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**Lord Jesus**, we "honor you". Lord, we honor you so much. We thank you that you're here. Lord God, it's just an honor to get to be
in your church together, Lord God, this local aspect of the global body of Christ. Lord God, thank you, Father, for bringing these people, many mighty men and women of God, and many mighty men and women of God that don't even know that they're mighty men and women of God yet. But they will after today. Father God, I thank you that, Lord, what you've done in me, you wanna do in them and greater. Father, I pray for multiplication.
*Lord*, I pray for fires to be lit in Jesus' name, that they would live their life lit for Jesus. That's a little funny. In Jesus' name, amen. Amen. Alright.
My name is David John Phillips. I get the joy and honor of getting to be the pastor here. There's no place I'd rather be, nothing I'd rather be doing, and I say that every single week. Thank you for coming. Thank you for choosing to be here this Sunday morning.
And my prayer is that you encounter the presence and the power and the love of Jesus in a real way today. And because when that happens, I mean, I say it all the time, you're forced into the valley of decision. I mean, just just is. Like, you're forced into because he he loves you too much to just let you stay the same and and live apathetically. So he he encounters you in a real way where you can't deny that he's there, and then you have to choose to either stay the same or to continue walking with him with all the more surrender.
Yes, *Lord. All the more in your life. And with greater levels of surrender* comes greater levels of the experience of his life in you and through you. Bible says, 1 John-4:17, it's a crazy verse. It says, as he is, so are we in this world.
In this world, we are like Jesus. Why? Because he put the Holy Spirit*. If you've been born again, you surrendered your life to Christ*. You became a new creation in him, the old gone.
The reason you're still experiencing some of the old in your life is because you gotta renew your mind to the reality of what happened. Renew your mind by by washing it with the water of his word. It's called brainwashing. Allow your brain to be washed by his word. Because you're supposed to live from heaven to earth.
You're supposed to live from what he says is reality and allow that to overcome your circumstances because you've been transformed. An ambassador of the *kingdom of heaven* from glory to glory. The abundant life is what he talks about, man. And it's just it's fun. It is.
I I've missed you. I really have. I I've been gone for 3 weeks. 2 Sundays, but 3 weeks except for like a Sunday. And I wanna tell you a little bit about where I've been and why I've been there.
And I've had a blast. It's been a joy. It's been refreshing to me and refreshing to my family. But first, I went to Lafayette, Louisiana and I was there with doctor Leon Van Rooyen. Most of you should know this, but many of you don't.
Doctor. Leon Van Ruijn is 1 of the overseers of our church. Have the Bible says Paul said, you have many, many teachers, but not many fathers. And Paul said, I I became a a spiritual father to you through the gospel. Meaning he led somebody to Jesus and he and he helped to raise them up and mentored them and said to them, follow me as I follow Christ.
We should all be living a life where with those around us we can say, Follow me as I follow Christ. Can you say that? Are there people in your life that you're walking with, that you're friends with or you've brought into your life intentionally that you look at them and you're a step or 2 ahead of them in Christ, not pridefully, but just because you've been walking with Jesus longer. Whether that's 2 weeks longer, a day longer, or 20 years longer. And you say, hey man, follow me as I follow Christ because you are in passionate pursuit authentically of a deeper relationship with the Lord.
Can you say that? If not, why? What's holding you back from going "all in" for Jesus? Like really, what is it? What is the doubt?
What is the holdup? What is the hangup? What's the stronghold? Do you not trust that he's good enough to go all in for? I'm I'm I'm not condemning, but I want to provoke you.
Because I love you. I love you enough, man. Like, we're called to live an abundant life in Christ. And defense will never get you there. There's a lot of people that stand on the fence.
I'm I'm kind of following Jesus. My buddy says, well, if you're kinda following Jesus, then you're kinda not. I've shared this before, but I'm gonna share it again because I feel somebody needs to hear it. Had a old friend, she had a she had a dream. And in the dream, she was standing on the fence.
And on this side, there was Jesus, and he was calling, come to me. Come to me. And on this side was Satan, and he was calling, come to me. Come to me. And she was standing on the fence.
And then there came a point where it was done, and Jesus went away. And then Satan walked up from his side. He said, alright. Come on. Gathered the fence up.
She she said, well, hold on. I never chose you. I chose to stand here. And he said, but don't you know I own the fence? You either all in or you all out.
Fall in or "fall out". It's a rap song my buddy wrote. All in, all out, fall in, fall out. It's good. Anyway, I have wrapped that song in Bogota, Columbia.
Your preacher can can do that. If you didn't know, maybe 1 day you'll get to see
it. Maybe.
