You are challenged to examine your loyalty to the local church and ensure your faith is rooted in the Word of God rather than personal feelings. If you haven't connected with the body of Christ yet, take the step to be born again and commit to your next steps in discipleship today.
Oh, let's remain standing. Lord, thank you that you are the 1 that deserves all the glory and all the honor here, Lord. Lord, is it in you and through you that we get to do this, that we get to serve your beautiful bride, the church. We love you. I pray that today is I am removed and any of my opinion is removed, and we just focus in on your "sweet word" and what you have for your house today.
In Jesus name, amen. Amen. Good morning. Good morning. It's been a hot minute since I've had the privilege of taking this platform.
I I'm gonna be really honest with you. I'm always honest. I don't know why I say that, but I texted David yesterday, and I was like, can I have like 2 hours to preach? Because I have a lot. And before we dive into the message, I wanna just I had an experience yesterday at Walmart.
Y'all know you go to Walmart on a Saturday, you're gonna have an experience. And Largo Walmart. If you know, you know. Yeah. I went yesterday and I side note, I just started making my first gumbo, y'all, from Louisiana.
I'm a Louisiana born and raised. I'm almost 41, and my mom was like, what have I done where you haven't made a gumbo until right now? But I started and and it was good. I had actually planned on taking miss Pam some since she had never had any, but the 7 of us licked the pot clean. So, I was like, I'm gonna get really good at making gumbo.
So, I was in Walmart yesterday, and they had some canaka sausage, and that is a sausage I grew up on. It's a Louisiana sausage from the South, and, like, that just makes the gumbo. The roux and the sausage make the gumbo. So I buy it, and I'm not planning on having a theological discussion at the checkout counter because I was genuinely just excited that I found this sausage in Largo. So, I get up there, and the lady is checking out my stuff, and and she said, how are you still?
I know I'm a pastor, and I'm supposed to have, like, this intentionality, but I was so focused on, they have this sausage. And she said, how are you? I said, I'm real good, and let me tell you why. It didn't have anything to do with the Lord in that moment. I was like, I found some cantic sausage.
I'm so excited. It's from Louisiana. I'm making gumbo. I'm so excited. And she decides to have a theological conversation.
She said She stopped checking out my stuff, like she was locked in. She said, you think New Orleans is haunted? And I just wasn't ready. And I said, no. And she said, you know they're spirits.
Right? And I said, oh, okay. Here we are. This is where we are. I was like, oh, yes.
There's angelic spirits and there's fallen angels that are demons and they cause distraction and they they do a lot of stuff. But she said, yeah, but you know, you know, I'm a Christian too and I believe the Bible too. But I also believe that there's people that and she goes through her her spiel on the things that she believed in, not lining up with this, not lining up with the word of God. I'm a Christian too, but I also believe this based on what I've experienced, what I've heard, the documentaries, you know, all of that stuff. And and I said, but you're a Christian.
You believe the word of God. Right? She's like, yeah, I'm a strong Christian, and I believe this. And I said, but if you're a Christian, where does your truth come from? Are you are you adding in your own perspective on truth to the word of God?
And she's like, no, no, I'm not doing that, but you know they're spirits. And when I get to this point, I'm just like, we got a line forming. She's wanting to argue with me. I'm just like, this is my fallback for everything that I believe. Every spiritual thing that I believe happens on this earth, and if you're new to whole Christianity thing, yes, there is a spiritual realm that is very real.
But everything I believe, I fall back on this. I fall back on the word of God. And today, the the topic that I have could very much be taken from the perspective of you're just a pastor trying to get more people involved in the church. So I have just a I wanna just squash those assumptions. It's true.
It's true. But it's not true because it's how I feel, or it benefits me, or more butts in the seat make us a better church. No. I I'm just gonna warn y'all, I'm not gonna go through all of them, I'm not gonna hold you hostage until 05:00 this evening, but I'm gonna put, in a little while, I'm gonna have Dominic put up just verses that back up what our message is today. Over a 100 verses that have to do with our topic.
We're in a new series we started last week. It's called Rooted in Purpose. And this series is built off of a book. If we could put is that can we put that, do we have a graphic? You do not have to purchase this book, but I will highly encourage everybody in the room to purchase this book.
Because every message that we do, we're gonna follow along with the chapters from this book, Rooted in Purpose. This is a tool to help you really get grounded in what you believe and what that means, because what you believe will be followed by action. If you say you believe something and it's not followed up by some kind of action, then you really don't believe what you think you believe. It's just a nice fluffy feeling. It's like people that are like, I believe in staying healthy and eating right and going to the gym, but if don't own a pair of tennis shoes, I'm gonna question that.
