You do not need to earn God's favor through your own efforts or performance. Instead, stop trying to be good enough and start receiving the grace that empowers you to live out your true identity in Christ.
So part of the mission of Real Church, 1 of we have 4 e's. It's engage, establish, equip, empower. Empower the ready to live their God given purpose. We're on mission. We ain't varied from what God's called us to do.
And part of that is is laying our life down to serve and disciple and equip others to live out their their God given call. And man, it's a it's a joy and an honor to get to see Bart Stamper today. Restart walking in 1 of the the giftings and callings that God had on his life to preach the *gospel* and to preach the goodness. So 1, Bart, I want you to know I'm proud of you.
Thank you.
Yeah. This the gifting and and callings of God are without repentance. And it's a beautiful thing, what he's put inside of you, and how you've been fat, faithful, available, and teachable. And and it's a joy to get to hear you speak here. I'm excited to hear you speak in Uganda as well when we go in next week, which will be awesome.
And man, I know the word that God's put in you. And I know it's gonna be powerful. So I would encourage you guys, sit on the edge of your seats, proverbially, proverbially. Take notes. Because what he's giving today is foundational for your walk with Christ.
And will help to establish you in a sure foundation. And when you fall, if you fall in the future, you'll fall forward and not back into your heavenly father's arms. Amen? Amen. Alright.
Think that's muted. Nope. That's not muted. I need that in a second. I've never done this in real church, so just to kind of sit and It's kind of dark out there.
Maybe it's a good thing, maybe it's a bad thing. I don't know. Anytime somebody hands me a microphone over the last probably 13 or 14 years, I always say, the very first thing I always say is, I've got good news today. Amen. God is in a good mood.
Now, I don't know about how you were raised or how you thought, but that's not the way understood God growing up. He was kinda just holding me over hell saying, just screw up so I can let you go. And that's not the God I serve today. He's in a good mood and he loves you. He loves me.
So, David said, my name is Bart Stamper. As I look around, probably 25% of you don't have any idea who I am. 25% of you probably just know I sit up here with the pretty blonde. 25% of you, we've kind of talked here or there, and if we talk more than 3 or 4 minutes, we've probably talked about righteousness. And then the other 25%, you've kind of been with me on this journey, you do life with me, you've been into my ups and my downs, and have lived it out with me and for that I'm very thankful.
It's very humbling, I will tell you, it's very humbling and amazing to be able to stand here and preach the gospel to to you today. Thank you, pastor David, for having some confidence in God who who God has made me be. So I wanna say thank you. I got a couple of friends that came today. Woody and Mindy sitting next to Dixie.
Woody and Tory I mean, Woody and Dixie have been friends for, I don't know, 20, 25 years. Been for many years. We I met Woody about 3 years ago. Mindy, his wife. Amazing people.
Anytime I ever need help, he's the first 1 to say, can I help you? Right behind me is Tommy and Maria, that's the same thing I met them the last 3 years. He's always saying, let's go, anything I can do, Maria is right there. I appreciate both of both of you guys, both of you couples. There he is, Jeremy.
I see Jeremy there sitting next to Bartley. Just excited that you got to come today. This is the first time of hopefully many times. Jeremy has met with I met Jeremy through Bartley, but he's kind of been meeting with Jerry and I and he understands righteousness. He's getting it.
It's it's been pretty cool. So, I I'll have to leave I'll start this. David always loves dad jokes. Right? Right.
Oh, and then my daughter. Thank you. Tory came in. Tory drove in Thursday night, surprised me. Just drove from Louisiana.
Thank you for being here. I love you. You're amazing. So, David loves dad jokes. So, I think Gabe Mullens is back there.
He he had some bees. Gabe, do you know where Noah kept his bees? In the ark hives. My. My.
I had a friend that called me last night, he said, Bart, I drank some invisible ink. I'm in the hospital waiting to be seen. Okay. Let's go. We can have fun at church.
Isn't that cool? How did we get to real church? Dixie and I moved to Clearwater about 2017, July 2017. Right before we left, I was sitting in my couch in my house in Seattle and I had this vision of this tall, skinny, dark headed guy. And I knew he was going to be extremely important in my life.
I got to I saw some things we're going get to accomplish and do, and so when we moved to Clearwater, I started looking for this tall, skinny, dark headed guy. We went to a couple of different churches and never found this guy. We went to a third place and we were kind of at a networking event at the end of a a service, and I had a guy walk up to me and said, my name is David John Phillips. I just moved here and we're planting a church. I'm from Winnsboro, Louisiana.
I'm like, Winnsboro, Louisiana? I'm from Alexandria. That's about an hour away. I spent 17 years in Alexandria. We started talking about church and talking about Louisiana and different things, he walked off.
And it was like Holy Spirit went, aren't you supposed to be looking for that tall, skinny, dark headed guy? So afterwards, I walked back over and she said, hey, you wanna go grab something to eat, grab a drink this week, a diet coke or something? And we went to Panera Bread on East Bay. 3 and a half hours later, I knew he was gonna be important in my life. And, I thank you, I honor you, you are amazing, you are important in my life.
