You are called to more than just comfort; you are invited to deny yourself and follow Him fully. Take the step today to surrender your will to His and join the training to grow as a spiritual leader. Commit to making Jesus Lord of your life rather than just a Savior you visit on Sundays.
My name is David John Phillips. I have the joy and honor of getting to be the pastor here. There is no place I'd rather be. There's nothing I'd rather be doing. I do say that every Sunday, and I do mean it, but I say it so that you know it.
I repeat it so that you know it. Repetition creates just a confidence, and and man, I'm I'm just excited, and I hope you're just as excited to be here as I am. I really do. Because my my prayer is that you encounter the love of Jesus in a very real way. When you encounter the love, the power, and the presence of God, it moves you every single time into the valley of decision.
The decision is, are you going to continue to say, yes, Lord, all the more, and grow in your ability to love him back more? Because loving him looks like obedience. Or are you gonna stay where you are, making excuses and going the opposite way? Because you're either growing to look more like him or going to look more like yourself. 1 or the other.
And going to look more like him looks like a continual, yes, Lord. Yes, Lord. Yes, Lord. *Amen*? Amen.
And so my prayer is that that is the case for you because following Jesus is worth it. It. A lot of people that want Jesus to be their savior, but they're not willing to make him their Lord. He doesn't become savior until he's Lord. Lord and savior.
*Amen*? Amen. What is just a couple of reminders. There's some things I say all the time, but hopefully, know it. If you know it, then you'll start telling others the same thing.
But there's 2 words in the English language that don't go together. What are those words? No. And Lord. No and Lord.
No and Lord don't go together. If you tell your Lord no, he's not really your Lord. There's a lot of American Christians that have created God in their own likeness. They follow they follow Jesus as long as they feel like it, and if if Jesus says something they don't feel like it, they say, well, God's not telling me this, he's telling me to do this. So they're following their feelings, which means they've made a God in their own likeness, in their own image, instead of submitting to God and letting him conform them into his image.
Yes, *Lord*. Guess what? Following Jesus is not gonna be comfortable. If Christianity is comfortable for you, you're probably not following Jesus. You might be following the God that you made in your own image.
Because the Holy Spirit is the comforter for a reason. It's uncomfortable to your flesh to follow him. Your flesh is at war with your spirit so that you will not do what you want. What does it take to be a Christian? Denying yourself, picking up your cross, and following Jesus.
If you're not willing to deny yourself, then stop calling yourself a Christian. Great. You guys okay? Yeah.
Yes, sir.
I know that's hard. If I'm stepping on your toes, it's because I love you. Your toes aren't supposed to be there. Move them out the way so that you can stand where you're supposed to be standing. *Amen*?
Christianity is not a selfish religion. It's not all about me, me, me, me, me. Let me come get my blessing. Let me get my healing. Let me get my miracle.
No. No. No. It's about you, you, you, Lord Jesus. It's all about you.
I'm seeking first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these other things that I ain't even focused on are gonna be added to my life because he trusts me because I'm all about him instead of about me. I got some tools for the message today. My name is not Mariah. I know Mariah's got the best analogies. Y'all be careful.
I asked somebody to bring me a knife. That's not a knife. That's a knife. If you know, you know. Baby, will you hold these for me?
See it. Alright. So we are in the the finale of the series, the glory of living. The last part. Next week, we're gonna start a new series titled from the heart.
The the thought process for that series, out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks, but also there's a principle in business and in leadership. The the heart of the organization always follows the heart of the leader. Always. And so in in the series From the Heart, you're gonna hear from myself and some other leaders in different areas of the church, specific areas where where you'll see what God has put on their heart in the last month, in the last few weeks, what he's been teaching them and training them. Why?
Because if they're leaders in the church, then they're leading you somewhere. And if you see what God's put on their heart, then you'll see probably what God wants to teach you through that. *Amen*? So the next series is called From the Heart. I'm excited.
I've already been talking with a couple of them, and and man, God has put some amazing things on their heart. But today, we need to stay focused. I need to shoot all the bunnies, the rabbit trails, so that we can get through this message, and and say what God wants to say. I will I will say this. I planned on this 1.