Rooted in purpose. Last week, David talked about loving God because to be rooted in purpose, you don't just feel like you love God, you you experience his heavenly, supernatural, agape love. And when you get that vertical love right, then you can more effectively love those around you with a heavenly love, not something we could muster up, not a friendship or a romantic love, but but we can effectively love in the way that God intended in *Matthew-22:37* when Jesus said, the first and greatest commandment is this, love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind. And the second greatest command is love your neighbor as yourself. We can't do that until we receive his love.
We love because he first loved us. So that's a brief recap. You can go online. You can go on our website, realchurch.us. Go to Spotify.
You can find that sermon. Highly encourage that you you experience that, that you hear that. Today, our topic is loyalty to the church. I am a fired up mama bear right now, and I I think that it is fitting. I tried to I tried I'm just gonna tell you this.
I think that it is fitting that when we're talking about the biblical teachings on being loyal to the church, that you understand a little something about this local church. Because this is a this is a part of the universal bride of Christ. I'm gonna use body, church, bride of Christ interchangeably because scripture somewhat uses it interchangeably to describe the church. But the heart of the organization follows the "heart of the leader". That's a worldly principle.
That is a spiritual principle. It is true. And we have It can sound kinda cringe because he's my husband, but we have an incredible lead pastor. Will you help me honor our lead pastor this morning? To bring to bring some context to your leader and how he leads this church, I'm gonna tell some stories that he would not share himself because of just humility.
So that when you hear about this local church, you can see the foundations and the leader of this church. When we went to start the church back in 2017, we came up with a vision statement. It is a statement that shows the why we do everything that we do. Everything at Real Church is filtered through this. We will do whatever it takes for you to know the love of Jesus and live your God given purpose.
And time and time again, he was butted up against, whoo, whatever it takes from other pastors, from whatever that that puts you in a like that that kinda puts you on the line. And do you know what your pastor's response was? For for you, if you are in this house, this is for you and everybody else that will be a part of this body. He said Jesus did whatever it took for us, so why wouldn't we do whatever it takes for others to help them know the love of Jesus and live out their purpose? That is the foundation of this church, even with man coming up against a vision statement that did not emanate from him.
It actually came from Holy* *Spirit to him. And so he had such a fear of God and his purposes for this house that he did not allow the "fear of man" to derail him from that. Amen. We also shortly after we launched the church, we had a guy bring a group of people to our house to just kinda come against the mission of this church. And I say it I'll I'll say what he said.
So the mission of this church is a long it's a long statement that means discipleship. And if you don't know about discipleship, it takes work consistency. It takes time. It takes intentionality, and every single believer under the sound of my voice should be a "fisher of men" and a disciple maker. And so, he saw that coming.
God gave him the mission. And then 3 days after we moved here, God supernaturally confirmed the message the mission of this church. We engage the culture with the love of Jesus. We equip the believer to engage the culture with the love of Jesus. We or we we engage the culture with the love of Jesus.
We establish the believer in the local body. We equip the believer to engage the culture, and then we empower the ready to live their God given purpose. And he said, we The the other guy said, here's my issue. And it was a really pretty, glossy, shiny offer. We should have more butts in the seats.
But the way that we're doing it, which is, again, the way that we do church, was implemented by God. Not changing. Foundational. From the mouth of Holy* *Spirit into my husband, confirmed over and over again, but really supernaturally confirmed 3 days after we moved here. He said, you know, if we could And I'll just paraphrase.
If we could kind of shortcut that process, we could get more butts in the seats, and then we'll have more influence. Sounds nice. Right? Sounds pretty. It's not what God said.
And this man sat on that couch or on that chair in our living room, and he I said, we've been married a long time, but I was like, this is the most attractive my husband has ever been. He said, the mission of this church is not for sale. So, from the beginning, his intention, yes, God is gonna grow the church. Anything that's alive and healthy will grow at some point. That's just a a principle in nature.
But from the beginning, he's unwilling to shortcut what God instructed in this house for the sake of fame or notoriety or anything. It's a it's a humble characteristic in him. And lastly, more recent. David and I were in a season of discipling a lot of different people last year, going through a lot of real life. And and and if you're in relationships with people, it can be kinda messy, and that's okay.
It's a joy to get to wash feet. Even when you wash feet and then they go and they jump in the mud, and you're like, oh, come on. So, in the middle of doing this, a lot of times, there's real life things that are happening with spiritual things. I became a really wild chicken lady last year, and I had a bunch of chickens. And I have this 1 chicken that I swear to this day is continually trying to unalive herself every day.
