SPEAKER_01: Hey, I'm Pastor Steve Hole.
SPEAKER_01: I want to empower you today to walk in your true identity as a worshiper and warrior.
SPEAKER_01: Today, embrace the power of God's Word and the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Born for War podcast.
SPEAKER_01: Listen, when you walk in a house, and all of us in this room have walked in a house before or a building, the first thing you notice is the furniture.
SPEAKER_01: The first thing you notice is the kitchen.
SPEAKER_01: Some of the things you notice might be the lighting or it might be the plants, it might be an end table, it might be a cool couch.
SPEAKER_01: Those things are obvious.
SPEAKER_01: And when you walk in a church, in the same way, you notice the programs of the church.
SPEAKER_01: The programs of a church are the furniture of a house.
SPEAKER_01: It's what you notice, it's what you see.
SPEAKER_01: And if you're single, then you're probably looking for a singles ministry.
SPEAKER_01: If you're married, you might want to find out something about a small group ministry or a marriage ministry.
SPEAKER_01: And we're one of those churches that doesn't have a bulletin.
SPEAKER_01: I've been called a liberal because I don't have a bulletin.
SPEAKER_01: All right?
SPEAKER_01: So we don't have bulletins, so you have to go on the website and you have to look for those things.
SPEAKER_01: That's what you find out.
SPEAKER_01: When you come in here, you see that we got a leak in our roof.
SPEAKER_01: And there's like if you saw those yellow buckets, because we have two leaks coming down, we've had more problems with the roofing, right?
SPEAKER_01: Here's why.
SPEAKER_01: Because the most important thing in a house is not the furniture.
SPEAKER_01: The most important thing in a church is not the programs.
SPEAKER_01: They will come and go.
SPEAKER_01: How many of you in this room were here 10 years ago when we first started the church?
SPEAKER_01: Raise your hand.
SPEAKER_01: A smattering of you, not very many.
SPEAKER_01: Next week we're going to celebrate 10 years because people change.
SPEAKER_01: Programs change.
SPEAKER_01: But what makes a house is not the furniture, it's what's behind the walls.
SPEAKER_01: It's what's underneath the floor.
SPEAKER_01: It's the plumbing.
SPEAKER_01: It's the wiring.
SPEAKER_01: That's why we have inspectors.
SPEAKER_01: So inspectors go through a house before you purchase it.
SPEAKER_01: That's what they're looking for.
SPEAKER_01: They're looking at the water heater.
SPEAKER_01: They're looking at the plumbing and things like that, right?
SPEAKER_01: Well, that is, to use a metaphor, the values or principles of a church.
SPEAKER_01: So the principles you can't see.
SPEAKER_01: The programs you can.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes those programs are there not because of principle, but because someone wanted to have that program.
SPEAKER_01: If that's true, it usually doesn't last.
SPEAKER_01: But if there's a program based on a principle that's contextualized to a particular group, that may change, but the principles remain the same.
SPEAKER_01: So I want to talk about values.
SPEAKER_01: I want to talk about the core values, the core principles of the road.
SPEAKER_01: So we have ten values.
SPEAKER_01: We have ten principles, they're exactly the same as ten years ago.
SPEAKER_01: Now the programs have changed.
SPEAKER_01: Matter of fact, when we first got started, we started off on Saturday night.
SPEAKER_01: And probably the first little conflict that we had in the church, Heilers, you'd remember this, was going from Saturday to Sunday.
SPEAKER_01: That was like the biggest deal.
SPEAKER_01: And I think we lost a couple people because we did not stay on Saturday night.
SPEAKER_01: And my basis wasn't whether we met on Saturday night or Sunday morning.
SPEAKER_01: My basis was when do most people think about going to church?
SPEAKER_01: And it's Sunday morning, so we went to Sunday morning.
SPEAKER_01: The core values didn't change, but that was a program that caused some consternation to some people.
SPEAKER_01: Anybody know that in the church people get consternation over the funniest things?
SPEAKER_01: They do.
SPEAKER_01: And uh, but but values.
SPEAKER_01: That's what I want to talk about.
SPEAKER_01: I want to talk about ten core values of the road or principles.
