer to the prayer.
*Amen*? I'll give you 1 last example of how conversation with God works and grows your ability to experience **immeasurably more* than you could ask, think, or imagine in your relationship with the Lord*. I took my kids to Southwest Rec yesterday. Now on Saturdays, they have a 12 to 2 swim day. And it's a dollar to take your kid, take your family for each kid, you know.
And extra information, this is not a part of the testimony or analogy. But in order to swim and I took Trip and Selah, but in order to swim for an hour with me, they had to run 2 miles with me. They did it. Tripp and Selah both ran 2 miles, and it was awesome. Yeah, praise the Lord.
So tell them you're proud of them when you see them. But so we got done with the 2 miles, and we had an hour to swim from 1 to 2 p. M. And so I spent the first 30 minutes playing with them. I went and jumped off the diving board with Trip and Selah and then went in the shallow end with Trip and Selah and we played what we call bucking bronco and and then I was the surfboard, and they tried to stand on my back and surf, you know, and just messed around and that kind of stuff and wrestled.
But then it came time where I wanted to go do what I wanted to do and wanted to let them play. So I went and borrowed some goggles from the office, and I went to the lane. They have an Olympic it's an Olympic sized pool, and they have lanes where you can swim, laps. So I was going to go swim some laps. And so I put my goggles on, I get down in the lane, and I swim "American Crawl" a couple laps, and then I do side stroke a couple laps, and I do another maybe it was the fourth or fifth lap, I'm resting at the side.
And don't worry, I did rest in between that because I'm not in great swimming shape. But so I'm sitting on the side, and I'm about to do another lap. And Selah comes up beside me, says, Hey, Daddy, hops in the lane with me. Says, Daddy, I want to learn to swim like you do. I'd wanted to teach her a long time, but she never really would listen like I wanted her to listen.
But this time, she saw daddy doing something and had the desire to go and join in with what daddy was doing. So she came and got in. And this was about, there was about 20 minutes left, at least. So what did I do? Well, is something I wanted to teach her anyway.
*God*'s heart for us is you'll do the same things I do and even greater. So, I stopped. I interrupted what I was doing in order to teach her. First, I started her with the Christmas tree glide and she's Christmas tree glowed, glid. Glided out and then she glided with a kick and then she glided with arms and she did good but then I noticed she was going to get tired.
So, I taught her to bob and I reminded her of some lessons I had taught her before. So, I was reviewing lessons. She could've got bored with the lessons I was reviewing with but it was necessary for her to learn the next step and she was, I didn't have to tell her she was desiring. She was seeking after doing what her daddy was doing. She was having a blast.
So she learned to bob after she learned to do the American crawl. So then I told her to push up as she's breathing out to push up and take a breath. And so then I told her how to put all that together. And I I demonstrated. She watched me do it.
And then she did it. I said, keep going, keep going. And she made it all the way across the Olympic sized swimming pool. It was amazing. She turned around.
She was tired. But she turned around. She looked. And it was immeasurably more than she could ask, think, or imagine. She didn't think she could do that.
All she did was she watched what her daddy was doing, listened to what her daddy was saying, did what he said and what she saw him doing, and then did immeasurably more than she could ask, think, or imagine. You guys get it? It didn't stop there though. She wanted to keep going. So I taught her how to do a "backstroke".
She struggled a little bit and failed. She didn't quit though. She kept listening to her daddy because her daddy said she could do it. So she fell forward. She got back up, kept doing the backstroke, watching her daddy and imitating what her daddy was doing and learning to do the backstroke.
And then and I did all this in 20 minutes. I taught her how to spin over and get on her back and do this and because I didn't want her to swim all the way across and get tired. So as long as she was listening, I was teaching. As long as she was being obedient and putting into practice the last thing that I said, I was continuing to teach because she was ready for the next lesson. As soon as she stopped being obedient, she wouldn't be ready.
So she learned the backstroke, and then she swam across the pool turning over with the backstroke. She ended up swimming across the pool 3 different times, learning 2 strokes and learning how to bob in that, and could swim across the pool with no problem when we were done, immeasurably more than she could ask, think, imagine at the first thing. And it only took at the first time, and it only took watching her daddy, seeing what he was doing, wanting to join in with what he was doing, and then imitating him and being obedient in the process. Next time we go to the pool, guess what? She's going have more fun than she ever had because she was created to do what her daddy was doing.
And she's gonna be able to play and be faster in the water and less tired than ever before. And it's the same in your relationship with *Jesus* in everything. *Amen*? Shetty, I'm done, brother. *Lord God*, thank you for what you're doing.
I thank you for what you're going to do. *Lord, I pray* after Chevy finishes hosting, giving announcements and other things please don't run out yet. Lord, I pray that the people that still need prayer and healing, Lord, would ask the people, other people around them, to minister them, to put into practice what they've heard. If there's others that need more ministry, Lord God, I pray that they go find anyone with a tag on and ask them for prayer. Lord God, that they're humble enough yet bold enough to do so.
And for everyone else, I pray they're encouraged and put into *practice* what you said, and that they come to put it into practice on Friday night too. In Jesus name we pray.
*Amen, church*. What a word. *God* speaking. He is. You know, I want to review those 4 things, the ways to connect with you.
I'm not sure if they're still up on the screen. We got what was it? Pray. We gotta read the Bible. Come to church.
Experience. *Church*, you put all those things together. It's like "peanut butter jelly". Okay? It's good.
It's always good. That my son, that's my his favorite. Anyways, *church*, I mean, here's something. What would happen? Okay?
If we have this this room full of people right here *prayed* every day. We read our *bible* every day. Okay? That that's a feat. Okay?
Those those are habits that you have to create. And then you came to church and connected with 1 another, and then we actually put those things into practice. What does a city look like? Okay. When a group of people puts all those things together and then reaches out and lives a life.
*Church*, I don't know. Okay. But how about we try? How about we go for it? Because who knows what could happen when God gets involved.
*Amen*? Amen, church. Awesome. So we got a few, few announcements today. We have I know that you've you see some people out there with the kind of lanyards and they have a they have a QR code on there that you can scan.
That is a way to really "get connected". It's really awesome. And there is something really cool because there are some sign ups to be baptized. You know, we've we've done baptisms in here, but there's actually on May 7, there is a we're gonna do a multi church baptism at Saint Peter Saint Peter. That's a Saint Peter.
Okay? Sunday, May 7. So if anybody would like to volunteer for this or is ready to be baptized, you can get that QR code sign up. Okay? Or you can go to the cafe also.
Okay? **Establish is happening** tonight. Okay? Establish is happening tonight. This is where you can kinda understand, the culture that is happening here at Real Church.
And it looks like we
have a few
openings. Okay? So it's at 5PM. The, the sign ups, they close at noon. So, you know, you again, QR code, you can really look into that or talk to someone at the cafe if you are interested in coming to establish.
If you miss it, it's okay because we're gonna have it again. June 4. Alright? So, the spots they fill up, you know, they do "fill up quick", so just be sure to reach out to us. Okay?
But church, God's doing awesome things in our community. Okay? And so let's take everything that pastor David said, and let's put into practice. Amen? Amen.
You guys are dismissed.