Got this just in case. David calls me the crybaby. So I've been preaching this message to myself for over a month. You want to talk about create laser beam focus? Let David call you and say, hey, you're to preach in about a month.
I'm like, okay. Okay. Sure. So I've gone through this message and every single time, I just get encouraged, I get excited, I just it just bubbles over in me again. But I haven't preached in several years, so let's see if this is like riding a bike or not.
So, Jerry, I want you to pray for us, if you'll come up here just a second. I know we're going say some things today that maybe you've never heard it spoken this way or explained this way before. We might even challenge some belief structures that you have and so I just asked Jeremy Jerry to pray for us today and prepare our hearts and minds and ears. So everybody? Nope.
There it is.
Hello. You know that name. It says Jesus, Jesus makes the darkness tremble. It silences fear. So we ask right now that any fears attached didn't leave this room right now.
We will be filled by your spirit in this room right now, the sweet aroma, the anointing of the Holy Spirit, that same spirit that rose Jesus from the dead dwell right here. That gives life to our mortal bodies. Lord, we just ask that any **religious spirit** get up and leave. It has no place. Because where your righteousness is, that's the only place to be.
So Lord, we thank you for this mighty man of God. We thank you for this word that comes out of his mouth. We'd be like a sharp sword, Lord. We thank you that you are dividing and you're gonna pierce the hearts to receive this message. Because like your word says, we have to be able to receive to decrease.
If I can't receive, I never can become the less. So Lord, we just thank you right now that you're changing the atmosphere in this room right now as we speak to receive this message. We're gonna respond to your abilities right now, Lord. We thank you for this rich word. I thank you for my mighty brother.
They call us sons of thunder. We praise you, Lord. We thank you for this opportunity to hear this this word coming out of his mouth. In Jesus name, amen. Amen.
Name. In
Thank you, brother. Thanks. Alright. So when David asked me to speak and teach the credit of righteousness. I told Dixie and she's like, he taught that last year.
I'm like, yes, he did. But I believe that this is 1 of the core messages of our church And if the Lord doesn't come back over the next 15 or 20 years, I think a lot of different speakers are gonna preach this message because it's so important and it's a foundational message for our church and our belief structure. I will tell you that I think, and I believe, and I think afterwards you you will agree with me, this message is life changing, it's also life giving. This message specifically was is 1 of 5 or 6 that David's dad wrote 12 or 13 years ago. It's been preached all over the world.
It's been preached to missionaries. It's been preached to pastors. It's preached to preachers. But, it's also been preached to a new believer. It's been preached to an unbeliever.
So, if you have been chasing God for 60 minutes or 60 years, I think you're going to figure out and figure out quickly that this message is for you. So, let's start. Romans-3:20. Assume you got it. Therefore, no 1 will be declared righteous in God's sight by the works of the law.
Rather, through the law, we become conscious of our sin. So, here we see that the purpose of the law was not to make you righteous. It was never intended that you would follow the law so you would become righteous. No 1 is made righteous by following this religious code of rules and regulations. It was never intended for that.
No matter if you follow the 10 commandments or the law of the covenant or or You just can't be made right with God by trying to do this on your own by obeying laws. This is very clear. *Romans-5:20* says, the law was brought into in so that the trespass might increase. But where sin increased, *grace* increased all the more. The purpose of the law was that you would sin more.
And Romans-3:20 just said, it makes you conscious of your sin. Why? Is God's law holy? Is it righteous? Absolutely.
It's perfect. But there was a major problem with the old covenant or we wouldn't need a new covenant. Right? The problem with the old covenant was not God. The problem with the old covenant was not the law.
The problem with the old covenant was mankind, us. We were the problem. The law is perfect. The law is holy. It shows God's perfect will in the way that he wants us to live.
It's written on 2 tables of stone, and the problem is it just bonked you over the head, it did not empower you to be able to live it. Yeah. It just showed us that we couldn't. So, purpose of the law is to bring us to our the end of ourselves where we realize no matter how hard I try, I can't keep it. The problem is me.
Amen. I am the problem. I need to be saved from myself. *Romans-3:21, next verse. But now, apart from the law*, the righteousness of God has been made known to which the law and the prophets testify.
So, from the law Everybody say, apart from the law. That's apart from trying to perform to be good enough. It says, even though the law was testifying forward that a *righteousness* would be apart from the law and it would be revealed. And the prophets throughout the Old Testament were prophesying forward to this, pointing forward to a place that's showing that the righteousness was gonna be apart from the law. *Romans-3:28*, just a couple verses down from the last 1.
4 3 28. For we maintain that a person is justified by *faith* apart from the works of the law. So, does justified mean? Very simply, it means "just as if" you never have done it. Justified.
So, if you had a court case against you and you messed up, they really could throw the book against you, but they just let you off the hook, just as if it had never happened. *Justified*. So, justified. Just as if it didn't happen. What does that mean?