SPEAKER_01: Think of it that way.
SPEAKER_01: So turn in your Bibles to John chapter 4.
SPEAKER_01: Look at John chapter 4 with me.
SPEAKER_01: I want to start there and talk about these ten values.
SPEAKER_01: So it's going to look different today in that we're not looking at one verse like I normally do.
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to jump around a little bit.
SPEAKER_01: Some of it will be on the screen, and some of it you'll open your Bible, but let's start with this one.
SPEAKER_01: I think it's a great place to start.
SPEAKER_01: I think this is the most important of the ten core values.
SPEAKER_01: So this is number one.
SPEAKER_01: So Jesus is talking to a woman at the well, and he's concluding the conversation by saying this.
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 23, John 4, 23.
SPEAKER_01: But the hour is coming, and now is when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth.
SPEAKER_01: Underlined in spirit and in truth, for the Father is seeking such to worship him.
SPEAKER_01: God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship, there it is again, in spirit and truth.
SPEAKER_01: So value number one at the road is word and spirit.
SPEAKER_01: We value God's word as preeminent, as inerrant, that means without error, and infallible.
SPEAKER_01: So that's why every week we teach from God's Word.
SPEAKER_01: Now, right now we're in the study of 1 Peter.
SPEAKER_01: We've taken a break here as we go into the 10-year anniversary, which is next week, and there's going to be a massive cake at every service, and you're all going to eat from it.
SPEAKER_01: So it's going to be really fun.
SPEAKER_01: But the vision of the road, which I'll talk about more next week, is based on Word and Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: It's based on God's Word.
SPEAKER_01: That's exciting.
SPEAKER_01: Because the principles of God's word don't change.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so I read in Genesis and I read the words of Jesus, that he made them, meaning us, male and female.
SPEAKER_01: He said that marriage is between a man and a is that hard?
SPEAKER_01: I mean that that just doesn't seem that hard to me.
SPEAKER_01: But when our culture is changing, we're going to remain the same.
SPEAKER_01: So in the second service, and I had a feeling this was happening, but I didn't say anything until it happened.
SPEAKER_01: I said, Would you stand if you have a child two years or younger?
SPEAKER_01: And so a woman stood, and we got down to one year or less, or two of them, and I looked at her and she's got her hand on her tummy.
SPEAKER_01: Because she was acknowledging the truth that she does have a child in the womb.
SPEAKER_01: So in the Declaration of Independence, we read that every individual should be allowed to have the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of that includes an unborn child.
SPEAKER_01: So we're gonna always be pro-life.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not gonna vote for someone who's not pro-life.
SPEAKER_01: And so and so that's a principle guiding our convictions, right?
SPEAKER_01: I don't know, that just doesn't seem hard to me.
SPEAKER_01: I can wake up in the morning and 99% of my life is settled for me because I love God and his word.
SPEAKER_01: And I believe that the kingdom of God is the best way to live.
SPEAKER_01: So you that are out there that are thinking about marriage, or you're gonna get married, or you just got married, or you're in your first couple years of marriage, build your marriage on that value of the word and the spirit, the power of the Holy Spirit, believing that God can take any problem, any situation, any addiction, and through the power of his spirit, he can set you free.
SPEAKER_01: He can set you free.
SPEAKER_01: That's core to the road.
SPEAKER_01: And so someone comes to me and they've and they've been to prison.
SPEAKER_01: Someone comes to our church and they have done horrendous things.
SPEAKER_01: God can redeem that because of the power of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: If they want to be redeemed, God will redeem you.
SPEAKER_01: Isn't that exciting?
SPEAKER_01: There's always hope for every person.
SPEAKER_01: So that's what we mean by the word and the Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Now turn to Mark 11.
SPEAKER_01: Mark 11, verse 15.
SPEAKER_01: So they came to Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_01: Then Jesus went into the temple and began to drive out those who bought and sold in the temple, and overturned the tables of the money changers and the seats of those who sold doves.
SPEAKER_01: And he would not allow anyone to carry wares through the temple.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 17.
SPEAKER_01: Then he taught, saying to them, Is it not written, My house shall be called a house of prayer for all nations?