Let's do something crazy. I mean, I'm I'm gonna do that song for you. Not the all in or all out 1 but another 1. I've I've never done this at church before with you guys because I never thought real church was ready. *God* set me up, man.
Oh my gosh. No. But I'm doing this on purpose. Okay? Because there's a message in this song that I think is gonna minister to somebody.
And I I wrote I wrote another song a couple years ago. I wrote another song a couple years ago, and when we first moved here, I was I was sitting in our our minivan by Starbucks, and I was praying, and and this couple walked by me, and I heard of my lord in my heart, shared *Jesus* with them. And I'm like, I'm in a minivan in a parking lot. I'm just gonna open the door and talk to some random people. And and I'm like, wait.
That that probably meant my flesh arguing with the Holy Spirit** because my flesh or, you know, would never say open the door and talk with some random person about Jesus. So I probably need to obey the Holy Spirit even though I'm uncomfortable. Right? And so what did I do? I opened the door.
I said, hey. Excuse me.
I just think Jesus loves you a whole lot. Would you mind if I took a second to pray for you? They said, sure. So we grabbed hands right there. I prayed for the couple and got their number.
They got my number, and I thought that was that. I drove away. 30 minutes later, get a call. They were really going through a rough time. Would you are you still in the area?
Would you come back and talk to us? We just need somebody to to to unload on. So I came back, sat at the picnic table outside of the Wawa there on Gulf Of Bay with them, shared the gospel with them. She's weeping and ready to receive Jesus. And really, it was more of a repentance, like coming back to him because she had been running from Jesus for a long time, but he's like "stone cold", like, you know, all in his head logic.
Right? And agnostic believes there's something, but it could be this, that, and the other, and just really putting up putting up a front. And the Lord told me to do the exact same thing I'm about to do right now. I'm sitting at this table. He goes, hey, hey, son.
I I remember. Remember that rap song that you wrote 2 2 years ago? You need to rap it for him right now. I'm like I said, dude, I I I don't do this. But I wrote a rap song.
He said, I'll do it now. But I wrote a rap song and I think I wrote it for you. And I'm gonna rap it for you. And if God touches your heart in that moment, know that he's speaking to you and he really loves you. And he goes, alright.
And I wrapped it for him there at the table. And when I get done, tears roll down his eyes and he gives his life to Jesus. And then and then I said, well, baptism. It's a big deal. Like, you should be obedient to take a step of baptism.
And and like they're like, well, we're all in. We're ready. I said, well, let's do it right now. There's a beach 10 miles away. Would you come?
They said, yes. So we went to the beach 10 miles away. Clearwater Beach. I baptized him and his girlfriend right there in the beach. You know you know how Noah was real?
When they got out, he got down on 1 knee and and repented and asked her to marry him. I'll have to show I had my friend come and meet us at the beach and we got the video and stuff, so I'll have to show you 1 day. But for some crazy reason, the Lord told me to do this, so I'm gonna do it. If I mess up if I mess up, I didn't practice, so y'all just forgive me. By the way, faith comes by hearing, requires believing what you heard, and is completed by obedience.
And a lot of times for supernatural fruit, you gotta risk it and step out of your comfort Following Jesus in your daily life requires hearing God, believing what he said, and and saying, yes, Lord, even when you're uncomfortable. I'm uncomfortable.
*Lord*, "I need you". Yes. I do. "I can't do this without you". I don't even wanna try to.
You are my only. *Lord*, I need you. Yes. I do. I can't do this without you.
I don't even wanna try to. You are my only Lord,
I can't do this without you. I really don't even wanna try to. See, I try to, but without you. I so full of pride, really just lied to. The world lies to you.
Drink a lot to be satisfied. Giving power to the lie. You're in my life. Then my life's "smelling like" the fruit of the lies, and all the lies all laughing from the sidelines. Nah.
Think of the time your life hit real hard. Friends coming at you like, where's your God? What'd you do? Do you ask questions too? And when you did, but the questions didn't work for you, nah, doubt doesn't ever pay spiritual bills.
Anxiety and worry, it's purchase pills. Them 3 are just the bastard sons of fear. Fear is the fruit of lies that's become too real. I need you. Yes, I do.
I can't do this without you. I don't even wanna try to. You are
my only Lord. I can't do this without you. I really don't ever even have to. See, Christ died, dude, and that death proved that his love so good is worth dying to, not just death, bro. Now there's life too.
Life's so good he fulfills you. He empowers you. He doesn't leave my God, now he leaves
you. And yet there's no better time to surrender, dude. I need you. Yes, I do. I can't do this without you.
