You are invited to stop blaming God for the pain you've experienced and instead open your hands to receive His overwhelming generosity. If you feel distant from the Father, reach out to the Real Church team today so they can pray with you and show you His love.
Welcome to the Real Church podcast. Our mission is for you to know the love of Jesus and live out your "God given purpose". Now join us and listen in to the latest message from pastor David John Phillips.
*Father God*, thank you for who you are. Lord God, I thank you that you are the perfect sacrifice. Thank you that you love us. Lord God, thank you for your goodness. Lord, thank you that we have the opportunity to worship together in this way online, Lord God, and can't wait till we can meet together in person.
In Jesus name, amen and amen. Well, welcome once again to Real Church online. My name is David John Phillips. I have the honor of being the pastor right here at Real Church. And if you if you're wondering, named it Real Church just because it's been my motto since I was a kid.
I'm a real person living a real life for a real Jesus, having a real good time. We can't wait to meet with you back in person. If you're wondering, when is that gonna be? When is that gonna be? We've been wondering the same thing.
We've been waiting on Pinellas County School Board, the district, and everything to to open the auditorium for us as a church. It looks like it could be the July. I've got word from the leasing office, and that's when a lot of the employees are going back to to to work in Clearwater or in in Pinellas County. So we are hoping that's that's what they said. It looks like that could be the case.
We'll keep you informed as soon as we know anything. And so that's that right there. Now, we are starting a series today. It kinda, you know, in line with where we've been talking about and what we've been talking about. We talked about the Holy Spirit** quite a bit, and I told you we're gonna be talking about the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
So today we're starting a new series titled Gifted. Gifted. And in honor of "Father's Day" we're talking about today Gifted from the Father. So we're talking about the gifts that the Father bestows on his children. Next week we're gonna be talking about the gifts of Christ or the gift of Christ.
Christ has some pretty pretty specific gifts that he gives to his church, the body of Christ. And then the following Sunday we're gonna be going into the gifts of the Holy Spirit** and that will be the beginning of that really. I'm not sure how many Sundays we will continue with the gifts of the Holy Spirit, But we'll we'll go until we're done, and and we'll we'll just talk about them in real practical ways. We'll just go straight from the Bible, but then also how that looks, what that looks like in your daily life. How to walk in or to to experience this gift and that gift and and why God would do that.
And I'll just tell you from the get go, the reason the word for gifts is charismata, which really means, literally means, undeserved favor. Undeserved favor. It's it's an undeserved favor to be able to walk in the power of the Holy Spirit**. But not only that, by walking in that, you're giving undeserved favor to people for them to experience his power and his love and his kindness, which leads people to see God more clearly or to repent or, you know, to turn to him. So so this is the the beginning of a series titled Gifted.
And today, I wanna start by starting with the gifts or the gifts from the Father. I'm gonna start with James-1. So if you turn with your bible turn, or in your bible turn with me to James-1. We're gonna start in verse 13. It says this, when tempted, no 1 should say, God is tempting me.
For God cannot be tempted by evil nor does he tempt anyone. So a lot of times we blame God when we're going through these things. And the word tempted, by the way, can also be translated as test. And in other places of the Bible, God does test people, but he does not test them with evil because he is not evil. God is good.
Period. Right? So he tests us. He tests our faith but not with evil. And and he doesn't tempt us with evil because to test with evil would be to tempt with evil.
And it clearly says right here, God cannot be tempted by evil nor does he tempt anyone. Period. Immediately, my logical mind says, well hold on just a second there pastor. Wait a second. I mean, didn't God create the devil?
So didn't God create evil? So then by default doesn't he tip people with evil? No. Emphatically. Before the devil was the devil, he was a he was an angel.
God created Lucifer. It was this amazing angel and he gave him a choice. The same as he gives men a choice. He gave him the choice to choose God or to choose not God. And choosing not God is evil.
Right? Because of our free will, that's where evil came into play. Choosing not him. So verse 14, but each person is tempted when they are dragged away by their own evil desire and enticed. Then after desire has conceived, it gets gives birth to sin, and sin when it is full grown gives birth to death.
Verse 16. Now that's very important for this next verse because it says, don't be deceived my dear brothers and sisters. Every good and perfect gift is from above coming down from the father of heavenly lights. Why does it say don't be deceived right there? Because a lot of the world is deceived thinking that evil comes from God.