This is
not a bunny trail. The Bible says the god of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers. In any area of your life where you're not experiencing the kingdom reality of righteousness, peace, and joy, that's an area of your life where you're probably believing a lie and standing in some level of unbelief. When you believe a lie, you empower the liar in your life. Makes sense?
Yes.
So my prayer for you right now is that any areas of unbelief that this message touches on are exposed and expelled by the Holy Spirit**. And instead of hardening your heart like they did in the wilderness because of unbelief, you repent. Repentance is not saying that you're, you know, a wicked terrible person on your way to hell. Man, I repent every time the Lord shows me something in me that's not of him. I'm changing my mindset to agree with the way that he thinks about it and shifting my life to walk in that way.
He's conforming me into his image. So in in your life, if if I've already stepped on your toes a little bit or I'm going to in a minute, man, praise the Lord. Re rejoice that the Lord is exposing those things. Repent, shift your mindset, shift your thinking, and shift your life so it can look more like Jesus. Amen?
*Amen*. So, father, I pray for everybody under the sound of my voice. I rebuke the devourer that would try to devour the word before it takes root in their hearts. And I rebuke every distraction that would try to choke it out in Jesus' name. And I speak, Lord God, that their ears would be ears that hear in the name of Jesus.
*Lord God*, I thank you for your goodness. I thank you for your love. Lord God, that the seed of this word would be sown into good ground. Everybody say, I'm good ground. I'm good Good ground, Lord God, of of hearts that believe and are ready to receive.
Not not what I wanna say from me, but Lord, what you wanna say, and thank you that I get to be a part of it in Jesus' name. Everybody said Amen. Amen. Okay. The glory of living parts the finale.
We've learned that the glory or glory is the nature of a thing on display for all to see. God puts aspects of His nature in all of creation, and He desires for all of creation to manifest the glory of God. But, if all of creation is His artwork, then you are His masterpiece, because you are created in His image. Ephesians-4:24 says, created in his likeness. And NIV says, to be like God in true *righteousness* and holiness.
He put his nature inside of you. When you were born again, you were made into a new creation, created to reflect his character, his power, his righteousness to the world around you. And by doing so, you're bringing glory to the manufacturer of your life. That's review. Glory, with respect to God, is who God is and what he does on display for all to see.
And he put **Christ in you*. Colossians-1:27*, Christ in you, the hope of glory. Your hope for manifesting all of the glory that God put inside of you is Christ. God's hope for getting glory in the world is putting Christ in you. That's plan a.
There is no plan b. And there's many people that die prematurely taking all of the *glory* that God put inside them to the grave, never revealing it. Premature termination is the destruction of potential, and the destruction of potential is the death of glory. God wants everything in you. He wants you to fulfill the purposes that he put inside of you.
He's for you. He's not against you. And to fulfill those purposes, it takes work. Work is the process that God created to reveal the glory that he put inside of you. Man, if you ain't willing to work, it's called sin.
Go to work. Everybody has work that they're supposed to do, not just men, men and women, work that God has called them to. Why? Because he wants to reveal the purposes that he put inside of you. *Obedience*.
Obey God to walk out the processes that he takes. What is obedience? Obedience is working out what he put inside. *Philippians-2 says says, work out your salvation* with fear and trembling. For God put in you the desire and the ability to carry out his good purposes.
His purposes are supernatural purposes. Those supernatural purposes, he put in you both the capacity and the desire to carry them out. Now, it's up to you to obey him in the little things to work out what he put in so that the world can see the glory around you. His glory. *Amen*?
*Amen*. It takes the right environment and the right environment to do that is what? *God's presence*. God's God's presence. Presence.
Just remember, review, the glory of a bird is to fly. If I put a bird underwater, it's not going to do well. It's gotta be in the right environment, which is the open air. The glory of a fish is a swim. If I take a fish and put it in the air, it's not gonna do well.
You're created to reveal the glory of God, and it takes the right environment, which is his presence. It takes nourishment, which is the word and learning and growing, and it takes time. *Amen*? Amen. Okay.
