You are invited to stop letting past failures define your spiritual walk and instead embrace the righteousness Jesus secured for you. Set your heart to eagerly desire spiritual gifts and read the book of Acts to see how God empowers His people. As you grow in grace, you will fall forward rather than backward, equipping the body for ministry.
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*, I thank you for who you are. Just there's a reason, guys, that I start my prayers out that way. So often when we talk to God, it's all focused on our circumstance and all focused on what we see in front of us and and how hard things are and the the Bible says he's good. So every time that I pray, the first sentence out of my mouth, almost every time, is thank you God for who you are because he is good. So let's pray.
Father, I thank you for who you are. Lord, help us to trust you. Lord, I pray that you just untangle and undo all of the lies that we've ever believed about you that have held us bound, keeping us from running to you, but have kept us running away from you in the different areas of our lives. Lord, I pray right now that people are watching that that lies begin to untangle off of their lives, realizing that they thought you were not good in different areas, but that you are good and they're being Lord, Holy Spirit, I just ask you to give people that haven't had a hard heart towards you a big hug right now. Just more of your presence, more of your love right there in the moment, in the room where they are recognizing right now in the midst of the pain, in the midst of the sorrow, in the midst of the suffering that they're going through, that you are good and you're you're going to show them your love so that they can love you and and you work all things out for good for those that love you and are called according to your purpose.
Thank you, Jesus, that we can trust in your goodness. And father, I pray that today that people see your goodness through this message and "run to you". In Jesus' name. Amen and amen. Well, once again, welcome to Real Church Online.
If you're just now plugging in, my name is David John Phillips. I have the honor and privilege of being the pastor right here at Real Church. And and I guarantee that you 1 of 2 things, or 2 things will happen. 1, you plug in for the next few bits, you will be encouraged. And number 2, you'll walk away with a deeper understanding of how much God loves you.
Today, we're gonna be continuing a series titled Gifted. And we're in part 3 of the series, and I'm super excited about that. But before we get into part 3, I wanna catch you up. I wanna give you a little bit of a review, because this is vital. We're talking about gifted, being gifted from God.
Right? So in the first part of the series, we talked about the gifts from the Father. And number 1, the Bible literally says that every good and perfect gift comes down from above from the Father of heavenly lights. Father God gives every good and perfect gift, and there's a lot of things that we have thought were good and perfect gifts, and they turned out to be not so good. Those weren't from the Father.
I think about the good and perfect gifts in my life. Number 1, I can't help but say salvation. Getting to know Him, that's a good and perfect gift. Because of that, I can thank Him for who He is. Because day in and day out, I'm growing in my understanding of who He is.
Other good and perfect gifts would be my 2 girls and my son. They're amazing. Good and perfect gifts. Sometimes circumstances would say they're not perfect, but see, "God sees" who he created them to be. And, I'm supposed to look at them as he looks at me, and because of Jesus, I'm forgiven and washed clean, and so I'm supposed to have that same eyesight, that same viewpoint towards people.
My wife. She's a good and perfect gift. Some of you husbands say, oh, that's too far. My wife ain't perfect. I can I can prove it to you?
Stop looking at your wife through the standards of this world based on her past or based on her mistakes, and start looking at your wife how God looks at you. The way that God looks at you, if you've received Jesus, your sins are are not there. You're completely washed away. You're a new creation, and he has perfected you forever. And what if we saw ourselves as God sees us, forgiven and and loved, but not only that, we saw every good and perfect gift that he gave to us through his eyes.
We would be able to say to our wives with the cleanest and purest of motives, baby, I love you, and I thank you. You are a good and perfect gift from God for me. I appreciate you. You're beautiful. You're wonderful.
There is no flaw. And I'm just excited about what God is doing in you. And it's an absolute honor to be your husband. You know, sometimes I fail at that, but sometimes I do tell my wife that. I told her that last night.
I knew I was preaching this. I knew I couldn't. I couldn't preach this without living it out. But in the same way, what if you actually did that for your wives and for your your your husband? Your wife and your husband.
Your spouse. What if you actually did that? What if you actually saw them through God's eyes and spoke to them in that way, dis disregarding their past mistakes, even the past mistake they made half a second ago, and saw them as God sees you, spoke to them that way, I tell you what would happen. They would begin to believe God's word about them through you, and it would transform every relationship of your life. It's possible.
It is. The only way to do that is is to see his love for you. Because only then can we love others. Got off on a tangent there. Okay.