*God* doesn't remember it anymore. You're restored with him, you're restored with the community, you're justified. *Romans-3:28 says, we maintain that a person is justified by faith apart from the works of law*. That's beautiful. *Romans-4:1*.
What then shall we say that Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh, discovered in this matter? Now, Paul's the writing Paul is the author here in writing this letter, and so the people that are reading his letter, he's saying, this is not just some concept that I came up with, actually our forefather of faith, Abraham, but he's also the father of all of the Jewish nation, he understood this. Understood what? We understand. We maintain we maintain that we're *justified* by faith, not by the works of the law.
Abraham got this. Abraham understood this. Verse 2. If, in fact, Abraham was justified by works, he had something to boast about, but not before God. So, let's think about this.
I try not to do bad, I try not to sin, and I feel good about myself when I don't sin and I don't do bad. And the more good that I do, the better I feel about myself, that's boasting. If that's the way that you're focused, if you're doing good, you have something to boast about because you're boasting in your own effort. Unfortunately, have found the religious man is boastful. You know, you you talk to them and they start talking about all the things that they've done for God.
It's almost a holier than thou attitude. They do all these great things for God, and it puffs them up. Let's let's drive this home and David has asked this to many of us through the last few years. But if I would ask you, how righteous are you on a scale of 1 to 100? You might say, well, you know, I'm a drug addict.
I slept around stealing some, I lie a little bit, I've even got several court cases against me, I'm probably only a 10 or a 15. Or if I ask you how righteous are you and you say, well, you know, I'm a pretty good dude. I go to church on Easter and Christmas. I try to read my bible occasionally. I always pray when before I eat my food.
I'm I work really hard, I'm just a normal guy. I'm probably a 45, maybe a 50. Or if I ask you how righteous are you? And you say, you know, I read my bible every single day. I serve on the dream team.
I come to church every time the doors are open. I still struggle in a couple areas, but I'm I'm probably a 70, maybe a 75. Or if I ask you, how righteous are you? And you say, man, I'm going to Uganda on a on a missions trip, and I've gone to on missions trips before, and I pray for people and they got healed. You know, when I pray, I pray every single day, And when I pray, God's spirit just comes into the room and bark, he just cries all the time, every time God's presence just fills the room.
I'm I'm pretty good. I'm a 95. If I ask you how righteous you are, and you immediately think about yourself and how you're doing, isn't that self righteousness? Isn't that self righteousness? If I ask you how righteous you are and you immediately start weighing your deeds, you're being self righteous.
Right. Good work.
Now, I remember David preaching this 1 year ago and I was sitting right there where Woody's sitting there on the front row next to Dixie. And when he said, if I could ask you how righteous are you on a scale of 1 to a 100? I'm like, I want everything within me. It was it was difficult not to scream. A 100.
A 100. I made 100 through his righteousness. I don't trust in what I do. I trust in what he has done for me. Jesus paid the price for me.
He did it all. I don't have to worry about what I did, it's all about him. You know, Jesus fulfilled the covenant 100%. But he also took the curse of my sin when he died, was beaten and died on a cross. He did that for my sins.
Now, of my favorite scriptures in the whole bible is 2 Corinthians-5:21. This is my identity. He that knew no sin, Jesus, became sin for us, that in him, we can become the **righteousness of God**. That's my identity. "I am the righteousness of God" in Christ Jesus.
I don't know how many times a day I tell myself, I am the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. I am the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. I am the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. And I can't say it more 3 or 4 times before I start crying. It's that impactful.
That's who I am. That's who he made me. He credited *righteousness* into my account. So I don't trust in me anymore. I don't measure myself by what I do.
I measure what He's done and what He says about me. Getting ahead of myself. Let's let's let's go. Romans-4:3. What does scripture say?
Abraham believed *God* and it was credited to him as righteousness. Credit. Now, that's an accounting term. Dixie and I own a tax and accounting firm. So, Dixie's been doing accounting for probably 25 years.
Now, how in the world could she be doing accounting 25 years and not look more than 21? It's supernatural or something. I I don't But but she we do we deal with credits and debits every day. So let's let's just look at it. So if you have a credit card bill, everything that you charge is a debit.
It goes on the left side of the ledger. So you go to the gas station, you go to the grocery store, you go to McDonald's, whatever. Anything that you charge is a debit. On the other side of the ledger is a credit. Anything that's paid on your account is a credit.
Right? So, if you add up all of the bill this month and you pay extra, at the end of the month, you have a balance or a credit on your account. Right? Y'all don't know accounting. This means yes.
You have a credit on your account. So, if you take Abraham's *sin*, all his sin and add them up, and then you put God says he credited *righteousness* into Abraham's account, what does that mean? All his sin does not add up. He paid extra and he has righteousness. So, when you look at Abraham's account, it's got a credit of righteousness.
That's a credit. I mean, that's that's a credit. So, Romans-4:4, next verse. Here's where Paul starts making this very practical for us. Now, to the 1 who works, wages are not credited as a gift but as an obligation.