SPEAKER_01: So, men and women, we started this church with 40 nights of prayer.
SPEAKER_01: So, value, the second value of this church is worship and prayer.
SPEAKER_01: The only thing besides the teaching of God's word that takes up most of our time on a Sunday morning is worship.
SPEAKER_01: And by the way, worship's not just singing songs, but it is how we express our worship and elevate Christ on Sunday morning.
SPEAKER_01: But worship also involves having integrity.
SPEAKER_01: Worship involves telling the truth.
SPEAKER_01: Worship involves sacrificing your life for others.
SPEAKER_01: That's all worship because worship is putting Christ first in our lives.
SPEAKER_01: So worship and prayer go together.
SPEAKER_01: So we started this church with 40 nights of prayer and worship together.
SPEAKER_01: We Monday through Friday have one hour, noon to one.
SPEAKER_01: We come in and we pray and call out to God during that noon, we call it noonday fire.
SPEAKER_01: And if you haven't been to that, you should come.
SPEAKER_01: If you've got an issue, something you're working on, come to Noonday Fire because we always give time for individual prayer, for people to seek the Lord individually for what they're calling out to God for.
SPEAKER_01: To come two or more gathered in his name has power and anointing on it.
SPEAKER_01: That's why we do it.
SPEAKER_01: You know what really, I think really what held us together and the church grew exponentially during COVID because we prayed together.
SPEAKER_01: We were constantly praying.
SPEAKER_01: That was a, do you guys remember how tenuous that time was?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it seemed like that we were losing freedoms left and right, and censorship was coming up through social media and stuff like that, and we began to pray and call out to God.
SPEAKER_01: We saw miracles happen.
SPEAKER_01: So we turned a catastrophic situation into prayer.
SPEAKER_01: And we had Elijah fire prayer that Liz led and others led, and it was breakthrough time.
SPEAKER_01: We saw so many breakthroughs during that time.
SPEAKER_01: And some of you know what I'm talking about.
SPEAKER_01: You've experienced situations where that you need a breakthrough, and you called some friends together, or you're in a community group, and you cried out to God, and God showed up.
SPEAKER_01: So, church, we need to be, we need to be a church.
SPEAKER_01: We need to constantly remember that worship and prayer brings the kingdom.
SPEAKER_01: That's why we're told to pray, Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: We're praying for that.
SPEAKER_01: That's in the Lord's Prayer.
SPEAKER_01: That's in the disciples' prayer when they ask you, said, pray this way.
SPEAKER_01: Pray that the kingdom which is out there would be brought down here into our midst through prayer and worship.
SPEAKER_01: And so that's value number two.
SPEAKER_01: Well, number three is found in Ephesians 4.
SPEAKER_01: Don't turn there, it'll be up on the screen.
SPEAKER_01: He himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: I love this verse, and I think it's a core verse for the purpose of the church, and that is value three, discipleship and empowering.
SPEAKER_01: Or you could say it this way: discipleship and empowerment.
SPEAKER_01: We're empowering people to change the world.
SPEAKER_01: That's our mission statement.
SPEAKER_01: We'll talk way more about that next week.
SPEAKER_01: So you have churches that are built on tradition.
SPEAKER_01: You have churches that are built on evangelism.
SPEAKER_01: Our church is built on empowerment.
SPEAKER_01: Our church is built on building leaders, building disciples.
SPEAKER_01: It's core to who we are.
SPEAKER_01: Now you gotta say one heretical statement at every sermon, so I'm gonna give you one.
SPEAKER_01: I don't think we need more evangelism in America.
SPEAKER_01: I think we need more discipleship.
SPEAKER_01: So what I mean by that, I know it's heretical, but I'm gonna let me explain myself.
SPEAKER_01: If so, I've been a Christian for 45 years, and I bet if I added up all the crusades and all the numbers of all the people that have gotten saved at all these crusades, we we've saved America three or four times over.
SPEAKER_01: But look at our morals.
SPEAKER_01: Look at our ethics.
SPEAKER_01: Look at the we lead the world.
SPEAKER_01: We lead the civilized world in pornography.
SPEAKER_01: We lead the civilized world in the creation of X-rated movies.