Her name's Patricia. If your name is Patricia, I'm sorry, but I'm constantly like, Patricia. And I'll like rescue her from something that she's not supposed to be in, that she knows she's not supposed to be in, and then she'll just run back over to it. And I felt like that was happening with some people that we were discipling, and I I have 4 kids, I'm homeschooling, I'm I'm pastoring, I'm doing a lot, and I was tired 1 day. And you know, sometimes when you're tired, your flesh, you know, kinda wants to come out a little bit.
And I was fighting it, but I was done. And David comes in, and he's telling me about somebody that once again, you know, he washes his feet. And then, I mean, it was like he just dove into the mud. And I said, you ever wanna just rear back and hit somebody? Just just a real quick right in the jaw.
And I'm not a violent person. I have punched 1 person in my life. And it's because I was in a place that my mama told me I probably shouldn't go to. I went to a haunted corn maze in Louisiana, and somebody in a scream mass jumped out at me. I reacted.
I was like, punched him. Found out I have a really good right hook, but I was hurting, he was hurting, it wasn't beneficial. So, I'm not a violent person. That's my only experience. But last year, was like, sometimes I just wanna And your sweet, patient pastor goes, you know, they're just they're going through the process.
He said something along the lines, and it really like it's not what I wanted to hear at the moment, but it's so good. He was like, aren't you glad, God let you go through the process too? I was like, oh. It's bad when your husband is also your boss, calls you out spiritually and you're like, no, that's the that's the heart of your leader. And so when I'm talking about loyalty to the church, I'm not talking about loyalty to him, to me, I'm talking about loyalty to the place that God has called you.
And God has called every single believer to be a part of a local life giving, *Jesus filled Holy Spirit* led church. So I wanna define our terms. Loyalty. Doctor Leon who wrote this book, he's actually 1 of our overseers. So it's someone that we trust explicitly.
He has he has shown a long history with the Lord and and runs a lot of incredible ministries. But he defined loyalty as a strong sense of commitment, devotion, and allegiance to someone or something marked by *steadfastness* even in the face of challenges or disappointments. I think we all have this idea of loyalty. It's a feeling. It's a sense.
But like I said earlier, if you feel something, if you believe something, it will be followed up by some kind of action. And loyalty is marked. It is actionable. Are marked by Loyalty is marked by *steadfastness* in the face of challenges or disappointments. We've been very vocal about our marriage.
We've been married for 19 years, and as of 3 days ago, we have been together for 23 years. That's over half of our life. God did an incredible work in our marriage, and it was not always easy. It's easy now, but it was not always easy. And in that season, I had a lot of disappointments and a lot of challenges, so did he.
Ask him, I'm probably not the easiest person to be married to. But in that season, it would I'm easy? Oh, sweet. I'm easy now. That's just the Holy* *Spirit, man.
No. In that season, my loyalty to him was marked by steadfastness. It was marked. I didn't just feel a loyalty to him. It was marked by steadfastness in the middle of disappointment and challenges.
I hit my knees. I prayed for him. I prayed for me. I said, Lord, whatever it takes, develop me, develop him. It was marked.
Loyalty in the context of the church goes beyond just attending services. It is marked by something. It involves active engagement, participation, and a willingness to serve, support, and even sacrifice for the sake of the church community. There are 2 expressions of the church. There's the universal church and the local church.
The universal church encompasses every believer who has ever existed from resurrection of Jesus until Jesus' return. Those who've already been born and those who have not yet been born. The universal church doesn't know geographical boundaries. It doesn't know denominational lines. When you were sealed with the Holy* *Spirit, when you were born again, you became, because of him, a part of something much bigger than yourself.
You became a part of the universal church. You did not have to do anything except for give up, which is what we do when we come to Jesus. We give up. We surrender. Not my life, but your life.
I'm following you. I'm making you my Lord. When you do that, you are automatically a part of the universal church. The universal church is spiritual and has a global scope. The body of Christ is a single spiritual organism with Christ as the head.
That comes from Ephesians-1:22. And each believer is a member of this body contributing to the whole. It comes from 1 Corinthians-12:12. The local church in contrast, and I'm gonna spend more time on the local church. The local church refers to a specific community or congregation of believers who gather regularly in a particular location to worship, learn, serve, and fellowship.
Real church is a local church. The real church is tangible and it is visible. It is active. The the local church from Acts-2, it shows from then God's intention for the church when it was formed. We can see it in the word.
The people were together. They knew 1 another. This I love that there is the option to watch services online. You can you can watch live services on Sunday, but that is not a substitution for being an **active participant** in the local church. That's just a spectator.