So let's say you have a job. You're a cook at a restaurant and they pay you $10 an hour and you work 40 hours this week. How much do you expect to get paid? $400. 10 times 40 is 4 You don't do math either or accounting?
$400. Is that a credit? Is that an obligation or is that a gift? It's an obligation. You worked for it.
You earned it. Right? It's yours. It's not a gift. Now, last week Angie started the introduction of a host and she started preaching my message right here.
She said, you know, a lot of times people decide I need to come back to God. But I need to start cleaning myself up, you know, I got to start doing better. I mean, I need to stop lying. I'm just I need to start going back to church. I need to start doing some good things.
And once I can get make myself better, then I can come back to God and say, okay God, I'm ready. I've cleaned myself up. I'm ready to be saved. That's kind of like saying, I'm gonna "clean myself up" before I get in the bathtub. It doesn't make sense.
Actually, that's pride. I want to try to do this. I need to do I need to make myself And God says, no. God actually opposes the proud, the Bible says. God justifies those who say, I can't do this on my own.
Nothing within me is able to do this good enough to make it perfect. And God does require perfection. No doubt about it. So God, I'm a filthy rotten sinner. I need you to save me from myself.
I need you. I can't do this on my own. Help me. *Save* me right where I am because I'm helpless without you. *God* justifies the ungodly is what we just read.
Jesus said, *blessed* are the poor in *spirit* for they shall see the kingdom of heaven. The person who recognizes their poorness of their spirit. And so, the more that I grow and the more that I understand myself, the more I understand I need him. I can't do this on my own. So I stay in poor in spirit, so that I pursue him more and more because I need him.
But, I get to be rich in the spirit because I get to see his kingdom, the bible just said. What does Philippians say? I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me individually. Bart Bart can't do anything but I can do all things with his help. So, verse 5.
Their *faith* is credited as righteousness. That there it is again. That same credit that God gave Abraham to those the ungodly, the ones that don't work, don't try to work themselves to God, don't try to make themselves good, but they just receive what God did for them. Their faith is credited righteousness into their account. So, in verse 6, Paul's making the case here.
He said, you know Abraham. Abraham understood this long before now. I'm not just making this up. How about king David? King David's kind of important in your book.
Let's look at verse 6. David says the same thing when he speaks about the blessedness of the 1 who God credits *righteousness* apart from the works. Verse 7. Blessed are those whose transgressions are forgiven, whose sins are covered. Verse 8.
*Blessed* This is a beautiful verse. Blessed is the 1 whose *sin* the Lord will never count against them. That's a beautiful verse. Blessed is the 1 whose sin the Lord will never count against them. Okay.
So let's think about this. I've been "born again", that was really cool. That made me new from the inside out, I get that. And now, he's credited that righteousness to me and that's awesome. But I still live in the world that's broken, I still have flesh, occasionally, I get my eyes off of him and I get my eyes on me and I become selfish, and I start thinking incorrectly about something, and I make a mistake and I fall, and I sin.
But the bible says, *blessed is the 1 whose sin* the Lord will never count against them. So, who is that man? Now pastor David says when he talks to people and he's heard this, he said about 90% of people say, well, that's Jesus. But let's think about it. Jesus didn't have any sin.
How could God not count his sin if he didn't have any? So that's it's not Jesus. So if it's not Jesus, let's we think about it a little bit and I'm thinking, process this, that's that's that's me. I am that man. I am that man who's this who sinned the Lord will never count against me.
Told you that's an awesome verse. And if you have believed in Jesus, guess what? It accounts for you too. He doesn't count your sin against you. So, when you think about it, you process it, that's that's me.
That's me. And as a matter of fact, if he's counting my he won't count my sin against me, means it's not in the books, then it can't be judged. It would be unlawful for him to count it against me because it's already been counted against Jesus on the cross. That's what happened. Because of what happened, it doesn't count against me.
I'm not it's not counted and it's not judged. That's the good news. That's the good news. Anyone that believes in Jesus, if you receive that sacrifice and understand and believe that he did it for you, your sins, past, present, future, will never be counted against you. He remembers it no more.
It says Bible says that he washes your sins as far as the "East is from the West". Does it count or not? Now, a lot of times a lot of times we can hear scripture and it doesn't line up exactly with the way that we've been taught. We had somebody that we respected and they taught us something, but when it doesn't line up exactly with the scripture, we have to look at the scripture and say, okay God, let me be flexible here. Me hear what you're saying and let me line up with what your word actually says.
Change my thinking. Change my beliefs so that I can walk this stuff out. Right? Amen? Blessed is the man whose sin, the Lord will never count against him.
That's that's that's awesome. Let's look at this analogy. Kevin, if you'll come help me. I think if you get this, this can free you in many many ways. When I first saw this, it just gives a visual of what we're talking about.
So, good old buddy Kevin here is going to be our balance scale. So, we're have both hands out. There you go. And so, you can see it. So, the apex, Kevin's head, we got a chain going to this side, we got a chain going to this side.
So, if we push down on this side, what happens? This side comes up. If we push down on this side, this side comes up. Right? We're perfectly balanced, we're calibrated.
