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Thank you, Samuel. You guys can be seated. That wow. Glad you're back. It's an honor to get to be back.
I'm not Jesus. Jesus is Jesus. But we are actually the body of Christ. Right? So you play a role when people see your life.
This should cause them to think of Jesus. *1 John-4:17* says, in this world, we are like Jesus. As he is, so are we in this world. The religious say, hold on. Wait a second.
I've been taught I'm nothing but a filthy, rotten sinner. What are you talking about, pastor? I'm just preaching Bible to you. Go get in the word. Bible says you're a new creation created in Christ *Jesus* to reflect him and be a minister of reconciliation.
Amen? Amen. Amen? He's made you new. He's either made you new or he hasn't.
And so now what he does is he speaks his word to you by the Holy Spirit and the person of the Holy Spirit empowers you to live out that word, be in the reflection of his love and his power in this world. That's why you're called the body of Christ. The head tells the arms and the hands and everything what to do. The hands and the arms and the legs and everything submit to it and reflect the character and nature of the head. Yes?
So praise the Lord. In and of myself, in and of yourselves, we're not Jesus. However, he put his spirit in us to reflect him as his body. So my name is David John Phillips. I have the joy and honor of getting to be the pastor here.
There's no place I'd rather be. There's nothing that I'd rather be doing. And I do say it every time that I get to preach here because I mean it. It's an honor to get to be your pastor. And if this is your first time or you've been coming here for years, our prayer is that you encounter the presence, the power and the love of Jesus in such a way that you are forced into the valley of decision.
Because He loves you too much to leave you apathetic. In some way shape or form in the depths of your heart you'll be forced because you encounter His presence and His power and His love into the valley of decision where you have to choose whether you continue and with all the more surrender, yes, Lord, all the more taking steps to look more like Him or you continue where you are which would be to be stagnant and fall away. And every time we get around other believers, every time we get to church, if you are just visiting, my hope is every time you go to your *local church* that you are spurred on to look more like Christ And you say, yes, Lord, all the more. And it challenges you into deeper levels of surrender because you see people around you that are living for Jesus more than you are. And other people see you and you're living for Jesus more than they are and your life spurs them onto Christ.
And then when you go on to work on Monday, you can't help but say, yes, Lord, and overflow the goodness of God out because it's just so full of, you just can't help it. It's just like, yeah, this life is awesome. A lot of people ask, why'd you name it real church? It's been my motto since I was 14. Just a real person living a real life for a real Jesus having a real good time.
I'm really having a real good time. I get around some other pastors and they're like, so how you doing? I'm like, I'm good, man. Like, I'm not sure I could be any better. Like, God's on the throne.
He's with me. He's got his joy and his but how you really do it? I really have his peace and his joy, man. I mean, there's trials out here, but it ain't infecting what's in here. And if it ever does, I just took my eyes off of that and put it on myself for a little bit too long.
I need to return to joy by rejoicing in the Lord always. Yeah? The Bible says Philippians-4:4 and 5, rejoice in the Lord always. Again, say rejoice. Let your gentleness be evident to all.
The Lord is near. Don't be anxious about anything. That's a command. He wouldn't give you a command. He he he's not gonna empower you to keep.
Every command he gives you, he empowers you to keep by his presence and his spirit. If you keep your eyes on him. When you take your eyes off him and put them on you, you'll reflect you. Amen? Amen.
I'm fired up guys. I'll tell you why. I've been gone for like 3 weeks. 2 Sundays, this is about 3 weeks. Let's see, 2 Sundays ago, I was in Lafayette, Louisiana, and the Lord put it on my heart to go and just follow Doctor Leon.
Doctor Leon Van Ruyen is 1 of the overseers of our church. He's a mentor of mine, like a spiritual father, he's become that to me. The Bible says you have many teachers but not many fathers. And Paul was saying I've become a father to you by the gospel, which is a big deal. And he he was saying to those he was mentoring and leading, follow me as I follow Christ.
Who can you say that to? Are you living a life where you're making disciples and you can say to those around you who may be a little younger in the Lord than you, follow me as I follow Christ. That's the great commission. Christianity is not come sit in a chair on church, get something out of it, and go home and say, man, I checked it off my box. If that's if that's the only Christianity you've been living, I'm sorry, guy.
Ma'am, you've been missing out. Life must suck. You're probably living mountaintop and valley mountaintop and valley, you're only as good as it's going. That's not the life you're called to. You're called to an abundant life, an abundant life in Christ.