You're watching a TV show that gives you some good feelings, but it is not a substitute for being an active part in the church. That wasn't even in my notes. I'm just real fired up. But in Acts-2, you could see they were together, they ate together, they did life together, they studied scriptures, they worshiped, they were they were together. In a local church, there's spiritual growth and accountability.
Local churches provide opportunities for discipleship, accountability, pastoral care, and personal spiritual growth. And the local church is where believers actively live out their faith in close community with 1 another. There's also a distinct, as people don't like this sometimes, but there's a distinct leadership structure. God wrote it, not me. *1 Timothy-3, Titus-1*, there's a ton of scriptures that talk about how the leadership structure of a local church should be set up.
And the reason that I'm gonna focus in on the local church is that the universal church is it's easy. You're just a part of it. You don't have to do anything. You just become a part of it. There's no action steps to become a part of the universal church, except for being born again, being born into the family of God.
The universal church kind of seems abstract kind of "out of sight, out of mind". It's easy to participate. You love the universe. I have never heard a believer that's like, I can't stand the universal church. I can't stand other believers throughout the world that I don't have to deal with.
The universal church is out of sight, out of mind, but the local church is different. It's visible. It's personal. It involves "real people, real issues", real imperfections, and real leadership structures. And that's where loyalty to the church begins to cost us something.
It costs us something tangible, our time, our gifts, our preferences, and most definitely our pride. Because in a culture, in America, a culture that is shaped by such individualism, submitting ourselves to a local church can feel really unnecessary and really uncomfortable sometimes. But *scripture* shows consistently that the local church is still **God's vessel** for declaring his glory to the world. Amen. Ephesians-3:10, to the intent that now the "manifold wisdom" of God might be known by the what?
By the church. Yeah. By the church. To the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be known by the church. He has Is the is the scripture not right up there?
Different. His intent was that now through the church
Through the church.
The manifold wisdom of God should be made known.
Yeah. Either way, God has a plan to display his manifold or his multifaceted wisdom through the church. His his vessel for reaching a lost and dying world is through the local church. The church is important. And from the very beginning of the New Testament, God's design for believers was never isolated faith, but embodied committed life within a local church leading, serving, submitting, forgiving, building up, and gathered together.
Participation in the local church is not an optional add on, especially for devoted followers of Christ. It is the ordinary, expected expression of obedience to Christ and his love for the bride. It makes God happy when we participate in the church. Philippians-2:2 says, then make my joy complete by being like minded, having the same love, being 1 in spirit and in purpose. And if you think that this is just me trying to get more people involved in the local church, I'm not alone because I wanna Can we Dominic, can we throw up the slides of the the multiple passages?
Do we have that together? Can y'all see that? I'm gonna put it on Slack. If y'all been through Establish and you're on Slack, I'll put these these passages up for you. If not, you're welcome to snap pictures of it or ask me for them after service.
These passages span every section of the New Testament. The gospels, Acts, the epistles, and even Revelation. And the overwhelming testimony of scripture assumes that believers are gathered, accountable, serving, submitting, correcting, forgiving, encouraging, giving, and building together. The New Testament does not envision a detached Christian life. Participation in the local church is not a side note, it is the context in which the Christian life is lived.
I'm from Louisiana, as we've all found out. To this day, I have family members and friends who neglect the church, and here's why. I'm just gonna I'm gonna say what they've said to me. I can worship God on a deer stand. I can worship God at the ball field.
Is that true? You know, every good lie has an element of truth in it. That's right. Can you worship God on the deer stand? Yeah, you should worship God on the deer stand.
But that is not a substitution for gathering, and people use it as an excuse to not obey. You know, I I talked with someone recently about her next step in her faith. And and *scripture* tells us, repent and be baptized. And she had gone through her reasons why she hadn't been water baptized. And they were all basically, I'm I'm an introvert, I'll get nervous, my anxiety will overwhelm me, all of this.
And I, as I'm talking to her, I'm just like, yeah, your next step is definitely baptism. Because I think God wants to leave all of that crap in the water. And then I took her to scripture and I showed her and she said, yeah, I I I just I I don't feel like I have to be baptized to be a Christian. I said, there's a little truth in that. And she brought up the man on the cross next to Jesus, and he said, today you'll be in my kingdom.
And he didn't have a chance to be baptized. But I promise you that if he would have come down from that cross, he would have found the first ditch that he could to get baptized. Because when we surrender to Jesus, we say yes to everything that he asks of us. And he asked us to repent and be baptized, and her response to me was, I'll pray about it. I was like, don't.
Like, don't even pray about it. Because God already put in his word some things that he expects us to do. There is an assumption that believers are going to do certain things. We're gonna repent, we're gonna be baptized, we're gonna follow Jesus as Lord, we are going to actively participate in a church, we're gonna be a part of something greater than ourselves. So when someone tells me, well, technically, I don't have to.
