You don't have to wait until you are perfect to start again, because God meets you in your mess with open arms. Take the courage to step back today by forgiving others or seeking help, knowing that returning to Him is the only true way to move forward. Let His grace replace your guilt as you begin your next chapter.
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.
Fair warning, this will most likely be the longest introduction and the shortest message that you will ever hear. David talked last week about resolutions and goals and and aspirations, and and basically, he said that we can set goals and res like New Year's resolutions and all of that, but we are incapable of following through on these things if we are not propelled by the Holy Spirit. If God is not the 1 pushing us, if we are not completely reliant on him. Because the point of goals and resolutions and and and plans is not to say, look what I did. I'm amazing.
Let me just pat myself on the back. The point of setting goals for ourself just like everything else in life is is to point to Jesus and say, "look what he did". Look what he did through me. And so I wanted to, kinda for my intro, I wanna just show you how this message from my husband kinda fleshed out in my life this week. So I'm just gonna tell you what happened this week with me and, just be real real just bold face honest about my shortcomings this week and and, tell you that if if you've been there, then you're in good company because "I'm right there with you" and I'm learning too.
So this week, we got a lot of feedback on David's message. People who go to church here, people who listen in different states on our podcast, and and basically, the questions were some form of, so what's the point in setting goals? Like, should I even set New Year's resolutions? Have you all thought that before? Like, what's the point?
Anybody? Let me see a show of hands. Have you thought okay. Like, the majority of you are like, what's the point? If I'm just gonna screw it up anyway, I'm not gonna do it.
It's kinda my attitude with resolutions. So what's the point in setting goals and and having plans and aspirations for you or your family? And and just to before I share a verse with you, I want to just lay it out there. Goals are good. Set goals and work to achieve them, but while you're doing it, keep your eyes on Jesus.
Plans are good. I'm I am a planner by nature and I'm neurotic about it. I have a plan and then I have a backup plan and then I have a backup plan in case the backup plan doesn't work for the original plan. And that's just I say that's the way that God made me and that's a good thing, but sometimes I can rely so much on those plans that I I do take my eyes off of Jesus. So we are too weak to accomplish anything without him.
Right? Are we in agreement there? We are too weak to try and just force ourselves through. *2 Corinthians-12:9*, they're gonna have it on the screen back here, but I have the English standard version and I I just like how it's worded better. It's the same heart, it's the same message and So Jesus says, my grace is sufficient for you for my power is made perfect in weakness.
And then Paul goes on to say, therefore, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. And for the sake of Christ then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. So the point of goals and aspirations is to point people to Jesus. That's the purpose of it.
So here goes. I spoke to y'all back in November. Some of you may remember it's the the message was about keeping my eyes on God's promise but being pray patient in the process. It's a lot of it's a mouthful. Being patient in the process but focusing on his promise.
Because a lot of times we can take our eyes off of his promise and we can put them on our circumstances and then we just go down a long black hole. Right? So here's how that message got laid out. It was perfect for a planner like myself. On Monday of that week, David said, what's the title of your message?
And I told him, was like, I'm pumped. And by Tuesday, I sat down at my computer and it's like the words just like fell in my spirit and I put them on the computer and for the rest of that week, I was good to go. I was confident because I had put in the the time and the and the energy to make sure that my scriptures were lining up and spending time with Jesus and making sure that he was the 1 speaking through me, and I wasn't doing it myself. And it was just the picture perfect setup for my message in November. And then David asked me a few weeks ago to speak and I was like, yeah.
I've got plenty plenty of time to plan and prepare. This is gonna be great. And I'm like, I'd I knew that I was supposed to say yes. You know how sometimes you just know what you're supposed to do? Sometimes that's if it's good, it's probably God.
So I was like, yeah, I I feel like I'm supposed to I'm supposed to speak on that Sunday. And so I was like, okay, God. Let's do this. What do you want me to share with these guys? What do you want me to share with my church family?
Because I I don't wanna share anything if it's not from you. And so we go through a week of of like before this last week and I'm just like, okay, God hasn't given me anything but that's okay. I've still got time. Then Monday rolls around, David's like, what's the title to your message? And I'm like, I don't know.
I know God wants me to speak but I don't know what he wants me to talk about. And I felt this weight and this pressure and I'm like, but it's only Monday. We're good. And how our our schedule works out is on Wednesdays, I have a chunk of time. This past Monday, I had a Wednesday, I had a chunk of time to prepare this message.
And that was between 12:30 when I got off work and 05:00 when I had to go buy groceries. And then my plan listen, when I tell you I have a plan for everything, like, I can lay out the next month for you every single day. So some of you are like, she's crazy. That's okay. Some of you feel me like on a deeper level.