And I'm not saying you're called to everybody's called to billions of dollars in Lamborghinis. That's not the abundant life I'm talking about. The abundant life I'm talking about is you go from "glory to glory" in him because your revelation of him goes deeper and deeper. And so your reflection of him goes more crystal clear and more crystal clear every single day. And if you're reflecting him, he was the he was the 1 that had the most joy out of everybody.
So your peace and your joy level should go from deeper and deeper and should cause more and more of the junk around you to shift because you're there. I'm telling you, the abundant life that's found in Christ is real. And you know what it takes to learn it? Suffering. I'm telling you.
You laugh. Suffering produces proven character which produces, well suffering produces perseverance which produces proven character which produces hope. That doesn't disappoint. Here's what it looks like. Any area of your life where where you're over focused on yourself, that's called pride.
Whether it's insecurity or it's, you know, puffing yourself up like a peacock. It's pride. The bible says God resists the proud. That resistance is gonna cause suffering. So in any area of your life where you're over focused on yourself, God is resisting you.
Why? Because he wants to break you of you so you can humbly follow him in that area. And in every area we are focused on him, that's called humility, humble confidence in who he is and what he says about you. In that area of your life, he lifts you up so that you can reflect him to others in that area of your life. Any area of your life where you're walking in true humility, biblical humility, which a couple years ago Gabe preached about, it was powerful, you should go check it out.
I don't remember what message, just search them. True biblical humility is not insecurity. It's not making less of yourself, but it's confidently walking in who he says that you are, not projecting yourself as more than that. So in any area of your life where you're walking in biblical humility, you're going to experience the peace, the presence, the love, the power of God, and he's gonna lift you up in that area. In any area of your life where you're experiencing resistance, resistance, and consistent suffering that lasts over and over and you don't know why?
It's probably because you're over focused on yourself. And God is resisting you because he wants to create in you the perseverance to walk with him instead of always leaning back to what you know instead of what he said. And so then when he speaks it and you trust him instead of the circumstance, instead of what's going on, right, and you stand in it, the enemy then comes and brings some suffering Because he doesn't believe that you believe what you say you believe. And he wants to prove to you that you don't really believe it. So he brings suffering and persecution in the exact opposite way of what God spoke to you.
To see if you really believe it. And God lets it happen. You know why? Because He knows, God knows what He told you. And God's just waiting.
He's saying, hey, guys in heaven, look. Look at my kid. The enemy is going to try to take this 1 from him but I've given him every promise he needs to reflect my divine nature. He's going to participate. That's what 2 Peter-1 says.
We get to participate in His divine nature through the promises He gave us. I've given, I've given, look at my boy down there. I've given him everything he needs to overcome this thing. The enemy doesn't know what he's doing. He's gonna try, but my son's gonna stand.
He's gonna stand. Eventually, the enemy's gonna flee. And when the enemy flees, my son's gonna know that he really believes what I told him. And he it'll never it'll never attack him in the same way again. Oh, he'll wait for some weakness to come or some time where where he's tired or whatever and try to get him again, but he is gonna submit that truth deep in his heart such that there's a foundation that when the storms come again, he's gonna walk in peace and joy because he's standing on my word.
Abundant life, man. You don't get that abundant life without surrender. If Christianity, like we talk about in worship, if worship's all about you, if this Christian life is all about what you can get, you're missing it, man. You're really missing it. Your fire is not gonna stay.
It's just not. The fire stays. Sorry guys, I just went on a tangent. You guys all right? Okay.
So I was Lafayette, Louisiana 2 Sundays ago with Doctor. Leon, and I was there for a reason. God told me to learn from him. The best leaders are the best followers, and I wanna find people that are following Jesus better than I am and learn from him. Hebrews says, consider your leaders, consider their way of life and imitate their faith for God's the same yesterday, today and forever.
If you're not willing to really learn from the leaders that God's put in your life, you're missing out, bro. If you're the only leader in your life that you're willing to listen to, you don't understand submission. And the kingdom of God's all about submission. Coming under His mission. Coming under his mission.
And to teach you that, he puts you under somebody else's. That God that he entrusted to see if you can follow. Because God doesn't promote rebellion. He promotes humility. Every good leader, if you're God's called you to be a leader, every leader has to learn to submit, to follow someone else.
Because if you can't follow, you can't lead. Because your leadership will all be about you too. And if this is causing pricks in your heart to come up, maybe you need to go to the Lord and ask him to teach you to submit humbly and to get rid of all *rebellion* because that's preventing you from walking out the promises that God has for you. So God brought doctor Leon in my life. He told me, go to a a conference he's preaching because he preaches conferences like 50 weeks out of the year.