But then, our heavenly father, the gifts from the Father, gifted part 1. Right? He gives every good and perfect gift. But number 2, he gave us the best gift of all, which was the gift of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit, which the Bible says in Acts-10:38, God anointed the Father anointed the Son, Jesus of Nazareth, with the Holy Spirit and power, and he went around doing everything that he did.
But not only that, he anointed us with the same spirit that empowered Jesus, who chose chose to live life because he Jesus is fully God, chose to live life as a man empowered by the spirit, and he anointed us with the same exact spirit, the same spirit that rose Christ from the grave so that he could empower us to live out the life that he's called us to live. It's his grace, it's his undeserved favor that enables us to experience his presence day in and day out. That's that's a pretty good heavenly father. In part 2 of the series, Gifted, we went to the gifts from Christ. What are the gifts from Christ?
Number 1, we talked about it in Ephesians-4:7. It says, but each but to each 1 of us, grace has been given, as Christ apportioned it. So 1 of the gifts of Christ, the biggest, really, gift of Christ is grace. And what is the definition of grace? Grace is undeserved favor.
*Grace*, undeserved favor, has been given to us as Christ apportioned it. Now, some of you are like, I get that, pastor. Like, Christ portioned to that guy more undeserved favor than he he did to me. Like, they don't deserve the favor that they're getting. I deserve like a little of what they're getting, but but he's got more undeserved favor for them than he has for me.
What's going on? I don't understand why, and all of a sudden, you got your focus back on me, and looking to all your circumstances, not understanding the grace of God. See, that that perception, that perspective of grace is so flawed and so demonic, it's time to shift. God loves you so much more than that. He is not stingy with His undeserved favor.
As a matter of fact, if we go just a couple of chapters before in Ephesians-1:7, it says, in him, in Christ, we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sin sins in accordance with his riches, with the riches of God's *grace* that he stingily gave to people that he didn't like. Is that what it says? Get your bible out. Because I want you to check what I'm saying. No.
*Ephesians-1* says, in accordance with the riches of God's grace that he lavished on us exceedingly, like radically generous, he has given more grace and more undeserved favor to you than you have the capacity to believe and receive at this moment. What if you actually believed the goodness and the undeserved favor that God wants you to walk in? What would that be like? I tell you, if you hang around real church enough, you're gonna hear about it enough, that you're gonna start to believe it, and then you're gonna start to experience that undeserved favor in every aspect of your life. And it won't only shift your heart, it'll shift everyone's heart around you.
Because we're gonna seed you with the gospel of grace. Another other gifts from Christ according to scripture is he gave Ephesians-4 verse, and we talked about this last week, he Christ gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors, and the teachers. Right? Kinda the quote unquote, mentors of the church. And a lot of people get all wrapped up in titles.
Like, if that's you getting all wrapped up in the title, I gotta be called this, and I gotta be called that, and blah blah blah. Stop promoting yourself because it ain't about you, really. It's about "laying your life down". Like, if if if God has called you to 1 of those things, it's up to him to promote you. And and just a side note for you guys, like, David was anointed as the king as a kid, and he never promoted himself to king.
He only walked in his kingship when God promoted him to to the the authority of king through the people. And only when the people recognized his kingship did he walk in the full authority of the king. In the same way, if you are called by God to be 1 of the mentors of the church, then you just begin to lay your life down and carry out the function of what God has spoken until the people around you recognize it without you even saying it, because it's become your life. See, what is the main function of that those gifts of Christ? We talked about it last week.
It says it in the next verse. It's to equip the body, equip the saints for the works of ministry. Another translation says, service. In other words, you are not any less than the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors, teachers, if you're not called into that kind of ministry. No.
You are called by God to be a minister of the gospel in your daily life, and it's my role as whatever you wanna call me, to lay down my life, so that you can be equipped to be a minister to your husband, or your wife, to your kids, to to your your job, to your bosses, to the people that work for you, to your coworkers, and your daily life, when you go to the grocery store, when you're at Walmart, every As you go, everywhere you go, equipped to be a minister of the gospel. That's your role, and that's my role. A lot of people would say, well, pastor And I didn't get into this a little much last week, and I I wanted this big review because I wanted to to stick here for a second. Pastor, what is ministry? Like, what does it mean to be a minister of the gospel?