SPEAKER_01: We lead the world in divorce.
SPEAKER_01: What is going on?
SPEAKER_01: Churches are not discipling believers, they're just stuck there, they've they walked an aisle, we've we've somehow given them a certification to say you're now saved.
SPEAKER_01: They're not saved.
SPEAKER_01: They're not any more saved than man and the moon.
SPEAKER_01: If we took a survey of a one-mile radius around the church, almost everybody'd say they're a Christian.
SPEAKER_01: And their rationale would, well, I'm not a Buddhist and I'm not a Muslim, I'm an American, so I must be a Christian.
SPEAKER_01: Have you ever wondered why those stats come out and say that only 40% of all evangelicals vote?
SPEAKER_01: You think, man, that's horrible.
SPEAKER_01: Evangelical Christians are not voting.
SPEAKER_01: We should be voting.
SPEAKER_01: No, the problem's not that they're not voting, the problem is they're calling themselves evangelical Christians and they don't even know the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Because if you knew the Lord, you'd vote.
SPEAKER_01: So we've got to disciple people.
SPEAKER_01: Men and women, we gotta, we've gotta move from being a Jesus believerslash American to becoming a Jesus disciple who has discipline.
SPEAKER_01: That's what it means.
SPEAKER_01: It means discipline in our life.
SPEAKER_01: Where our lives are different.
SPEAKER_01: They're different than everybody else.
SPEAKER_01: God has made us different because we're being filled regularly with the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: So that's a core value of the road.
SPEAKER_01: It's the reason we started Empower You.
SPEAKER_01: That's why this fall we're gonna be pushing really hard for road community groups.
SPEAKER_01: And our prayer is that over 50% of the church will be in a community group.
SPEAKER_01: Value number four, marriage and family.
SPEAKER_01: Marriage and family.
SPEAKER_01: Marriage and family is the bedrock of culture, it's the bedrock of society.
SPEAKER_01: It's really interesting, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01: That I don't know if it was 2004, I know it was early 2000s, a black political leader made a statement that the most important thing that's needed in the African American black community is for fathers to be fathers and for marriages to be held together by marriage and family.
SPEAKER_01: And his name was Barack Obama.
SPEAKER_01: But when he became president, we never heard much about it.
SPEAKER_01: You see, that's someone who's doing anything and saying anything just to get a vote, but it's not a core value that they have.
SPEAKER_01: And what's interesting is he's got a beautiful family, and he's had longevity in his marriage.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, talk about something to leverage in that group of men and women in our culture, a minority.
SPEAKER_01: So at the road, we value marriage and family, and ten years from now, we're gonna still value marriage and family because that's what the Bible does, and so that's a core value.
SPEAKER_01: That's the wiring of the house is marriage and family.
SPEAKER_01: And some of us have been through divorces, some of us have been through adultery, some of us have been through uh widowhood, some of us have been through deep pain in marriage and family.
SPEAKER_01: There's always a new day.
SPEAKER_01: You can start again through Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: You can start again.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you in this room are single and you wish you were married and you're not married, and God's got a plan for you too.
SPEAKER_01: Is it interesting?
SPEAKER_01: Apostle Paul had so much to say about singleness, and he said, I wish you were like me.
SPEAKER_01: There's so much beauty in that.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, this church is full of men and women who are single helping out in ministries because of the time that they have, and appreciate that so much, love that so much.
SPEAKER_01: So marriage and family.
SPEAKER_01: Value number five, men and women.
SPEAKER_01: Men and women.
SPEAKER_01: So I set those as different.
SPEAKER_01: So there's a masculine heart in men, there's a feminine heart in women, and God has a special message for both, and so that's why we have whole-hearted men and whole-hearted women.
SPEAKER_01: So whole-hearted men on Tuesday morning, I talk really different there than I do here because I'm talking to men.
SPEAKER_01: It's a more challenging message to men, usually based on something related to the masculine heart of a man.
SPEAKER_01: And Liz teaches different to the women than she would on Sunday morning when she's up here with me.
SPEAKER_01: And so we value women, and we value men.
SPEAKER_01: And when you have a church, the worldwide church, but then specifically the American church, where 65% of those who attend are women, see how important it is to have a men's ministry that's targeting a man's heart?