He's he's trained. It just bumped up to like 300,000 students, which is crazy in his online university. He's just a mighty man of God. I wanna be like him when I grow up. I'm serious.
He's 72 years old and I mean, he's running harder than he's ever run-in his life and he's been going at it for 50 When you follow Jesus, you never retire. You might retire from your job but you don't retire from multiplying the kingdom. When you retire from multiplying in kingdom, God calls you home. Okay? So you keep following Jesus.
You've been if you're 70 years old and you're 80 years old and you're not done, you're still alive. You still got people that God needs to reach through you and your best years are ahead of you if you'll believe it by faith. Amen? Amen. So I went and just watched, and got to learn from him, which was amazing.
Got home and then every year we get to go as a family, on a family vacation for a week in West Virginia. This guy who had who's been coming to our church every winter for 6 years has a cabin that he uses for his staff retreats and family vacations and he offered it to our family every year. And then he he pays for it too. So it's just the ability for us to to go and and and rest and relax. I got to take my son snowboarding, my kids tubing was great, and respond to a lot of emails.
You guys have done an amazing job with Back to the Basics. Thank you. I hope it's it's put it's strengthened the foundations of your faith. If you haven't, go to realchurch.us, click on sermons. There's 7, and Back to the Basics, there's 7 videos.
An introduction video is the eighth video that it will strengthen the foundations of your faith. But don't just don't just listen to it to get something out of it. Listen to it. Take notes on it. Study it to become it because it's the word.
Right? If you don't see it in scripture, don't believe it. But when you see it in scripture, adjust your life to line up with it. And then do the assessment. You do the assessment.
I get that, your answers. I'm not like scrutinizing. No, I can't trust that. No. I get your answers.
I pray through them, respond, and pray for you. And it's just a it's been an amazing experience. I mean I've I've wept multiple times reading your answers out of joy for what God's doing in your life. Thank you. Thank you for growing in the Lord.
Thank you for what you're doing. Thank you for participating. It's a joy again to get to be your pastor. And if you've been resisting, like you've if the Lord told you to do it and you're like, I don't want I don't want to do that. Maybe it's a rebellion thing that you need to work out on in your life.
I mean, rebellion is what got Satan kicked out of heaven. God's gonna cause you, He's gonna resist you until you get rid of that thing so that he can empower you to lead in the areas of your life where he wants you to. But until that, I'm just saying. Make sense? Amen.
So then after that, we got home Tuesday, Wednesday, got to do a lot of emails and do some work. And then Thursday, I got to fly out and go to this conference called World Mandate. Take up your cross and follow me. I went to this conference in Nebraska. Got to preach Friday night.
It was powerful. Got to sit on a panel teaching the church how to do evangelism and discipleship with some others, and it was just a joy to get to be a part of it. I wanna tell you how I got invited to that and why that happened because it matters for you today. How many guys know Alex David? Yeah.
He's amazing, I I just gotta say on the Back to the Basics series, part part 6 and part 7, Alex David did part 6 on prayer. It was powerful. He pioneered and is leading our boiler room on Friday nights. You wanna learn how to pray. You need to learn how to pray.
You wanna learn how to pray, learn how to pray corporately and it'll overflow privately. And then you'll start praying privately and it'll overflow corporately. Okay? Come on Friday nights. At least a couple of times.
It's from 8 to 9. If it happens at real church, it's birthed in the boiler room. Then you might want to start praying with us on Sunday mornings. And then and then you'll realize that a lot of things that happened here, we prayed for. You're probably sitting in in the chair today because somebody prayed for you.
So you don't wanna miss out on the boiler room. It's worth the sacrifice, 8 to 9 on I mean, lot once again, worshiping God requires sacrifice. Requires obedience. You'll see in a second. So got to go to world mandate.
The reason I got to go. Oh, and Robbie on part 7 of back to the basics. I mean, just powerful anointed evangelist God sent to our church. Sign up for engage training. Go to it.
The rest of your life will thank you. So will a lot of people. You'll you won't "show up to heaven" empty handed. The people you lead to Jesus and make disciples of, they're your crown that you lay at the feet of Jesus. You don't want to show up to heaven empty handed.
You want to show up having followed the great commission. Amen? You are not judged for your sin. Jesus was judged for your sin. When you received the gift of Christ Jesus was judged for your sin.
And you can stand in righteousness. But that is **right standing** always leads to right doing. And if it didn't lead to right doing, you maybe didn't receive right standing. There's always an overflow from your standing. So you're not judged for your sin, but you are judged for your reward.