Right? So I have this plan. I'm going to go grocery shopping at 5 because we didn't have food for snacks in my kids lunch boxes, and then I will have about 45 minutes to an hour to kinda refine the message that I've written on Wednesday. This is all my plan on Tuesday. Okay?
And we had a meeting at 07:30 that night, and so I knew Wednesday is my day to write this message. Excuse me. So Wednesday rolls around and I still don't have even a title or a direction. I work at a preschool and at noon, we were putting some kids to sleep and we we sit on the floor and we pat their little backs as they go to sleep. And I'm just like, God, what am I gonna talk about on Sunday?
I have no clue. I know we're in the life reboot series, but I I've got nothing. There's there's draw in a blank. It's like if I was a writer, would have writer's block. And and he just kinda spoke to me moving forward.
Now remember, my focus is on the message. I'm not really worried about the title, I just need direction. And God's like moving forward. I'm like, yeah, I get it. That's that's the direction we're going.
And that's what I thought was going on. But but Sebastian, the the guy that that sang the Colombian up here, wasn't that awesome? He sang in Spanish and English. That was so cool, Sebastian. So he sent me a Facebook message and said, what's the title of your message?
And I just put moving forward. That's it. And then *God* kinda showed me like we're I'm gonna be sharing about moving forward in in relationship with Jesus. And I'm like, didn't David just preach last week that there is nothing that we can do to move forward and you're not gonna contradict your word? And so my head is all over the place, But I knew I had about 4 and a half hours at home on Wednesday.
We live in Largo and I got to the light at East Bay and I came down with some kind of sickness, I don't know what it was. My head hurt, borderline migraine. It was awful. I was miserable. I get home and I'm like, okay, I'm gonna sit down.
I've got this and my eyes were just crossing at the bible and like I'm on my computer. I'm like, can't do this. I've gotta stop and I fought through for like an hour, hour and a half and then I was like, I've gotta stop. I was in and out of sleep. David picked the kids up from from work or from school which was awesome and I was so stressed out because at 05:00, my headache left, but I had to go buy groceries.
And I was like, dang. What am I gonna do? That was that was my time. I know that the rest of this week is scheduled out and planned out, and and I've got things that I've gotta do and I've got 3 kids and and there's 7 people living in my house, that's a lot of cooking and a lot of cleaning. And there was just all these things that I knew were coming up and the 1 time that I had to do this thing, I lost it.
But then I was like, okay. But I'm going to buy groceries. I'm telling you all this for a reason, I promise. I'm going to buy groceries at Aldi in Largo. And I knew that when I got groceries, I got home, unloaded the groceries, I would have about an hour to sit down with Jesus and just prepare.
Right? And then we had our meeting to go to at 07:30. And so I left, I went to Aldi's, got my groceries, put everything in the van, took the buggy back, and I get back to my van and I kid you not, my keys, my wallet, and my phone are locked in my van. I was like, you have got to be kidding me. So David had the 3 kids at home, and so I didn't wanna call him and be like, hey, can you come get me because we can't leave we can't leave our van and, you know, that that area is not like the best area at night.
And I was like, what do we do? It was getting dark. The temperature dropped. I was in a t shirt. It was just the worst possible day.
It wasn't bad, but it's just all of these things were not according to what I had planned. Everything works out. We go and we do ministry that evening and it was amazing and and just fell even more in love with my church family, but I was really stressed. I was so focused on failing you today that I had forgotten that when God calls us or asks us to do something, our response is to say, yes, Lord, and he will equip us to do it. Right?
No matter what it is. If God has called you to do it, you don't have to fear not being equipped, not having what it takes to do it. He's gonna give it to you because he's not gonna ask you to do something and then just throw you to the wolves. He takes care of us. At some point in December, I had made a comment.
I was really stressed. I was exhausted. I had a lot of a lot of responsibility on me. And at some point, I just threw out a comment to Paige, our worship leader, and I was like, I just want a hotel room for the night just to be by myself. I just wanna get away.
I love my kids, I love my family, and I love my church. I just need a minute. I was at the "end of my rope". Now, this was in December. I didn't know that I was gonna be speaking today.
And the time frame that they had it planned for because God dropped it in her spirit to raise some money to be able to send me to a hotel room for a night. It was just a a kind gesture and her stepping out in obedience from what God told her to do. Nobody had any clue that I was gonna be speaking today, and the time frame that they planned that for was this Friday night, this past Friday night. I thought that I ran out of time to do this thing and God knew that I was gonna need the time and so he made it. God's good.
*God* is so good. He takes care of things that we don't realize we need him to take care of. Right? Story is not over because I'm stubborn, and I have my way of doing things, and I sometimes just wanna go in my own direction and do things my way, and my plan was, okay, Friday, I'm gonna get off work, I'm gonna go to the gym, and then I'm gonna go to this hotel, and I am going to write the greatest message ever. I had this in my head.