You see that? So, let's just say this is you. This is you and we're the bible says that all have sinned and **"fallen short"** of the glory of God. So, you've sinned. We're gonna put your sin on this side and when we put sin on this side, what happens?
Why? Because sin is heavy. The bible says, the wages of sin or the payment of sin is death. Very heavy. So, on this side though, what happens if we put you go to church, you pay tithes, you read your bible, even do what James says in James that that true religion is taking care of the orphans and the widows.
You put all that on this side, what happens? Does it even it out? What? I thought it did. That's the way most Christians kind of live.
No. There's nothing that you can do before you come to Jesus. We talked about before coming to Jesus, you can't do anything to clean yourself up. You can't do anything after you come to Jesus to clean yourself up. The Galatians, if you read in chapters 2, 3 and 4, Paul said, you have fallen from grace.
They were trying to do it on their own. They were trying to do good works to make themselves more righteousness. You've fallen from grace. There's nothing you can ever do that's going to change the scale. The only thing that changes that scale is death.
Right? Wages of sin is death. The payment of sin is death. But the cool part is, Jesus fulfilled the law. He died on a cross.
He paid for our sins 100%. So, when we put Jesus' blood on this side, what happens? Does it even out? No. No.
We just talked about that credit of righteousness. There's extra. Right? Jesus' blood pays for all of our sins. Past, our present, our future.
Every single thing that we've ever done or ever will do, he "paid for 100%". 100%. And we get to have the benefit because why? Because we believed. We believed.
Okay. So, we talked about God's perfection. He declared he he demands perfection. So let's look at an analogy. Say you have a mortgage and you pay $2,000 a month, but this month, you don't have $2,000 in the bank.
But you have a orange tree and you got some chickens in the backyard. So I'm gonna take some oranges and I'm gonna take some eggs and I'm gonna go down to my banker and say, okay, I don't have $2,000 this month. Will this work? The banker has spoken. Sell it to someone else.
She doesn't want your eggs and she doesn't want your oranges. Why? Because the requirement is $2,000. It has to be exact. Right?
So, is God sweeping your sin under the rug just saying that it's not that big a deal. I don't care about your sin. No. No. No.
No. No. God is a righteous judge. He's a just judge. And the sin, your sin has to be punished 100.
It has to be the exact payment, death. But the beautiful thing, it was. It was. *Christ* died. All we have to do is believe and receive it.
And it was completely there. But, let's take it a little deeper. But what happens? We just talked about occasionally, we're going good but I live in a broken world, and I get my eyes off of him sometimes. I get become selfish and I make a mistake and I sin.
What happens? Does it No. Go this? And so, now, I need to go find a revival and I need to go be born again again, so I can be like this. And what happens if I mess up?
I got to find be born again again again again? This is the story of my life. So many preachers preach this.
The
beautiful thing is, *God's blood* paid for all my sin. It said we just said that it would not be counted against me. His blood. Can I be born again of Adam? When I make a mistake, am I born again of Adam?
Can I be born again again? Can I be born again again again again? But if you do think that, what does outweigh the blood? Which sin? How many sins?
Say it again. Come on. No. No. God's *blood* paid for it all.
It outweighs all of my sin, my past, my present, my future. His blood is so so powerful. But when I ask I get asked this a lot, Bart, are you making light of sin? And I just look at him and I say, no, you're making light of my Jesus' precious blood.
Amen. That's right.
Thanks, Kevin. You did an amazing job. So when you hear this, what are we supposed to do? We're supposed to send more? A lot of people think that.
Yep. A lot of people think that and that you you talk to people and they say, well, can't you can't do this. They'll just go send more. Give them an inch, they'll take a mile. And I'm like, you don't get it.
You don't understand. They actually asked Paul the exact same thing. Romans-6:1. Let's look on the screen. He they said He said, what shall we say then?
Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase? What did Paul say in verse 2? By no means. We are those who have died to sin. How can we live it any longer?
What that scale shows you is grace. You did not deserve this credit. You did not deserve the credit. You didn't deserve the grace. You didn't get Nothing that you do will deserve it.
But grace is *empowering* you to overcome it. Preachers say, well, you can't teach this because they'll just go send more. Like, no, no, no. You don't understand. Let's look at Titus-2:11 and 12.
I love this. I guess I love all of them, but I love this scripture too. Right now, is my favorite verse. *Titus-2:11* 12. For the grace of God has appeared that offers *salvation* to all people.
Yeah. That's right. Grace of God. It. What is it?
*Grace. So we can say grace teaches us to say no to ungodliness* and worldly passions, and to live self controlled, upright, and godly lives in this present age. The more you understand grace, the more you're going to be empowered to live out the God given life. Right. The purposes of God.
The more you understand grace, the more you receive grace, the more you're you can live this out. It's God's grace that empowers you to do things you can't do on your own. In 1 sense, it's empowering you to live this godly life, in another sense, he's he's given you empowering you to be able to do his work. Grace is beautiful. What is the definition of grace?