SPEAKER_01: Because most men don't go to church.
SPEAKER_01: But they're coming here, holy smokes.
SPEAKER_01: So how many, so if you're a man, if you're male, or boy, male, boy or man, stand.
SPEAKER_01: Would you stand?
SPEAKER_01: Come on.
SPEAKER_01: That's a pretty high percentage right there, folks.
SPEAKER_01: So men and women are important to God and to us, and that's why we have wholehearted men, wholehearted women.
SPEAKER_01: So next week, I'm not gonna say anything this week because we're pushing toward VBS, but next week we're gonna talk about whole-hearted, uh the whole heart advance, which is this fall for men, and you can take, you can get the early elk special.
SPEAKER_01: So the early elk special is in May, where you'll get 15% off.
SPEAKER_01: We'll talk more about that next week.
SPEAKER_01: Ephesians 6.
SPEAKER_01: Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.
SPEAKER_01: For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.
SPEAKER_01: Value 6, spiritual warfare and mission.
SPEAKER_01: We just finished a series on cosmic war.
SPEAKER_01: You can look that up if you weren't a part of our church at that time.
SPEAKER_01: But how many of you have started your own company or an LLC?
SPEAKER_01: Raise your hand.
SPEAKER_01: All right, a lot of you in this room, probably most of you in this room.
SPEAKER_01: How many of you have fathered kids?
SPEAKER_01: How many of you have mothered kids?
SPEAKER_01: How many of you are trying to live with purity in your singleness?
SPEAKER_01: All right, I mean look at that.
SPEAKER_01: Guess what?
SPEAKER_01: It's hard.
SPEAKER_01: All of that's hard.
SPEAKER_01: Because Satan and demons oppose you whenever you try to do the right thing.
SPEAKER_01: So we're trying to equip you at the road for spiritual warfare to get ready for hard.
SPEAKER_01: It's life's hard.
SPEAKER_01: Anything of righteousness is going to be opposed by the enemy.
SPEAKER_01: So, how do we learn how to fight?
SPEAKER_01: Well, that's what we talk about a lot here is spiritual warfare.
SPEAKER_01: We we bring up Satan's name from time to time, not to give him any special place, but to realize that you're in a battle so that you won't quit.
SPEAKER_01: And you won't give up, but you'll push through.
SPEAKER_01: Now turn to Matthew 18.
SPEAKER_01: Would you turn to Matthew 18 with me?
SPEAKER_01: And this is because we have so many problems.
SPEAKER_01: If you believe in spiritual warfare, if you believe that the Bible is the Word of God, if you believe that those values never change, if you believe in marriage and family, if you believe in developing a masculine heart and a feminine heart, you're going to go through conflicted relationships.
SPEAKER_01: So Matthew 18, Jesus gives us some instructions in verse 15 about how to deal with conflict in relationships.
SPEAKER_01: Moreover, if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone.
SPEAKER_01: If he hears you, you have gained your brother.
SPEAKER_01: But if he will not hear, take with you one or two more, that by the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.
SPEAKER_01: We call it a covenant of harmony.
SPEAKER_01: Value seven is peacemaking, peacemaking, and reconciled relationships.
SPEAKER_01: Peacemaking and reconciled relationships programmatically gave us what we call the covenant of harmony.
SPEAKER_01: So the covenant of harmony is the program, but the principle is reconcile relationships.
SPEAKER_01: We believe that almost every relationship can be worked out through coming together and talking about our differences.
SPEAKER_01: We've had to do it, Liz and I have had to do it, all of our staff have had to do it at different times.
SPEAKER_01: We've probably had 40 or 50 situations over the 10 years where in any other church, man, people would have flown out.
SPEAKER_01: There'd been division between couples or something like that.
SPEAKER_01: But because of the covenant of harmony, we encourage them, we don't make anybody do anything, but we encourage them to work it out in a Matthew 18 way.
SPEAKER_01: They do.
SPEAKER_01: And 99% of the time they work it out because both parties want to have a reconciled relationship.
SPEAKER_01: Now, after the second service, a person came to me and talked about a situation that she was in, and we began to talk about the covenant of harmony.