Right? And I felt like God was like, you make jokes. So I get to the hotel room. It took me like 2 hours to to get myself in a place where I could relax because I'm so used to working and and serving and and and taking care of the kids and the house and and some church things and work. And I'm so used to doing all these things and juggling all these different things that I get to the hotel room and Dave had told me before I left, you go and you enjoy yourself and I couldn't.
I was like, I wonder what the kids are doing. I wonder what they're eating for dinner. I wonder what they're gonna have for lunch tomorrow. Like, I'm going through all of this stuff in my head and finally, I relaxed and I sat down at the pool with my computer. Then I was like, okay, God.
Here we go. Give me the message. I'm ready. And this sweet couple came and started talking to me, and I'm like, this is not in my plan guys. Like, I know you wanna chat.
I seem really friendly. I am really friendly, but like, I've got something I've gotta get done. And I was they were local. I had the opportunity to invite them to church today, and instead I was too focused on what I needed to get done to pay attention to the people that God had just placed right in front of me, and I'm kind of ashamed of that. I I feel bad that that that's the way that I reacted and but since there's no shame allowed with God, I'm gonna move forward.
But so we go through that evening or I go through that evening and I'm I'm racking my brain. I even took a couple of breaks to just like, okay, I've gotta just stop for a minute. And finally, I started typing and I had what I thought was a great message for you. And I was in and out of sleep, and every time I'd wake up, I'd type something else down, and then I'd go to sleep, and it was not a very restful night. But I still God still had a lesson that he needed me to learn.
All night, I had the craziest dreams. Dreams of failing, dreams of my friends walking out of the auditorium because they didn't hear wanna hear what I had to say say, dreams that that David was was not proud of me when I spoke, and I was all of these, they were just lies. And while we serve a great God, there is a real enemy who is just sitting and waiting to take any chance that he gets to destroy us and to steal, kill, and take everything good that God wants for us. And I was kinda letting him. And so I had my alarm set at 8 that morning.
I was sleeping in because, know, that's sleeping in for me. And I woke up so groggy and I tried to go back to sleep, and my computer was open like this and I was so so frustrated that I didn't have anything. I slammed my computer shut and I said, God, I quit. I'm not doing it. I'm not I'm not speaking this Sunday.
I can't do it. I cannot do this. And right then, God just started pouring through me what he wanted me to say and I started writing it down and I was like, oh my gosh, God. All I had to do was quit. I had my plan.
I had my direction for this Sunday, like for getting ready for this Sunday, but God was like, listen, I needed you to get to the end of yourself so that you could carry the call that I have on your life. That's good. Come on. Amen. Now, today, my message is about moving forward.
Now, what happens is a lot of times we wanna move forward in our our on our in our own way, in our own plans. We have our own aspirations. And some of them might be good, some of them might not be good. Listen, what is a life of faith? What just in simple terms, what do you think a life of faith is?
A life of faith is a series of steps of obedience to God. That's it. I think we over complicate it with all these things that we have to do, but but it's very simple. It's a series of steps of obedience. So I have a question for you.
How do you get how do we get to a place where we can move forward? In any area of your life, however long you've been a Christian, maybe you don't even know what that looks like and I will I'm gonna I'm gonna share that with you briefly in just a moment, but but how do we move forward in our faith? It's repentance. I've heard a lot of different definitions of repentance, but here's repentance in short. Repentance means that we stop arguing with God about the direction of our life and we start agreeing with him.
That's what repentance is. So what oftentimes we'll do is we'll have this plan for our life and we'll be like, okay, okay God, like I know what you said you want me to do, but but I, you know, I feel like this is the direction I should be going, and so we walk in that direction. Right? That's kind of our our prize, what I did this week. And then our MO when we screw up is to run and hide.
And so maybe God's been telling you, you know, like, you need you need to be in church on Sunday. That's a good thing to come together with other brothers and sisters who can encourage you and lift you up and "walk this life out" with you. But you're like, yeah, but I was out partying last night and I got completely wasted and like I can't go to church and be a hypocrite and so we disobey. But then we when we disobey again, it's like it's like and and now I've disobeyed and so I can't go back to God and so we run from him. I have 2 daughters, a 4 year old and a 3 year old and and I kid you not, if they are hiding under their bed or between their bed and their dresser, I know that they've done something wrong because our natural, it's our nature to flee and to hide when we've done something wrong.
And I have a story for you. I like to take stories in the Bible and and make them real to me and relevant to me. And the cool thing is Jesus did too. He did that with parables. And a parable is simply a relevant story, a relevant to the time story that teaches a deeper truth.
It teaches a lesson. And I'm gonna tell you the parable of the prodigal son. You can find it in Luke-15. I encourage you to read it when you go home. Basically, there was this man, a very wealthy man and he had 2 sons.