When you receive Jesus, that means that shows where you're gonna spend eternity, that's with Him. How you, what you do with Jesus shows how you're gonna spend eternity with Him. So we don't work to earn anything, but we work out of gratitude and that shows how we are faithful and what we can be entrusted with in eternity. Amen? Amen.
We just throw in a bunch of stuff today. I got 270 I got alright. I told the prayer team when they were laying hands on me. Said, I got 720,000 things I wanna tell people. It's not gonna be like 1 perfect 3 point message and hopefully people get something, you know.
So the the reason I got to go to world mandate is because of covenant relationships in the church. That's why. Because of of the church being the church and people being in healthy **covenant relationships** with the church and being sent and not just leaving when they get offended. Let me explain. Alex David was 1 of the pastors on staff at Waypoint Church, which is where World Mandate Conference was held in Omaha, Nebraska for 5 years.
I mean, pioneered things, shifted culture there. I mean, I got to go and see it. It was amazing how they honored him and loved him and what he had done for that church. He wasn't the lead pastor, but he was 1 of the pastors. And God put on his heart to pick up and move to Florida and and to serve Clearwater Florida in prayer and to build a prayer altar here.
Just meaning to to wrap this city in prayer. And he didn't know what it looked like, but he brought it to his church and God confirmed it to his leaders and they blessed him and sent him. Bittersweet because they loved him. Am I right, Leah? It wasn't just Alex, it was Leah as well, his wife, walking in unity.
Probably struggling a little bit in the flesh, but saying, Yes, Lord. Is that true? Okay. So God blesses the sent man, not the leaving man. If you just leave out of a fence from 1 place to another, you have to be healed, and then you have to heal the mess you have to go back and repent for the message you created.
And the American church has become consumer based instead of covenant based. And consumer based relationships in America is what is causing the division in the body of Christ, and Satan is rejoicing. Because in John-17, the Bible says, Make them 1 as we are 1 so that the world may know Which that you sent means unity in the body of Christ is the most effective form of causing the world to know that Jesus loves them. So disunity is the most effective way to keep the world from knowing Jesus loves them. So what does he do?
The enemy does. He says, Hey, I know it's hard building relationships in that church. And man, that person's not trying hard enough and you're offended. You might as well just leave. You might as well just go from, go to somewhere else.
It'll be easier somewhere else. And our flesh says, you're right, easy and comfort. And then we go from 1 place to another looking for what we want, making it all about us instead of worshiping Jesus. We go to church for Him, not for us. Right?
*Covenant* relationship's about Him and not about us. A marriage is not a consumer based relationship. It's not like I go to a restaurant and as long as I'm getting what I want, as long as you're giving me what I need, I'm here. But as soon as you stop, a couple times too many, I'm out and I'm going to some other restaurant. That's how people get married.
That's not biblical. What's biblical is God sent you to me. God sent me to you. So I'm gonna covenant with you for life. And even if you don't give me what I need, I'm here because God sent me here.
And I'm gonna serve you because I love you sacrificing myself for you instead of for what you can give me. That's a covenant relationship. The beauty is when that happens, God's love through you changes the other person need be or their God's love through them changes you and y'all get it just becomes beautiful. Well, that's how it should be in a church. You don't go to a church just because you like the music or you like the preacher.
I'm flattered, but You go to a church because God sent you there. And you say, yes, Lord. I don't I mean, I would love for it to be here. It's my will that it's here. But go where God sent you.
Whether you like it or not. Are you the Lord of your life? Is your comfort and your preference the Lord of your life? Or is Jesus? And then when you go there, covenant.
God, I'm here. Come hell or high water because I'm your "ride or die". You sent me here because there's stuff in this church that I need, and there's stuff in me that they need. And Lord God, I'm just gonna serve you and serve them until you send me somewhere else. And I ain't gonna assume you're sending me somewhere else every time something gets hard.
I don't live by "open and closed door" theology. That's too circumstantial. I live by his word. What I mean is, there's a lot of people that say, well, door opens, so it must be God. What if what if the devil opened that door?
Well the door shut, so it must be God. What if God wants you to be a warrior and kick the dang door down? Yeah. Yeah. So I heard some man back there.
Yeah. So Alex came here healthy. I didn't know him from Adam. I know who he was. I didn't know Alex and Leah.
And what did Alex do? We talked about establish. Him and Leah came and said, let's go through establish to see what the DNA of the church is, what it's really like. They went through establish, driving home, prayed about it. Yep, this is it.
That was the first Sunday they came. Just new from the Lord. Right? So what'd they do? Jump in, start serving.
