You are invited to step into a community where God's goodness is experienced daily through connection and service. Don't wait for a crisis to know His power; let His love change your perspective on healing and mission right now. Join us in Real Church to walk in that goodness together.
*Amen*. Amen. Something my dad would always say when he's preaching. He'd say, man, it's good to be in the house of the Lord. Amen.
My name is David John Phillips and I have the joy and honor of getting to be the pastor at Real Church. And there's nothing I'd rather be doing. There's no place I'd rather be. I know I say that every Sunday but I mean it. And I just I love what I get to do and I love that I get to be your pastor.
You're a great church. And if this is your first time, you're welcome. You're welcome here. We're glad that you're here. You're here.
And we want you to encounter the goodness of God. We want you to have an encounter with the love of Jesus. See, we're a church that will do whatever it takes for you to know love and live your God given purpose. For you to know the "love of Jesus" and live out your God given purpose. And I know what it takes.
It takes you having an encounter with the love of Jesus. That's what it takes. It takes you having an encounter with the goodness of God. And when you have an encounter with the goodness of God, you are forced into the **valley of decision** where you have to choose whether or not you're gonna follow him or you're gonna continue in your own way. See, I don't wanna be a mediocre like a church that that encourages mediocrity where you can come and continue to live the same way every every week and every month, and just week after week, you come and sit in a chair, "check it off" your religious box list, and then leave, and never never having shifted.
I don't wanna be that church ever. That's not real church. I wanna be a church where you come, and you have an encounter with the goodness of God, in such a way that you realize, wait a second, that was for me. I was created to know him, and to experience that goodness, but not only that, to become that experience of God's goodness for everyone in my life. That's the church that we are.
Today, you're going to encounter the goodness of *god* You will. And you'll have a choice whether or not, and I'll explain it a little bit more as we later get into the message, but you have a choice whether or not to receive it and walk in the goodness that God has for you or not. And I I want you to know God's will. His good pleasing and perfect will is he loves you. And every time that you reject his goodness for your life, god doesn't give up on you.
He already paid the price for you while you were in the midst of your rebellion, of your running from Him. He's longing and inviting as long as you're alive, you back into *relationship* with Him saying, come here, I will give you rest. Rest. I want you to experience and encounter my goodness in such a way that it transforms transforms every relationship that you have, every aspect of your life that you have to where your job looks at you and says, what's different? Because they're encountering the goodness of God through you, because you had an encounter that you so much so that you couldn't help but to follow him because you realized following, surrendering to his goodness was better than following your own ideas.
*Amen*? It's real church, man. Real encounters with the love of *God* where you walk away forever changed. It's who we are. And I have Before I get into really the meat and the heart of the message, God laid something on my heart to share with our church as a pastor, as your pastor.
And get asked all the time, you know, what what does it take to be a member of Real Church? Like what how do you how do I join the membership of Real Church? And I know we have next steps and it's great and awesome. But I don't know if I've enough communicated it clearly to our Sunday morning crowd on what it looks like to be a member of Real Church. I want you to know we don't have a membership list.
We're not like looking at a list and saying, well, he's checking off all the boxes and but she's not. And there's there's no membership list or anything like that. But as if you're a believer, if you're a Christian, if you've been born again, and you're a member of the body of Christ. And to be a member of the body of Christ, like God has called you to be a member of a local body. Whether that's this local body or whether it's another local body.
And I wanna encourage you, like, if you're a visitor and you're here, you're kicking the tires, you're, you know, checking it out, just just coming praise the Lord. I'm so glad that you're here. You're welcome, and you're welcome to come back and "kick the tires" as much as you like. And if you are a believer, if you've been born again, you know Jesus. If God calls you to be a part of real church, man, that's a big deal.
But if God if if if maybe maybe you're here, you're just visiting from somewhere else, whatever, but God's called you or is calling to be a part of a local another local body. That's a big deal. What it means to be a member of the body of Christ is pretty universal. And so if it doesn't fit for real church, go where God's calling you and do these things there. Because the body of Christ like, a lot of people say, I don't need church.
Like, I follow God, I have my relationship with with Jesus, and I don't need church. You know what you're saying? You're rejecting the body of Christ. And by rejecting the body of Christ, you're rejecting Christ. Like that, don't ever say that again.
By not connecting to the body of Christ, you're refusing to connect to Christ. And not only that, not only is it his body, it's the bride of Christ. So you're By trashing the body of Christ with your words, you're trashing His bride. How dare us? If you ever hear me talk bad about another church, you better slap me in the face and rebuke me.
And I welcome it. And just know if we have relation a relationship where I have relational authority in your life to do the same, I will. If you if not, I'll try to get to know you. So as your pastor, I just want to communicate clearly in my mind what it means to be a member of a local body of Christ. It means 3 things.