The Bible's, like, explicitly clear. And I I just wanna lay this out for you. And this might shock some of you. And I can't wait because it's gonna be the best shock in the world. Ready?
*2 Corinthians-5*. It it defines your ministry. You ready? 2 Corinthians-5. It says, therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come.
The old is gone. The new is here. Okay. Like, you're a new creation in Christ, if you've received Jesus. Right?
But then it says, all this is from God who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us Everybody say, us. Go ahead. You can say it through the camera screen. That's fine. Say, us.
Right? Say, me. God gave me what? The ministry of reconciliation. You're a minister of the gospel, That means you are a minister of reconciliation.
Pastor, don't quite understand what you're talking about. What what does it mean to be a minister of reconciliation? It explains it. It says that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ Jesus. So because you have received Jesus, you have been reconciled, brought together in relationship with the God of the universe, brought into unity with him.
Period. So now, your ministry is bringing the world around you into that same unity with Christ Jesus that he gave you. How? It says it. Next clause.
That God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not Some of y'all ain't ready for this. Like like, really. Not **counting people's sins** against them. Straight out of the book. You know what?
I'm a I'm a look down and read it, so you don't think I'm just quoting it wrong. Not counting people's sins against them. 2 Corinthians-5:19. And he committed to us that message, the message of reconciliation. What would it be like if we saw people through those eyes?
Hey, I know you just sinned. Instead of condemning you and saying, man, I can't believe you did that. How dare you? You know what? I'm just gonna not count your sins against you, and I'm gonna tell you why I can do that, because God doesn't count my sins against me, because Jesus paid the 100% price for mine and your sins, why don't you receive it and be forgiven?
He loves you that much. That's too good, pastor. But don't we have to No. You can't earn that kinda undeserved favor. It is undeserved.
That's why it's called grace. Like, what if we had that kind of a mindset? We lived because we've received that kind of grace. We lived out that grace towards everyone. Oh, I see you sinned against me instead of getting me getting for me what is rightly mine because of your sin against me.
I'm just gonna respond to you in the same way that God has responded to me, and not count your sins against you, what would that do? Would that give them a license to do whatever ever they want? No. The Bible says that grace causes people to want to change. It changes their heart.
God's grace, through us, to people, just God's grace to us changed us. It caused them to not want to be worldly, not want to live ungodly lives, but want to to live upright godly lives in this present age, Titus-2:11 and 12. Like, we are conduits. That is your ministry. What if the the way that you spoke to your wife, and the way that you spoke to your husband was was through the eyes of, I'm not gonna count your sins against you.
I'm gonna give you radical grace that you don't deserve. That doesn't mean I'm just enabling your sin. That doesn't mean that that that I'm just, you know, I'm just looking past and swiping on the rug. We're gonna have some conversations, but I ain't gonna count it against you. You know what?
We're gonna take hand in hand and walk forward in Christ Jesus because that's what he does for me. That's what he's called you to. That's your ministry in your daily life. And it's fun. It catches people by surprise.
It changes their lives forever. They walked away. And and especially when you don't require anything from them. Like, you just go and and give undeserved favor to people, and just say it's because God loves me, and I want him to know how much he loves you. When you do that and you just walk away, there's no, like, expectation in return.
It people are like, wait. People people what what what just oh my. They don't know how to respond because it's only the love of God. Like, that's a good and perfect gift that comes from the father, and that changes hearts. It draws people to Jesus because he is the author of grace.
That's good. Alright. So now that we know what our ministry is, now that we know all of these things, that was your, quote, unquote, quick recap of the last 2 Sundays. Don't worry. I'm not gonna preach for another 700 minutes.
But I I want to get in quickly to part 3 and set the foundation for moving forward. The gifts like, gifted. Right? Gifts from the father, gifts from the from from Christ. But number 3 is the gifts from the Holy Spirit.
And I'm so stoked about this because the Holy Spirit is who empowers us to be able to minister in our daily lives effectively. Like, we we can't have effective ministry. We can't effectively give grace to people without experiencing and knowing the Holy Spirit and allowing the Holy Spirit to flow through us, and I'll tell you why. You know, you ever heard that term spiritual gifts? The word gifts in the Greek, which is like the New Testament was written in Greek, is actually the word charismata.
It comes from the word charis. Charis is grace. Charismata is simply the definition of grace. It means undeserved favor. So when we're walking in the gifts of the Holy Spirit, which is like the manifestation of him, letting him flow through us when we're walking in that, we are receiving undeserved favor from God, his grace, but we're also giving out undeserved favor to people, and it's manifesting in their lives being physically, emotionally, and spiritually transformed through us.