Didn't matter that he has this pedigree of being a pastor for 5 years. Look what I did. Look at my background. You should promote me instantly. God resists the proud.
So do I. I follow God. K? You try to promote yourself, you're probably gonna be put on the back burner for a while until you humble yourself and serve. Clean some toilets.
You know why? God made me start by cleaning toilets. Me too, bro. Me too. Because I was proud.
He humbled me. So I just started serving. Finally, I like, man, got a couple of weeks only a couple of weeks, few weeks. I gotta take this guy to there's something about him. I gotta take this guy to go get some coffee, get to know his story.
I said, hey, man. Would you mind if I if I called your pastor? He said, sure. He gave me the number of his pastor, his spiritual father, the first pastor that pastored him for like years, and then the 1 that was a pastor of the church said, call him. It's great.
Why did I do that? I'll tell you in a second. So I called our pastor, called pastor Matt, talked to him. I said, hey, man. I got this couple here.
They came. Did you guys send them? Yeah, we did. And he seems like he's just full of Jesus. Oh, he is.
And we really we really hate to see him go. But man, god sent him there and it was an honor and a joy to get to send him. Man, he's using. He's gonna he's gonna be amazing. Well, there's a lot of people that come here and can play like they follow Jesus and like they're "full of Jesus" for a couple weeks, couple months.
Right? But there's not many people that have a legacy that others are willing to stand by. Why? Because when you learn the art of consistency, God gives you the privilege to lead. Faithfulness is a fruit of the spirit.
And if you're jumping from 1 thing to another, waiting for what's your thing, you're still focused on you, and you need to learn to say, yes, Lord, and and learn to be faithful, Which means you're surrendered to his will instead of yours. And they modeled faithfulness and then God sent them. And their pastor at the past church vouched for faithfulness. So I trusted that man of God's word who's planted multiple churches and led in ministry for 20 years, and I didn't have to build trust with Alex and Leah because because they were vouched for by another church and a man of God. And not just 1, but the pastor that was of the church, who was an interim pastor for a while, talked to him, said the same thing.
Like, praise the Lord. Hey, Alex. What's on your heart? He's like, man, I love his church. I love the DNA and just prayer.
Alright. Let's do something. He's like, man, got a prayer time on Friday nights. Would you like to lead it? Yeah.
I said, okay. I said, well because responsibility is the test, guys. I always God tests people and stewarding this church, so do I. And I don't I don't test you with, you know, weird things. I test responsibility is the test.
That's it. If you can faithfully handle responsibility, faithful with a little, God gives you more. You understand? That's how that's how it should work. You don't earn.
*Grace* is opposed to earning. It's not opposed to effort. And those that are faithfully laying their life down to serve and and and to give out what God's given them, God's gonna promote them. Because they're in covenant with the body of Christ. So I said, hey man, well why don't you do this?
Why don't you go on Friday nights, but fast and pray for 40 days for our church to learn how to pray. And then in that 40 days, God will give you a vision about it and let's talk about it. What did he do? He fasted and prayed for 40 days for you guys washing you in prayer before he let anything. And that's why the boiler room is doing what it's doing.
And it's awesome. You should come. So what happened because Alex and Leah were in healthy covenant with the body of Christ and sent instead of left offended. It unified real church and waypoint church. That's what should happen every time you go from 1 church to another.
You going from 1 church to another should unify the church you came from with the church you went to because of the health with which you left and with which you came. How did it unify us? Well, I got to talk to their pastor so they knew my heart, which was great. Well, then they had an event coming up and Alex was healthy there and they said, hey, do you and he was a part of the event. They said, hey, do you know do you have anything body on your heart that that would speak at this event?
He said, pastor David. I didn't put him up to it. He actually had a prophetic dream about it. So 9 months later, here I am at world mandate preaching about what's my heart which is their DNA and god unified 2 churches from Nebraska and Florida and who knows what's gonna happen? *Covenant*.
Healthy *covenant* with the body of Christ making it not about you but about him and his body. If Christianity is about you, then it ain't about Jesus. And maybe you need to either repent or really be born again. *Matthew-25*. I gave Robert some notes, but I'm not even I haven't even touched them.
It is what it is. *Matthew-25*. I want you to read it. Not now, later, but I'm gonna tell you the gist of it. Verses 1 now I'll read it.
Then the kingdom of heaven will be like 10 virgins who took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. 5 of them were foolish and 5 were wise. But when the foolish took their lamps, they took "no oil" with them. Everybody say no oil. No oil.