Well, overall it means that you're helping to carry the vision forward of that house. You're you're you're participating in carrying the vision forward. And that looks like 3 things. You're sowing your time, talent and treasure to help carry the vision forward. What does it look like to sell your time?
What does that mean? Your time. That means you understand the value of *relationships* in that body of connecting to that local body of Christ. And relationships take time. *Amen*?
So you're willing to sacrifice your time and your life in order to build relationships with the local body that God has called you or your family to be a part of. That's what it looks like. The time aspect. It's valuable. What that looks like at real church, small groups.
You can come on Sunday and leave and never really connect in deep relationship. But you can't go to a small group consistently and not really connect in relationship. Small groups meet weekly in homes, semester at a time. We're about to start a new small group semester. Sign up start today.
There's sign ups out in the lobby. I would encourage you. If you consider yourself a member of Real Church, sign up for a small group because that's 1 1 of the things that I would say is a member of Real Church. If you're like on the fence, praise the Lord. And if you could a visitor, and you're like, man, wanna check it out.
You are welcome to sign up for a small group. But a member of a local body is they're they're giving of their time to connect with other people in the body. And there's a reason for that. Because there's If you're a Christian, there's things in you that other people need in order to grow in their relationship with Christ. But not only that, there's things in them, in their walk with God that you need.
And that's how God's created the body. We need 1 another. And so there's aspects of your relationship with God that you'll never get without connecting to who God's called you to connect to. *Amen*? Now there's seasons of life where that's not possible.
Maybe you're having a baby like Mariah or whoever else is having a baby in here. That that's what we understand. But that should excuses should not be your norm. Your norm should be, man, I can't wait to connect to the body of Christ because by doing that, I'm making deeper connections to the head Jesus Christ himself. And it's worth it.
Your talent. *God* has given you gifts and talents and abilities on purpose and for purpose. You're created that way. And here's the crazy part, is whatever local church God has called you to connect with, and I'm just gonna assume it's real church because you're here today. That church will not be all God's called it to be without you plugging in and serving with your talents, your gifts, your abilities.
They won't. We won't. But not only that, there's something about connecting that will magnify those talents, gifts, and abilities in you. Not only in the church, but in every aspect of your life. I've seen it happen over and over and over.
You are missing out if you're not serving. You just are. And so, in my mind, a member of Real Church is not only a member of a small group, but they're also serving at least once a month on the serve team, on the dream team. And we have if you if you pray about it, you're cut to the heart like, man, this is my church. I wanna man, I encourage you to sign up to serve.
Do it. Just take that step. If you agree that that's what it looks like to be a member of the local body of Christ, then just take that step of obedience. If you don't, go search *scripture* and see with the Holy Spirit in yourself. *Amen*?
Time, talent, treasure. This 1, a lot of times, gets people all don't know, in a tizzy is what we say in Louisiana growing up. You know, when I'm in conversation with somebody, with a friend or anybody, and they're complaining about money, they're complaining about what they don't have, or what they're losing, or how everything's breaking, and and and just how, you know, they they just never can seem to get ahead. Like the first thing I wanna ask them is, are you tithing? And are you sowing the seed God told you to sow?
Those 2 things. If we're friends and I believe that I have the relational authority in in in our life or you call me your pastor and you complain to me about money, that's the first thing on my mind. I wanna ask you, are you tithing? Are you sowing the seed that God told you to sow? There's a reason for that.
It's not because I want your money. Can believe what you want. But it's because tithing is God's will for the believer because he wants all of your heart. And where your treasure is, your heart is also. And and a lot of people don't understand tithing.
They say, well, if I give, that's tithing. That's not tithing. That's tipping. A tip is, I receive something good, I want to I want to bless you for giving me something. That's not tithing.
Tithing is a crazy radical faith step. It's not logical to non believers or those that don't don't understand the principles of the kingdom of heaven in scripture. It's not. Why would somebody give Tithing is 10%. Why would somebody give 10% of their financial increase to the body of Christ?
Why would they do that? That doesn't even make sense. I don't I don't get it. *God* wants your heart. And it took your time talent to make that treasure.
And so by tithing the **"first 10%"** to the body of Christ, what you're saying is you have the first of my heart, of everything. I give it to you and I'm gonna release it and trust you. And if you don't go to a church that you can trust that with, go somewhere else. And go When you can trust them, or you understand you can trust them, begin tithing there. It's that important for your relationship with God.
*Amen*? Like people don't understand that Jesus was God's tithe. He was the first so that we could experience his life. They say, it's just the old covenant thing. No.
Abraham tithed to Melchizedek. So we who Jesus is in the line of Melchizedek, what Hebrews says, we should tithe to Christ. The body of Christ is Christ. And then the second part that I that I always ask people is, are are you sowing the seed God told you to sow? Tithes and offerings.