*Grace is getting something* you don't deserve. I didn't deserve grace. I didn't deserve this righteousness, but it empowers me to live out my God given purpose. The more that I grow in him, the more that I need his grace. Because it's the more that I realize, I can't do this on my own, in my in my own effort.
It I can't do it. But, it's not just for me. It's not just for Kevin. It's not for Bartley. It's for all of us.
Grace, getting something you don't deserve. It's for all of us. Romans-6:14. For sin shall no longer be your master because you're not under the law but "under grace". That means to the extent that you understand grace, sin is not your master.
But to the extent that you understand, you stay under the law, which is performance in any area of your life, *sin* is your master. So what does that mean? So if you're struggling with in any area of your life in sin, it's probably because you're focusing on what you're doing instead of what he did for you. Okay. Will.
So if you're struggling in any area of your life, it's probably because you're focusing on what you're doing instead of what he did. I want to share how good this feels and how amazing this is and how freeing it is. Now, if you've been around David very long at all, you understand he doesn't do many things just off the cuff for no reason. He's very calculated and he does things on on a purpose for a reason. That's why I like him.
I I I think about stuff. But I will Let's let's see. Let's just find out. So how many of you realize, remember right now, I'll put you on the spot, when David starts to pray, what's the first thing he almost always says?
Thank you
for who you are. What's the second thing he says? Thank you for what you have done. Now, doesn't pray this but he says it all the time, and so I had to make my my 3. Thank you for who you made me be because of what you did.
"Thank you for who you are". Thank you for what you did. Thank you for who you made me. So, when you get these 3 statements, they have absolutely changed my life. Now, take a just a quick tangent.
We're studying this book to go to Uganda. And in the last 3 or 4 pages, it says names, titles and descriptions of God. Now, we've been in a series the last few weeks, conversations with God. Right? A lot of people say, well, I just don't know what to pray.
Well, we got those 3 statements. Thank you for who you are. "Thank you for what you've done". Let's look at just those 2. There are 4 pages of who he is and what he's done.
If you just read them and didn't even think about them, it would take you 15 minutes to pray. If you take any time whatsoever, think about faithful God who does no wrong. Man, that's a cool 1. I thank you that you don't do anything wrong. You're very faithful.
If you just take a couple of seconds and think about these each 1 of these things, you can pray and pray and pray. Right? I have took and made copies of pictures of that and I stuck it on Slack. If you don't have Slack, come find me, we'll take some pictures. This is what you can pray.
I don't know what to pray, Mark. Okay, let's talk about it. Number 1, who you are. Thank you for who you are. Number 2, thank you for what you've done.
We can just pray that right there and we can I guarantee you can pray 30 minutes just on those 4 pages? Thank you for who you are. Thank you for what you've done. Thank you for who you made me. When I started understanding that, it changed my life.
Let me share a little bit of my testimony, my history. As a child, I had a drug problem. I was drugged to church on Sunday morning. I was drugged to church on Sunday night. I was drugged to church on Tuesday night for youth youth night.
I was drugged to church on Thursday night for bible study and I was drugged to church on Saturday morning for bus route. If your last name was Stamper and the doors of the church were open, you went to church. I was born on a Friday. I was still in the hospital the very first Sunday of my life. But from that point forward, for the next 20 years, I never missed a single Sunday service for 20 years.
If the doors were open, we went to church. I can probably count 1 or 2 times in 20 years on a Wednesday night or Tuesday night, Thursday night, whatever, that I didn't go to church. I was sick. We went to church. So I understood God, I understood about God, I was taught God, and if I when I look back on my life, I gave my life to God when I was very young.
But the problem was, I was not perfect. And everybody else around me was perfect, or so I thought. And anything less than perfect was failure. So it made me a failure. Every single Sunday year after year after year, I would go to the altar and I'd pray, and I'd beg God, please make me perfect, save me, help me to be what you want me to be.
I want to be perfect. And it would be okay for a day or 2, and I'd make a mistake, I'd fail, only to be back at the altar again the next Sunday night. *God, please forgive me, please save* me, please make me perfect. I was probably early teenage years before I really realized everybody else around me wasn't perfect. They just had the facade and they acted like they were perfect.
But by that time, I had already accepted that I was a failure. I would try to do good, I would try to do righteous, I'd try to be righteous by doing things, and I could do good for a season, but ultimately, I'd fail again, proving to myself over and over and over that I was truly a failure. I'd never experienced 1 moment of peace. If I was awake, there was a war going on constantly right here. I hated myself because I couldn't be perfect.
I was a failure. After being up 1 day and down the next, year after year after year, being righteous 1 day on my own works, to being a dirty rotten sinner the next day. I just got sick and tired of being sick and tired. And I could take you to the very spot I was praying and I surrendered for the very first time in my life. I really surrendered everything.
I was just tired. And I just said, God, my prayer. My brother was supposed to be the preacher. He wore a 3 piece suit and a tie to kindergarten because that's what preachers wear. He was always going be a preacher and I was the I was the imperfect failure.