I don't even wanna try to. You are my only. *Lord*, I need you. Yes. I do.
I can't do this without you. I don't even wanna try to. You are my
only Lord. I can't do this without you. I'll never stop fighting. I believe the truth. When sickness is imminent and the kiss of death is too relevant, it's like this.
When the pressure's oppression, the stress is distressing. The devil's just fighting to prove I'm not living, but having surrendered control to the cross. I've rejoiced in the suffering. I've counted the cost. *Jesus*
loves me. This, I know, for the bible tells me so when I turn to him and pray his *presence* meets me here again. *Jesus* loves me. Yes. Loves me.
Yes.
I sing that song in the back of my mind anytime I'm about to get up and speak. *Lord*, I need you. Yes, I do. I can't do this without you. Don't even wanna try to.
You are my only. But I think there's probably some people in here that that have believed the lies that I was talking about, and it really didn't benefit them at all. And you've been living without peace and without joy in your life. You don't know what the abundant life looks like. The abundant life looks like complete surrender.
It looks like I'm trusting you instead of myself. I'm trusting what you say instead of what I feel. So first, I just wanna say, like, is there anybody in here who, 1, you know you don't have a real relationship with God, and it's time to *surrender* and just go all in for him instead of being on the fence? And you're ready to go all in, and you don't care who knows it. If that's you, why don't you raise your hand just high?
Come on. Who else? Alright. I'm not gonna ask you to to come up here, but I'm gonna teach you to stand for Jesus. So if you really mean it, want you to stand up.
Okay. We're gonna pray a prayer. It's just a prayer. Have you have you ever really surrendered and said, Jesus, I'm gonna follow you instead of myself? This means being born again where you felt the weight of sin and shame fall off and the presence of the Holy Spirit** come to live inside of you.
Have you ever experienced that before? Sir? No? Ma'am? Yes.
Okay. So this is kind of a repentance thing restoring. For you, sir, I want I want you guys just to stay there for a second. And, sir, do you believe Jesus died for you? Yes or no?
Do you believe are you and you're ready to surrender to him by standing. So just pray this with me right there, and then I'm gonna have somebody some other people stand up. We're gonna do something else. Just say this out loud. Say, Jesus.
Yeah. Say it like you mean it. Only if you believe it. I've been living for myself, and I believe you died for my sin, and you rose again. So that to save me from me.
So right now, I choose to follow you instead of me. I turn my life over to you. *Holy *Spirit**, come live inside of me and teach me what that means. Let me pray for you. Father, pray for this man.
You bless him. Let him sense your presence. Let him sense your goodness and how much you love him. I just rebuke the weight of sin and *shame* that's gone. He's a new creation in you.
Thank you, Lord* *Jesus, for your goodness. Now for the rest of you, if you want just you feel like you haven't really been all in in a long time, and you know it's time to make a declaration that to run back to running all in for Jesus. If that's you, I want you to stand up. Come on. There's more.
This is this is those that have lost the fire of God that they once had, and they're ready to repent of stagnation and to go all in all the more. Who else? There's some people in here that's saying, this is me, but you're kinda nervous about standing up. There's already somebody that stood up. So so you can you can stand up too.
Go ahead. Who is it? Stand for Jesus. Come on, little man. That's beautiful.
I love it. Ain't no junior Holy Spirit**. It's the same big Holy Spirit's gonna use you to change your world.
Amen. Okay.
I want you guys to pray this with me out loud. And the church, you guys can join in with this 1. Say, Jesus. Jesus. I surrender.
I "I'm all in" for you. I'm all in you. Teach me how to "walk with you".
Teach me how to walk you.
"Day in and day out". Day in and day out. Teach me how to trust you. Teach me of what I feel. Instead what
I feel. So that
I can follow you all the more. *Holy Spirit*, lead me. Father, discipline me to look more like you. I trust you. Amen.
You guys just give a big old hand clap for Jesus. You guys can be seated. I didn't do that in the first service.
Help
me, Lord. Alright. FYI, the supernatural's on the other side of obedience. If you don't see in the supernatural in your life, you're probably not being obedient. He's gonna challenge you outside of your comfort zone.
If you're only staying comfortable with being obedient where you've always been obedient, you're missing out because he wants you to look more like him every single day. And more like him every single day looks like being stretched in every single way. Come on. See, am a poet, and you know it now. Oh, you know Okay.
I'm a cut out a lot at the beginning. Basically, I went to Lafayette, Louisiana and was with doctor Leon because *God* put him in my life to learn from. I'm very thankful. He's 1 of the many people that I get to learn from. I wanna be like him when I grow up.