And man, if God has identified something as a seed, how dare we eat it? If we eat the seed, we're missing out on the harvest God wants us to experience, but also those to experience that we sow into. We eat the fruit, we sow the seed. And as soon as God identifies a seed, we sow it. Because we trust Him as Lord.
That's what it looks like to be a member of the local body of Christ. And and man, if you consider yourself a member, if this is the church God's called you to, begin to step out in faith in those areas and watch what happens in every area of your life. Because and this is what we're talking about today. And I'm just gonna talk short, and I got a surprise for you. Oh.
He's excited. Remember, we're talking about God is good. Right? **"God is good"**. All the time.
And all the time. God is good. And if God is good all the time, that means he's good in everything. Because you can't be good all the time and not be good in everything. Right?
So if if you are thinking that God's not being good to you in an area, then we probably need to shift our perception because he understands the end game and we don't. Or we need to shift our thinking on who the person is that's behind what's happening. Because maybe it's not God. *Amen*? But there's a principle today that I wanna I wanna clearly get across to you.
But before I do, you know Moses, talking about God's goodness and his glory. Moses Moses asked God to show him his glory. There's only 1 place in the bible or in Moses' life where Moses, like his countenance radiated the glory of God, like he glowed. It was cool. There's only 1 place in the bible or in Moses' life.
We we as believers are supposed to radiate his glory. 1 place. And he asked God to show him his glory. And you know what God caused to walk in front of him? His goodness.
It says God caused his goodness to pass in front of Moses. The deeper revelation you have of the goodness of God, the more your life will radiate his glory. And I'll even this is the point I want I want you to get. To the extent or you will experience the goodness of God in and through your life to the extent that you believe he is good. I'll say that again because I really, I mean like, I really want you to get this 1.
You will ex experience the goodness of *God* in and through your life to the extent that you believe he is good. I'm a let that marinate on you for a second and I'm a take a detour. In January, I've called our church to prayer. And like this is another pastoral thing that I want to encourage you with and and pull you forward in. I've called us to prayer.
I'm asking every single 1 of you to spend 30 minutes extra a day whether that's early in the morning, it's what I encourage. But if there's another time, 30 minutes extra day in prayer and worship and in the word. And there's a reason for that. And if you didn't get the memo, now you got it. But there's a reason for that.
God has given me a specific word for our church. And the word is this, our church meetings will mirror our prayer meetings. And our prayer meetings will mirror our personal prayer life. God wants to do so much in our church and he's going to because we're gonna grow in our understanding of the goodness of God in prayer. And so we'll see His goodness through prayer.
*Amen*? So we've been meeting every Friday for the month of January here at 07:30. This is the January, the last Friday we're doing this. This Friday at 07:30. And if you consider yourself a member or if you just want to be a part, I'm asking Real Church to cancel all of your plans for Friday.
I'm asking you, if you have family come in, be the example and bring your family. And if they won't come, be the example and come be with the body of Christ. Because I don't know if you believe this or not, but I've experienced and I'm living it. The blood of Jesus is thicker than even even family blood. It is just this.
If you have little ones, bring them. Let them cry and watch and learn how to pray because they see their mommy and daddy praying with us. The band is even cancelling that aspect of practice. We're gonna be in here in order to pray and put *prayer* at its place. Because we realize that prayer precedes movement.
So, I'm asking every single 1 of you if you call real church your home, be here Friday night to pray and everyone else online and every, you're invited to come and pray with us and watch and see as we experience the very things we prayed for for the rest of the year. *Amen*? So let's get back to where I was. You will experience the goodness of God to the level, or to the extent that you believe God is good. And really, I'm gonna share with you 2 ways that God encourages you, or wants you to walk out His goodness, so that you'll experience His goodness.
Watch this. In Romans-12:2, it says, do not conform. And I know these next 2 verses, I've quoted probably every Sunday for the last 2 months. But it's like, every time I look at them, I see them from a different picture, from a like, from a different angle, and it it I see God more clearly in my relationship, our relationship with him more clearly in them. *Romans-12:2*, do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing or the renewal of your mind, that by testing, you may discern what the will of God is, what is good and acceptable and perfect.
Another version says, his good, his pleasing and perfect will. *God*'s will is good, it's pleasing, and it's perfect. And to the extent that you believe God is good, that's the extent that you will trust him. And to the extent that you trust him, that's the extent that you will obey him when he tells you what to do. And to the extent that you obey him in his will, that's the extent you'll see the fruit of his will in your life.
And his the fruit of his will is "good, pleasing, and perfect". *Amen*? When you walk in disobedience, what you're doing is you're walking outside of that good, pleasing, and perfect will, and you're allowing the enemy to cut you up. Man, God is merciful and good, and he can still bless you and pull you back, but man, he's gonna do whatever it takes to keep you here, even if that means letting you get cut up for a little while. Because he's a good father.
And a good father disciplines his children. *Amen*? Second way. And I'm almost done. *2 Peter-1*.