Yeah. But the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps. As the bridegroom was delayed, they all became drowsy and slept. But at midnight, there was a cry. Here is the bridegroom, come and meet him.
Then all those virgins, all 10 virgins rose and trimmed their lamps. And the foolish said to the wise, give us some of your oil for our lamps are going out. The foolish versions had fire and had oil. And when they were getting empty, who did they go to? The wise ones.
Give us some of your oil. For our lamps are going out. But the wise answered saying, since there will be not be enough for us and for you, go rather to the dealers and buy for yourself.' And while they were going to buy, the bridegroom came, and those who were ready went in with him to the marriage feast, and the **door was shut**. Afterward, the other virgins came also saying, Lord, Lord, open to us. Now this is crazy.
Like, think about this for a second. They had lamps. They had fire in their lamps. They had oil. They just ran out.
And the bridegroom represents Jesus. The door being shut represents like them going to hell. Just being blunt. That's what it represents. Them going to hell.
Them being shut out from *eternal relationship with Jesus*. And I struggle with this for like years of my relationship with Christ. I'm like, what does this mean? I don't get it. How is and then he showed me.
It's the next sentence. Afterward, the virgins came also saying, "Lord, Lord", open to us. Verse 12. But he answered, truly I say to you, I do not know you. He never knew them.
Where'd they get the fire from? Where'd they get the oil from? What says it earlier, from the other ones. They always went to somebody else's relationship with Jesus, not to Jesus themselves. It's the people that go to church on Sunday for a tingle, for a feeling, making worship, making the word all about their preference, but never really personally having a relationship with the lord where they go Monday through Saturday alone with god and let the fire start burning and then overflow to others.
They're always receiving someone else's overflow so they can't light their own fire. There's a lot of people sitting in pews and seats in churches that don't have a personal relationship with god but they feel the holy spirit and they got fire with god. Sometimes, they even lead people to Jesus and pray for healing for others on the authority of the name. Many will come to me on that day and say, Lord, Lord, did we not cast out demons, prophesy and heal many sick? And he'll say, depart from me for I never knew you.
You workers of lawlessness. If you ever get around Gabe, you'll start dreaming because his anointing, his prophetic anointing will affect you, overflowing your life and you'll start dreaming. And you might think you're a prophet. Maybe you are, maybe you're not. Saul got around the prophets, King Saul, and started prophesying.
When you get around people who are on fire for God, you might be lit for a second. If you receive the seed of the gospel, you surrender your life to Jesus as Lord, He lit your fire. And it might be just a smoldering reed, but he's not gonna snuff it out. He wants you to learn how to cause that fire to grow and to keep growing from glory to glory, from hot to hotter every single day. And it's a specific thing you gotta do 1 step at a time.
And that's not who these 5 virgins I'm talking about. These 5 virgins that were foolish, their relationship with Jesus was not based on Jesus. It was based on themselves and others. And my concern, what I fear is that there are people that come to real church that that's the case. And I pray whatever it takes for that not to be the case for every single 1 of you that you would know Him, *surrender* fully, and walk with Him from glory to glory.
And your relationship with Him would not be based on someone else, but would be based on this. And the others just help you to burn all the more. The 5 virgins are like the seed that was planted on the rocky ground or on the thorny ground. That it grew up but distractions choked it out. It grew up but the trials of the life caused it to die because it's root wasn't deep.
And I want my roots deep in Christ because he's really spoke to me and that I know him. Not based on how I'm doing, but based on my relationship with my father. So I walk in covenant with him healthily. How do you keep a fire going once you got it? He likes it.
Do you realize you're responsible for keeping it going? I'm about to hit it again. When you're born again, God lights the fire, puts the Holy Spirit inside of you. Hopefully, you've experienced the baptism of Holy Spirit. Your life's just lit on fire everywhere you touch.
Start smoldering, wanting to burn for Him too. Remember, you are a priest. When you're born again, you give your life to Jesus, you're a priest. And in Leviticus-6, it shows us that the priests were responsible for keeping the fire burning on the altar and never letting it go out. God supernaturally lit the fire.
They had to keep it burning on the altar. They were required to. That's you. You are the custodian of the fireplace of your own heart. Alright.
*Leviticus-6:8. The Lord* spoke to Moses saying, command Aaron and his sons saying, this is the law of the burnt offering. The burnt offerings shall be on the hearth on 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 his linder undergarment 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 off other garments and carry the ashes outside the camp to a clean place. So point you need to make is he's gotta keep the fire burning and he carries the ashes away. Alright? You guys with me? Yes.
