"Good morning, Real Church". Good morning. Y'all look good today. Thank you. You do.
You look good. So do you. It's my big red shirt. Pastor Courtney is the 1 that has When she starts speaking, she'll tell you she takes a long intro and then a short message. Right?
That's typical of the way that I preach. I like to do some thank you's. I like to be able to just to slow my way in there. Today, we're gonna go the complete opposite. We're going We're not going 7 47 long long runway.
Okay? We're going helicopter straight up. Y'all ready with that? Yeah. I have good news today.
God is in a good mood. Amen. I don't know about you, but the way that I was raised, that I didn't understand that and I definitely did not believe that growing up. I thought God was holding me over hell just saying screw up 1 more time and I'm gonna let you go. I did not understand his love.
Now, I get really passionate when we start talking about love and we start talking about righteousness. We start talking about what God's done for me. It changed my life. And I want you to understand, like pastor David says, if he did it for me, he'll do it for you. And so, instead of having this understanding, now, he's not holding me over hell.
**He loves me**. Amen. He loves me. He's in a good mood today. Amen, brother.
Every day. Come on. Tomorrow's looking pretty good, like you say, Eric. But if you have this belief structure that he's not happy, some days he's happy with me because I'm doing good. But other days I'm not doing very good so he's angry.
You're being robbed. I'll try not to spit. You don't realize how much you spit until you have all these lights. There are just there are some days that maybe you think, he's *forgiven* me. But there's other days when maybe he hasn't really forgiven me as much as I thought yesterday.
The sad part is there's a lot of Christians that live this way and that's why they believe. *God* is only happy when I do good. Thank you, sir. And he's angry when I'm not. It's almost as if we believe God is schizophrenic.
Somehow, 1 day he's good at me, he likes me, and other days he doesn't. That the issue though is when you believe this, I personally believe and I think it's true that you are "hanging on the wrong covenant". You're still in the covenant, the old covenant, the old covenant of law, not the new covenant of grace. What's the difference? The problem though is when we believe this, we're sending We we have this mixed message that God's only happy when I'm doing good, but the problem is I'm not always doing good.
Right? The old covenant was 1 way 1 focused. 1 way. You should not, you shall not, you shall not. Right?
It was focused on what I was doing. Let's read Hebrews-8 verse 8 10 through 12. I'm gonna hit the highlights. I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers. I will put my laws in their minds and write on their hearts and I will be their God and they shall be my people.
For I will be merciful unto their righteousness and their sins and their lawless deeds, I will remember no more. Amen. We've gone from, thou shalt not, thou shalt not, thou shalt not to God saying, I will, I will, I will. When is it about me anymore? It's not.
It's not. It's everything about what he's done, not what I've done. Come on. Good Mark. Come on.
Amen. That is freeing when you understand. I don't have the weight anymore of producing to be good. Christianity is done done done, not do do do. When we understand he died on a cross for us, he finished it.
It's done. Done. Done. Done. What does It is finished means?
It can't be partially done if it's finished. Come on. I'm saved by grace. It's almost done. But now I better keep it by doing a whole lot of good stuff.
You're swinging back to the law. Stay in grace. Done. Done. Done.
He's done it. He's finished it. It's done. The law is about looking at yourself. The new covenant grace is all about seeing where Jesus is in in in every situation.
The transformational statement though is when Jesus says, it is finished. What happened at that moment? He has taken all of our sin on him. The perfect lamb of God. He takes my sin and he says it's finished.
*God* looked at him. God is a just God. He hates sin. Believe me, he hates sin. But my sin, your sin was punished on the cross.
Finished, done, *complete*. It's not about me and what I do. It's about what he has done for me. And to be able to walk that out on us every single day, I'm telling you, it changes your life. It changed my life when you when I realized it wasn't about my performance.
I say it all the time to the guys on Wednesday nights, if I have an orange tree in my backyard and it's got oranges on it, does the orange make it an orange tree? It is an orange tree. What does orange trees do as long they have good soil, they get the light, and they get the nape the right environment. They produce oranges. When you understand 2 Corinthians-5:21, he that knew no sin became sin so that I can be the righteousness of God.
You know, I'm gonna throw righteousness in there. I'm righteous. I am the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus because of he that knew no sin became sin on the cross. It's finished. Completely finished.