He's 72 years old, been following Jesus in ministry for 50 years, travels the world, and encourages the church 50 weeks out of the year, and is ramping up, not down. Because you never really retire in the kingdom. You retire maybe from your physical job, but in the kingdom, you go from glory to glory. So when you're in your seventies and your eighties, you're actually the most influential you'd ever be for the kingdom. You should use that to multiply his kingdom all the more.
And when you retire from the kingdom, you retire from this earth. Amen? Amen. So, the Lord loves you. It's good.
And so learn, just just followed Him, watched Him and and learned how He what how He did what He was doing and and was received a lot. And after that, got to go up to West Virginia with my family. There's a snowbird that comes down from that area once a year in the winter, you know, a lot of times, *God*'s blessed him, amazing business, and he has a cabin that he uses for staff retreats and family vacations. And for the last 6 years, he's told my family we could use it for free up there and actually paid for us to go up there. And so so we we have our family vacation there every year.
And I got to take my son snowboarding. We got to tour the Capitol Building. It was it was really amazing. And so I'm just very thankful. Then after that, we got back on Tuesday.
And then on Wednesday, did some work. I've been responding to your a lot of your emails. You guys are doing "Back to the Basics", which is the series that we just finished up. Back to the Basics, part 7 was last week. Didn't didn't Alex David on part 6 and Robbie Huffman do amazingly?
Very grateful for them. And and back to the basics, there's this 7 part video teaching that I put out on our website. You go through it. It's got notes. You take the assessment.
Right? Why do you do the assessment? Because you're a disciple maker. A disciple maker is a leader, and leaders don't shy away from accountability. When you take that assessment, I get an email of your answers.
Don't be freaked out by that. I'm not like, you know? I'm reading it to pray for you. And I respond. And it's a man, I've I've wept at a lot of your emails that come in out of joy of what God's doing in your life and getting to answer questions and other things.
It's just been a beautiful thing. So please participate in that. It keeps me way more busy than than it just keeps me busy, but God gives me the grace for it, and I'm thankful. It's a joy to get to to help disciple you and pastor you in that way. Amen?
So so please do that. Anyway, so doing emails and stuff, which is important. And then I went on Thursday, my daughter, Selah, I flew to Omaha, Nebraska. I flew in last night at 1AM or got drove into the house a little after 1AM. But God sent us to Nebraska, and it was awesome.
This is the place that we went. We went to World Mandate. World Mandate Missions Conference. It was awesome. I got to speak on Friday night, Just overflow what I'm living in my life and help equip the church and and part of that network for prayer, evangelism, and discipleship.
Come on, it was beautiful and there's a reason that I got to do that. A healthy, amazing, wonderful reason that I wanna talk to you about because it's important. But first, before we get there, I want to talk to you about making sure that your fire, the fire that God started today in your life, the fire that God rekindled in your guys' life and in all of your life, when you were born again, God lit a fire in your heart and you are the custodian of the fireplace of your heart. It's up to you to keep that thing lit and going. I don't believe it'll if you if God started the fire, I don't believe it'll ever go out.
Okay? But it's up to you to keep gas on the fire and keep it going because we're supposed to go from glory to glory. We're so you're supposed to go from hot to hotter. You're not supposed to think back 20 years ago how I was so on fire for God. You know, but now I'm gonna let them youngsters do it.
Simmer down. You're supposed to be even more on fire than the youngsters and helping to light their fires. It's like you're not supposed to have just a summer camp experience where you're on fire for Jesus for 2 weeks after you give your life for Jesus, and then and then, you know, oh, he'll settle down 1 day. He's just young in the Lord. Now keep that fire for the rest of your life.
And if you don't, there's something off. I wanna teach you real quick how to do that. *Leviticus-6*. Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, not Numbers, Leviticus. Here we go.
When you're born again, you're a priest. You become a priest. Jesus is your high priest, and you are a priest. As we learned in worship, your role in worship is to minister before the Lord. It's what they did.
And, *Leviticus-6 verse 8, the Lord* spoke to Moses saying, command Aaron and his sons saying, this is the law of the burnt offering. The burnt offering shall be on the hearth of the altar all night until morning, and the fire of the altar shall be kept burning on it. And the priest shall put on his linen garment and put his linen undergarment under on his body, and he shall take up the ashes to which the fire has reduced the burnt offering on the altar and put them beside the altar. Then he shall take off his garments and put on other garments and carry the ashes outside the camp to a clean place. How often did he do that?
**every morning**. The fire on the altar shall be kept burning on it. It shall not go out. The priest shall burn wood on it every morning, and he shall arrange the burnt offering on it and shall burn it on it the fat of the peace offerings. Verse 13, fire shall be kept burning on the altar continually.