Just say this, he carries the ashes away. He carries the ashes away. That's just to get you to wake up, but also to anchor that in your heart. 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 on it the fat of the peace offering. File, fire shall be kept burning on the altar continually. It shall not go out. God starts the fire supernaturally. The priest were required to keep it burning.
You're a priest. God starts the fire in your heart supernaturally. You're required to keep it burning. How? What did he put on the altar to to make it not go out?
Wood and the fat of the peace offering. Let me explain. In the Old Testament, a lot of things physically are spiritually what we experience today. For instance, gold, for example, gold represents god. Pure gold represents the pureness of god.
Wood represents humankind, mankind. So, if he puts wood on the altar to keep the fire going, it's talking about putting person, a person on the altar to keep it going. Jesus was the first. Jesus lit the fire. And Romans-12:1, present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God.
This is your spiritual act of worship. You're the wood. Yeah. A living sacrifice. Yes, Lord.
Yes, Lord. Yes, Lord. It's daily every single morning you put wood on the altar. Why? You gotta take the ash from yesterday's obedience and put it away because yesterday's obedience don't keep today's fire burning.
Every single morning. Yes, *Lord*. Combined with the fat of the peace offering. What's the peace offering? The peace offering represents our peace with God.
We can have communion with Him. So it's the fat of the of what it it represents relationship with him. I'm I wake up and it also you you gave it out of gratitude. So every single morning I wake up and I say thank you Lord Jesus for who you are. Thank you for what you've done in my life.
Thank you that I can have relationship with you. Thank you Lord Jesus that I get to stand in your presence and and and worship you and and honor you Lord God for what you've done. Thank you that I get to hear your voice. Thank you that I can walk with you daily. I'm so grateful for this relationship that you started in my life.
What if your morning time prayer with God, your quiet time looked like that? It'd probably mean a lot more to you every single day instead of Alright. I gotta spend 10 minutes with the Lord. What's my what's my Bible app say is the daily word or something? Alright.
I read it. Let's go. Gratitude for relationship that I can have relationship with him combined with today's obedience will keep your fire burning hotter and hotter every single day. You're the custodian of the fireplace of your own heart. Now, Alex David again, he didn't know I was preaching about him, came out of obedience to the *Lord* here in covenant.
And they became *covenant* members of Real Church. You go through establish, you wanna get involved and start serving and stuff, that's great. You're helping Real Church in cool ways. It's a big deal. There's another step, becoming a covenant member of Real Church.
A covenant member of Real Church is someone who said, this is my home. I'm here because God sent me here, and I'm gonna use my life to help make the mission of what God's doing at Real Church move forward. That's a covenant member. You actually We have you sign a paper. It's not signing blood.
It's not a legal document. We're not gonna sue you if you leave. But covenant, there's always like like in the in scripture, there's just when you did a covenant, it was a big deal. Right? So, I mean, if you left, there's nothing we can do.
It's not like I'm just trying to teach the church how to have a covenant relationship with the body of Christ instead of a consumer. So what is it when you wanna become a covenant member of Real Church? What are you saying? You're saying, I believe in the vision and mission of Real Church. I believe that this is the local expression of the body of Christ that he's called me to.
And so I'm gonna use my time, my talent, and my treasure to help make the mission go forward. Which means I'm gonna serve, I'm gonna attend, and I'm gonna tithe. Because if your heart's in the body of Christ, your money will be also. Where your money is, there's your heart is also. That's what Jesus said.
And Jesus actually watched the widow. He was watching the the money changing tables. I I I don't watch you guys. Okay? But Jesus was.
So he is. He was watching and saw the "widow's might", the widow put in. He said she gave more than everybody else. Why? Because she came out of her poverty.
You know who 1 of the most faithful givers in here is? A a a new a a 2 year old baby believer, miss Bianca, who's full of Jesus. Amen. Amen. And and and gives over and above because the Lord puts it on her heart to do so.
And I'm honoring her right now to to show you that, man, it's it's when you're all in for something, you're all in. I don't wanna tithe. I don't like tithing. I've always struggled with tithing. Well, do you believe the word or not?
And if you believe the word, you do it. And let me explain. Now, what are they gonna do with my money? In *Matthew-3 it says, bring the whole tithe into the storehouse*. Today, the local church is the storehouse.
Okay? Now, what did they do with the tithe when they brought it into the *storehouse* or into the tabernacle? They tied to the tabernacle back in the day. Everybody ate it together. You understand that?