And all I get to do now is "walk it out" in the identity of, here's an orange. Here's an orange for you like I preached last time. When we get this identity, it changes everything because you walk from being righteous because that's who you are. And it's fun. I never understood that growing up.
People would talk about it's fun living for God. I did not understand that because it wasn't fun for me because I had to do all this stuff and I wasn't very good at it and I tried real hard and I failed. And I tried real hard and I failed. Do good for a little while and then I would fail. There was no fun in that.
But when I understand the finished work of Jesus on the cross, he did it all. And now, I wake up in the morning and say, God, what are we doing today? Here's my hand. Let's go. I'm following you.
The answer is yes, Lord. It doesn't matter what the question is. Yes, Lord. The bible says, my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Where is that that we're supposed to be downtrodden, everything's woe is me.
How can it be light and it feel like 1000 pounds on our back? We're looking at what we're trying to do it within our self. It creates the anxiety or fear. The last time I checked, love cast out all fear. There's no there's no fear in love.
There's no fear in loving Jesus and Jesus loving me. And when I can walk that out, here's my hand. Yes, Lord. My burden My yoke is easy and my burden is light. In any area that you feel pressure, recognize I need to let him help.
Let him lead. Give him your hand and say, yes, Lord. I'm going wherever you wanna go today. So that's the beautiful news of the whole thing. If you've never experienced this, if you don't if you've never maybe you've heard the gospel, maybe you haven't heard the gospel, but ultimately, you must be born again is what Jesus said.
Because of what he did on Calvary's Cross, he took all of my sin. He wants your sin. Everything has been paid for. And when you recognize that, and you say, okay, I believe that you're God, and I believe you died for me, and I believe it so much that I wanna reorient my life to no longer live for me, but I wanna live for you, then I can say, yes, Lord, to whatever you want, and it can be fun. I promise it's fun.
If you have never given your life on purpose to Jesus as, I wanna say an adult, you weren't baptized as a little baby, when you didn't understand what you were doing, when you've never said, I wanna follow you. I don't wanna live for me, I wanna live for you. If you've never said that and you want to do that, it's a very simple process. It's just recognize that I believe it, and I wanna give an outward declare declaration of being able to say, I wanna follow you. If you have never done that today, and you'd like to do that, just show me your hands.
There's 1. Anybody else? 2. This is the best decision that you will ever make in your life. When you decide to put him first.
So it's very simple. So I just wanna pray a little prayer and all you have to do is repeat after me. For both of you, God, I thank you for who you are. I thank you for what you've done. I recognize my need of you.
I'm a sinner and I want to be *forgiven* of all my sin. Thank you for what you did and today I want to follow you. Thank you. It's that simple. Let me pray for you.
*God, as we just prayed this prayer, these 2 people, God, I ask you just to let them feel your presence*. Let them understand your love and comfort. Let them understand that you now live inside of them and you are a good good father and you love them. Now as a baby learns to grow up and mature, just teach them who they are because of what you've done. Let them find brothers and sisters here in the church to be able to mature and grow in you and we thank you for that in Jesus name.
Amen. Amen. Amen. That's amazing. That's amazing.
"Welcome to the kingdom". Welcome to the family. So this series is from the heart. Right? Okay.
So when I was a little kid, my grandfather died when I was 9 in 1977. So when I was really young, before 9, 5, 6, 7, old enough that I can still remember, we would go to my granddad's house, papa, papa's house on Saturday morning and he loved to watch wrestling. Not wrestling, wrestling. And I don't know how much wrestling you watched as a kid or as an adult, But there was a guy named Leapin Lanny. And I loved Leapin Lanny as a 5 year old.
I thought he was so cool. He could do back flips. He would jump off the rope. He would do a whole lot of things. But 1 of my grandfather's favorite thing was tag team wrestling, wrestling.
And that would be when the guys sitting on the side and he's getting beat up and and his partner's getting beat up in the in the ring and he's trying to tag him in, know, you tag your partner in. Well, I told you I think church is supposed to be fun. Life is fun. Every day is a good day. And Eric, tomorrow's looking pretty good too.
So I grew up with tag team preaching. Now, some of you have no idea and have never experienced that before, but tag team preaching was what I grew up on. And with this this series being from the heart, I felt like we needed to have 1 of our elders come and share his heart for just a couple minutes because we all have this Almost. We all have this understanding of who he is, what he's done, and who he's made me a little bit differently. It's all pointing to him.