So there is a there is a purpose to the process that God has for you in your life, and there's a process to his purpose. Let's talk about it. The the the title of this message in the last the finale of the Glory of Living series is is the process to purpose. The process to purpose. We talked about earlier in the series, the word for glory is the Hebrew word, Chabad.
Chabad means weightiness, So much value that it has weight to it. Okay? There's a you ever heard the term the weight of glory? Grew up in a church, you probably heard weight of glory. There's a weight to it.
We talked about what that looks like. It's like if you're in a job and and they got a promotion that that they wanna give you, and you're thinking about the promotion, and it comes with a deeper level of responsibility, which means likely a deeper levels of stress. There's a a pressure that you feel. There's this weight of responsibility, You don't know if you can quite cut it. You don't know if you're ready, but then because of the environment you've been in, because of the nourishment, the learning that you had, and the time, which is experience, the bosses think that you're ready, so they promote you into this position.
And when you stand under the pressure, under the stress, the weight of responsibility, it it causes you spit a little bit. It causes you to expose the glory that's inside bringing glory to the company. You handled it. You make it. After a little bit, you you're you're walking out the new position, and and everybody everybody says, man, you're doing such a great job.
I didn't know you had it in you. What was in you? Glory. You don't just get immediately promoted to be the CEO when you step into a company. You usually start at the bottom, and you go through a process of promotion.
Why? Because you're being prepared. You're getting ready to be able to to walk in. Maybe your calling is to be the CEO of that company 1 day, but you have to stand through the process. Many are called, but "few are chosen" because few are willing to walk through the process.
Most people quit before it's time. Making an excuse, well, God told me. No, he didn't. You couldn't handle the pressure. Most businesses quit before 5 years.
Why? Before their 5 year anniversary, they quit. You know why? Because they couldn't handle the pressure that it took. The founder couldn't handle the pressure.
The team around the founder couldn't handle the pressure. They give up prematurely because they weren't willing to stand in the vision that God gave them. Don't be that person. In God's presence, we find purpose, and there's process to purpose. There's a weight that comes with that purpose.
So there's purpose to the process, and there's process to the purpose, and part of that process is pressure. Usually, the glory of something is hidden beneath the surface, and there's a process to that glory coming out, and that process is pressure. Let me ask you something. I think do we have a picture of coal and a diamond? Would you rather be a lump of coal, or would you rather be a diamond?
Diamond. A diamond. Which 1? Diamond. You wanna be a diamond?
Do you know that coal and diamonds are made out of the same material? Carbon? And they go through a similar process to be made as well? So coal, science says, comes from carbon that's close to the surface of the earth, decayed plants and other materials. Over time, there's a process of pressure and heat that causes coal to be formed.
Coal is useful to be burned. Creates heat, other things. We use coal for all kinds of things. It's great. Diamonds are made out of carbon as well.
Diamonds are made from carbon deeper into the earth's core, closer to the center. Diamonds take a purer form of carbon, pure carbon, and it takes greater pressure and greater heat, much greater pressure and much greater heat. You wanna be coal or you wanna be a diamond? Are you willing to go through the pressure and the heat to become a diamond? Are you gonna "wimp out" and just be coal?
Man, I wanna be a diamond, but for that amount of glory to come out of my life, I gotta be willing to stand through the pressure and the heat, knowing that God's with me in the midst of it. Amen? Amen. Let's look at a verse that sounds a little similar. *2 Timothy-2:20-21*.
Now in a great house, there are not only vessels of gold and silver, but also of wood and clay, some for honorable use, some for dishonorable. Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel a vessel. He will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work. Man, I don't wanna wimp out in the process and just be a lump of coal. I wanna stand through the pressure and stand through the fire because diamond's 1 of the hardest gems in the world.
It's beautiful to look at, but at the same time, it's very, very useful. They put it on the on the edge of drills to drill down and break up the the hard rock and drill for oil. Man, I wanna I wanna be 1 that God uses to drill through hard places to look for oil. *Amen*? Amen.
*Amen*. Can you handle the pressure? I believe you can, but he's because he's put Christ in you. But will you? That depends on how much you believe Christ is in you.
Because it's only by grace through faith that you'll handle it, and you're able to experience more depths of his grace as you grow in faith. We'll talk about it. Let me give you another another example. Glory comes out through a process of pressure that will permanently alter that which contains the glory. Let me give you an example.