And he had set aside an inheritance for these 2 sons. And the younger son was like, look dad, here's what I wanna do. You know, I don't feel like I should have to wait until you die to get what you've already set aside for me, so just give it to me. Now I have a feeling the dad knew that this kid wasn't ready for what he had for him, but he had a plan of what he wanted to do. And so the dad said, okay, you're free to do what you wanna do.
Here's your inheritance. And the Bible says that this kid, he ran in his own direction and he'd he'd wasted it away. The Bible says that he "squandered it on filth". And you can fill in the blanks. I don't wanna get too graphic, but you can fill in the blanks on what he just wasted all of that inheritance on.
But then a famine came across the land and this kid, I don't know if he was a teenager, young twenties, but I just picture this this this young man was left with nothing and he was so poor and broke and desperate that he ended up taking a job for a farmer taking care of pigs. When he has a wealthy father at home with with servants and food and a house, he has all of these things back home, but he was so scared of going back to his dad. He was so scared that his dad had disowned him that he was willing to take a job taking care of the pigs, Looking at pig food and saying, you know what, like I'm hungry, that looks good. And then it says, he remembered Here I'm gonna get my Normally I use my phone but sometimes it's just cool to have that paper bible, you know. It says that he remembered.
He said, how many of my father's hired servants have more than enough bread but I perish here with hunger? I will arise and go to my father and I will say to him, father, I've sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. Could you just treat me as 1 of your hired servants? And he went home.
A lot of times when we go in our own direction, we look at God like this kid looked at his dad. It's like, I've messed up too much. Like, I can't I can't turn around and go back to God. Like, look at what I've done. Look at look at what I'm doing right now.
And does anybody identify with this kid? At some point in your life, like felt too ashamed to go back to God. But I love this story y'all. Okay. And the son rose and went to his father.
But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and felt compassion. He didn't strike a lightning bolt at him, he didn't berate him for all he'd done wrong. It says that he ran to him and he embraced him and kissed him and the son said, dad, I've sinned against heaven and before you, I'm no longer worthy that he be called your son and I love what the dad does. He ignores what the kid is saying. He he didn't even give him the time of day to think that he is unworthy of his love or he's unworthy of his his sonship to the father.
*God* says, okay, guys, my son was gone and now he's home. Go kill the cow, throw some steaks on the grill, we're gonna throw a party, get some clothes on him, put some shoes on his feet, take care of my boy, he is mine. He might have screwed up, but he didn't stand with a lightning bolt waiting on him to come home and being like, you are everything. You All he did was loved him and "God is here for us" in that exact same way. No matter where we've run, no matter what direction we've decided to go opposite of him, God is saying, I love you, I want you, and I choose you.
That's the God that we serve. And the cool thing is whenever we keep screwing up, God's gonna want you to come back to him and be like, God, I wanna do things your way now. So so what do I do? And God says, let's go back to the last thing I told you to do. Let's just start over, take a step back.
What's the last thing that God told you to do that you chose not to do? And let's walk through it together. Is it forgive somebody? Let's Let me hold your hand because God's our biggest cheerleader y'all. He just wants to walk through life with us because he loves us.
Do you need to forgive somebody? Take that step first. The the thing that God wants you to do is gonna be different from almost everyone in here and that's okay. And I think that perhaps there are people in here who's never experienced a God like that. You've seen God as this mighty God in the sky with a lightning bolt just waiting to strike you down because you're a screw up.
But that's not the God that I serve. God loves you. He has a plan for you and he'll let you run and do your own thing just like the father lets the prodigal son do. But what he wants is for you to come back and say, God, I'm sorry and I tried to do it my way but but I wanna go back and you you show me where to go. And God's saying, what's the last thing I told you to do?
Because in order to move forward, you might have to take a step back and say, okay, I I need to I need to do this. Are you struggling with with something, an addiction or something, and you need some help? I need to I need to reach out to somebody that I trust and and talk to them about this and move forward. Are you are you struggling with with anything and you need prayer? We're gonna have our prayer team, some of our prayer team.
If you can come forward, baby, if you can come forward as well and and be here to just pray for you. If you if you need to take a step, we're gonna have a time of just response. Maybe maybe you do need to make a phone call. You can do that here because delayed obedience is still disobedience. And so I wanna give you a chance to do what you need to do now.
If you need to step in the back, step outside, go make a phone call and tell somebody, look, what you did was wrong but I forgive you. If you need to find somebody in here and do it, that's okay. You need to apologize. I wanna give you a chance to do whatever God is asking you to do today. You can have this.
This is just some like maroon colored carpet, but if you wanna drop to your knees and worship God right here, I wanna open the floor up to do that. So if if there is anything that you need, that's what your church family is for and we wanna give you the opportunity to do whatever you need to do. So let's let's worship together.
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