It it we we become conduits of undeserved favor, and that is what changes people's hearts. How cool is that? I mean, that's awesome. That's how much he loves us. Alright.
So let's just dive in to the beginning of 1 of the chapters that is all about the Holy Spirit and and these this undeserved favor, this grace from the Holy Spirit that we can walk in in our daily life. Let's go to 1 Corinthians-12. And I only got a little bit more, so just stay with me here. *1 Corinthians-12:1*. And if I could have the the worship team come on up.
It says this, there are different kinds of gifts, but the same *spirit* that distribute them or distributes them. Different kinds of gifts, but the same spirit that oh, that's that's verse 4. I'm sorry. I apologize about that. I meant verse 1.
*1 Corinthians-12:1*, it says, now about the gifts of the spirit, brothers and sisters, I do not want you to be uninformed. Now, a lot of times, I I like to check all the different translations, you know, when I'm going through things, like, these English translations are amazing. But sometimes, I go back to the original text just because, and it's interesting. It doesn't say the word gifts in *1 Corinthians-12:1*. It literally says, now about the spiritual, I don't want you to be ignorant.
Now about the spiritual now you could imply, like like some of the translators did, you could imply gifts. Now about the spiritual gifts, some people say about the spiritual things, or about the spiritual matters, or about the spiritual people. It's kinda left open to translation there. I like just leaving it spiritual. Now about the spiritual, brothers and sisters, I don't want you to be ignorant, which means uninformed, or it means not knowing.
See, sometimes, the church or people in general choose because they've seen some weird stuff when it comes to the spiritual, or because they're just uncomfortable. They choose to be willfully ignorant. They they say, you know what? I just don't even wanna know. That's dangerous.
And let me tell you why. See, the the Hebrew word go just go back. The Hebrew word for *darkness* is sometimes translated as ignorance. So sometimes, to walk in willful ignorance ignorance is is to to walk walk in in willful willful darkness. Darkness.
And Paul's saying, through the Holy Spirit, he said, I don't want you to walk in unwillful like just to unknowingly be ignorant, but I definitely don't want you to walk in willful ignorance, especially with regard to the spiritual because we have the Holy Spirit. We are to be spiritual people, sons and daughters of our heavenly Father who is spirit. Understanding the spirit is vital. What's interesting is the Hebrew word for *light* can also be light of information or like informed. Like, he wants you to walk in with regards to the spiritual.
He wants you to be informed, have a revelation and understanding, so you're not walking in darkness, following around the prince of darkness, of ignorance, but walking in the light of the Holy Spirit, he wants to lead you into all truth so that you know where and how to step in this crazy world with our eyes on who he is. Some of us have chosen, some of you watching have chosen to just not pursue spiritual gifts or not not pursue that because of what I've said. And and and now you've noticed, wait, wait a second. I probably should. Why don't you just repent, which means to change, turn your change your mindset, change your thinking.
Hey, your word says, shouldn't be ignorant about this. So, father, would you show me? I open up I I I tear down all my boxes. I'm willing to walk into things that I'm uncomfortable with, if it's from you. Would you show me?
The Bible says seek and you will find. So why don't you during this series, through the weeks of this series, why don't you make a a a decision to seek after truth with regards to spiritual? He's gonna show you. So I just wanna I wanna I wanna give you a couple of different types of *ignorance* with regards to the spiritual and show you in scripture about them. So stick with me for a second.
There's a lot of people who, with regards to spiritual, they don't know what they don't know. And as we just read, Paul doesn't want that. He wants you to be informed. But there's a lot of people, as we talked about a little bit, they know what they don't know and are choosing to be willfully ignorant. And we said that this is dangerous.
And I when we named it real church, I knew that we would be walking in things of the spirit. I knew that we would be a church that's that walks in spirit and truth. And I just wanted to to walk, to to experience all of who he is, every aspect of his physical, spiritual, and emotional reality, not only in my life, but in every person that has ever connected with our church in authenticity and realness. That's part of the reason we named it real church, real people living real lives for a real Jesus, having a real good time, really experiencing him. You can put real wherever you want.
But that's why. Like, just really pursuing him and letting him say, uh-uh, that wasn't me. Nope. That's not me. No.