I said, I've said for years, technically should be a curse word in the church. We should not say, technically, I don't have to do this. And I'm when when I hear that, I'm like, technically you don't, but you're being stupid if you don't honor the word of God. He loves you, and everything that he commands of you is for your good. Everything, even things that you don't wanna give up.
Have you all seen that image of the little girl that's like down here, and she's got a teddy bear, and she's holding it close, and Jesus is behind her, and he's like, "give me the bear". And you can see that she's just holding the bear. She can't see that Jesus is standing here with this giant teddy bear. He's like, just give me that 1. I've got something better for you.
And so many times, we do that with God and he says, hey, this is what I want you to do. This is your next step. You know, people are like, well, my relationship with Jesus is all that matters. No, it's not. Amen.
Yeah. Yeah, man. Yeah. No, it's not. Not according to the book.
Either this is truth or it's not. Either we honor what God has asked of us or we don't. We are not supposed to sit idly by and watch God bring all his glory into the church, let it come out of the church, and then be like, that's real cool over there. I don't need the church. I gotta deal with people in the church.
People are messy. I had a again, there's a lot of this that was not even in my notes, so I will get to some of them probably, maybe. Couple of years ago, I was cleaning the girl's room, and I had a vision, and it was I haven't had a lot of, like, really, like, gotta sit down and just like, I don't even know what's happening right now. I haven't had a whole lot of those, but this 1 was so vivid. I'm gonna close my eyes just so I can convey it clearly.
And this came out of nowhere. I wasn't even thinking about the church and people. I was literally cleaning my my girl's bedroom. That's what I was thinking on. And I sat down, and I I saw I saw a man who had ended this life and had had gone and was before Jesus.
And he said, Jesus, I'm so excited to see you. I love you. I have loved you. I worshipped you. I I I spent time with you on earth.
Now, get to be with you forever. I just I adore your presence. I just wanna be in your I just soaked up your presence. And Jesus says, yeah. How did you treat the church?
He said, oh, I'm gonna see if I can I can word it exactly like I remember? The church hurt me, and there's a lot of hypocrites in there. And there was constantly drama. And so, I I focused on my personal relationship with you. And Jesus said, but but how did you treat my church?
And he said something along the lines of, like, I didn't want anything to do with her. And I I felt indignation from Jesus, and he said, that's my wife. So to test it out, because I'm not a husband, I don't I don't I went to David. Do you remember this when I came to you and I said, I just wanna I just wanna paint a scenario for you. I didn't tell him I had a vision.
I was just I tried to play it cool. He probably knew I'm a real bad liar. So I'm just like, so if somebody came to you on a Sunday and was like, Pastor David, I really like you, and like, I really wanna just learn from you. I wanna absorb everything that you have. Can I can I set a meeting with you and and come to your home and spend time with you?
And I just I wanna learn everything that you can teach me. And David's like, yeah, that sounds great. Someone who's very honoring of him. And I said, if that guy came to the house and walked in and and I was there and he said, hey, go get me some water. I'm gonna I'm I'm gonna go, and I'm gonna get him some water.
He ain't got any ice? At this point, I'm gonna be like, yeah. I got some ice. I'm gonna go fix him a cup of water. I come back, and I sit down, and the guy tells I I said, and the guy tells you, yeah, I I wanted to spend time with you, but, like, I don't like her.
What would you say? He said, I tell him, get out of my house. Jesus loves the bride of Christ because she is his wife. He is passionate about her. He's refining her and purifying her intentionally.
He loves her, and we are not to neglect the beautiful bride of Christ. I think Jesus would be mad at us if we did. I just wanna throw that out there as a mama. There are 60 verses in the New Testament alone, at least 60, that talk about being with 1 another, love 1 another, serve 1 another, bear with 1 another, forgive 1 another, encourage 1 another, submit to 1 another, pray for 1 another, admonish 1 another, honor 1 another. How can you do all of that with 1 another if you're not with 1 another?
The church is important. All of these verses assume active participation in the local church body. These are some of my favorite passages because there's a I'm not romantic. I just wanna I just wanna let y'all know. Like yesterday, Valentine's Day, we had a staff, like, meeting that lasted a really long time, and afterwards David's like, it's Valentine's Day, what you wanna do?
I was like, nothing. And he was like, I have an idea. Man, he spoke my love language. He was like, what if we order in and we eat a steak while we watch a movie on our bed? I was like, that buttering me up, buddy.