It shall not go out. In 1737, there were some refugees from Moravia that found themselves in Germany on the land of count Zinzendorf. Count Zinzendorf was this 27 year old dude. And while they were there, there was division and argument. It was bad.
So Count Zinzendorf cries out to the Lord for reconciliation and revival. And God spoke to him, and he spoke to him in Leviticus-6:13. Fire shall be kept burning on the altar continually, and it shall not go out. As a result of that prayer, 3 days later, and I think it's 08/27/1737, the Holy Spirit** was poured out in fire. Revival broke out called the Moravian revival.
There was a there were people burning for the Lord, a passion for God, a radical love for 1 another. There was repentance and *reconciliation* because the Holy Spirit**'s poured out on unity. And there was a desperation, a love for the scriptures. And out of that started a prayer revival where they had a prayer meeting that lasted for 100 years. Every hour.
Never stopping. And out of that prayer meeting came a movement of missionaries that spanned the whole world. 5 years after it started, they sent their first missionaries, David and Johan. David was 36 and Johan was 27. And out of prayer, they heard the Lord's heart for the Isle Of Saint Thomas in the Caribbean.
It was an Isle of a lot of black slaves. And they couldn't figure out how that they were gonna be there, but they knew they were supposed to be a part of it. So they wanted They tried to sell themselves into slavery so that they could go and minister to the slaves. Because they were desperate to do God's purposes for their life. Problem is nobody would buy white slaves.
So they figured out they could use their skills as trade labor, which got them a ticket to the Isle Of Saint Thomas. And when they're standing on the boat and their family is about to watch them pull off their families and friends, standing on the boat, they reach up their fists in a cry of victory, and they say, "May the lamb receive the reward" for which he was slain. May the lamb receive the reward, knowing that they'll probably never return. They're sailing to their death to die to themselves for the harvest and likely to physically die. Missionaries in that day would take a wooden box, pack their belongings in it because they know they're going to their death.
No longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. The abundant life is just found in full surrender. Not this half in, half out junk. I'm all in. I'm all in.
May the lamb receive the reward for which he was slain. The Moravians were world changers. Guess what, real church? You're a world changer. You.
Even you. Me? Yeah. You. You're a world changer.
*God* wants to use you to change the world, and it requires a heart that's burning for him and kept burning such that it overflows out of your mouth, and words that are burning pierce the hearts of those around you, and it overflows to your hands, hands that are burning on fire such that everywhere that you touch becomes burning starts burning for Jesus and that it's just contagious because of your life. That's the life he's called you to, man. It's the life I live. Follow me as I follow Jesus. And then tell others to do the same.
May the lamb receive the reward for which he was slain. What's the reward for which Jesus was slain? You are. He paid the price so that you could receive his life and that you could join him, "co labor with him", co commissioned on his mission. He's sharing his mission with you so that you could bring others into relationship with Him.
They're His reward. He paid His life so the world could know Him through you. May the lamb receive the reward for which He was slain. Problem is, the world looks at a lot of the American church and says, I don't want that because they're not burning for him. If they were burning for him, they'd want it.
But they're making excuses and doing what they're comfortable with, so there's no supernatural. There's no power. There's no there's no anointing. There's no passion for him. There's just dead worship.
No overflowing. He wants you to passionately burn for him. Not because it's an act or a fake, but because it's so real to you, because you're living for him. Day in and day out, you've learned how to reproduce. You've learned how to multiply.
You've learned how to keep the fire of your heart alive. How do you do that? It's in Leviticus-6. The priest shall burn wood on it every morning. Everybody say every morning.
Every morning. And he shall arrange the burnt offering on it and shall burn the fat of the peace offerings on it. So it's the fat of the peace offerings, probably older peace offerings, right? Kept some of the fat. What was the peace offering?
Peace offering represented peace between man and God. Because of Jesus, we have peace with God so we can walk confidently into His presence. Our sin debt has been paid. You offered the peace offering with gratitude. Thank you, *Lord Jesus*, for who you are and what you've done.
Thank you, Lord* *Jesus, that I'm forgiven. The peace offering helped to keep the fire going. Every single morning, your worship with God, your quiet time with God should look like, Lord Jesus, thank you so much for who you are and what you're doing in my life. Thank you that I get to be your son. Thank you that I get to walk in in your presence day in and day out because of the blood that you shed.