SPEAKER_01: So covenant of harmony is, I think it's pretty unique to our church, but that's how many of you have come out of churches that are either split or lots of people have left those churches because of some problem relationally?
SPEAKER_01: Raise your hand.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, a lot of you.
SPEAKER_01: We need a covenant of harmony.
SPEAKER_01: We need to push in, press in, work things out, and try to find, if you can, a win-win situation.
SPEAKER_01: Value eight, which kind of flows out of value seven, transparency and vulnerability.
SPEAKER_01: Transparency and vulnerability.
SPEAKER_01: So again, this is unique to the road.
SPEAKER_01: This is why road community groups are important.
SPEAKER_01: This is why wholehearted men, we have 59 tables in here.
SPEAKER_01: I only speak for 15 minutes, but where the real action happens is that 45 minutes that happens in that group of seven or eight guys that work stuff out and they're open about their stuff, they're open about their problems.
SPEAKER_01: So Brene Brown was the one who said, if you want to break the power of shame in your life, learn to be vulnerable with some allies.
SPEAKER_01: Learn to be vulnerable with some trusted, what we call blood-stained allies.
SPEAKER_01: I think most women have that, but most men don't.
SPEAKER_01: And that's why we've emphasized it so much from the pulpit from me is because I didn't have that.
SPEAKER_01: And I had to develop that a decade ago.
SPEAKER_01: It's made all the difference in the world.
SPEAKER_01: Having blood-stained allies.
SPEAKER_01: So, you men, I want you to know how much whole-hearted men has meant to the men in this room because of all the women that have come to Ryan and me and Andy and others and said, Man, I'm so glad you do Tuesday morning.
SPEAKER_01: My husband is a changed man because of wholehearted men.
SPEAKER_01: Isn't that awesome?
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: And we did it because I needed it.
SPEAKER_01: You guys, I needed it.
SPEAKER_01: And so I just simply, we just simply did what we needed and we grew together that way.
SPEAKER_01: And it's a it's a cardinal fact that this church would not be here today if it wasn't for bloodstained allies that came alongside me.
SPEAKER_01: Ryan was one of them.
SPEAKER_01: Ryan was the key guy that came, we didn't even know each other at Mountain Springs, but he and Mandy came alongside Liz and I, and from the beginning just stuck with us and you know, heard all the stuff we had been through and believed in us.
SPEAKER_01: Everybody needs that, you guys.
SPEAKER_01: Everybody in this room needs that.
SPEAKER_01: You need people who believe in you, but you're gonna have to be a bloodstained ally before you're gonna get a blood-stained ally.
SPEAKER_01: And most men don't have it, and I think it's it's a shame, and that's probably why so many eventually struggle in their Christian life.
SPEAKER_01: Value number nine: leaders and entrepreneurs.
SPEAKER_01: Leaders and entrepreneurs.
SPEAKER_01: So we started Empower You.
SPEAKER_01: And one of the reasons we started Empower You was to be a platform for busy people that you could listen to those 15-minute messages and get kind of a tutorial on how to be a leader.
SPEAKER_01: And um, I believe that everybody in this room is a leader.
SPEAKER_01: Or let me say this: everybody in this room has the potential to be a leader.
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't mean you're a leader of thousands, it could be that you're a leader of hundreds, or it could be a leader of dozens, or a leader of five, or the leader of your family.
SPEAKER_01: But everybody in some way, shape, or form is called to be a leader.
SPEAKER_01: You'd be surprised how many people are watching your life that you didn't even know they were watching your life.
SPEAKER_01: But they are because you have some kind of influence in their life.
SPEAKER_01: And that would be the best definition.
SPEAKER_01: The best definition of leadership is influence.
SPEAKER_01: Imagine, church this size, if we all went forth filled with the Holy Spirit, and said, God, use me any way you want in my family, in my neighborhood, in my job, in my future, what God would do.
SPEAKER_01: And that would bring a kingdom of God revolution to our county.
SPEAKER_01: And I'll talk more about that next week.
SPEAKER_01: But there's leadership on everybody in this room.
SPEAKER_01: So whenever I'm preparing a message from the Word, I'm always thinking leadership.