These are verses that I have just went over, over, and over, and over. It says, verse 3, His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of Him who called us by His own glory and goodness. Because of His glory and goodness, He gives us He's given us everything we need to represent His glory and goodness in this world for gladly life. Through knowing Him more and more and more. Amen?
But here's the point. Through these, verse 4, through these He has given us His very great and "precious promises", so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption of the world caused by evil desires. Those those That first little phrase, through these, He has given us His very great and precious promises. Through what? Through what it said before, His glory and goodness.
His very great and precious promises come out of His glory and goodness. Which means His very great and precious promises will reveal the glory of God in your life and through your life. It will reveal the goodness. They will reveal the goodness of God in your life and through your life. *Amen*?
What is a promise? Doesn't If God promised, like if there's a promise over me, doesn't that mean it will absolutely happen? No. What is a promise? A promise is a declaration over your life.
A declaration is a word. A promise is God's word, His will, His word over your life in an area. There are many. But a lot of people are not experiencing the fruit of those promises because of ignorance, because they don't know them, or because of unbelief. And I'll prove it to you.
Promise is His word of your life. Watch. The parable of the sower. You guys have heard it. Right?
Sower went out to sow seed. And he sowing seed, some fell on the path, birds came and ate it. Others fell on the rocky ground, shot up quick, sun scorched it, died, no fruit. Others fell on the thorny ground, shot up quick, "thorns choked it out". Fruit didn't mature or no fruit, depending on which gospel you read.
And then, the fourth 1, **good ground**, soil received it, seed, time, harvest. It was time, endured, produced fruit. Some 30, some 60, and some a 100 fold. You guys remember the parable? If not, that's it.
*Jesus* then explained the parable. And I want you to think about this not in the context of receiving the word to be born again. I want you to think about this in the context of receiving His word, so it produces fruit in your life, in every area of your life, because there's promises for every area of your life. Amen? This this is it feels heavy.
You guys okay? I love you. Okay. So, the word or the promise because a a promise is a declaration of his word of your life. Some In some areas of your life, you've heard the promise of God, it fell on a stony path, you didn't believe it, and the enemy came and stole it, so it never produced fruit because it never took root.
See, God is good. And his goodness is declared all throughout. There is no condemnation for those who in Christ Jesus. He's given you his peace, so you don't have to ever let your heart be troubled, never let it be afraid. You have the joy in the Holy Spirit.
You are the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. You are healed. By his stripes, you have been healed, and you are healed. He wants to deliver every aspect of the strongholds that you have in your life and in your heart. There's none no weapon that shall that that's formed against you shall prosper.
None. None of it has to take root or bear fruit in your life. It depends on what seed you allow to set in. And just and then what seed you allow your life to stand in. What have you been listening to that you allowed to take root because you believed it more than you believed his word?
Promise. Hear it. People believe it. And, man, they begin to walk in it. This is the seed that falls on the rocky ground, shoots up.
It looks like it's bearing fruit in their life. But then, it says, in the time of testing, when the sun scorched it, life happened. And because of that, they went back to the way they've always lived. And they Because they did that, that little plant died, and the promise of that word what there was no fruit in their life, because they weren't willing to persevere in what God said. Man, I don't wanna be that.
I've been that in many areas of my life. And man, praise the Lord, God kept sowing the word out of mercy and grace in that area of my life, until I persevered through it, so that I could receive fruit in that area. Man, he's a good father. When you don't persevere, come back around, guess what he's gonna do? He's gonna sow that same word when you repent and come back.
He's gonna sow that same word so that you can persevere in that area because you are destined to experience the fruit of that promise. Just don't fall away. Third ground, seed, word, throne, promise, fornny ground. This is his will for your life. Receive it, grows up, it looks like you're going to produce fruit, but then, distractions.
I got too busy. This happened. That happened. Well, my job. Well, my this, my my that.
And you make excuses for not standing in the promise, in his will for your life, and because of those excuses, or because of the desires fruit of his will in that area of your life. Man, I've I've I've been that person too, over and over. Praise God for his mercy and grace, where he continues to sow, and the Holy Spirit continues to cut away the weeds, and teach me what's just distraction. A lot of people, man, they say yes to every good thing, and every God thing. And because they say yes to every good thing, and God thing, they miss out on God, because they're distracted by what's good, but not God.
Come on. "No is a complete sentence". And, if it's good but not God, say no to it, because God wants to lead you in every area of your life. *Amen*? And then, the fourth, they receive and it produces fruit.
And, it blesses every area of your life. And, it's awesome. And, I wanna grow to where my heart is cleared of all rocks and all thorns in every area. So, whenever God speaks a word over me, I'm willing to stand and remain in that word and persevere until it has fruit, even if it takes my whole life. And, I don't even get to see the fruit, but my kids do.
