You are invited to lean into your faith today, trusting that God has a specific purpose for your family, marriage, and ministry. When you feel frustrated, remember that faith is the key to successfully completing the mission He has set before you. Walk away encouraged, knowing that God loves you and the best is yet to come.
"What is up", Real Church? Pastor David John Phillips here. I love getting to be your pastor, and I love that you're listening to this podcast. We are in part 4 of a series titled faith, and today we have something very special. A dear friend of mine, 2 dear friends of mine actually, mighty men of God, pastor Alex Revelia and Santos are gonna be preaching.
Pastor Alex is a pastor in Venezuela, or was a pastor in Venezuela. He has planted 3 churches in Upstate New York. He's been a part of Real Church for about a year and a half now, and he is bringing the message today in Spanish. It's translated into English for you. God bless you.
It's powerful and life changing. Enjoy.
Hey. Good morning everybody. Good morning. My Lord.
You got that. Right? Okay.
But it meant a blessing to be here this morning. Today we celebrate Hosanna, right? *Amen*.
Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.
*Amen*.
And you are blessed to be here
today. What
a great privilege it is to be here with you today.
*God is good. "God is good"*.
*God is awesome. Amen*.
Oh, I wanna pastor David.
I wanna give thanks to pastor David. And to his wife and the leaders of this church. For this marvelous opportunity. I wanna thank God.
I'm grateful to the Lord. This is real church.
This is real church. "Real people". Real people. Amen. "Amen."
This church surprises me.
Because here, everybody's a preacher. Everybody's a teacher.
Everybody's a singer. Good singer.
Musicians.
Everybody's a musician.
This
is the most powerful church in Pinellas County in Tampa in all of Florida. Amen. It's a church without barriers. Without wall. Without walls.
*Amen*.
This morning, the most beautiful woman in Tampa is accompanying me. His wife, Ruth.
I say Tampa Bay. I don't wanna be in trouble tonight.
Right. Right. Tampa Bay.
Right. Just Tampa Bay. Yeah. You have to cross the bridge. Not after the bridge, before the bridge.
Santos. And a good friend of mine is accompanying me Santos.
God is putting pieces together. **Divine connections**.
*Amen*. Divine connection.
And this kingdom is like divine connection. *Amen*.
And God is doing things that we don't understand or inexplainable. Before
I begin the message. I wanna pray.
Everybody, please stand. I wanna say this this morning.
This not is just any other message. This is a **prophetic word**
that is going to impact your life. People are coming expecting another message. But this is not just another message. This is the word of God. That is going to transform your lives this morning.
And I am sure *spirit* that
there are people here that need
that need urgently a
**divine intervention**. And only the word of God can do that.
And I wanna pray this morning.
But I wanna pray that you ask God. God speaks to your heart that God speaks to your heart say, Lord, I need you to speak to me
today I need you to speak to me today
through your word. To be transformed by your word. The only 1 who can change my life is you.
So, ask the Lord today.
That he opens your heart. In the name of Jesus.
*Father*, in the name of Jesus. We thank you.
Your word is powerful. Your word is There are people here today that need a divine intervention. They need you to speak to them. They need to be transformed.
They need to be fed. They
need you God to do something
their lives. And only your word
is the only thing that controls the name of Jesus.
*Amen*. Amen. Amen. Glory to *God*. You
may be seated.
Hail, thou that art highly favored. The Lord is with thee. *Blessed* art thou among women. *Fear not, Mary*, for thou hast "found favor" with God. And behold, thou shalt conceive and bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name *Jesus*.
He shall be great and shall be called the son of the highest, And the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David, and he shall reign over the house of Jacob forever. And of his kingdom, there shall be no end.
How shall this be, seeing that I know not a man?
The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the highest shall overshadow thee. Therefore, also that holy child, which shall be born of thee, shall be called the Son of God. And behold thy cousin Elizabeth, she hath also conceived a son in her old age, and this is the sixth month with her, who is called barren. For with God, **"nothing is impossible"**.
Behold the handmaid of the Lord. Be it unto me according to thy word.
*Amen*. Amen.
In the past weeks.
We were speaking about faith.
*Faith* over fear. And this morning I want to speak on faith on another level. Say faith on another level. Faith another level. Faith.