It's all about him, but they We If you talk to Jerry and hide, Jerry's gonna talk about value, identity, and position. If you talk to him 5 minutes, he's gonna be talking about value, identity and position. If you talk to me, you're gonna be start talk I'm gonna start talking about righteousness. Well, Daniel, come here. Because when you hear Daniel, it's gonna be about the cross.
Hey, bro. Tag Let me tag you in. Flip it on.
Hello? There it is. We go. Alright. That was a bad tag.
1 more. There we go. Good morning, guys.
Good morning. Yeah.
For those of you that don't know me, I'm Daniel Mannix. I'm 1 of the elders here. And just a month ago, Bart asked me, you know, if I were to talk to you and just ask you, like, what's your mantra? What's your life saying? I was like, the cross of Christ?
I mean, simply that, the cross of Christ. It's simple as that and it's profound as that, the **cross of Christ**. When I first came to Jesus, when I first started to walk with him, he started showing me all these amazing things. I mean, like, all these scriptures, all these biblical truths and and I started to just learn so much and I started to be kinda identified by it and it was like self gratifying and self edifying and I would use it to, you know, look at me and how much I know and even use it as a weapon against people. And and God had to discipline me for that.
He had to smack me on the wrist a little bit and he just said, son, I I think it's great that you wanna know all these things about me and and you wanna go deeper and further in your relationship with me, but you cannot go deeper than the cross. You you cannot go deeper than the cross. I'm convinced that no 1 has ever plumbed the depths of the cross of Christ. I mean, Paul Paul says, I've decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. Right?
That's what I said to you. Right? That's the verse I gave. 1 Corinthians-2:2, that's that's how I would identify as like 1 of my life verses. I decided to know nothing among you.
Paul knew a lot of stuff, guys. Paul's not saying he didn't know anything except the cross. I mean, if you read Philippians-3, Paul talks about he gives you his resume. Like, he's Hebrew of Hebrews, of the people of Israel, the tribe of Benjamin, as to the law, speaking of the law, a Pharisee. He was a lawyer.
You know, as to zeal, he persecuted the church. He knew all these amazing things and he said, all of that is garbage. All of that is garbage in comparison to Christ, in comparison to the cross. So the cross, I I I identify with that because it's not that the cross is the only thing that I know like Paul, it's it's the only thing I want to be made known. I I don't want my focus to be, oh, I can ascend to this higher level of learning and understanding and teach all these things.
At the root, the only thing that matters is the cross. And the reason why it's the only thing that matters is because it's the only thing that saves. It is the only thing that saves. Paul had again this resume, it was like his lineage, his parents, his grandparents, who they were, that doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if your grandma was a great believer.
He talks about his occupation. He was a Pharisee, a lawyer. It doesn't matter what your occupation is, what your status is. His zeal, it doesn't matter how many great things you do for God. Reinhard Bonnke saving millions of people bringing them to Christ and and Billy Graham, like, that's all great, but none of that matters.
None of that is getting you there. The only thing that matters is the cross of Christ. And so I've decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I've decided to make that known. And anytime that I lose track of that, when I start focusing on things that are beyond that and putting importance on things of myself or the things around me or the things that I'm learning, God brings me back to the cross.
Because the cross is what saves man. So that's it. That's it for me.
Thank you. That's awesome. See, we have fun in church.
Amen. Amen. Rassling.
Rassling. Yeah. Okay. I have a little story. There's a farmer and he's got a young kid with him and they're walking the fence row.
And they're just walking, talking, doing life together and they come to a fence post and there's a "turtle on top" of the fence post. The little boy said, dad, look at that turtle. That's kind of strange. His dad said, I can tell you 2 things. 1, I have no idea how that turtle got on top of that fence post.
2, but I can promise you he didn't get there by himself. So as I stand up here today, I am a turtle on top of a fence post. There is no way that I got here by myself. And, I'm well aware of that. Lots of thanks for a lot of people that have helped put me there with the Holy Spirit's help, but Yeah.
It's fun. Again, living for God. So I don't know that I've ever titled a message. If I was going to title this message, I was thinking about it like, **love is enough**, that's pretty cool. "Love is" everything, that that that probably is okay, but how about love is dot dot dot.
Kinda like when Moses sees the burning bush and he says, who am I supposed to say sent me? Says, I am that I am. Love is. Love is. What does that mean?