It's worth it. Because, I don't live for me anymore. It's not about my life, it's about His. Because, He died for me. We're willing.
Christianity looks like denying self to follow Him. That's what it looks like. But, see, here's the beautiful thing. Love seeks not its own. You can't love unless you learn to deny self.
And, you're created to love. So, when you deny self, you're actually more fulfilled. Isn't that good? So I have a surprise for you. John and Brandy, would you guys come up as they're making their way?
I was gonna share some testimonies of God's goodness. Because when you've been walking with him, the more you walk with him, the more you see his goodness, and the more you're willing to surrender to his will because his goodness is better than yours. So, it takes sacrifice, but at the same time, it's beautiful because then you experience the goodness of God in your life in that area. And so, the more you walk with him, the more the surrender happens and the more you experience that goodness. I was gonna share some testimonies.
It's awesome. This is a couple who radically surrender to God's will in their life and have experienced the radical goodness of God in their life because of it. And they've just chosen to live a life of complete surrender because they trust the goodness of God and the fruit is so evident. And you know how many times I've talked with them? Probably 3 or 4.
When you know, you know. When you got the same heart or you see the heart of Jesus, it's just so clear. And so I'm just gonna let them introduce themselves and share, and you're gonna see the goodness of *God* in their life, which is testimony that he wants to do the same things in and through you. Yep. Amen?
*Amen. Praise the Lord*.
Good morning, church. Beautifully, fearfully, wonderfully made people, children of god, ambassadors for Christ in your city and your nations, set apart chosen royal priesthood. That is you. That's you. 1 thing that he was he was talking about that really hit me is is you're talking about obedience.
You're talking about some we we talked a couple days ago and he said he wanna talk something on goodness. And this is I think the third the third week that you're talking on goodness. And I jokingly said, we should just reach our hand in a hat, pull out an event, and just, you know, talk about a random event because God's blessed us so much, and we're seeing the goodness in every area of our life. And he said that's the way it should be for everybody. And that's so true.
I'm a stand this side. And 1 thing that I I wanted to I wanted to make about 3 points today, and I really want you to hear from Brandy. I'm just kind of the the quick fill in for her. And **obedience through persistence** is how we've seen God's goodness in our life. It's it's taken a deliberate choice.
It's it's been we trusted *God* to be true, his word to be true in our hearts. And we've said, okay, Lord, if we're hearing your voice, then it doesn't matter what comes at us. We're gonna trust in that continually, and we're gonna persist in it for you to get the glory and the honor. And you you don't know anything about us, and we don't have time to really go into a lot of it. But Brandy wasn't in a wheelchair when we started, you know, our missionary journey.
So 7 years ago, we we said yes to missions. We gave up everything, and we followed the call of God on our on our hearts. And if anyone had a reason to quit, it'd be Brandy. She has a good excuse. Broke her spine in 3 places, 3 inch skull fracture, her her spine literally burst and paralyzed waist down.
Even our own sending agency didn't want us to go overseas anymore. I'm sure they had a legal meeting and liabilities and whatever. You know what I mean? And so we were we were gave up everything to be told no. And 1 thing that was really highlighted to me, you know, 2 nights ago, I I I was just praying, was it all started in the hospital where we got to see a goodness of God being saturated in our lives.
That it got to the point that I mean, Brandy Brandy was just wanting to create a newsletter. That's where this started. I mean, didn't start there, but this this this part of the persistent thing really started there. She wanted to create a newsletter. And like I said, she had a 3 inch skull fracture.
Every time she lifted her head up, she was throwing up. She had vertigo. She had seizures every I don't even know. I mean, uncountable amount of seizures. She would just look at you and then your head goes down for 10 seconds or so.
And then that turned into, well, I can't do the newsletter, so I'm gonna do some YouTube videos, Facebook Live, and I have a doctor coming in here. I got a nurse coming in here. I got the people that are carrying me to the or or transporting me to the the X rays. And it became a living testimony while we're in the hospital going through things that the doctors are are very bad bedside manners. They are like, you have to come to grips with the allergy.
You are paralyzed. You're gonna be cathing the rest of your life. You're gonna have bowel programs. Your life is not gonna be the same. Don't even think about going overseas.
Give up now. And yet, brainy has nurses that are that are in the room in tears. There's still there's actually a nurse that's 1 of our financial partners from the hospital. She's been a faithful partner of ours this entire time because she reencountered Jesus in the hospital. And, you know, we we like I said, we don't we don't have too much time, but the the point that I wanna make is it's not work that you operate in.
It's overflow. You have to "fill yourself up" in order to get to a place of overflow. And everything that I mean, like, I mean, don't put us on any pedestal because you that's why I came in here. I'm like, you are a child of God. You are fearfully and wonderful.
And that you are in a world of priesthood because this could be your story. Amen. We don't know what's gonna happen tomorrow. But thankfully, Jesus does. And he creates so many unique ways to prepare you for it.
