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: We're going through Romans, and I took a study break in June, so I've been in and out a little bit, but we're back in Romans 12.
SPEAKER_01: And what I shared last week, I'll just emphasize again this week, and that is that Romans chapters 1 through 11 are the most doctrinally strong, theologically deep passages in all of the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: And it was through Romans 1 through 11 that Martin Luther in 1516 came to the conclusion that the just shall live by faith, that faith is the key to salvation, not works of righteousness, but faith that leads to works of righteousness.
SPEAKER_01: But it begins with faith.
SPEAKER_01: And so here we've gone through some 27 sermons on chapters 1 through 11.
SPEAKER_01: So we've laid the groundwork for the rest of the book, the last five chapters, are very, very practical.
SPEAKER_01: And this particular passage we're looking at today is Romans 12, and it's so stacked with practical application that we could really spend the next year just in Romans 12.
SPEAKER_01: And I was looking back over some of my notes when I was at Mountain Springs years ago when I taught this, 2008, and I did spend a lot of time in chapter 12.
SPEAKER_01: I call it the Romans 12 Christian.
SPEAKER_01: What I'm going to say, it sounds a little audacious, but I think it's a good title, is what kind of a church would Jesus attend?
SPEAKER_01: So if Jesus were here, what kind of a church would he attend?
SPEAKER_01: And I believe Romans 12 is as good a description of the kind of church that God blesses as any place in all of the New Testament.
SPEAKER_01: So here in the New Testament, we have this beautiful passage about how to walk in authentic love, how to have a relationship with each other where we're very diverse and we're very different.
SPEAKER_01: So I'm calling it building a church Jesus would attend.
SPEAKER_01: Wouldn't you like to be in a church where Jesus attends?
SPEAKER_01: I think that's a pretty good place.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, I don't think Jesus attends every church.
SPEAKER_01: I just don't.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe you've been in churches and you go, well, um, I attend, but I don't know that the Holy Spirit ever shows up here.
SPEAKER_01: And that can be true, you know.
SPEAKER_01: I want a pastor church that I would want to attend if I wasn't the pastor.
SPEAKER_01: So when we build the foundation, the DNA of the road, we try to build it around honor, covenant of harmony, where we work out our problems.
SPEAKER_01: Because my thesis is that whether it's a home, whether it's a church, whether it's your job, and many of you are not owners of your own company, so you you kind of walk into the DNA of that owner's uh fabric of how he set up that company.
SPEAKER_01: You have to deal with it.
SPEAKER_01: But to the extent that you have control over certain aspects of your life, don't we want it to be a place that we enjoy?
SPEAKER_01: It's a place we look forward to being in.
SPEAKER_01: Because you spend so much time with your wife or your husband.
SPEAKER_01: You spend so much time with your family, and I'm not saying that people in your family don't do things you disagree with, but I'm saying as far as you having control over your environment, wouldn't you want it to be an environment that Jesus would like to hang out with you at?
SPEAKER_01: So that's kind of what I that's the perspective I'm I'm coming from.
SPEAKER_01: So we did verses one and two, the last two times I spoke on renewing the mind, the transformation of the night of the mind, um, the refreshment of the mind.
SPEAKER_01: Now he goes into verse three, and this becomes very, very practical after that.
SPEAKER_01: He says, For I say, through the grace given to me to everyone who is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think soberly, as God has dealt to each one a measure of faith.
SPEAKER_01: So the word sober is balance.
SPEAKER_01: That's what it means in Greek.
SPEAKER_01: It means balance.
SPEAKER_01: And I always think in terms of if you get pulled over by a cop, he's gonna have you walk the line.
SPEAKER_01: I know they got the breath thing now, but as soon as they still, you know, they still make you walk the line.
SPEAKER_01: So are you walking the line soberly in how you view yourself?
SPEAKER_01: Do you know your strengths, but do you also know your weaknesses?
SPEAKER_01: Because where we get in trouble is where we over-emphasize either side.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you struggle with such a negative view of yourself that you're always hanging your head, and that's that's that's something to remember.
SPEAKER_01: If you regularly are looking at the floor, you've probably got an inferiority complex and you're insecure.
SPEAKER_01: If you tend to puff out your chest and overwhelm people constantly, and you have a need to do that, then you probably have a struggle on the other side of being a little bit arrogant and prideful.