What's the glory of the orange? Is it the peel? Is the peel the glory of the orange? No. The peel you can get some useful things out of the peel, but the peel is the container.
The peel holds the glory in. The glory of the orange is the juice. The juice is what holds the vitamins and the good taste, and it's what everyone craves. But for me to be able to get the juice out, the container has to go through a process. It has to be cut, But it also has to be squeezed.
There's pressure to the process of getting the glory out. Can you see? The more I squeeze it, the more pressure, the more glory comes out. That orange that is squeezed the most reveals the most glory. The goal of the orange is to "die empty", having exercised every bit of glory that's inside.
Oranges that remain on the tree or just fall off the tree and never go through the process of pressure, we call those a waste because they rot, still containing all of the glory inside. Are you willing to go through the process of pressure? Don't let your wife your your life be a waste. Don't let your life. Come on, guys.
Y'all laughing at my point. It's a good 1. *2 Corinthians-4:6*. For God, said, let light shine out of darkness, has shown in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ Jesus. Remember, all have sinned and fallen short of the glory.
Because of sin, people were pushed out of the presence of God, so you weren't able to reveal the glory of God. You were fallen short, destined to fall short, but then you received the word of God, Jesus Christ. He is the light of the world. He is the light of mankind. And when you receive that word, his light shone in your heart and turned you from darkness into light.
In Ephesians-5, it says, for you were once darkness. It doesn't just say you were in darkness, it says you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. He transformed you from the inside out, and he put that treasure in an earthen vessel, That glory. *Jesus himself said, I am the light of the world*, but then he turned to the disciples and said, you are the light of the world. And he put that treasure in an earthen vessel.
Verse 7, but we have this treasure in jars of clay to show the "surpassing power" that belongs to God and not to us. Question. If I put light in a jar of clay, can you see the light? No. It's covered by the jar.
What does it take to reveal the light? The jar must be broken. The more broken the jar is, the more light shines through. What did Jesus say? You wanna be my disciple, you must first deny yourself, pick up your cross, and follow me.
*Lord, break me of myself as much as possible so that my life reflects your glory* in every way. *Amen*? Amen. So what does that look like? But we have this treasure in jars of clay to show the surpassing power that belongs to God and not to us.
We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed. Perplexed, but not driven to despair. Perplexed means I don't understand what's going on. There's a lot of people, you're walking with Jesus, and there's stuff going on in your life, and you feel perplexed, but you don't under you're like, I don't I don't get it. You don't have to get it to have peace in the middle of the situation.
You can have a peace that passes under standing. If you have to understand, then you don't trust God. God, I give you my need to understand. Persecuted, but not forsaken. Struck down, but not destroyed.
Always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may be manifested in our bodies. It ain't about me, it's about you, Jesus. It's about your glory. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus may be made manifest in our mortal flesh. Verse 12, so death is at work in us, but life in you.
What does that mean? What does that look like? To the extent that you die to yourself, that you deny yourself and say, yes, Lord. For resurrection life to be seen, it it it takes death first. Any area where you're not seeing the resurrection life of Jesus Christ in your life, that's probably an area that you're still holding on to, and you need to die to yourself in that area so that he can resurrect it in glory.
That's a good word. Yes, Lord. So that others can see his goodness and his love, his kindness, his patience, his forbearance, his his faithfulness through you in that area. Why? It's not for you.
It's for him. This juice is not for the orange. It's to give out so others so the seed inside can be squeezed out and produce fruit in somebody else's life, so the juice can be mending to someone else's soul When the orange gives out all that it has, all that it is, the the container is forever altered. But praise the Lord, that's how it's meant to be. Because it ain't about the orange protecting its own container.
It's about the orange denying itself, picking up its cross, and going to the cross like *Jesus* for the sake of the purpose God called it to. What did Paul say? Philippians-2:17, even if my life's poured out like a drink offering on the sacrifice, the service of your faith, I'll be glad and rejoice, and you should be glad and rejoice too. The goal is dying empty. Not taking everything to the grave, but giving everything out before the grave so other people can experience what God put in you.