SPEAKER_01: I'm always thinking leadership within our congregation.
SPEAKER_01: That God's got someone out there.
SPEAKER_01: Might only be one or two people at that particular message, but God's got someone out there that's gonna hear this message and they're gonna run with it, man.
SPEAKER_01: Now, 90% may not on that message, but then the next week it'll be another message.
SPEAKER_01: But somebody's gonna run with it.
SPEAKER_01: I can't tell you how many times people have come up and said, man, when you said this, that just gave me such a creative imagination of how God can use me.
SPEAKER_01: And then they went forth with it.
SPEAKER_01: And so, church, we're building Jesus followers to Jesus' disciples to Jesus leaders, those who lead and are in some cases even entrepreneurial.
SPEAKER_01: And then lastly, value 10, a kingdom of God revolution.
SPEAKER_01: So a few months ago, a reporter with the Gazette was asking me if I'm a Christian nationalist.
SPEAKER_01: And uh and I said, I don't even, I said, I don't, I don't even know what you mean by the term.
SPEAKER_01: I said, you don't know that term?
SPEAKER_01: I said, no, I know that term, but I don't know what you mean by that term.
SPEAKER_01: So define it.
SPEAKER_01: Now that's funny.
SPEAKER_01: That's a funny one when you ask a secular reporter who doesn't walk with the Lord to define Christian nationalism.
SPEAKER_01: So she mumbled and fumbled all over the place.
SPEAKER_01: And I said, Well then if you can't define it, why are you asking me?
SPEAKER_01: Because here's what you're trying to do.
SPEAKER_01: It's called gotcha.
SPEAKER_01: You're trying to do a gotcha here.
SPEAKER_01: You know what I am?
SPEAKER_01: And she said, What?
SPEAKER_01: I said, I'm a I'm a kingdom of God revolutionary.
SPEAKER_01: She goes, what's that?
SPEAKER_01: Folks, when you get in these debates with people, don't use their terms.
SPEAKER_01: Make them define their terms.
SPEAKER_01: Someone's out there and they're talking about gender confusion, all this stuff, and trans this and trans that.
SPEAKER_01: And I can't tell you, I don't even know what the terms are.
SPEAKER_01: There's probably 35 definitions of a woman.
SPEAKER_01: Just say, define to me what a woman is without using woman.
SPEAKER_01: And just wait and listen to them fumble around.
SPEAKER_01: It's it's pathetic.
SPEAKER_01: Raise your hand if you can define a woman.
SPEAKER_01: Like for 6,000 years, every civilization has been able to define a woman.
SPEAKER_01: Raise your hand if you can define a man.
SPEAKER_01: This is really hard stuff, man.
SPEAKER_01: So a kingdom God revolution is loving our culture enough to bring Jesus into the culture, but not being defined by the culture.
SPEAKER_01: It means being word-rooted, spirit alive, and culturally engaged.
SPEAKER_01: Word-rooted, spirit alive, culturally engaged.
SPEAKER_01: That's a kingdom of God revolution.
SPEAKER_01: And so when we walk into any situation, we can hold our head up, not pridefully, but humbly, but with God confidence, that the truth that sets us free, we believe in, and then take every thought captive and every relationship captive.
SPEAKER_01: Don't be arrogant, don't be prideful, don't be hateful.
SPEAKER_01: Be kind, be loving, be confident.
SPEAKER_01: How many times have you had a coach?
SPEAKER_01: If you were in high school or whatever, and you were on an athletic team and you had a coach, and he said at halftime, you guys have what it takes.
SPEAKER_01: Now we're going to make a game plan.
SPEAKER_01: We're going to change the game plan slightly, but you guys can win this game.
SPEAKER_01: That's what Jesus says does.
SPEAKER_01: He's our coach.
SPEAKER_01: He says, look, you can win in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Follow the book, follow the plan, and I'll guide you and I'll lead you.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening to the Forn for War podcast.
SPEAKER_00: We hope today's message has empowered you to make a difference in your world.
SPEAKER_00: To connect with Pastor Steve's sermons, books, and blog, visit Steve Holtonline.org.
SPEAKER_00: God bless.