How do I see faith? Inside of us. I see it as 2 lions. 1 lion is called faith. And the other is called fear.
And I want you to understand today. That the presence of fear in our lives does not signify that we don't have faith. We can have a **lot of faith** and at the same time have a lot of fear Like 2 lions. Fighting daily. Inside of us.
The line of faith fights against the line
of fear.
And the line of fear fights against the line
of And
we wake up in the morning with faith. And we feel that we have faith. But by midday, we feel that the line of fear has overcome the line of faith. And then at night before we go to bed, the the *lion* of faith has overcome the lion of fear. And there's a battle in inside of us between faith and fear.
And we ask ourselves, which 1 of these lions is going to win the battle? Which lion is going to win the battle? And I have the answer for you
The *lion*
that is gonna win the battle. Is the 1 that you feed the most. Is the 1 that you feed the most. Everything depends on which 1 you feed. If you feed the lion of fear with your fear with your fears with your circumstances The lion will overcome your faith.
But the
*lion of faith* is the word of God.
*Romans-10:17*
Faith is comes through hearing. Another version says that faith comes. When you feed yourself
with And
a lot of prayer. You will overcome the line
of faith.
With a lot
of prayer. I
thought you were gonna say amen. Because that is how you're gonna overcome the line of fear.
Yes. You need that word. And
the law of prayer. For the line of faith.
Could win the battle. In the book of Luke. In chapter 1.
And 're gonna go into the message today.
26
through 35. And it says, and in the sixth month, the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee named Nazareth to a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph of the house of David. And the virgin's name was Mary and the angel came in unto her and said, hail, thou that are highly favored, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women. And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be.
And the angel said unto her, "fear not" Mary for thou has found favor with God. And behold, thou shall conceive in thy womb and bring forth a son and shall call his name Jesus. He shall be great and shall be called the "son of the highest" and the Lord God shall give unto him the throne of his father David and he shall reign over the house of Jacob forever and of his kingdom there shall be no end. Then said Mary unto the angel, how shall this be seeing I know not a man? And the angel answered and said unto her, the holy ghost shall come upon thee and the power of the highest shall overshadow thee.
Therefore, also that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the "son of God".
*Amen*.
*God* was looking for a
woman. And
from heaven, he looked down on earth. And he looked at this little town and he saw this woman.
Gabriel.
And he called an angel named Gabriel.
You come on over here.
And he said, come on. Come here. Go down there and talk to her.
Maria. Her
name is
*Mary*. That's the woman I To
bring in the son of God. Mary was chosen by God.
Not because she was a virgin. Maria. There was something more in Mary. Through
the bible, we see Sterile women.
Women
of advanced age. That had children. But Mary. Is the only woman in the entire bible that had a baby
or became pregnant without a man touching her.
The only 1. So when the angel visits her, I think the first thing Mary
She was filled with fear.
She was petrified. So how could this be? Mary, a woman of faith fighting with fear. How many things happen to you on a daily basis? That test your faith?
And fills you with fear?
Come on.
COVID?
Fear of COVID? Fear of losing your job? Fear of getting a divorce. Fear of bankruptcy. Marrying a battle with faith and fear.
Mary was a woman of faith. The title they give her, the Virgin Mary. Yeah. She was a virgin. Historically, she's we say she's about 15 to 18 years old at the time.
But when you say the Virgin Mary, It's like a camouflage. To hide what Mary really was. She wasn't a weak woman.
She
was a woman of faith. Chosen by God.
To complete a mission. Amen. "Miss America".
It wasn't a contest of Miss America. Who
has more *faith*?
Right.
Who's pretty woman, you know? This and that. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, Maria Mary
was a woman of faith. Glory to God. Say glory to God for that. She didn't win the "Florida lottery".
No. No. She
was a woman of faith. A holy woman. A pious woman. A woman of prayer. I would say that the majority of us that are here this morning this place are the result a woman of faith.
A grandmother
a mother a wife
a sister A daughter. That believed in
*God*.
And spoke to us.
Women of faith.
Glory to God to the "Women of faith" this morning. To God for the women of faith. We've all been touched by women of faith. God interrupts the life of Mary. He interrupted the life of Mary.
In the best moment of her life.