Thank you, Lord, that this peace between me and you. I can experience your presence with boldness and confidence because of your sacrifice, confidently as a son, but with the heart of a servant. Lord, what an honor it is to get to be with you. Thank you for the experiences I've had in you, Lord God, walking with you. What a joy it is to come into your presence this morning with you.
You're like, I I don't get really that much out of my quiet time. You know why? Because your quiet time probably looks like, alright. I got 10 minutes. What's the verse of the day?
I probably wouldn't get much out of my quiet time either. What if it was impassionate gratitude because you're so captivated by what God did? Man, your quiet time will be a lot more lit. Not so quiet anymore, That's right. But then you gotta peep wood on the altar every day, every morning.
What does wood represent? In the Old Testament, a lot of the everything physical represents something spiritual today. So gold in the Old Testament, pure gold represents pure God. A lot of times where you see pure gold, it represents God. Wood represents mankind, a human.
How do you keep the fire going? Every morning putting wood on the altar. What does that represent? You. Your life.
It represents obedience. Let me prove it. Romans-12:1. Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God. This is your or present your bodies as a living sacrifice, something to God.
This is your holy and acceptable act of worship. You're the sacrifice. It's you. It's obedience day in and day out. But wait a second.
Every morning, we gotta take the ash, yesterday's ash, and take it off the altar. Why? Because yesterday's obedience doesn't keep today's fire going. That's right. Yeah.
Good. Amen? Alright. So here you go. I remember what happened yesterday because testimony isn't a testimony of what you did.
It's a testimony of what Jesus did. So, remember what Jesus did. Yes, I co labored with him. There was some obedience but I remember what Jesus did that's that sparks gratitude in my heart, the peace offering. Thank you lord for what you did.
And that it overflows into, yes Lord, obedience. And on the other side of obedience is the supernatural. On the other side of obedience, I experience more relationship with him. I experience more fire in my heart day in and day out. Then I wake up the next morning, yes, Lord.
Thank you Lord* *Jesus for who you are. I take the ash of yesterday away because I'm forgetting yesterday, and I'm running forward the race that God's called me. Not letting any weight or sin hold me back anymore. Not making excuses, but being all in. Come on, man.
Let this light your fire. Burn for Jesus again. Don't play some religious junk where you just come to church on a Sunday said, well, I got it in today and then I'm gonna go back to my bible study. What's the worst of the day? And alright, go about my day.
That was for effect. Come on, man. Let's burn. Life's too short to to plague church. Life's too short to be religious and dead.
**Live for him**. Burn for him. Day in and day out. How do you do it? Day in and day out.
Yes, *Lord*. And he stretches you in every way, and it's uncomfortable. Sometimes you gotta play a piano and rap in front of a congregation. Yes, Lord. But I'll look back at what you did.
Somebody got saved, man. That was awesome. Who cares about the uncomfort? I'm telling you, following Jesus is adventurous. It's crazy.
He'll lead you to do things and go places you never would have thought, but it's because he's causing you to grow into him in all things. Well, that's not my personality. I'd never do that. You will if you if he's the Lord of your life and he tells you to. I mean if He's not the Lord of your life then you'll just incorporate Him into your life and do what only you feel like and think that you might be a Christian.
Problem is there's a lot of people that are sitting in church pews and church around the world, lot of people. And they're not wheat, they're tares. Tares, *God separates the wheat from the tares* in the end. And he commands us to preach to both and not separate them ourselves because we can't tell the difference. I'll tell you how you tell the difference.
You can only really tell the difference in a tare and a wheat when they're both mature. And you you you can't really tell. You you you don't really know if somebody's maturing or if they're a tare. Okay? Tear and a wheat look exactly the same.
But when they get mature, 1 stands straight up and the other bends at the weight of its fruit. One's prideful and one's humble. Good. One's "all about me", and one's all about him. Amen.
Alright. I got some things I gotta do before we close. This Friday, we have a meeting where annually we reveal communicate transparently as part of our core values. It's 1 of our who we are. Right?
So with our finances, we annually have a meeting where we just open up. Hey, this is who we are. This is this is what we did this last year. And it's it's to let the covenant members, those that are covenant members of our church, to to know that men, what they were sowing into is advancing and and is accountable and and used rightly. It's important, so I'd encourage you to sign up.
Problem is, you gotta be a covenant member to sign up. So I gotta explain the whole covenant member thing and why we do that because it's kind of important. You have to have gone through establish to be a covenant member. What is establish? Establish is where you you sign up because you've been coming here for a few weeks or a Sunday or a couple months or however long, and you're like, man, I love the DNA of this church.