That's the most fulfilling life. Leaving it all on the table, living your purpose out 100% completely, allowing God to take you through the pressure, The process. Growth only happens, only occurs as we overcome resistance and obstacles. We talked about that. Ask the body builders.
You wanna see growth? You gotta overcome resistance consistently. You wanna see more growth? Overcome more resistance consistently. You wimp out, you start to atrophy.
*God* does not want you to atrophy spiritually. He wants you to continue to walk step by step, moment by moment. You know why in your life, it seems like whenever you overcome 1 problem, there's always another 1 right behind it? Mhmm. Why is that?
What I I I get through this 1 issue, this 1 problem, this 1 thing, and then right on the backside of it, there's another 1 coming, and then another 1. Can I just get a break? No. It's about glory. And you go from glory to glory, which means you go from pressure to pressure.
It takes faith to overcome that pressure, but you're growing endurance as you walk through the thing. And then, God allows more to come at you because he wants to get all the glory out so that everyone around you can see his goodness through the pressure from you. Once you start wimping out and not going through the next battle of pressure, you're refusing to reveal the next aspect of glory that he wants to reveal through you. "Count it all joy" when you face trials of many kinds. Because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance, and let perseverance have its finished work so you can be mature and complete, lacking nothing.
Lacking nothing. You go from 1 faith test to the next faith test. From 1 amount of pressure to the next, and it's going to scale up because your faith muscles have scaled up, and you can overcome bigger obstacles and reveal more glory. The thing you went through 5 years ago, if you went through it again today, you'd it'd look completely different. Am I spitting?
No. Turn your hands. Thank you. James James-1:12, the other verse that I didn't quote, blessed is the man who remains steadfast under trial. For when he has stood the test, he will receive the *crown of life* that God has promised to those who love him.
Steadfast under trial. You combine 12 with 2 and 4, it means the man is sitting under the trial until it's had its finished work, not trying to get out of it, not to not complaining about it over and over. You know, is it in Hebrews-4, it talks about the Israelites who complained about the pressure. And it it caught it it tells it's through the complaining that they hardened their heart, and it it created unbelief, and they died in the wilderness never having received the promise. You never have an excuse to complain about the pressure ever because complaining is unbelief.
Complaining is a overfocus on yourself. An overfocus on yourself is pride, and pride comes before a Allah. Right. Instead of complaining, face it. *Lord*, I I hate that I'm having to go through this.
This is terrible. The loss, the pain, the struggle. *Lord*, be honest and open. Face it. But Lord, I trust you in the midst of it.
My eyes are on you. I'm gonna thank you no matter what's going on because you're with me in this enough, and I'm gonna rejoice and count it all joy in the middle of the process because I know you're developing me, and this is gonna create deeper perseverance. *Lord God*, thank you because it's gonna get more of you out to the world around me, or it's gonna prepare me to be able to do that in the future. You know 1 of my prayers Is, father, do whatever it takes. Develop the disciplines in me today, whatever process you want me to go through today, so that I'll be ready to love the people you wanna put me in front of in 5 years.
If I'm not willing to go through the disciplines today and learn the lessons necessary today, I won't be ready to give out what the people God wants to put in front of me in 5 years need. I won't be able to I won't be ready to love them well. Are you willing to sacrifice yourself and what you want now to develop the habits and the disciplines necessary now so you can walk in the purpose God has for you in 5 years? Or you just take it as it comes kind of person. No discipline.
If you have no discipline, you can't be a disciple because a disciple is a disciplined follower of Jesus. Discipline takes no saying no to instantaneous gratification and yes to what's better for the long term. If you can't do that, you can't follow Christ. But you can because he put Christ in you. He's given you the grace to do it.
All you gotta do is by faith. Through by grace, through faith, you just gotta say, yes, Lord, I can do it, and begin to take that step of obedience, and his grace comes and empowers you to be able to do what you could never do on your own. *Amen*? Amen. Alright.
*Romans-5*. The process there's process to the purpose, and that process is pressure. You guys okay?
Yeah. Yes, sir.
This is like causing some "spiritual grit" in you. Therefore, since we have been *justified* by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him, we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. You now stand in grace, and you have access to that grace by faith. He gave you his word.