Thinking that the evil things that have attacked them in their life like what we talked about before that worship song. About maybe maybe you didn't have a great dad or your perception like maybe maybe he did some very wrong things and you've blamed God for what your dad did. No. That didn't come from God. Your dad, if that happened, you know, I'm sorry that that happened to you, but it wasn't from God.
It was from sin. It was your own your father's own sin being enticed by his own evil desires. Now what do we do? We we we respond in the same way that Jesus does. Father forgive them that for they don't know what we're they're doing and we we don't allow that to our past to impact us.
What other people have done to us does not define us because Jesus wipes and washes all that away so we can move forward in a future that he has called for us. Right? And and instead, we can love as Jesus loved. Now I know that's hard to learn and it's so countercultural, but it's a culture of the kingdom. And that's who we are, people of the kingdom, and that's what we do first.
Do not be deceived by that any longer. Right. My dear brothers and sisters, every good and perfect gift is from above coming down from the father of heavenly lights who does not change like shifting shadows. He chose to give us birth through the word of truth that we might be a kind of first fruits of all that he created. The father in his grace and mercy and love, he's not shifting back and forth changing.
Well, don't like you and I do like you. No. His word towards you is love. For God so loved the world, the father loves you. And he's radically generous towards you.
He wants listen to me now. He wants to bless you. That your heavenly Father wants to lavish his love on you in ways that you could is immeasurably more than you could ask, think, or imagine, or imagine. The problem is a lot of times we have problems receiving those gifts from the Father because we attribute to the Father what other people have done to us and not him. We blame God for what people claiming to know God have done.
Let's not do that anymore and let's receive what God loves. And I'll prove to you that God wants to lavish his love on you, that God wants to bless you. In *Ephesians-1:3* says, praise to be be to the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed everybody say has blessed. You can say it on the other side of the screen. That's okay.
Has blessed who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ Jesus. Not only does he want to, he's already given you every spiritual blessing that you need. What does it take? Believing what he's given and receiving it. But not only that.
Watch this. Verse 7 it says, in him we have redemption through his blood, talking about Jesus, the forgiveness of sins** in accordance with the riches of God's grace. Undeserved favor. He's given us. It pleased him to sacrifice Jesus so that we could become adopted sons and daughters of the most high God.
That's amazing. But it gets even better. His grace verse 8. That he lavished on us. Lavish is like this overwhelming, like, generosity, this overwhelming pouring out of his grace and his goodness on us.
That's how the Father sees us, and that's how he wants to bless us. He wants to lavish it on us. With all wisdom and understanding, he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure. And I I just want to sit there for a second with all wisdom and understanding. A lot of us are thinking, well, asked God for this.
I asked the father for this and I haven't received it yet. Maybe because our heavenly father is wise. He knows what to give you and what not to give you and when to give you things so that he doesn't spoil you. See the word spoil means like to turn rotten. He doesn't want you to turn rotten.
He wants you to bear his fruit. The fruit of the father. And if he gave you things before you're ready for it, it wouldn't be wise. He disciplines us as a loving Father, making sure that we're ready to experience all of the goodness and blessing that he has for us so that we won't turn inward and think that it was from us, but we'll always give him the glory and stay humble walking forward in him. He's a good daddy and he loves you.
Let's go now to Luke-11. It's talking about let's just start in verse 1. You know? It Says 1 day Jesus was praying in a certain place. When he finished, 1 of his disciples said to him, Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples, as fathers or parents to you mothers too.
Like, this is amazing. Jesus let his disciples see him pray. He let the people that he was leading see his vulnerability. 1 day Jesus was praying on a certain place when he finished, 1 of his disciples said to him, Lord teach us to pray. I imagine his disciples listening to Jesus talk with the father, and they see this relationship.
They're like, wow, man that's amazing. I wish I knew how to pray like that. And and and Jesus didn't say, alright I'm going to teach you guys how to pray. No. Just his relationship with the Father, the way that he walked and let them in and let them see see him live like that, it caused his followers, the people that God had given the Father had given him influence over, it caused them to desire to be like him because they saw the realness of them.
That's discipleship. And that's as parents, as a father and mother, that's how we disciple our kids in many ways. Let's let them in. I want my kids seeing me pray and not just some religious prayer but see the depth and the vulnerability of of of my relationship with God. I'm reminded of and I need to do this more.
I haven't done this enough. But I'm reminded of a few weeks ago, I went to my son, trip. As late, he had gotten to bed, but he happened to still be awake. I said, Trip, come on. And we went into the living room, and I got on my knees, and I said he said, what are we doing, daddy?