SPEAKER_01: I think God wants us to have good posture, okay?
SPEAKER_01: And I've had to learn this through my chiropractor, but to have good posture, but to have God confidence, not self-confidence.
SPEAKER_01: And God confidence only comes through a sober view of yourself.
SPEAKER_01: Because we need to know, hey, I'm I'm gifted in this area.
SPEAKER_01: I am, and I've seen guys show up when I do this, and I believe God's anointing me in that way.
SPEAKER_01: But to also know you're not indispensable, that God doesn't need you.
SPEAKER_01: Um, he's fine, and if and if you mess up, you know, he can take and use somebody else.
SPEAKER_01: So you're not indispensable to the body of Christ, but you are unique, and God does want to mightily, supernaturally use you.
SPEAKER_01: In a mighty way, isn't that exciting?
SPEAKER_01: I mean that's kind of exciting to me to know that God still wants to use me.
SPEAKER_01: No matter what our age, no matter what our mental acumen, no matter what our physical abilities or mental abilities are, God wants to use us.
SPEAKER_01: And in 1 Corinthians, Paul says it this way: now, these things, brethren, I figuratively transferred to myself and Apollos for your sakes, that you may learn in us not to think beyond what is written, that none of you may be puffed up on behalf of one another against the other.
SPEAKER_01: So here's the first quality.
SPEAKER_01: Quality one is a church of humility.
SPEAKER_01: God calls us to be a church of humility.
SPEAKER_01: And it's the great foundational quality of soberness.
SPEAKER_01: Because if you don't need God's power and you're increasingly dependent on your own power, then you're not going to get God's power to the level that you could experience it.
SPEAKER_01: So humility is realizing you don't have all that it takes.
SPEAKER_01: You don't have everything.
SPEAKER_01: You need God's power.
SPEAKER_01: It's a humble person that lays the foundation for God to mightily use them.
SPEAKER_01: And that's pretty important because this is the kind of people that God uses.
SPEAKER_01: 1 Corinthians 1 says, For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called.
SPEAKER_01: But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise.
SPEAKER_01: And God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty.
SPEAKER_01: So some of you are not very smart.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you might be on the meter dumb.
SPEAKER_01: Or you may not have done well in school.
SPEAKER_01: Or you look at your life and you see failure after failure.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you have been shamed by so many people as you grew up that it's gotten on you and you walk in shame.
SPEAKER_01: Well, guess what?
SPEAKER_01: If that's you, then you're a candidate for God to mightily use you.
SPEAKER_01: Because he likes to use people who aren't very smart.
SPEAKER_01: He likes to use people that have a lot of shame.
SPEAKER_01: He likes to use people that are contemptible by the world's standards, because then his power flowing through them makes everybody take notice and go, how in the world did that idiot do that?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, really.
SPEAKER_01: So God is in the business of an upside-down kingdom.
SPEAKER_01: He takes people who are available.
SPEAKER_01: We used to say in my days in the mission field, fat people.
SPEAKER_01: God likes fat people, faithful, available, and teachable.
SPEAKER_01: Fat.
SPEAKER_01: Faithful, available, and teachable.
SPEAKER_01: If you're faithful and you're available and you're teachable and you're a fat Christian, God can mightily use you.
SPEAKER_01: And don't listen.
SPEAKER_01: You start letting get busy with what God's called you to do, helping others, loving others, and the anointing of the Spirit of God will increase incrementally over time.
SPEAKER_01: And you'll begin to experience his joy and his purpose in your life in any way.
SPEAKER_01: So humility is the foundation of a church.
SPEAKER_01: Humility is the foundation of growing in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Well, he continues.
SPEAKER_01: For as we have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function, so we being many are one body in Christ and individually members of one another.
SPEAKER_01: So here's quality number two.
SPEAKER_01: Quality number two is a church of diversity with unity.
SPEAKER_01: A church with diversity with unity.
SPEAKER_01: Folks, we were made for connection.
SPEAKER_01: We were made to need each other.
SPEAKER_01: You're not created by God to be a Lone Ranger.
SPEAKER_01: You're not created by God to have all that you need all wrapped up in you.