*Faith comes by hearing his word. You believed his word enough to be obedient and confess him as Lord* and to get baptized. His grace empowered that step of obedience and began to transform you from the inside out. Then he gave you another word. You heard, believed, and obeyed.
And as you continue to step out in hearing, believing, and obeying, his grace is there to empower that to to cause you to be what you could never be on your own. Greater mountains require greater faith, which means there's greater pressure on your life to believe. You wanna go from faith to faith? Once again, it's from pressure to pressure. But guess what?
As you grow in faith, you grow in your ability to attribute his grace to your life. So you see more of his power empowering you to be what you couldn't do couldn't be on your own and and to do what you couldn't do on your own. And that's how you look more and more like Jesus every single day. Verse 3, not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings. Everybody say, I rejoice
I rejoice.
In my suffering.
In my suffering.
Just think of suffering as pressure. I rejoice in the pressures of life, knowing that **suffering produces endurance**, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. 1 of my prayers has always been, Father, whatever it takes to develop in me the character necessary to "walk out the call" that you have on my life, knowing that to develop character, it takes suffering and endurance. And what I'm saying is, God, bring it on now. Develop the character now so that I can walk in all of your purposes now or as soon as possible, and yet I trust you with the process.
And what does character produce? *Hope*. Hope's after character. Hope is the foundation of faith. Faith faith is the substance of things hoped for.
So the next thing is greater faith. Greater faith for what? For the next trial the enemy brings at you. The next responsibility God wants to put on you, which is greater pressure. And you're ready for it because you know the process.
So you suffer through, you endure, you see greater character, you see greater hope, and then you see greater faith, greater mountains move in your life. And then he says, alright, you're ready for that promotion. You've stood the test of time. You've endured. Now let's go.
Suffering, greater responsibility, greater stress, greater pressure, greater suffering. You stand in trial, you endure, the pressure causes God's glory to come out, greater character is revealed in your life. Then you got greater hope, man, God took me through this. Hope's the foundation of faith, greater faith. And you see greater mountains move in your life and in the lives of those around you.
Pretty awesome, This is how we reveal how God reveals glory.
Last
but not least, We talked about in this series, The Crucible. This is kind of the culmination of the whole series, so I know it's some review, but I don't have a problem repeating myself because Peter said, I don't have a problem repeating myself because it it it it's a safeguard for your faith. It's a safeguard for your life. Repetition drive things drives things deeper. The crucible, we talked about the crucible.
What is the crucible used for? It's used to melt metals to purify them. So you stick gold in a crucible, it melts, and the impurities come to the surface, you scrape it off the top. Subject to very high heat. How's a diamond formed?
Super high heat. As you go through the heat, don't complain about the heat. Trust that Jesus is with you. Go through the furnace like the Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Amen?
He's with you in the fire. It won't even burn your clothes, but at the same time, it'll transform those around you. K. It's crazy. The same fires that we go through that refine us are the same fires that that the world without Jesus goes through that breaks them.
Guess it's about perspective and who's on your side. Who's the foundation of your life? When gold is being refined, impurities are being scraped off, and then the heat's being turned up, more impurities are rising to the surface. Do you know the last impurity to rise to the surface, the last impurity to be scraped off the top? Silver.
Silver. Silver is still a precious metal. Still would be a valuable, good thing, but it's not gold. If they were trying to make silver, then they'd scrape the gold off, but they're trying to make gold, so they scrape the silver off. In your life, if God's trying to make you into gold and you keep holding on to silver, you're preventing yourself from being as strong as you could be in the Lord.
There are good things in your life that may be a God thing for somebody else's life, but if you don't let it go, you won't be able to walk in the fullness of the purpose God has for you. Are you willing to say no to good things that seem like God things but are not? To walk in the fullness of the purpose he has for you. And I want to clear out, if I'm a I'm a plane in my life going down the runway, getting ready to lift off into the purposes that God has for me, I wanna clear out every obstacle off the runway because it's the obstacles that prevent lift off, that cause me to slow back down, the things that I hold on to, fear and control and other things. I wanna say, whatever it takes, Lord.