But I said, God, if you want me to preach, I'll go to Zimbabwe and preach. Why Zimbabwe? I don't know. That just came out and it was a complete and utter surrender. It's not what I wanted.
It's like, I don't care. I'm tired. You have your will. And again, my life, my story, if you understand it, cool. If you don't understand it, cool.
I started speaking words I did not understand. I started speaking in other tongues, I had a peace, a warmth just went through my whole body. And it went from the top of my head to the sole of my feet and I had peace for the very first time in my life. And when I had peace, guess what? It was valuable because I hated myself.
I did not like who I was and peace I had never experienced. Now, problem was peace became my God. Because I didn't want to lose my peace. And so, whatever it took, I wasn't going to lose my peace. I would go to the church and pray every single day for an hour.
I went to every home group that I could go to. I went to every single prayer meeting. I started preaching. God asked me to preach. I started preaching.
I preach all all around the world. But, the problem is, I was still doing it by myself. I was still trying to be righteous. And after a longer season than ever before, I failed again, And I proved once again, I was a failure. I cannot explain to you how frustrating life is to absolutely hate yourself, while all the time trying to do good and failing over and over and over and over.
That cycle continued till I was 53 years ago 53 years old. 3 years ago, we moved back to Tampa Bay area. And in November 2020, we moved here full time. And pastor David and I, we started going to the gym together. 2 or 3 times a week, we'd train together.
So, I was getting nailed with with righteousness. 2 to 3 times a week in the gym, and then on Sunday, guess what? He was preaching righteous. Righteousness to me. But I didn't get it.
I just didn't understand. It didn't make sense. It's not that I didn't want to understand, I just didn't understand it. It didn't make sense to me. He would preach at me and I would just disagree with him and truthfully, I I I know that probably, if not the the worst, I was probably David's biggest project to date and most frustrating project he's ever had.
Truth. But I know that I frustrated him, but he never took it out on me. He just loved me over and over. He but he didn't stop preaching it. He didn't stop preaching it.
15 months ago, Dixie and I were we were not in a good place. We were about to get a divorce. We were fighting 3 4 times a week. Some in my inner circle knows the stories, a lot of you don't. We The perception is you put this facade and we were Ken and Barbie and everything's great.
How are y'all having No. No. We were getting a divorce. We were not good. I was running from *God*, running from David, I was frustrated.
I was a failure. It's no fun being a failure. I went to a church in Carrollton 1 Sunday morning, I remember the guy the preacher preached about the Holy Spirit. I don't really remember what he preached. I was sitting on the very back row on that side by myself, nobody else around, and I just remember raising my hands and saying, God help me.
If you if you can help me, please help me. I started crying, and I started speaking in tongues. And that fast, the Holy Spirit showed me understanding, gave me understanding of every single thing that David had been preaching to me for the last year and a half. I got it. I am the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus.
I'm not a failure. It's not about me. I didn't do anything. He did it all. He paid the price.
And I'm the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. 15 months ago, Dixie and I have not had a fight in 15 months. How's that possible? I'm the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. It's who I am.
It's made me free. I live it out so much, I'm I'm not conscious of sin anymore. Do you realize that whatever you focus on, you repeat? Whatever you focus on, you become. I'm so conscious of his righteousness.
His righteousness flowing out of me. It's awesome. I'm God conscious. As David always says, there's a scripture for that. If you don't believe me, don't, hear it in scripture.
Let me show you the scripture. *Hebrews-10* verse 1 and 2. The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming, not the realities themselves. For this reason, it can never, by the same *sacrifices* repeatedly repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship. So, law can't make you perfect, never.
Verse 2. Otherwise, would they have not stopped being offered, For the worshipers would have been cleansed once and for all, and would no longer felt guilty of their sins. Another version says, would not have been **conscious of their sin**. So, when someone is cleansed once and for all, they should never be sin conscious ever again. When you get this, there's so much freedom.
Instead of trying to prove that I'm good enough, I just get to accept what he did, and who he made me. Number 3. I get to accept who he made me to be. There's so much freedom. There's so much *peace*.
When I was growing up, the patriarchs of my religion, they used to talk about joy unspeakable, *peace* that passes all understanding. I am experiencing that peace every day. I'm experiencing that joy every single day. And I don't have to do anything to earn it. I get it because he did all the work.
He paid the price. It's not about what I do. It's about what he did. He made me the righteous of God in Christ Jesus. Amen.
Let's land this plane. I wanna pray for you today. I wanna pray for you today. Today, I understand I'm the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. *Hebrews-5:12 says, we mature* through constant use of righteousness.
So, if you have been on this grace and righteous journey already, awesome. Now, I have been told, I have understood, I have accepted. My purpose in life is to talk about righteousness. It's who I am. It's who he made me.
So I get to live this out. I love talking about righteousness. So, if you've been on this journey and you've got this, man, I'd love to sit down and drink a diet coke with you or go drink them, eat a meal and "talk about righteousness". If that's not you, if you're not quite there yet, and you're more like me when I when when I was working out with David and you don't quite get this, guess what? I would love to spend some time with you.