I said, we're praying. I just want you to sit there. I want you to listen. You can pray if you like. And I just began to to pour my heart to God as if he wasn't even in the room.
I was sowing seeds of the kingdom into him. Where did I get that? I got that from my daddy walking in the living room when he didn't even know as a 13 and 14 year old kid, young teenager, seeing my dad pray and pour his heart out to God. My dad bringing me along to prayer meetings at the church, Sitting there with the men of the men around hearing them pour their hearts out to God and not religious ways but just relationship. Discipleship.
When as we are parenting our kids, we're discipling them knowing that they reproduce what they see. They don't always reproduce what we say but they always reproduce what they see. And like I said in the beginning, I want them to see Jesus in me. I don't always get it right. When I don't I fall forward because I'm forgiven.
Sometimes I have to apologize because I got a little too frustrated at them and I didn't respond even or discipline out of love. But man, they need to see that too. They need to see humility. They they need to see a lack of thinking you're always right. They need to see that that loving father.
And they can only see that as we understand how much our heavenly father loves us. Because we can only love them to the extent that we allow our heavenly father to love us. Let's dig in that for a second. Jesus went through the Lord's prayer teaching them how to pray because they asked. And then in verse 5 it says, then Jesus said to them, suppose you have a friend and you go to him at midnight and say, friend, lend me 3 loaves of bread.
A friend of mine on a journey has come to me and I have no food to offer him. And suppose the 1 inside answers, don't bother me. The door is already locked and my children and I are in bed. I can't get up and give you anything. I tell you, even though he will not get up and give you the bread because of friendship, yet because of your **"shameless audacity"**, he will surely get get up and give you as much as you need.
Verse 9. So I say to you, ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives.
The 1 who seeks finds. And to the 1 who knocks the door is opened. See, this is a a an example or an analogy that Jesus was given of contrast, of difference. It's saying, hey, if this earthly human being that's your friend is like this, how much greater do you think the God of heaven and universe the God of heaven and and earth is, your heavenly father is? The Bible even goes as far as as as to say in John-15 or 16 that he's our friend.
Like we are friends not servants anymore. So if if your earthly friends are like this, then how much better do you think that that your God, the father who is your friend is? The guy says, because of your shameless audacity, your friend will begrudgingly, basically is what he's saying. Like, oh my, I can't believe that you're doing this, but sure I'll give you what you need. Now just go because my kids are asleep.
But in James it talks about our heavenly Father when we ask for wisdom. He doesn't give it to us begrudgingly. It's like I can't He doesn't say, oh I can't believe you're asking me for that. No. He gives it generously, lavishes His wisdom and His goodness on us.
I think too many of us are like a dog. Put it like that. What do I mean? I we we just we just got a dog in my family, and her name is she's a labradoodle. She's got a little golden retriever in her too, so she's kinda like a golden labradoodle.
Poodle, Labrador, golden retriever, and this 1 huge puppy, 13 old, huge youngest, 25 pounds and and black and and beautiful. We we love our puppy. But, you know, we got her at about 12, 13, and whenever I'd go to pet her, you know, she put her tail between her legs and she'd pee. Right there. Woah.
So we gotta learn we had to learn how to approach her so that she built it built this trust, you know, so she could trust us. And I don't know if anything happened to her in the first 12 or 13 weeks, but it got me thinking about like a rescue dog. You know? A rescue dog, because of what had happened with their previous owners, when when you you get a rescue dog, a lot of times when you go to feed them or you go to pet them or something, they attribute to you what had happened to them in the past and they bite the hand that feeds them, or or they won't let you pet them, and they won't be won't receive your love because they're so jaded because of what happened to them in the past. The past owner beating them, the past owner hurting them, or or starving them, or torturing them, or whatever it was.
And there there's a time of the the dog having to regain trust. I think a lot of times we approach God in the same way as a rescue dog, because we have been rescued from sin and the havocs of sin on our life and in a lot of ways that we're wounded. And I think too many of us approach God like a rescue dog with our tail between our legs. We ask God for something and we think that he's begrudgingly, you know, may or may not give it to us. And so as soon as God comes to the door, we run away yelping thinking that he's gonna hit us.
No. God loves you and he cares for you. He's not the **begrudging friend** that just gives it to you because of your shameless audacity. The contrast is this, verse 9. So I say to you, ask and it will be given.
And and actually in the original text it's a present which is continuous. So it really means it's really saying **keep on asking** and it will keep on being given to you. He wants to lavish it on you. And part of the way that he knows that you're ready for it is that you have the faith to ask and to believe and receive. Not just selfishly, but asking what he wants because you trust and know his will for your life is best and better than your will for your life.