I do have notes, and I got some scriptures written down, but I'm bad with memorizing memorizing scriptures. But the the the incidents here of the 3 points that I wanna make is, 1, as a missionary, we we've we've met in missions a long time ago. We were children when we met in Botswana. And, you know, we pray for people because that's what we believe God is gonna do. We believe that miracles are gonna happen.
But 99% of the time, you get pray you get told, hey, can you pray for me over a headache or a stomachache or something like this? And, you know, they say I'm healed and you have to believe that what they're telling you is true and not just plight. So 1 of the things that was so important in this moment for Brandy is how God prepared her for her own accident to trust and believe in miracles on a very real encounter. So just before maybe about a year, right, about a year before the accident happened, she went to Indonesia For Women's Training Center. And she was ministering on the beach.
She was sharing to this mom and dad about a *Jesus* calmed the storms, and they're on the beach and everything. And she asked him if she can pray for them. He says, yes. The the husband had issue with his heel where he couldn't feel it for years. And he was immediately healed, up and down, and he immediately calls his wife over here.
Pray for mama. Pray for mama. She comes over, closes her eyes, and has a huge smile on her face in expectancy for healing. It's an amazing thing. So, Brandy, you know, says, okay.
Let me let me pray for you. She lifts up her skirt and her whole leg was gangrene, had scars and and nasty stuff all over it because the dog bit her many months before. And it needed to probably be amputated, but in Indonesia, I guess the health care system is quite bad and they didn't have any money. So she prays over her, prophesies that in the next morning, she's gonna wake up and her leg is gonna be completely whole and healed. She calls me and, you know, she's like, I just told this lady that her leg is gonna be healed and it's really bad.
So we we were praying. The next morning, she goes over. She didn't even give her a chance. She just runs over, lifts up her skirt, and it is completely whole. Okay.
Everything was removed that was that was nasty other than the scars where the dog bit her. It was completely changed overnight. What does that do to your heart when you see something like that? K. The second thing is we're, you know, we're bad missionaries.
You know, we don't always read our Bible. And *God* put on her heart to to read the Bible chronologically in 3 months. So she started this group with other other overlanders, and they were faithfully reading through the entire Bible. I mean, like, she'd wake up in the middle of the night, and she'd turn the light on. She'd start reading.
She was saturated with the word. Faith comes by what? faith comes by hearing and hearing the word of God. So now her faith is increasing on a different element. So she's seen the miracles.
She's having the word produce the faith inside of her. And the the third thing, I I'd love to spend an hour talking about this 1, is I was in a shipwreck 1 week before her accident. We're in the Bemeter Triangle, but God knew and he prepared this this whole thing to to just work out flawlessly. It's so amazing. Is there was a helicopter from Cape Cod, Massachusetts in Puerto Rico for a 1 week training mission, and it was the largest helicopter in Puerto Rico and the only 1 that could actually rescue all 4 of us because we were so far away and safely bring us back.
When we got off this helicopter, they were literally high fiving each other and just, like, so excited that they got to rescue somebody with this amazing helicopter that was on loan for a week. Think about that. I mean, God goes before you and he prepares the way. I have that scripture written down. I don't remember what it is.
And but there was there was so many challenges, so many things to potentially stop us from going. Like I said, even even our organization, they didn't want us to go. Our mission was actually given to another family while Brady is telling everyone in the hospital that we're going to Bougainville. We're going by boat. And, you know, if you're not saved, then you should be saved now and you can come join our team.
I mean, it was it was an open invite. And so we had opportunities to quit. But while we were still in the hospital, Brandy had in her heart so much so to continue in *obedience* that even if we had to change organizations, we were still going because God told us we were gonna be missionaries. So she looks at me all hooked up to everything in this really cool bed that makes her stand up. I mean, it was amazing thing.
And she's she says, La Donna Osborne, our our our spiritual mentor, she's gonna be going to Nigeria, and I wanna go with her. Okay. Then I'm looking around the room, and, you know, your heart just your heart wants to say yes, but your mind is freaking out. I mean, you're talking about a wheelchair. Like, logistically, it's hard enough to go overseas, but now you're in a wheelchair, you got this drug and that drug and, I mean, all kinds of stuff.
And I said, okay. Let's do this. She didn't see any of my doubt, but my wheels are just going like this. And she was released from the hospital. We immediately go to doctor Osborne's church, and we talk to her.
And she says, well, she looks at her, and she looks at me, and she's like, you're coming? I said, if you want me to, I'll be there. And she turns around, she walks away. I'm like, what does that mean? And she gets on stage and she's ministering whatever, and then she just stops the whole service.
And then she says, John and Brandy Kite said that they wanna come to Nigeria with us, I believe this is a God thing. And they're gonna come with us, and I wanna pay for their training. And so we go there and we're of course, she is the main speaker. You know, we're just there to to just just to support her and to be part of things. And this is another area of the obedience side of things that I that that I wanna emphasize here is we show up, and Nigeria is hard.