I'd love to share what David shared with me and what the Holy Spirit showed me and the Holy Spirit more of understanding. We mature by talking about righteousness. Continuous use of righteousness is how we mature. Come find me. I love to talk about righteousness.
Let's stand. If you've never heard this preached this way, come find me. I got 2 prayers. Bow your heads. If you've never experienced *peace* and you have just fought yourself your whole entire life and you've never accepted Jesus as your **personal savior**, I want you to know today is your day.
Today is your day and you don't have to live the life of frustration anymore. If there's anybody in the room that wants to experience peace, wants to experience this righteousness, wants to experience this joy, I just ask you to raise your hand real quickly. I'm not going to embarrass you, I promise I won't embarrass you. Thank you. I see your hand.
I'm going to say the words, you're going to have to add the meaning. I'd like you to just repeat after me. It's my 3 statements. First and foremost, God, thank you for who you are. Thank you for what you've done.
Thank you for who you made me.
Thank you for
*God, I'm a sinner*.
*God, I'm a sinner*.
I need you to save me. Forgive me of all my sins. I believe you died on the cross and rose again for my sin. Today, I make you my Lord and Savior. Now, help me, teach me how to walk this out today and every day forward.
For the 1 that had never prayed that prayer or if you haven't if you didn't raise your hand, welcome to the kingdom. Welcome to the family. You're you're you're part of the family. Yeah. We just spent 43 minutes talking about righteousness and there's a purpose.
I don't think the Holy Spirit's gonna let us off the hook just quite yet. The Holy Spirit spoke this word because there are people people here today that need peace. You've been saved, you've tried to live this out, but you have the same story that I have. You're "tired of faking it" and trying to do this on your own. You're tired of trying to be righteous by your own doings.
You're tired of starting and failing, starting and failing, trying over and over and over. If that is you, bow your heads. I want you to I want you to make a commitment to me. If that's who you are, raise your hand. Yep.
There's a bunch of hands. I knew it. Thank you for your hands. I want you to pray. I'm gonna pray over you.
Agree with me in the spirit, within your spirit. Again, God, we just thank you for who you are. We thank you for what you've done. We thank you for who you made us. We thank you for you made us the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus.
Father, we understand it's not about our works, it's about your works. What we do, do not make us righteous. It's all about what you did for us. We thank you for your grace and your righteousness. You gave that to us.
*God*, I just ask you to position ourselves to be able to receive every single drop of grace, every single drop of righteousness that we can possibly receive from you that you have for us. I want us to "stop trying to be good enough" and try to earn this. Father, we repent for trying to do this on our own. We accept that it's you from you. *Holy Spirit*, I ask you to show each and every 1 of us what this means.
Let us grow in this understanding. Right now, I speak righteousness over you. He counted it into your account. **I am the righteousness** of God in Christ Jesus. Can you say that?
I am the *righteousness* in
[Speaker 1] [01:02:33] of
**[Speaker 3]* [01:02:33]*
Christ Jesus. I am the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. That's who you are. If you believed on Jesus, you're the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. That's good news.
Amen. That's good news. Thank you. I hope this impacts you and I hope you will grow in this. Come find me.
I wanna talk about it. Amazing
**[Speaker 1]* [01:03:04]*
and powerful. And look, I want you to know, the more that you understand who you are in Christ, like who he is and who you are in him, right believing leads to right doing. Your life will line up with that. Like he said, Romans-6:14, to the extent it doesn't, right? Sin is still your master.
That's the extent you don't understand grace. And they're not allowing his power to empower you to live like him. Amen? Second Peter one:nine says, basically before it, you've forgotten all this. Your life's not reflecting all this amazing stuff that's from the gospel.
It's because you've forgotten. You've been forgiven. This is a reminder that you've been "forgiven so that your life" can reflect the relationship that you're supposed to have. Amen? So praise the Lord.
We want to live that way. All right. We're going to close. Man, it's a powerful word. So praise the Lord.
It went a little long. It's awesome. Because it was so good. You needed all of it. You just needed all of it.
That being said, last week, 15 people were physically healed in service just last week. More testimonies of healing happened throughout the day. And I got video Facebook calls of of people being healed as they listened to the podcast last week. Like Jesus is the healer. And it's amazing.
Well, being said, I wanna continue to honor the fact that Jesus is the healer. And that he's moving and healing in this church. So he wants to heal your physical body, your emotional, like your soul, like your mind, will, and emotions, and restore your standing with God. If you've been running from him, you just need to repent. I want to ask all of our leaders to come forward, that pray for people.
If I've had you pray for people, please come forward. We'll create a prayer team in The next few weeks will be great. But all of our leaders, please come forward and pray. If you need prayer, you need ministry, you need healing in your body, you need just to repent, you need somebody to to stand with you for something. We want to do ministry with you today.
Don't leave here without that. Jesus is your healer. And sometimes it takes getting out of yourself and inviting another brother or sister into your life. So that you can partner faith with you to see Jesus move in miraculous ways. Amen?