It encompasses everything. So on this journey for me, I I grew up in church. I tell everybody I had a drug problem as a kid. Was drugged to church on Sunday morning, drugged to church on Sunday afternoon, drugged to church on Sunday Sunday night. I was drugged church on Tuesday night.
Was drugged to church on Thursday night. We had drugged church on Saturday morning bus route. I had a drug problem. If the doors were open, we went to church. I knew a lot about God.
I knew a lot about God. I grew up and played basketball in Chicago when Michael Jordan was playing it. I could tell you a lot about Michael Jordan, but I did not know Michael Jordan. I grew up going to church every single time the doors were open. I knew a lot about God, but I did not know God.
And over the last 3 years, I have started to learn who he is. And the Bible says Jesus is love. So guess what God has been teaching me a lot in the last 3 years? Love. Little over 3 years ago, David Pastor David told me, he said, oh, you're being selfish when you're fighting with Dixie.
And I like, I'm not being selfish. I'm not selfish. I dealt with selfish a long time ago. And he's like, oh, you're being selfish. It hurt my feelings.
It made me mad. But guess what I talk to guys about and couples about all the time, if you are fighting, you're being selfish. *James-4:1*, all arguments come from self selfish ambitions, selfishness. And so, when I got my feelings hurt when David told me that, but when I started learning supernaturally learning what love is. Love *sacrificing* yourself for another.
Right? We hear that every week, I think. Love is *sacrificing* yourself for someone else. Love God, love people. Love God, love people.
So the opposite of love, if I'm loving someone else, the opposite of that is loving me. Selfishness. And it's never fun to be told you're being selfish. I promise. I have the t shirt, not this 1.
I have the t shirt, but I share that and But because of the way I felt, I try to say that in a way that you can hear it. But *God* has started teaching me love. And as as Daniel says, nobody's ever got to the depths of the cross. I have just feel like I've "scratched the surface" of understanding God's love. But it's so amazing.
How do you describe the "color blue" to a blind man? It would be very difficult. Without experience something, there are some things that are difficult to really describe well. If you experience the love of Jesus, when you experience the love of Jesus, it changes you. But it's not always easy to put into words.
But if he did it for me, he'll do it for you. You can experience his love. This has been a process for me. We were in Uganda this year. We're supposed to be going to be able to help give out and and bless them.
Right? But we're sending We're we're in a 10:00 meeting and they're gonna pray for us. They prayed. God laid his hands on my head and prayed over me and it the power of the Holy Spirit hit me and I had to go find a place just me and God. And he showed me just a couple more layers of love and what it meant to be loved by him and how to love others.
Again, it's the color blue. How do I describe what happened in that moment? It's difficult, but it was more understanding of his love for me. And the more that I understand his love for me is the more that I can love others well. Love is.
When Adam was created, he was in perfect relationship with God. Right? But we hear it often, when he sinned, that relationship was severed. It was not the same relationship that he had before sin. Right?
So, the sin nature that we're born with, we walk around growing up needing love. We're incomplete, so I'm searching for you to give me love. I'm searching for you to approve me. And some of us have made some very poor decisions in how we pursue love. Don't raise your hand.
I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I'm we have this desire to be loved. I was talking to someone 2 or 3 weeks ago and she said, I think it's important for somebody to love me back so I can love them well.
Okay. I said, can I challenge that just a little bit? I said, if *Jesus is love and you make him Lord of your life and he comes in and lives inside, the Holy Spirit* comes and lives inside of you, so you are now love. You are love. You are complete.
He completes you. I have no need of you loving me. Why? Because I am loved. I am approved.
And so therefore, I live from that place. The *identity* of who he is because of what he's done and who he made me. So when I live from that place, I don't need you to approve me. I don't need you to love me because I am loved. I say it a lot.
What can you do to be more righteous? What can you do to be less righteous? I am righteous. That's my identity because of what Jesus did on the cross. What can I do to be more loved?
I am loved. What can I do to be less loved? Nothing. I am loved. And when I'm loved, I can love well.
It's no longer about me, it's about you. It's no longer about me, it's about him. I can love well because I am loved. It's a very simple concept but very deep. Very deep.
So what does this look like in application? I'm glad you asked. We got a scripture for that. *1 Corinthians-13*, I don't think I gave them, but it says First Corinthians says, love is the greatest of all. So we're gonna go to *Galatians-5:22* and 23, we'll talk about the fruit of the spirit.