Yes, Lord. *Discipline* me, Lord. I long for your discipline so my life can reveal your wisdom. I long for you to discipline me today so I can be completely poured out tomorrow instead of holding on to things that I was supposed to let go. I long to be able to endure the pressure, every ounce of pressure and responsibility you wanna put on my life, whatever it takes, Lord God.
Let develop me to be able to walk in that so the world can see you through me to the fullness extent that you want them to. But it's not from just for me. I'm saying that as your pastor, but I'm praying that for you. Whatever it takes, Lord. Every person that you send to our church, take them through the process to develop the character necessary for them to walk out the call.
Whatever it takes, Lord God, for every every person that you bring, you you realize every Christian is a leader. You're a leader because a Christian is supposed to make disciples. And to make disciples, you're supposed to you you're leading other people to Jesus and then leading them to look more like Jesus, which means you're leading in your life. So I'm praying for every single 1 of you that God would show you who he says that you are, and you'd be able to stand in that character necessary to walk the thing out no matter the process. So if you come to real church and you sit in here and all of sudden you start going through pressure, it's because I'm praying it.
You want an easy, comfortable Christian life that following a God that's created after your own image, go to some other church. You wanna grow? Keep coming. Alright. Let's do an altar call.
I probably shouldn't kick this knife. Alex will get me. Put I it back in the wanna ask you guys to stand. An altar is a place where you it's a place of sacrifice. It's a place of laying down.
It's a place of death. We're gonna make this area the altar. Heavenly Father, I ask you, I thank you, Father, for what you're doing. Holy Spirit**, just come. I thank you for your call.
Many are called, but few are chosen. *Lord*, I thank you for everyone under this the sound of my voice. Lord, I thank you in the name of Jesus, they will walk out the process toward their call. Every ounce of that process. Lord God, they won't shrink back and become coal, they'll be diamonds, Lord God, for you and your kingdom.
Useful for every good work in the master's hands. If you if you feel just a desire to lay it all on the altar, to continue to move forward all the more with your purpose, If you if you want a just a Holy Spirit** charge forward. Let's say it like this. A lot of times with with an altar call, people are like, I don't know if I should go forward or not, you know, that kind of thing. Let me make it clear, as clear as I can.
When there is a spiritual decision, there is a physical step of obedience. The spiritual decision to give your life to Jesus requires the physical step of obedience for baptism. And for the rest of your life, every spiritual decision you make, there will be a physical step of obedience. The Lord showed me this last night as a physical step of obedience for a spiritual decision that you're making today. Some of you, there is a decision that you need to make to lay it all on the altar, to be all in for God's purposes in your life.
If that's you, want you to come forward. Just come on in the middle, altar's probably gonna be full. Why don't you turn on, like, some soft worship music in the back? And then even if the production team needs to come forward, come forward. Whoever.
Just fill the altar. And just begin pouring out your heart to him. Whatever you need to lay on the altar, just begin, God, I give you this. If you're still in your chair and you feel like, man, that that was me. I need to come.
Come on. Christianity requires a physical step of obedience. Things that I consistently lay down, I'll tell you guys, told the dream team. Anytime that I have fear, I give that thing to the Lord. I'll give you an example.
There's sometimes I'll walk in my 3 year old's room, and I'll have this this fear take me that overtake me that she's sick or she's gonna be sick or or this will happen or what what if this happens or what if that happens. In that moment, I say, Lord God, I give you River Royce. Because fear goes to control, and if you're trying to control something, you're not trusting God with it. So that's 1 of the things I lay down on the altar all the time as my children. Lord God, I give them to you, whatever you want.
Some of you, the very thing that God's called you to is what's holding you back from following him more fully and reaching your call because you're you're trying to accomplish your call by your own strength and your own power. He called you to something, and you're doing everything you can to do it without him. Control. *Lord, I give you my calling*. I give you my work.
I give you my job. I give you my marriage. *Lord*, I put it on the altar. Anything that you're afraid of losing, give it to him. Thank you, Lord Jesus.
Turn up the music a bit. Just pour it out to him. If you just have a hunger in your heart right now for Him, just say, Lord God, fill me with you. I'm I'm hungry. I want more of you, whatever it takes.