She was getting ready to be married.
She was ready to be married. She was excited.
Preach. At the moment of her marriage.
And God sends her an angel.
Then Maria
tells to her, Mary.
You're gonna be pregnant. You're gonna have
the favor of God.
Bye. Bye.
I wanna ask the women that are here today. All the women. What would you think? If tonight An angel came
to you. And
you're home.
And said you're pregnant. Bye bye. Bye. I don't know how to do that. I don't know what to say.
Yeah. That's a "tough 1". What
did you say?
I said that's a tough 1
Okay. To explain. It's a tougher 1. Yeah. Yeah.
You got that translation. Right?
I need to see it. You have to do like this. Maria Savior. Marry new. According to the law
that if they found out that she was pregnant
they were gonna stone her. And
they were gonna treat her like a prostitute. She got out of that. Now, she had to explain to Joseph and hope that he wouldn't abandon her. How
to explain to her fiance that she's pregnant. That's "Mary's dilemma".
Mary felt the baby kicking. She got nauseous. And she says, it's I gotta talk to Joseph.
Say, honey.
Honey.
We need to talk. We gotta talk. And
Joseph because, you know, he was holy.
He said, "si si si". Yes. We're
gonna talk about your white dress.
"No. No. No." No. It's not about that.
She said, no. That's not what it
is. Said,
yes. Yes. We're gonna talk about the cake for the wedding. Yeah.
Strawberry and vanilla. Amen.
Strawberry and vanilla.
No. No.
No. No. Joseph. It's not about that. I don't wanna talk about
It's more deep. Deeper than that. Ah, yeah. I know. I know.
Know. It's about the honeymoon. It's about the honeymoon. Jerusalem,
Jerusalem. The the Marriott Jerusalem.
He said, no.
Nope. That's not
about that, Joseph.
It's not about that, Joseph.
I'm have a baby.
I'm gonna have a baby.
You're gonna have a baby. What is that? "What are you talking about?"
What are you talking about? How are gonna have
a Yeah.
I'm gonna have a baby.
Whose baby is it? It's a spirit's baby.
How would you explain that to somebody?
What's happening to you?
What's happening to you?
Often
times, you can't explain it.
Because there is no explanation.
How many understand that this morning?
Glory to God.
Uh-huh. Mary had to give birth to Jesus in a stable. In a stable. Do you know what a stable is? It's "filled with animals".
Rats.
Aranas.
Spiders.
Maybe
roaches. That's where Mary had to give birth
to Jesus. It
wasn't her son. It was the son of God.
And that's where she had him. There
was no blankets. No sheets. This is where she had to lay and
give She
didn't have diapers. She didn't have anything. God oftentimes does things that confuse us. God often does things that confuse us. Mary had to flee to Egypt.
Flee to Egypt. God allows events in our life that we cannot explain. He interrupts our lives many times in a way that we consider crazy. The crazy way of God that he does things that we don't understand. Mary had to flee to Egypt.
In the middle of the night. And become a fugitive of the law. Mary the "most wanted".
Mary was the most wanted. Living in Egypt. She didn't understand or know how to speak Egyptian. She had to hide the baby Jesus. And nobody knew that she had him.
Because they're
looking to kill
him.
2 years.
In Egypt.
And, I imagine when Mary went to the Walmart in Egypt
and the people saw her,
they she looks strange. She's different.
She doesn't put makeup on. She doesn't have all the gold. And
she has a "weird accent". It's a weird accent. She's definitely not from around here.
We can't understand. We
can't interpret that this morning. And, if I were to read Mary's diary in Egypt. I would imagine she would write something like, how can I be "highly favored" by God and turn up pregnant by someone I don't even know? Now, my relationship with Joseph is maybe a little dysfunctional. I gave birth in a stable around rats and roaches.
And why do I have to escape to Egypt and become a fugitive anyway? What kind of favor is this? "What kind of favor is this"? The angel didn't tell me about all this other
stuff. There
are things that are happening to you
this morning.
That God can't tell you.
Because
if he told
you, you'd be afraid.
And you'd stay locked up in
your But
thank God that you're here today this morning. I salute you for being here this morning.