Ask and it will be given. Seek and you will find. He wants you to seek after him. And and it's not just once again, it's present. It's continuous.
**keep on seeking** and you will keep on finding. And his wisdom and understanding is he's gonna reveal himself to you as you can handle, as you're ready for it, as as you because he he doesn't want to overwhelm you. He wants you to grow in the character in nature as a son because he's a good father. For everyone who oh, and it says, knock and the door will be open to you. Period.
It's amazing. For everyone who asks receives. A lot of us never ask because we've been a rescue dog. And a lot of us when we do ask we run away. Stop and know that your father loves you.
The 1 who seeks, finds. The 1 who keeps on seeking, keeps on finding. And for the rest of my life, I wanna keep on seeking after my heavenly Father and seeing more, not just my life here, but for eternity because he's eternal. So I can continue to learn more and more of who he is for the rest of eternity. I wanna keep on seeking.
God, I wanna know you more. I wanna know more of your love. I wanna experience more of your love. And as he shows me who he is, I begin to live that out in my life. And as I live it out in my life, it shows that I'm ready to receive more of who he is and to know more of who he is.
I wanna keep on seeking. What about you? And it says the 1 who knocks, the door is open to them. I wanna keep on knocking in every way. And it goes on to say this.
Let me find where I am in my notes. It says here we go. Which of you fathers and this is another example he goes into. Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, give him a snake instead? Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion?
If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask? It's saying, it's a it's another analogy, another parable of contrast. If you know how to do these good things, how much more, how much better is God? Because all good things come from him. All good things.
But not only that, the best of things. He says he will give the Holy Spirit** to those who ask. And in in starting the series gifted, we're talking about gifts from the Father, we say that all good things come from God, come from the Father. Father heavenly lights. All good and perfect gifts come from Him.
Yes. And the best of gifts is the Holy Spirit**. That's that's the the very spirit of God living in you that is poured out from the father. Let me show you where and when that happened in Acts-3. No.
Sorry. Chapter 2 and verse 32. It says, God raised Jesus to life and we are all witnesses of it. Exalted to the right hand of God. Jesus, exalted to the right hand of God.
He received from the Father the promised Holy Spirit** and has poured out what you now see and hear. 1 of the most amazing, if not the most amazing gift from the father is the Holy Spirit. His spirit in us. Why? Because it's charismata.
The word for gifts. It's a gift. It's undeserved favor. We don't deserve to to have the spirit of God living in us, but because of his great love for us, Jesus paid the price so that we could have his spirit living in us. But not just that.
It's so that we could receive his undeserved favor, wiping our past away as far as the East is from the West, cleansing us of all guilt and shame, letting us receive a love that we don't deserve, his kindness, so that we can instead of running like a a rescue dog because of a victim of all of our past circumstances. Now we can we can be a king's kid running to the father confidence, with with audacity. What the world would say is an audacity. Why would you why would you go into God's presence like that? Don't you know what you've done?
And we can look back and say, no I don't anymore. My father doesn't see that about me, so I don't see myself anyway that way anymore. I'm forgiven, and I'm loved, and I can run into my heavenly Father's arms knowing that I'm loved, and knowing that he wants to bless me. He wants to love me. He wants me to experience all of his goodness.
He's even given me his spirit. And through his spirit, undeserved favor, I can walk in his power. Not just for power sake, but so that you can excuse me. So that you can experience his undeserved favor through me. God wants to love those around you through you and that's why he's given his spirit to you.
So that as we experience his undeserved favor, we can give out his undeserved favor. The gift of a father. Some of you right now, you've just never seen God that way. You've never seen him as good. You've always blamed him for the junk that's happened in your life.
Some of you, as weird as it sounds, need to forgive God. Not that he didn't do anything wrong. He he didn't do anything wrong at all. But you've been holding stuff against him that he didn't do. You just say, God, I let you I let you off the hook.
I let you go. I trust that you're good. And instead of coming to you as a scared dog, I'm coming to you coming to you as a son. Some of you need to receive Jesus for the first time. You need to receive that the love of the heavenly father.
Here's what I want you to do. If you need ministry, if you need to be ministered to, you need to experience the love of the father. I want you to message us. We'll contact you. We'll pray with you.
We'll call you if you'll let us call you, talk message you on Facebook, and we'll show you the father's love, the undeserved favor he showed us. We'll show you. We'll pray for you.
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