That's that's a little weird. That's you you're too focused on your experience instead of focus on truth. Oh, you you you got a little too scared to to dive into me. Let's just fully dive into me in this area. Letting him lead us.
So so there's another type of people. There are people who don't know that they're ignorant, but they think that they know all things spiritual. They've seen all kinds of spiritual things in their lives go on, and they think that what they've they've seen makes them spiritual. And the bible says literally to be careful about these people. And if if you are any of the people that I'm talking about, there's grace for you, let's fall forward into his arms and keep walking.
But in Colossians-2:18, it says, do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you. Such a person goes into great detail about what they have seen. They are puffed up by idle notions of their unspiritual mind. Now, are those people that talk about, man, I saw this picture of the mother Mary and it was it was right here, or I saw this this angel and and or or you know, these crucifixes and they appeared to me and this and that and the other, and they they go on and on about these things that they've seen, but those things never drew them into a deeper relationship with Jesus. It was just a distraction, and what they thought was spiritual was just leading them down a more unspiritual path.
If that's you, God loves you. He's pulling you into relationship with himself, and he's saying, hey, I forgive you. Let's fall forward and let's let's run. I wanna show you what it means to walk a spiritual walk with me. And then there's another group of people, they think they are spiritual because of what they've seen.
Oh, no. No. That was that was the the previous part of the notes. I'm sorry. There's another group of section of people who think that they're spiritual because of what they've experienced.
But the Bible actually says they're not, they're worldly. They've experienced many different spiritual gifts. Like the gifts that are from the Holy Spirit, what we're talking about. They've maybe they've they've spoken tongues, and and prophesied, and healed the sick and done all kinds of cool crazy things, and it's amazing. The Bible says that there's some of those people that are not spiritual at all, but worldly.
Let me show you. Let's go to 1 Corinthians-3. It says, brothers and sisters, verse 1, I could not address you as people who live by the spirit, but as people who are still worldly, mere infants in Christ. Paul's talking to the Corinthians Like he's talking to the people who understand tongues and interpretation of tongues. Like the the people who there's prophets speaking up in their in their services and and and all kinds of words of knowledge, and words of wisdom, and all kinds of what we would say, man, they must be super mature in the Holy Spirit.
And Paul says, they're worldly. They're not spiritual. They chased after gifts and personal experiences without really ever knowing the 1 who gave the gift. And being stuck, watch what he says. He said, I couldn't address you as spiritual, but as worldly, mere infants in Christ.
I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not ready for it. Indeed, you are still not ready. You are still worldly. For since there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not worldly acting like you're mere human beings? Guys, when you've been born again, you're filled with Jesus.
You're more than just a mere human. You're a new creation in Christ Jesus with the God of the universe inside of you. Not created to live for you anymore, but to lay down your life and live for him. And these experiences of of undeserved favor, they're amazing, but they're for the building up of the for the of the body mostly. We're gonna talk about that.
Why were they still infants? Like a lot of people judge, well, they they they are experiencing this, and I see a lot of people healed in that ministry, and I see a lot of people they must be super mature. That the the mark of maturity is not how you walk in the spiritual gifts. What is the prerequisite for maturity? It's not what you think.
A lot of people think is spirituality because because you could be walking in all of those things and still be a mere infant stuck on milk even though you think you're eating meat. What is the prerequisite for maturity? The Bible's clear. *Hebrews-5*. And guys, just to be frank with you, we started this church almost 2 years ago.
It's July 2020 as I'm preaching this message. We started this church in September 2018, and God would not let me preach on spiritual gifts until this moment, and there's a reason. And I I'm excited about the next few Sundays because we're gonna break down each 1 and and talk about what it practically looks like walking in that in your daily life, and and equip you to walk in that so you can be a minister of the gospel with his undeserved favor flowing out of you in amazing, miraculous, cool ways, and real ways that are authentic and not weird. But but God would not let me speak about that for almost 2 years. Why?
Because there's a lot of Corinthians in a lot of churches today who think that they're mature, but they're babies, and they need to be under they need to be secure in their understanding of what it takes to mature before they use all of these amazing things that can be dangerous if you don't understand how to use it. And then you grade yourself by performance instead of on your identity of who he says that you are. And then there's a whole half of the church, not real church, a whole half of the global church that because of this and because of deception of the enemy, they just said, I just wanna willfully be ignorant of the spiritual, and I'm just gonna pursue, you know, get into his word, but but I'm gonna deny the power of the spirit, and just try to do my best with my effort to live my best life. There's a whole sections of denominations of Christianity that are trying to live like that. And then Christ says no more guys.