That's my kind of Valentine's day. But there are some things that regardless of of your personality, cannot deny. There is beauty in the in the poetry of scripture about how Jesus talks about his bride. *Ephesians-5:25* through 27. *Christ* loved the church and gave himself up for her that he might present the church to himself in splendor, *holy* and without blemish.
The church is not an organization. People who say, well, church is a man made entity. I don't like organized religion. Well, I I did not come up with all of this out of my head. These are scriptures that make it clear.
That big list of scriptures, it it shows that the church is God's entity. It belongs to him. She's loved sacrificially, and she's purified intentionally. This is covenant language, marriage imagery, devotion. *Revelation-19:7* through 8.
I was sitting in Starbucks and I read this passage and so overwhelmed with the presence of the Lord. I started boo hooing to where the guy next to me looked at me and was like, you good? I was like, yeah. I'm good. The marriage of the lamb has come, and his *bride* his bride has made herself ready.
Y'all know that we're in an engagement in worldly terminology. We are the bride of Christ, and we are making ourself ready. The church will go from glory to glory to glory, bringing him all the glory. Amen? And there will be a marriage feast, and we are invited to participate.
And I tell people all the time that when we get there, you're gonna be sitting next to some believers that maybe you had some beef with on earth, but it but you better get used to them now because you're gonna be with them for eternity. Amen? Might as well get over yourself. That's just really the the the statement of the year. "Get over yourself".
"It ain't about you". It's not about me. It's about him, about his purposes, and about his plans, and you are invited to be a part of them.
Amen. I
I I thought about are Vero and Jeremy in here? Yeah. Okay. Alright. I last year, there was a they had a wedding.
They got married last year. I didn't tell them I was gonna embarrass them. I don't think I'm gonna embarrass you. The talk of Friday night at boiler room is what is everybody wearing? Because y'all, this is my first formal wedding I have ever been to.
So, everybody's talking about their dresses, and their shoes, and their nails, and their hair, and their makeup. And I'm not a girly girl, but every once in a while, I get excited. And I think I was more excited about seeing what everybody else was wearing than than I was about what I was wearing. And we get there, and it's so exciting, this wedding that we've been waiting on, we've been praying for, and we see everybody, it's exciting. But, man, the moment that that woman came out on that golf cart in that white dress, all eyes were on her.
It was lovely because we've been waiting for this day, and it's just such a beautiful picture where all eyes go from what's happening here to wow, the bride is glorious. This is what we we're here for. We should view the church the way that we all felt when she started walking down the aisle, when Cassandra started walking down the aisle at her and Joe's wedding. We should view the bride through that lens. Wow, she's beautiful.
Yet, so many times we backbite and we talk about people and we cut people down. 1 Corinthians-10:23 is my favorite verse in the bible. Everything is permissible, but not everything is beneficial. Everything is okay, but not everything is good for building up. There is an expectation that we build 1 another up, and we should never look at the beautiful, radiant bride of Christ and be like, How do you think that that makes our king feel?
That is his bride that he shed his blood for. You are invited to be a participant in the bride of Christ. And this is a local expression. I just wanna let you know, you are not forced, but you are invited. But you are not to sit idly by and watch God work, and just point at and be like, that's real cool.
Yeah. *Revelation-21:2* says, the holy city, it's talking about Israel, the holy city, it's his people, prepared as a *bride* adorned for her husband. And in verse 9 of Revelation-21, it says, come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the lamb. I want this house to view the local bride and the universal bride with the eyes of Jesus. That she is lovely, with all of the imperfections that we see.
Let's build her up. Let's participate. Let's serve her. This is not a call of a pastor to try and get more people just participating for the sake of filling spots. It is good for you.
It is good for the kingdom when all parts are working together and doing their doing their roles that God has called of them. Side note, I there's a there's an in ministry, there's like a church underground kind of like, things that people that are in leadership in ministry see that most people just don't see, and there's kind of a running joke that, oh, there's always we're always needing people in children's church. Like, there's the nursery is always empty. Like, we always have have issues finding people to serve, and it's become a joke, kinda like an expectation. Oh, yeah.
Like, even mega churches, like churches that have 5,000 people, they they they're they're closing down kids rooms because there aren't enough people to serve, and that makes me sick to my stomach. Right. I believe that every born again believer, and I'm not I'm not cutting you down, I am not saying this because our church is failing at this. We have an incredible serve team. You guys are so faithful and I am honored to get to lead you and serve with you.
But I'm saying this because if that is an expectation of our culture, shouldn't we raise the standard back to what should be normal according to scripture, where everything is taken care of? The resources are in the house to take care of everything that needs to happen within the house. And for those, this is total side note, total bunny trail, but it's worth taking. There are people that say that we don't need children's church. We grew up where the kids were in the service.