Nigeria was the hardest mission trip that we've ever been able to go on due to the wheelchair and and the elements and things. And I laughed coming in here because I saw the stairs. And in Nigeria, I had to pick her up everywhere we went. And we went up flights and flights and flights of stairs everywhere. Elevators would be shut down and I just grab her and I was picking her up and we just go up the stairs and we, you know, tip somebody to bring the wheelchair up with us.
And we're in this women's training with over 10,000 women. Taxi broke down twice on the way. We get to the middle of the stadium and they pulled us right in the middle of 10,000 people in this, you know, just muddy area. And so okay, Lord, we're gonna do this. Picking her up, we go up the stairs to the stage, and, you know, this goes on for about a week.
And God's touching so many people's lives without us being ministered. Without us saying anything, we're ministering to people because they're seeing love pour out of us, not not the love that we have towards each other. That's important. But they're seeing that they are worth it for us to to go despite the challenges to reach them.
Yeah.
And these people are are I mean, it's I was like 1 of 3 guys in the entire place. And so these women are are are just leaking tears and coming and leaning down on brainy's lap and just putting their head on her holding onto her and God just breaking this bondage that's on them. And if you haven't been to Africa, a lot of the countries that I've been to, it's the men walk in front of the women, they don't hold hands. There's no public display of affection, none of this stuff. So they're seeing or or and many times people who are in wheelchairs are crippled.
They're the outcast. They're rejected. They're not carried. They're not made to look special. And so God's breaking this this down.
And so we're seeing God's goodness through this persistence of continuing. And there's so much more I wanna say, but I want Brandy to be able to reach you too. Because where we're currently at in Northwest Zambia, it's the exact same situation. We are the furthest outline oh, and and through persistence and of course this trip of going to Nigeria, our organization, we're still with them. So they said that, oh, we're not gonna quit.
We're gonna send them, you know, whoever. And this opportunity came up to go to Kalani Hill. It's Northwest Zambia. We're actually the only family that is the most remote location as as far as any of the over missions basis. We are over 11 hours just to reach a mall.
Over 6 hours to get to a grocery store. And nothing is gonna stop us. So, here's Brandy. Thank you.
So, the goodness of God is probably 1 of my favorite things to minister on because God is so good. And you cannot convince me differently in any way, shape, or form no matter what I've been through. Because people look at my situation, they say, how can you preach on the goodness of God when you have been through so much? It's because it's the core of who God is. Everything that he made was good.
Everything that you see is good. The enemy is the 1 who comes to kill, steal, and destroy, but God is good. So when things happen in our life, we don't start blaming God. There's 1 thing that I learned is is actually right before my accident, I heard on on this radio station, I think it was like or something, like, of blaming God for what you're going through, ask God where he was. Amen.
And I thought, that's right. When we change our perspective and we see God in everything and in every day, we will always see that he is with us. Maybe it's not the way that we expected the outcome to be, but God is there. He is with you. He is holding your hand, and he is right beside you, and he is paving the way.
And so there's 1 thing that, like, when I fell off the ladder, I actually went unconscious on a on a ladder, only 5 feet tall, The Lord blanketed me with peace. He blanketed me with joy. I mean, a tangible peace that it was so thick and that never was removed from me. So when I was in the hospital, I knew no matter what, God is good. It didn't matter if I was in a wheelchair.
It didn't matter if they said that I was gonna be paralyzed. I didn't actually really even care because I knew no matter what, God is good. And it doesn't change our *testimony* of sharing that God is good and he loves you. He paid the price for you and that you don't have to lose your peace. You don't have to lose your joy.
You can give those things to the enemy, but he actually can't steal them from you. You can still walk every day having joy even through the pain that we go through. And so when God called us to Caleni, I said, absolutely yes, because nothing was gonna stop me from going overseas. I had already given my life to Jesus, and it was the heartbeat of God for everybody to know who he is, and I wouldn't have wanted to go through anything that I went through without Jesus, without the Holy Spirit. And so I knew that there's so many people within Kalani because actually we're we're I go to a hospital every day.
There's a missions hospital there, and I go ward through ward, and we just share about the love of God. We share who Jesus is. We ask them, have you ever encountered Jesus? Are you going to church? And you'll find that there are so many people that, yeah, they say that they're a Christian, but actually they don't know who God is.
It's a religion, not relationship. And so people are are are are dying. It's a bush hospital. They don't have the things that we have the luxury of having here in The States. But there's 1 thing that's true and that is *Jesus* and he is the healer.
And so I have seen time and time again even in my situation that God is a healer. That is his will. You cannot separate it from salvation. We as Christians and we as Americans tend to believe that God is not a healer, but that's false. He is a healer.