It's time to the walk in the fullness of of who I am. It's time to be spiritual. It's time to grow and it's time to mature because the world needs to experience my undeserved favor and they need to experience all of my undeserved favor flowing through you. So let's put away all of the jealousy. Let's put all away all of the strife, all of the, oh, I don't believe it that way, and I don't believe it that way.
Let's put all that away. Let's go through what the word says, grow in grace, and unify, and reach people in our daily lives with his grace flowing through us. What is the key to maturity? See, for 2 years I've been harping on this because God wanted to develop a core of people who understand this, so that when we begin to walk in the spiritual things that Christ is gonna be talking about this, we don't get swayed by performance. But every time that that we walk in the spiritual and we fail at it, we can fall forward in his arms because we understand this thing.
And what is it? *Hebrews-5:13*. Remember, Paul told the called the Corinthians immature babies on milk. Why? 5 *Hebrews-5:13*.
Anyone who lives on milk, Corinthians included in his first letter. Anyone who lives on milk, being still an infant, is not acquainted with the teaching of righteousness. What is righteousness? right standing with God. That is the key to understanding and growing to be mature.
You can't be a mature Christian no matter what you've done. No matter what amazing works you've done in your life. You can't be a mature Christian until you understand righteousness. Because when you get righteousness, you're in you understand you're in right standing with the Father, not based on what you do, but based on who you are, and you know that no matter what, he's always standing right next to you. It's undeserved favor.
It's grace. And so now, when you begin to walk in these amazing gifts and and stuff, and you begin to pray for the sick, and sometimes they're healed. When they're not healed, you don't go say, well, I didn't perform good enough. And now you begin to fall under condemnation and fall back and say, well, I just must not be good enough as the next guy. Christ portion to me that amount.
No. He lavished his grace on you. So when when you get it wrong, when you understand righteousness, you can fall forward and keep walking in him, knowing his goodness, knowing his love, and knowing that he has blessed you with every spiritual blessing. He wants you to experience his grace and his mercy and keep moving forward. Because if you don't understand righteousness, when you fall, you fall back.
You stay in guilt and shame. You swim around in circles for 3, 5, 20, 30 years because of that repeating the same first year of Christianity over and over again. But when you get righteousness, when you fall, you fall forward, you get back up quickly and keep walking forward and you're able to mature. Never repeating the same things, but moving forward in Christ. You've heard this almost every Sunday because God is setting a foundation in real church so we can move forward.
As whole, mature, watch it watch what it says, but solid food is for the mature who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil. Constant use. You're gonna fail when you constantly use something. But when you understand righteousness, you get back up, you keep using it, and you learn, well, that was not God. That was evil.
I'm a get up and I'm a keep walking. And then you use it again, you fail it. Oh, well, wasn't God. God, thank you that you're training me. Thank you that I can get back up and I'm forgiven and I'm loved by you.
And then you use it again, oh my gosh, that was good. That was you. I'm learning. I'm maturing. I'm growing.
I'm maturing in you. Why? Because you understand righteousness. Because if you don't, the first time you fail once again, you fall back and you're like, you had you feel like you have to repeat everything. Stop it.
You are righteous not because of what you do, but because of what Jesus did. And when you believe it, and you receive it, you realize he's not counting your sins against you, but saying, run forward in me. I want to equip you to walk like me because I love you. So we're gonna be going into the undeserved favor, the grace or gifts, whatever you wanna call it, the Holy Spirit. It's not something to be scared of, but something to embrace through the understanding of righteousness and grace.
In *1 Corinthians-14:1*, it says, to eagerly desire the spiritual gifts. So if you're a believer, even if you're not, you seek after God, you're gonna find him. Why don't you set your face, set your heart over the next few weeks to eagerly desire the spiritual gifts through the understanding of righteousness and grace? I challenge you. Read 1 Corinthians-12:13 and 14.
Read the book of Acts. Ask him to open it up to you. We're gonna discuss it. It's gonna be awesome. Let's go into a time of worship.
And just let what I said, let what God spoke to you marinate in your heart. Sing these words as a prayer to him. Just say, God, I wanna seek after you. I want I wanna understand every aspect of where I've been ignorant, willfully, unknowingly. God illuminate my heart.
Let me follow you in everything.
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