I agree, kids can be in the service. I love it, it's amazing. But we are in a culture that we are called to engage, it's part of our mission statement that God put in, we're called to engage a culture of families who are not discipling their children. There's no longer kids saying a prayer before school in their homes. There's no longer sitting in public school seats where the teacher stands up and leads the the leads the school in prayer.
I grew up with that, and I grew up in the eighties and nineties. But now, that is so wiped away, and there are parents that need help discipling their children. Well, shouldn't the church be a place who is willing to lay her life down to serve our children, to serve the parents? And I'm just gonna let you know that here we don't have babysitters back there, we have disciple makers back there because these children know the Lord, they are born again, they're filled with Holy* *Spirit, and some of them are the ones that are gonna lead their parents to the Lord. So, this is an all call to the church.
Side note, not in my notes. This is an all call. Rachel, will you stand up? Rachel and her husband, Pastor Chevy, lead our children's ministry. If you call this place home and you are not serving and you have a heart to disciple our children or you have a willingness to learn, see her after church.
1 of my favorite songs of all times. I was gonna play it, and then I was like, real church ain't ready for that. It's by Fly Leaf. She's a little heavier. So I was like, oof.
I think I think it might I think the the music may gloss over the words, but I wanna read the words from 1 of her songs called Beautiful Bride. Unified diversity, functioning as 1 body, every part encouraged by the other, no 1 independent of another, irreplaceable, indispensable, you're incredible, incredible. Beautiful bride, body of Christ, 1 flesh abiding, strong and unifying. Fighting ends in forgiveness. Unite and fight all division.
*Ephesians-4:3* says, be eager to maintain the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. And Ephesians-2:21 through through 22 says, in him, you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Holy Spirit. Built together. 1 of our core values is together we. We should be working together.
Dave, you can come on up. We should be working together to fulfill not just the great commission, but the mission that God has given this house. To know Jesus, to gather on Sundays, to gather on Fridays, pray for our community, and be equipped to go out and engage the lost. Because I don't know if y'all have been out there, but it's dark. There are a lot of lost people.
At Real Church, we have something. If you call your yourself, if you're like, yeah, this is my church, I love this place, God has called me here. We have something called established membership. And if this is not the house that God has called you to, you're already a part of the universal body of Christ if you have if you have been born again. And if this is not the local church God has called you to, you need to go and you need to go dig some roots where God has called you.
But if this is the place, I'm calling you up to the standard of normal to commit. To commit to the local church, to show loyalty that is marked by steadfastness, that I'm going to take church seriously. And when people say, oh, church is not that serious, according to over a 100 scriptures in the New Testament, it is. It's important to God, so shouldn't it be important to me? So we have something called established established membership.
And an established member at Real Church knows well, is born again, has been water baptized, or is is in that process about to get water baptized. Knows that this is the local church that God has called them to, and they are committing to participating in this house of worship. The work is great, but many hands make light work. And they participate through their time, talent, and treasure. That's attending, serving, tithing.
This is all biblical. And a *covenant* a covenant relationship, which is what established membership is, is not just you saying, yeah, I'm signing up for this to help this thing. No, you are a part of something that that we get to disciple you. We get more influence to equip you. We get to celebrate your wins.
We get to walk through your losses. And and we wanna take a moment to honor our newest people who over the last couple of months, who have chosen to become established members at Real Church. I'm gonna have these folks stand. Jacob and Christina Jones, Miguel and Diana Cruz, which I I know they've Actually, got a
I you to come forward.
Okay. We want you to come forward.
Yeah. If you'll come forward.
Demetria Wingfield, Amanda and Josh Hack, Becca. I love that girl. Sarah and Nick Williams, Josh and Abby Benitez, and Logan. If you all will come forward, let us honor our newest established members of this house. This is important.
So, if this has stirred in you that, man, I need to take this thing seriously, either come find me, shoot us an email after service, but I'm gonna turn it over To to
And, to become an established member, you you got to on our website, you click establish, and you go through those videos. If you just click through them, we'll see that. You gotta actually watch them, and it takes it shows you our vision, mission values, the culture of the church. And so you can see behind the scenes, see who we are. And then we reach out to you to kinda help figure out what is the best way for you to plug in.
And then after you do that, if you're like, man, I love this place. This is where I want. I feel God's calling me to be. Then, you can become an established member, which means you're using your life to help move the mission of this local body forward. Mhmm.