So the application of love is what? What is *Galatians-5:21*? What does it say? But the fruit of spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness. Gentleness.
You lost me. Good. I need Daniel to be able to say all these like for pastor Dave, he does it for me. Come on. So against there's no law.
So what does that mean? If you search the Greek and you look fruit, if you look it up, pastor David and I did it. I wanted to be sure. It's singular. It's not fruits.
It's fruit. It's the fruit of the spirit. What is the fruit of the spirit? Love. All of these other things are the attributes or loves feet and legs in action.
But love is the key, but joy "joy is love singing". Joy is enjoying the Holy Spirit in every situation. Joy is love exalting him. Joy is love in just rejoicing in the truth. Peace.
Peace is "love resting". Peace is love calming the storm. Peace is to love refusing to be offended. Peace is love at rest. Patience.
**Love enduring** in every trial and test. Patience is love weathering the storm. Patience is loving with loyalty. Patience is loving in spite of accusations. Patience is loving without any limits.
Kindness, that's **love's touch**. Yeah. Kindness is love's tender care. Kindness is love serving. Goodness.
Goodness is love's character. Goodness is love's flavor. Goodness is love in action that flows from Christ within. Goodness is love reaching out. Faithfulness.
What is that? How does love act in faithfulness? It's love's habit. Faithfulness is love consistently consistency over time. Faithfulness is love proving.
Gentleness is love's self forgetfulness. Gentleness is love that disarms. Gentleness is love yielding to anything that's not sin for someone else. Gentleness is love's touch. Gentleness is not love.
Gentleness is love not fighting but bowing at Calvary at the cross. Gentleness is love surrendering my full power to his power. Self control. I like this 1. Self control is love holding the reins.
Amen. Self
control is love in control, and self control is love restraining. Self control is love in harness. But it's all about love. Love is the greatest. 1 Corinthians-13 says, it's all about love.
When we look at the attributes of love, and maybe maybe you felt, I don't do that 1 quite as well as this 1. Let's be honest. Right? There are times that I become selfish and I say something sharp to Dixie. She's got a decision.
Is she gonna love me well or is she gonna be selfish and we're gonna fight? Right? She has patience and she loves me well. It just rolls off like water off a duck's back. That's a Louisiana 1.
So in any area of these that you're struggling with, Let's stand. I'm done. We're we're gonna finish this up. Any area that you feel like the Holy Spirit is kinda just nudging you a little bit in in patience or kindness, goodness, faithfulness, whatever it might be. What's my scripture?
*1 John-4:19*, We love him because he first loved us. In any area where we're struggling with selfishness, it's what we're dealing with, we're not loving well in any area that we're struggling in, it's because we don't have enough belief of his love for us in that area. So specifically, if you struggle with patience, somewhere, maybe subconsciously, you don't think God is patient with you. Struggle with kindness. Maybe somewhere in there, you're not sure that God is kind.
You think he's mean. So when any of these areas where the Holy Spirit is kinda nudging you to look at your life, we don't go sin hunting, but when the Holy Spirit drops us and says, hey, this is something I want you to hear, I want you to work on, I want you to step in, become a little bit more like me, we say, yes Lord. Right? And so in any of these areas, the attributes of love, walking love out to our fellow man and to God, in any of these areas that he's kind of pushing you to be, okay, I want you to grow a little bit here. Look to see how you believe he's loving you.
Altar team, if you'll come and as they come, if you'll just bow your head, I wanna pray for you. *God*, we just thank you for who you are. Thank you for what you've done. We thank you for who you made us. And God, we know that you are love and we are loved by you and because of that understanding, we can be more like you.
And today, God, as whatever you're impressing upon your people, your body to be able to become more like you in patience, kindness, gentleness. Let us see you as being patient to me. Let me see you being kind to me. God, I just thank you for what you're doing right now. Those pregnant pauses are okay.
Let him work. Let him talk. If there's something specific that you feel that he's kinda like I said, he's just kinda nudging you a little bit and you'd like to have prayer, we've got a prayer team that would love to pray with you. Amazing guys and gals up here. If you've heard this and you weren't among the 2 that gave your life to Jesus, but you still never have experienced that and you'd like to do that today, today's still your day is not too late.
Come find 1 of these guys and gals and they'll be able to share Jesus with you. I thank you. I love you. He loves you. Love is.