He's an instant healer. There's nothing that you have to do. It is a free gift. It is the will of God. And so when I go into the hospital, I don't look at my circumstance.
I don't allow the enemy to say, why are you preaching on healing when you and yourself are in a wheelchair? No. I know what the word of God says. And so we teach that and we share that. And I have seen children who are dying of sickle cell and malaria bleeding out with no blood transfusion.
The the families, they know what death looks like. They've seen it. I didn't understand that at first, but we we don't we don't see people die on an everyday basis, but they they see it. They know what to expect. So when you go into the hospital, you see you you feel this hopelessness in the room and we just start to share the word of God.
We start to encourage them. There is breath in those babies' lungs and now is not the time to be mourning. That baby is still breathing. Now is the time to be worshiping, to be praising God that he is a healer and so we just teach on that and we come in every 2 hours. We come all through the night and we just encourage the family and you just see faith arise because faith has gotta be there because that's what removes hopelessness.
And so when that faith comes in the room and the parents grab ahold of it and they believe the word of God, that's when we see things happen. That's when we see babies whose heart monitors stop, start beating again. It stops again. It starts beating again and that baby makes a full recovery. That child did not die.
That child has never gone through that sickness again. Amen? And there was another another story where a little boy, he had fallen in a fire. He had a seizure, and, he was 12 years old. He had burned about, I would say, probably 60 percent of his body.
And I went into the room, and I said, you know what? You're old enough to accept Jesus. You're accountable at 12 years old to have your own relationship with Jesus. So we shared the story with him. It was Friday, and he gave his life to Jesus.
He had been going to Sunday school, but he didn't realize, like, he himself could have a relationship with God. So he gave his life to Jesus. On Monday, I came back to the hospital, and he had passed away on Sunday. But every single nurse in that hospital knew he had given his life to Jesus because that's all he could share. That's all he could talk about.
Through his pain, through what he was going through, he knew who God was and where he was going. And so you just see the goodness of God all the time in everything that we're doing on a daily basis. And I just encourage each 1 of you, like, you're gonna go through things, but the encounter that you have with god is what is going to catapult you and keep you from having *hopelessness* and from giving up. And at the moment I walked in this church, I just felt the presence of God. And how blessed are you to have found a church that allows you to encounter Jesus?
Because that's what it's all about. Yes. We're gonna go to heaven. When we pass away, yes, we're gonna go to heaven, but that's not what it's about. It's about having that love and that joy and that peace and allowing the goodness of God to ooze out of every part of you on a daily basis to where you are shining *Jesus* and where he is so alive on the inside of you that our everyday on earth is heaven.
Not it's heaven when we get to heaven. No. It's heaven "every single day" because you know that God is good and you don't believe anything different when things come towards you. Amen? So I am so blessed that you guys have this amazing church where you can be real, you can "come broken", but you've got a body of people who are gonna be like, nope.
Come on. Maybe you're down today, but let let me show you, let me bring you, let me be a part of your daily your daily life, however you are because God is good. Amen? Amen. Amen?
*Amen*. He's just really good. I wanna pray for you guys and and just to to bless you, bless your ministry. And in in the spirit of what you said, you will walk. I know I told you that before.
I'll tell you again. The presence of everybody, you will "walk again". Your legs will be strengthened in the name of Jesus such that you will be the testimony to those people in Zambia that they already know because they've seen it through your hands, but they'll also see it in your life. You will walk. And so, strength those legs into that that spine, and that it be recreated in Jesus' name.
And we trust you completely, Jesus. And Lord God, we pray for for John and Brandy. Lord God, that they would just see multiplication. Lord, in every area of their life. Lord, they surrender, they trust your goodness so much.
Lord God, not because of that but because you're good. Multiplication in their area, in every area. Lord God, in in Zambia, Lord, in Angola, in Congo, which they're close to for those of you who didn't know. Lord, I I just pray multiplication. Father God, beyond what they could ask, think or imagine that they see your kingdom expand and their family there expand in you completely and totally.
*Lord God*, that that 1 day, they're calling they're calling Brandy the grandmama of a movement that changed nations. Congo and Angola and that area of Zambia. Now the granddaddy here, John David of the movement, I gotta thank you for who you are. But Lord, also speak over the children. Lord, you said, we do the same things you do and "even greater".
And that's how this family leads. So that those children, every single 1 of them, *Lord God, would do even greater than their mama and daddy in the kingdom*, in your time when they're ready. Bless them, God. Lord, with you. The Holy Spirit was just your power and your presence more than they even asked for.
Lord God, that there's revival happening in adults and young ones through them. Lord God, that they're boldly speaking way beyond their years. They're pursuing you because they've seen such real pursuit of you in the quiet places in their parents. Lord, because it's just authentic. Well, thank you Jesus for what you're gonna do and what you're doing.
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 Clearwater. *God* bless you, and the "best is yet to come".