Right? And, if this isn't the place that God's called you to be, go be an established member at another healthy church that's gonna challenge you to grow, and you're gonna help it grow because of what God's put in you, and what God's put there. Either way, be an established member of a healthy body of Christ. Don't just be sitting on the sidelines, coming from time to time and checking it off the box because it's not biblical. It's actually unholy.
If it's not biblical and it's unholy and you're living that way, *repent* and realize that the local church, this 1 or the 1 you're called to, needs you to be all God's called it to be. And, you need it to be all God's called you to be. It's important. Amen? Okay.
You guys can be seated for just a second. No. No. You stay here. You guys stay here.
So, in in pushing the the mission of the church forward, they say, man, I'm gonna be an established member. They're saying, I'm I'm gonna give of my time, talent, and treasure. I'm gonna attend. I'm gonna serve and I'm gonna tithe, which is helping the body of Christ move forward and us to serve the families, have staff, we're looking for a building, I mean, praise the Lord, you know. But also, it's dual relationship.
It's a *covenant* or established member, a relationship is 2 sided. So, they've they've done that. Our role, and I want I wanna come down. Our role, Courtney and I, but also our staff and the other established members here, is to lay our life down, to do whatever it takes to help you know the love of God and live your God given purpose. And as long as God has you here, that's our role.
You know? And we wanna "wash your feet". I mean, we all get dirt on our feet as we walk around. Right? In this world, we will wash your feet in reminding you of who you are in *Christ* and help you to take your next steps.
I don't expect you to be Billy Graham tomorrow. Okay? But I do want to help you to take the next step in your walk with *Jesus* and to continue that for the rest of your life. And as you do, you're gonna end up helping a lot of people do that in the areas where God's called you. And what a joy it is as a local church to get to participate in your walk with God.
And I'm so excited because as you mature in Christ, what he's got in you is gonna make us better. And so, there's there's people that hadn't even connected here yet because you weren't here yet. But now, you're here and you got what they need, God's gonna send them so that you can make disciples. Some of you are like, I'm not ready for that. That's okay.
We'll help you take the next step. You will be 1 day. Amen? So, just church, if you're an established member, just want you to I call it the the spiritual iron man, put your hands up. *Lord Jesus*, we bless these families, these mighty men and women of God.
And Lord, I pray that them taking this step of *obedience* causes them to flourish more than they could imagine in their daily lives. Lord God, that there's more anointing, more passion for your word, more blessing, but also, God, that that it causes your *bride* to be more ready for your return. The universal bride and the low. They are a major part of the universal body of Christ, and they're a major part of this 1. So thank you, Jesus, for them.
And Lord God, us as a staff, me as a pastor, but us as a staff and the elders and deacons here, Lord, teach us, help us to lead them well. Lord God, we don't wanna hold them back. We wanna push them forward. What an honor it is to get to be a part. And everybody said, you guys can be seated.
So we're going to I'm a call the altar team forward. We're gonna dismiss. But as we dismiss, maybe you're in here and you have some church hurt. That church hurt is usually offense at what happened. Maybe the church did something wrong, maybe you did something wrong.
I don't know. But, there should be reconciliation and forgiveness. So, maybe you need to do some Forgiveness is not saying what they did is okay, it's "releasing them to Jesus". Or, maybe you've been offended or whatever, and you realize it's you. If you go from church to church to church and always offended, the "problem's not the church".
It's you. You know, if you never really connected to a church and stuck in, the problem's probably not the church. It's you. And *repentance* is necessary. Otherwise, that's gonna happen here too.
You know? But also, if you've never entered into the body of Christ, because you've never been born again. *Jesus said nobody can see the kingdom* of heaven unless they've been born again. Born of the spirit is what that's talking about. It's not talking about water baptism.
You get water baptized after you're born of the spirit, after you repent. So what does it mean to be born of the spirit? It means, Jesus, I believe you died on a cross for my sin. And you rose from the dead to restore me to my created value, to give me your life. I believe that.
You know, even demons believe that, but they don't follow God. So there's a lot of people that believe that. Nicodemus came to Jesus, said, we believe you're from God. But Jesus interrupted him like it wasn't enough. You gotta be born of the spirit.
So don't just believe that he exists, but when you really believe it, "you follow him". You make him Lord of your life. So I'm going to believe so much that I'm gonna say, Lord Jesus, I want to follow you instead of myself. I wanna follow what you say instead of what I feel. And I don't know how to do that, but I know you're gonna help me.
But I'm making a confession, because I believe in my heart, right now. And supernaturally, what happens in that moment is you're forgiven of all of your sin. Past, present, and future, Jesus' blood is that good. You don't earn it. It's a gift.
And then he puts the Holy* *Spirit, born of the spirit inside of you to lead you like a father leads a son or a daughter.