Thank you, Lord Jesus. Lord, we praise you. Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be open. Thank you, Lord Jesus.
*Lord*, we honor you. Let us be a church that's hungry hungry for you. I pray fire in Jesus' name. Let us be baptized in your fire in Jesus' name. Come, Holy Spirit**.
Come, Holy Spirit**. More of you in the name of Jesus. Thank you, Lord Jesus. More of you, Holy Spirit. Lord, fill them with your fire.
Fill them with your presence. *Lord God*, fill them with a passion and a hunger for you. I want the altar team. The altar team will just begin to go through and lay hands on people. Minister to people.
Pray for people. Thank you, Lord Jesus. As they're ministering and praying for people, I wanna speak to the rest of you. The Bible says no 1 can see the kingdom of heaven unless they're born again. No 1.
He was when Jesus said that, he was talking to a religious dude. A religious man who would have been a leader in the church, who would have known the Old Testament. And the religious man said, we believe you're from God. We see the miracles you're doing. So he even believed that Jesus was from God.
There's a lot of religious people that go to church that believe that Jesus is from God, but they've never been born again. Jesus interrupted the religious man and said, no 1 can see the kingdom of heaven unless you have been born again. You gotta be "born of water" and born of spirit. You and I were both born of water. Your mama's water broke.
My mama's water broke. You're a human being. But born of spirit, that's the thing. How are you born of spirit? You believe Jesus died and rose again.
Even demons believe Jesus died and rose again, but they don't follow him. You have to believe Jesus died and rose again so much that you're willing to say, "I'm gonna follow you" instead of myself. I'm gonna make you the Lord of my life instead of what I think and feel. I put you on the throne of my heart instead of myself, and I'm gonna submit to what you say. In that moment, you're making him the Lord of your life.
He forgives you of all of your sin, past, present, and future, and puts the Holy Spirit, born again, born of the spirit inside of you to lead you like a father leads a son or a father leads a daughter. This is so you can know the voice of God, and you could be led toward the purposes he created you for. Is there anybody in here you'd say, that's me. I know I've never been born again, and I'm ready to "give my life to Jesus" right now. Raise your hand.
Praise the Lord. Would you come forward, ma'am? Anybody else? You're bold. You say, I'm I know I've been I I'm ready to give my life to Jesus.
Who else? There's more in here. Praise the Lord. Courtney, would you go and my wife's gonna come speak to you. Thank you, Lord Jesus.
Just continue to seek the Lord. Do we have the altar ministry team working over here as well? Okay. Good. If the altar ministry team can go back in this direction too in the aisle, it'd be great.
*Lord God*, I pray, and I thank you for your goodness. Alright. I got 1 more thing. If you're still being ministering to minister to, be ministered to. If you still need to seek the Lord in that, tune me out and listen to Jesus.
At Real Church, in 2025, we're gonna start a process, a process of our mission statement called equip. We're rolling out something called spiritual leadership training, SLT. It was written by 1 of my mentors, doctor Leon Van Royen, who has trained over a 150,000 students on his online university. He has ministry schools all over the world, and he's he's allowing us to use his spiritual leadership training. Myself and Mark Becker are going through it right now.
We're on week 29. It's a 1 year course. Takes 5 hours a week. You receive 5 books with it. It's intense.
It'll challenge you. It takes commitment, consistency, endurance, and you will learn to grow as a spiritual leader in your home, your kids, your business, your church. So my encouragement to you, if you know that you're called to grow in your ability to be a spiritual leader in your life, pray about being a part of SLT. There's a cost because you gotta have some "skin in the game", otherwise, you might not complete it, but also for the materials and other things. You can go online, realchurch.us, under get involved, that's SLT informational dinner and SLT registration.
Sign up for the informational dinner. We'd love to tell you all about it, but this will create many **"strong leaders"**. And if you're a Christian, *God*'s called you to be a strong leader. It'll be amazing. Mark and I will walk walk you through it over the next year.
So I want you to seriously consider and pray about that. Amen? Amen. Chevy, I'm done. I love you guys.
You guys can stay at the altar if you need to. *Amen*.