Glory Amen. To Amen. Glory to
God. Thank you, Jesus. Every time God does things that we don't understand, we have the tendency to flee. This occurs when favor is dressed in frustration and is adorned with jewels of frustration. Mary was simply a woman in love.
She just wanted to get married and have a normal life. And God totally interrupted her life.
To give her this. I want you to know this morning
are things in your life you're not gonna be able to explain. They're simply unexplainable. They're unexplainable. If you try to explain it to somebody they're not gonna get it.
It's inexplainable. It's gonna take you your "whole life" To understand.
What life really is. How many understand that this morning? Amen. Amen. The life of Mary was a little complicated.
Very complicated.
Oftentimes, very difficult to explain. But Mary shows us something very important. Mary shows us how to be consistent.
Consistent.
Consistent.
1
of the
things
that God has to deal with on a daily basis
is
humanity's inconsistencies. We as humans are inconsistent. But Mary shows us this morning that you can be filled with the Holy Spirit that you can have the favor of But at the same time, you're gonna have to go through battles. You're to go through trials. You have to go through tribulations.
Temptations and
many times confusion. People come to church, they sing a song, they leave. But there is a "price you have to pay". And this salvation is paid with a price. The the the king of heaven suffered
violence. And
only say that again. The brave. The
The
brave. Brave. The brave are the ones who reach the finish line, reach salvation. Mary says, I'm having this kid. And I'm going to "raise it"
no matter what. If
I have to give my life, I will. Character.
Mary was a woman of character. A woman of determination. We need that tonight. Today. We need
that tonight.
Character and determination.
Maybe people didn't come today.
I don't wanna go today.
I don't wanna go today.
Maybe next Sunday.
Maybe next Sunday.
I don't know.
We'll see.
Not today. No.
Not today. Today. I'm not feeling it today.
I'm I'm over stressed, you know, I
A lot of stress.
I a break.
I need a break.
Oh, you need a break. Okay.
Break.
Come on. Okay. You need a break?
When the temptation "knocks at your door". When the cancer knocks at your door. I'm gonna see you "running to the front". Glory to God this morning. Very quiet.
Glory to God this morning. When Mary was filled with the Holy Spirit.
She had faith. Faith on another level. But
also she received tenacity. Tenacity. An impulsive strength to continue an endeavor or objective without giving up on it. God wants us to have tenacity. Men and women of tenacity.
Men and women of consistency. People start things but don't finish them. People come to church and try to do a lot of different things. And then after a couple weeks, they leave and they never come 1 day they wanna come and be excited and jump around. But next Sunday, they don't wanna come.
We need consistency. Dedication.
Dedication.
Perseverance. Self control. When
Mary received the power of the Holy
Spirit she received authority
she received the anointing to successfully the mission that the Lord had commissioned her for. Our heavenly father trusted Mary. He gave her this mission because he trusted her. To God. Mary shows us 3 principles
of faith this morning. That are extremely important.
Principle number 1. We need to have the faith to accept that many times the things God does may not make sense to us. That's right. Won't make sense. We pray for sick families.
And they call us and tell us that somebody in their family just died. The work that we've been fighting for for years is gone overnight.
"Why? Why?" God, why?
Why? I
don't understand.
I don't understand. Because the things God does
many times. Not going to understand. Principle number 2. We need to have the faith to press on. To
press on. Even when we don't understand.
What is happening to us. Amen. I need that every morning. We need that. Because the frustration comes.
We're human. The frustration comes.
God, feel frustrated.
Give
me faith.
Give me faith this morning. And the third principle Mary shows us is It's
is very
important. We need the faith to successfully complete
mission and purpose for which God has called. God has called you with a purpose.
Yeah. God
has called you with a purpose in your family. God chose you with a purpose your marriage.
God chose
you for a purpose in your ministry.
Thank you for tuning in today to the Real Church podcast. I pray that you walk away from today encouraged with a deeper understanding of how much God loves you. If you'd like to connect with us, we can't wait to reach out to you and pray for you. You can go to www.realchurch.us/connect. And then also, if you would like to give to what God is doing in and through our ministry, you can do so at www.realchurch.us/giving or you can text any amount to 84321.
And then just search in the link that comes up. Search for Real Church of the Lord. God bless you and the "best is yet to come".
Hi.