I wanna be a part of it. So you go through establish, it's a process. Establish, you get to know our vision, our mission, our values, the story of how we started and how you could be a part. And man, we just want you to wanna welcome you into the family. And then people that go through establish, they start serving, getting the small groups or whatever their next step in their relationship with Jesus is.
And they're like, man, I love this family. I wanna I'm all in. We've got covenant memberships. You don't pay a fee. You don't pay a due or anything like that.
Okay? It's not a country club. But the reason we're doing it is because I want to disciple whoever he puts around my influence to get out of to **stop being a consumer** and and being a consumer relationships with your wife or your husband, with brothers and sisters in Christ, and with the church, and start operating biblically, covenantially. Consumer is, I'm in it only as long as it's good for me. And as soon as I get a bad meal, I'm leaving that restaurant.
Maybe 2 or 3, but 3 max, then I'm out. Doesn't matter how long I've been going there. I'm going somewhere else. Meaning, I'm only in it as long as I get what I feel I need, which means it's making it all about you instead of about Jesus. *Covenant*, a covenant marriage, like marriages that have divorce in America because it's consumer.
Yeah. That's right. *Covenant* is I'm in it because God put me here, and I'm in it here until God sends me somewhere else. Right? It's holy and healthy.
Now, He's never gonna send you away from your marriage, so get that out of your mind. But he may send you away from this church in 2 weeks or in 2 years or in 20. Doesn't matter to me. If he's sending, I'm blessing. Praise the Lord.
And if you tell me God told you, I ain't gonna argue with you. I'm just gonna pray if you ask me for counsel, I'll give you counsel. Okay? But it's our joy to get to send you. So but covenant is healthy.
It's healthy. I went into this a lot longer last service because I didn't do what I did this service. So I'll do it shortly. But Alex David, the guy who preached on prayer, is the perfect example of why covenant relationships with the church is important. Alex came from the church that hosted World Mandate in Omaha, Nebraska.
He was a pastor there for 5 years. Not the lead pastor, but 1 of the pastors on staff. And he helped that church to grow. He impacted the culture of that church. He set up the prayer room.
I mean, it's just powerful what he did. I got to see it. When he came here, like God God gave them a picture of Clearwater, Florida that told them that they're supposed to come here and set up a prayer altar. Meaning just they're supposed to to bathe Clearwater in prayer. And he so him and and Leah, they presented that to their leaders at the church, and, man, it it resonated with their leaders because they're a healthy sending church.
It's not all about my 4 no more. So they prayed for him and sent him. So Alex and Leah came here. This is like the second church they visited. When they came, they're like, God sent us here.
That was the Sunday we were talking about establish. That night they came to establish. They heard the vision, mission, values. They saw who we were, and then they signed covenant membership forms because they were all in. There's like God sending us here.
It doesn't matter about our preferences. It doesn't matter about if I like the worship, or I like the preaching, or I like this or that, and they got something for my kids. No. It's did God send me here or not? And if God didn't send you here, praise the Lord for visiting.
That's wonderful. Go find a local church that God sent you to. So because there's stuff in you they need, and there's stuff in them you need. And it better be a live church that's gonna help you to grow, and you're gonna help them to grow. So they did that.
He and and you know what he did? He didn't come to me and say, I was a pastor for 5 years. This is my repertoire. This is all that I've done. So how are you going to use me?
That would be not the the wheat, but the chaff. No. What he did, he said, hey, man. How can I serve? I just wanna serve.
Didn't even know his his background. He just started serving. Became a part of the wrecking crew, setting up chairs, cleaning like, washing the feet of our church. God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble. God promotes the humble and resists the proud.
Why? Because God wants to break you of your pride before he promotes you. Otherwise, your pride will break you and cause destruction. So a couple weeks of serving and and different things, and I just there's something about this dude. He's got a servant's heart.
What's going on? So I take him to coffee. I'm like, dude, what's your story? So he tells me. I say, hey, can I call your pastor?
Sure. Why? Because I don't know this guy from Adam. I sense that that he's honest and true and it's from the Lord. But man, I wanna I wanna see if the place that he was at for 5 years verifies what he's saying.
Or is he just leaving and running from 1 thing to another because he doesn't have the character to be faithful? When you learn the art of consistency *God* gives you the privilege to lead. *Faithfulness is a fruit of the Spirit*. If you're not faithful in areas of your life you're lacking fruit from the Spirit. Repent and start walking by the spirit in that area.
So I called Pastor Matt who planted the church and was like a spiritual father to him. Pastor Matt said, and he planted other churches, mighty man of God. He said, man, we miss Alex. He did so much for our church. Dude, you got a you got a great 1.
Use him. I called the the interim pastor of the church. He said the same thing. So I trusted these men of God, and I said, what's on your what's your dream? He told me about the prayer thing.