SPEAKER_01: And we men struggle with that because we're taught kind of that John Wayne, Clint Eastwood kind of mentality that you're your own man, you're independent, I don't need anyone.
SPEAKER_01: And that is very unscriptural.
SPEAKER_01: And God's in the business of making us men understand that we need each other.
SPEAKER_01: That's why we have wholehearted men on Tuesday mornings, and you're at a table.
SPEAKER_01: And at that table, some of the guys are super mature and some of the guys are very immature.
SPEAKER_01: And that's beautiful because the immature need the mature, and guess what?
SPEAKER_01: The mature need the immature.
SPEAKER_01: Because it's good for us to have to level our heart to where people are at, to minister to them when nobody was ministering to us back in our days.
SPEAKER_01: Now we can mentor and minister to them, and it does something in our heart by caring about others.
SPEAKER_01: And so we need each other.
SPEAKER_01: The body's very diverse.
SPEAKER_01: Your body is very diverse.
SPEAKER_01: So I have this big toe.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know what it is.
SPEAKER_01: Any doctors in the house can help me.
SPEAKER_01: I haven't seen a doctor in 15 years.
SPEAKER_01: So you have doctors have to come to me.
SPEAKER_01: I never go to them.
SPEAKER_01: But I've got this, it's like a bone spur.
SPEAKER_01: The only way I can describe it's probably like a bone spur.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm limited in how much I can bend this right foot compared to my left foot.
SPEAKER_01: And it's probably from the pounding of all the years of gymnastics back when I was younger.
SPEAKER_01: But I feel it, it affects me a little bit, not a lot, but it does a little bit.
SPEAKER_01: So if you ask people, well, you know, what do you want to be in the body of Christ?
SPEAKER_01: I want to be a big toe.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, nobody says that, right?
SPEAKER_01: It's smelly down there, it's stinky down there, and it's a it's a toe, okay?
SPEAKER_01: But that toe is crucial if I was a runner.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not a runner, but if I was running a lot, that would be pretty crucial, right?
SPEAKER_01: So every part of the body matters, and sometimes it's those that are in the hidden places that no one notices that are the most important.
SPEAKER_01: They're the most valuable.
SPEAKER_01: And I know when you walk in this place, you've got a vacuum carpet every week.
SPEAKER_01: You've got a beautiful, that floor out there is shiny and clean, and let me tell you, my team will tell you, that is like the worst floor to have to clean.
SPEAKER_01: That acid stained floor.
SPEAKER_01: But it's always nice, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01: And there's always everything's set up.
SPEAKER_01: That's the facility's team under Andy Popovich.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, they do that, and you don't even know who they are, probably.
SPEAKER_01: But it's um Samira, Kenny, Joey, Fletcher, Amy is Andy's wife and his assistant.
SPEAKER_01: These guys work hard.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, they work eight, ten hours a day uh throughout the week because we foster so many different ministries, so many things are happening.
SPEAKER_01: This is a very, very busy building.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, and these guys are always cleaning up after you guys.
SPEAKER_01: That matters, right?
SPEAKER_01: Who likes to go into a church that stinks and dirty and yucky?
SPEAKER_01: You notice that.
SPEAKER_01: And if you haven't noticed that here, it's because it's not there.
SPEAKER_01: And so if you come on Tuesday morning, you man, Ricky, Ricky Bobby's in that kitchen with about 12 guys, and they get up at 2.30 in the morning and they've already been doing it for hours before that, smoking the meat, and they do this spread.
SPEAKER_01: And then Wendy is in there with her team on Sunday morning, and they're full of joy.
SPEAKER_01: We need that, right?
SPEAKER_01: See, those are the those are the base things that people don't notice.
SPEAKER_01: We notice the worship team, you notice me, you notice who our pastors are, but a lot of times we miss that.
SPEAKER_01: And yet they make our lives so much fuller, so much better.
SPEAKER_01: They're the toes, you know, on the feet that move the body so that it stays healthy.
SPEAKER_01: Now, don't miss this.
SPEAKER_01: It's really important.
SPEAKER_01: If you take your notes, write this down.
SPEAKER_01: A spiritual immune system.
SPEAKER_01: A church needs a spiritual immune system.
SPEAKER_01: You and your family need a spiritual immune system.