When they brought the tithe in, everyone ate it together. When you guys bring the tithe in on Sundays, we like, the reason that we can do church the way that we do it is because of your tithes. The reason we have a kids ministry is because of your tithes, your serving, you're willing to give up your time, your talent, and your treasure. And so, we're all eating this together. We're being fed together just like they were in the Old Testament from your giving.
But it says it says, bring it in so that there will be an abundance, more than enough. When we have more than enough, it overflows into the community. When we have more than enough of people giving up their time, their talent, and the treasure, the church grows, but more than that, it overflows and disciples the community. So not only is your family, like, served and you grow spiritually because you're connected healthily with the body, but it invites others into it because they see the abundance of the local church. The blessing.
You understand? That's the importance. So if you've been coming here for 2, 3 years, and you haven't been tithing, you're profiting on someone else's sacrifice. You're eating someone else's gift to the Lord, and they're benefiting from it, and they're being blessed, and and you're experiencing some loss. You're not getting to enjoy because the "best receivers" are the ones that gave first.
Give and it will come back to you good measure, "pressed down", shaken together, running over. There's a lot of people who wanna go from church to church and they're making it about them, but because they're going from church to church and making it about them, they're receiving less than they would. They're not being transformed. But when you give all you have to Him, your time, your talent, and your treasure, man, you can't out give God, so He transforms you and He says, hey, you're seeking first my kingdom and my righteousness, all these things are gonna be added to you. But we don't give it to get.
We give it because we're in adoration of him. But that's the promise. Just FYI, that's how this thing works. The benefit why am I talking about being a covenant member? Well, because it makes the body healthy and it's a good thing.
We're growing as a church, which is awesome. That's why we went to 2 services. But also yearly, we have a covenant members meeting where we reveal like, we show we wanna be communicate transparently as part of the the DNA of our church. It's 1 of our core values. We wanna be transparent about everything.
So with the covenant members, we show all the money, like what we did the last year, where everything went, what it what what it was like. We just open up everything. You think we're gonna show that to people who are not covenant members and are not committed? No. Why would you need that?
You know what I'm saying? Not like There's no condemnation here. Okay? I'm not like trying to condemn you, but I am trying to provoke you into operating healthily with a local So either operate healthily with us or operate healthily with another, but be a part of a healthy local body that's gonna challenge you to walk like Jesus. Amen?
Whether that's here or another. And if you're just kicking the tires of church and you're like, man, don't know what a relationship with Jesus really is. Keep coming. Like you're welcome to come and sit in. And we're always gonna, like, welcome you where you are, but we're always gonna provoke you to walk more like Jesus.
Because we love you too much to leave you where you are. Amen? Alright. So if you're a covenant member, you can sign up for that meeting. What's the name of it?
Financial meeting. Financial meeting. It's this Friday night here. Not necessarily in here. It's gonna be probably in another room because we got other stuff going on.
So you can sign up on our website. Or they can no. Sorry. You can email courtneyrealchurch dot us. Please do that.
We want you to come. If you're like, hey, I I didn't know about this covenant member stuff. I wanna be a covenant member. If you've been through establish, then you can be a covenant member. If you haven't been through establish, then you need to go through establish so you can understand our vision, mission, and values, who we are so that you're running in the same direction we are.
Okay? 2 visions is die vision. We don't want that vision. God's given us a specific mission and vision, and you're invited to participate. If you don't like it, go somewhere else.
It's great. Go go align with somebody else's vision. Amen? So sign up for establish. And if you've already done what to establish, you wanna be a covenant member, come to that meeting on Friday.
You can register to be a covenant member on our website at get involved. And man, we'll we'll call you, talk to you, and and pray for you, and it'd be an honor to to run this race with you in that way. Amen? Amen. God is good.
So let's do this. Let's end by this. Would the altered ministry team come forward? Those that are scheduled for altered ministry. We're gonna end just real simply.
Heidi's gonna close us out. If you've never given your life to Jesus, you've never been a part of the family, like you heard about the virgins that hadn't really surrendered to Jesus and that's you, don't leave. Come up to the altar ministry team. They'll lead you into a relationship with Jesus. Maybe you're here and you just felt the presence of God and you're like, man, I know that I've never really experienced a relationship with the Lord and I need to surrender.
I'm ready. Just as I'm talking, is anybody's heart burning? That's me. I know I need a relationship with Jesus. Anybody raise their hand and say, that's me.
I don't care what people think. I know I need that. Just wanted to give that opportunity. If you need prayer for anything, we wanna minister to you. We're the church and this is a **"hospital for the broken"** and the hurting.
Even healthy people get a sprain sometimes. You know? And if you need ministry, let us minister to you. God bless you.