I said, dude, let's do it. I love it. I said, here's what I want you do. I want you to fast and pray for 40 days, and I want you to pray for our church that they would learn how to pray. You know what he did?
Responsibility is the test, by the way. Bible says to test leaders. How do I test them? Responsibility. Can you be faithful with a little?
Give more. Faithful with a little? Give more. Yeah? So so what did he do?
He fasted and prayed for 40 days, and he prayed for you guys to learn how to pray. Then we launched the boiler room. Dude, if you're not coming to the boiler room on Friday nights, you should come. It's on fire. If it happens at real church, it's birthed in the boiler room because prayer precedes movement.
You should come. Learn to pray corporately, then take it privately, and then overflow privately back corporately. It's gonna be awesome. So that, healthily being sent from 1 church to another, impacted me, impacted our church. But then, guess what?
He connected me with their church. They were having a conference where they part of the Antioch movement and stuff and what they're doing, and they asked him, hey, do you do you know anybody that would be a good speaker? We need 1 more. He said, hey, pastor Dave, it's perfect. So I now, Real Church has a relationship with Waypoint in Omaha, Nebraska because someone left healthily.
They were sent, and it unified the body of Christ. When you leave unhealthily and you bash the church you came from, it disunifies the body of Christ. Don't do that. Repent and then help to restore the relationships if you did leave unhealthily. I'm not saying you have to go back, but maybe if the Lord tells you to, do it.
And and help to restore those relationships, forgive us, to the as far as it is with you. Right? Sometimes they screw up. And there's there's healthy ways and real reasons to leave a church, a dead church or error in the pulpit or whatever. There's a
lot of stuff. So anyway,
that that's the importance of a covenant relationship, man. It unifies the body of Christ. Covenant membership at Real Church, you're really saying I believe in
the vision, the mission, and
the values of Real Church and the direction it's going, and so I'm I'm coming under the mission of that place. *Submission*. Coming under the mission. Co missioned with Jesus. If you have a problem with the word submission, you need to deal with that with the Lord because that is a root of rebellion in your heart, And Satan was kicked out of heaven for rebellion.
Okay? So I'm not I'm not it's not condemnation. It's just saying, hey, deal with that in your heart. If you have a problem with authority or people in your life that are in positions of power, radical distrust or whatever, it's really a lack of trust for the Lord. So ask him to heal that area so that you can be a great follower because "great followers are great leaders".
Make sense? Okay. So Americans have trouble with that because we're an independent, like, democracy. Right? Which is good, but the kingdom's not a democracy.
He's king. And he set it up like a kingdom, so there's authority in different things. I'm submitted to Doctor. Leon. I'm submitted to Doctor.
Philip Brasfield my brother Chris Donald. And man, under the authority of Christ, it's relationship. It's just a beautiful thing and that's just how it works. So that's covenant. What the requirement of the covenant relationship, man?
You're not signing the blood. There's no legal documents or anything like that. Like but that you that you give your time, your talent, your treasure to make the mission move forward. So you serve, you attend, and you tithe. Oh, I don't like tithing, and I don't wanna tithe.
I don't know. What are you talking about? Why would would you just want my money? Bruh, you're a priest. What it would it like, what what was the tithe the purpose of?
They bring it to the storehouse. There would be abundance in the storehouse. Who enjoyed the tithe? The people that brought the tithe to the storehouse all ate it together at the storehouse. When you tithe, it blesses the church which is a blessing to your family.
Your kids, we're able to have children's church. We're able to rent the school. We're able to do ministry. And when enough tithe, it overflows into the community and into the world. And it becomes a "city on a hill" where the world says, wow, I wanna go there.
So we go to them and then they come to us. It's kind of a cool thing. If you always go to church but never participate financially, then you're participating in someone else's sacrifice and not giving your own. So if this isn't your home church, go to your home church and start tithing. You're gonna receive the blessing.
Now, another question for you. How much of the money is yours? Not 90%. None. A 100% is God's.
He requires 10% as a heart test for you. The other 90% is yours to steward for His kingdom. There is "meat to eat" and "seed to sow". If you eat your seed, you will never reproduce. Ask the Lord what's seed and what's meat?
What's offering and what's His? How does He want you to steward it to take care of your family and to multiply His kingdom? But you don't just sow your money, you sow your time and you sow your talent too. Into the local church and into your job, into your family. Learn to be a giver, and it will multiply in you.
Amen? You can sign up to be a covenant member if you want after you've done Establish on our website. If you haven't done Establish, sign up for that. We love you. I'm really done.