SPEAKER_01: You that are married, you need a spiritual immune system in your marriage.
SPEAKER_01: Here's why.
SPEAKER_01: Because when you have a strong immune system, unhealth is noticed quickly.
SPEAKER_01: When you and your spouse are communicating on a regular basis in a positive and fairly joyful way, when something comes between you, you notice it quickly.
SPEAKER_01: That's an immune system.
SPEAKER_01: Well, then what the immune system does is it goes after the cancer and it deals with it quickly.
SPEAKER_01: And we've been a church for nine years, and we've probably had a dozen situations, what I would call a cancer.
SPEAKER_01: Where we've had cancers in the church that were trying to divide us, and we and we noticed it quickly.
SPEAKER_01: And our philosophy is what I'm about to read.
SPEAKER_01: This is from Titus 3.
SPEAKER_01: Don't have to turn there, let me read it to you.
SPEAKER_01: Avoid foolish disputes, genealogies, contentions, and strivings about the law, for they are unprofitable and useless.
SPEAKER_01: Reject a divisive man after the first and second admonition.
SPEAKER_01: I'll tell you, we've given people a lot of rope to hang themselves on.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: But sometimes you've got to go and we call it a covenant of harmony.
SPEAKER_01: And what we mean by that, all the staff have to sign a covenant of harmony.
SPEAKER_01: That means if we have anything between us or anybody in the church, we go to that person and we follow what Matthew 18 says and we deal with it.
SPEAKER_01: And we have, from time to time, we have situations like that that come up and they're not fun.
SPEAKER_01: I don't like them.
SPEAKER_01: But I always like the result.
SPEAKER_01: Because in every case, except for two situations, the person is always repentant or willing to talk, and we become actually closer friends as a result of it.
SPEAKER_01: It's rarely involving me, but it's involving other people in the church.
SPEAKER_01: But then sometimes it comes to me, and I say, look, then you follow the covenant of harmony, or here's how you do it, go and work it out.
SPEAKER_01: That's a spiritually strong immune system.
SPEAKER_01: A church needs that.
SPEAKER_01: You need that.
SPEAKER_01: And you have to you have to eat right.
SPEAKER_01: You got to be eating the right truth.
SPEAKER_01: You got to be eating truth, growing in truth, and then you'll have a spiritually strong immune system in your life.
SPEAKER_01: Now look at verse 6.
SPEAKER_01: Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us, let us use them.
SPEAKER_01: Now, what he's going to do here, 6, 7, and 8, is he's talking about attitudes with spiritual gifts.
SPEAKER_01: Now, this is not complete.
SPEAKER_01: If you want a more complete list of spiritual gifts, you can go to 1 Corinthians 12 and 1 Corinthians 14.
SPEAKER_01: So this is almost like, here's some examples.
SPEAKER_01: That's what I think he's doing.
SPEAKER_01: He's saying, here's some examples, and he starts off with if prophecy let us prophesy in proportion to our faith.
SPEAKER_01: So he's saying with the gift of prophecy, there's a level of faith, and there's different levels of faith.
SPEAKER_01: Now, prophecy is one of those confusing ones.
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to actually take some time to define it just a little bit.
SPEAKER_01: So some of you come out of more Pentecostal backgrounds, and you see prophecy is a prophetic word during the service where someone gives a word, a word of knowledge for someone.
SPEAKER_01: And that's certainly prophecy.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you come out of churches that are really into eschatology or in time.
SPEAKER_01: So you have a prophecy conference, and you know it's about who they've identified this year to be the Antichrist.
SPEAKER_01: And it's always something about the Middle East, and then it passes, and the things they said didn't happen, but then we go to another one.
SPEAKER_01: So I'm not into that.
SPEAKER_01: But anyway, some of you might be into that.
SPEAKER_01: That's great.
SPEAKER_01: God bless you.
SPEAKER_01: But that's also another form of prophecy that's kind of popular in America.
SPEAKER_01: By the way, it's really only popular in America.
SPEAKER_01: We're a very unique country in that regard.
SPEAKER_01: But here's what prophecy means.
SPEAKER_01: This is what literally it means in Greek.
SPEAKER_01: It means foretelling or forthelling.
SPEAKER_01: So when I'm preaching the word, I'm the prophet.
SPEAKER_01: When I get in front of the pulpit or behind the pulpit in front of you, I'm forth telling truth.
SPEAKER_01: That's the main gift of prophecy in this church.
SPEAKER_01: So when people say, you know, from time to time people say, Well, who are the prophets in the church?
SPEAKER_01: I say, Well, I'm the main one.
SPEAKER_01: And sometimes they think they're looking for people to give words of knowledge, which is okay too.
SPEAKER_01: We have a lot of people like that.
SPEAKER_01: Matter of fact, I had a man come up to me after the first service and say, I've got a word for the second or the third service, I don't know which.
SPEAKER_01: And that is, and I'm going to give it right now, that someone here is contemplating suicide.
SPEAKER_01: That someone in this room is contemplating suicide.
SPEAKER_01: And so when God gives a word like that, it means that God's got your number.
SPEAKER_01: And he loves you so much that he wants to identify you to get prayer so you can be set free from that suicidal ideation.
SPEAKER_01: So let's just take a moment right now.
SPEAKER_01: Everybody just get real quiet.
SPEAKER_01: And let me pray.
SPEAKER_01: So, Father God, if that word is for someone in this room, or maybe more than one person, that you would give them now the courage at the end of the service to come up and get prayer and get set free.
SPEAKER_01: In the name of Jesus we pray.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: So that's a gift of prophecy.
SPEAKER_01: That's another way of giving.
SPEAKER_01: So it's forthelling and it's also foretelling.
SPEAKER_01: He continues.
SPEAKER_01: Or ministry, verse 7, let us use it, use it in our ministry.
SPEAKER_01: So he's not using ministry here in the sense of being in the ministry.
SPEAKER_01: He's talking about the word diakonos, which is where we get the word deacon.
SPEAKER_01: It's the idea of serving.
SPEAKER_01: So ministry could be say, or in serving, use it in serving, is what he's saying.
SPEAKER_01: He who teaches in teaching, he who exhorts in exhortation, he who gives with liberality.
SPEAKER_01: He who leads, that's my main gift, I believe.
SPEAKER_01: My main gift is leadership.
SPEAKER_01: I should lead with diligence.
SPEAKER_01: Don't become lazy.
SPEAKER_01: Don't miss opportunities to be the leader God's called me to be.
SPEAKER_01: He who shows mercy with cheerfulness.
SPEAKER_01: So he's talking about attitudes here.
SPEAKER_01: And what I think you could you could kind of sum it up over the whole, put a rubric over all of this, and that is whatever it is that God's gifted you in, use it.
SPEAKER_01: And I heard someone say years ago, you know, use it or lose it.
SPEAKER_01: Now I don't know about that.
SPEAKER_01: That seems a little bit like preacher hyperbole, but let's say this if you don't use it, you won't develop it.
SPEAKER_01: So if you feel like God's giving you a gift of prophecy, the first one, if you want to see the proportion of your faith grow, then you've got to use it.
SPEAKER_01: So sometimes you might be in a room and you know something about someone, or you think you know something about someone, and that's a prophetic word of knowledge.
SPEAKER_01: It would be you got permission from them from the pastor here to say this to you that you should go up to that person and say, Look, it could be the pizza I had last night, it could be the indigestion I got from the hot sauce, I don't know.
SPEAKER_01: But when I was when you walk in the room, I got this, I thought, I got this word that you're struggling with, da-da-da, or I got this picture of you, da-da-da.
SPEAKER_01: Does that mean anything to you?
SPEAKER_01: Now, what that does, it does two things.
SPEAKER_01: One, you're practicing your gift, so you're going to get developed in it.
SPEAKER_01: Secondly, if you're totally blowing it, which you may 50% of the time when you're learning, it's okay because you're saying, I could have missed it.
SPEAKER_01: You mean you're giving yourself an out.
SPEAKER_01: But then here's a third thing, this is really important, and that is this that it honors the other person.
SPEAKER_01: We don't say at this church, thus saith the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Thus saith the Lord, that woman that you're dating right now will become your wife.
SPEAKER_01: And then the woman that you're dating is looking at you and going, I don't want to be your wife, man.
SPEAKER_01: Hey, no way.
SPEAKER_01: You know?
SPEAKER_01: And then it seems like you're disobeying God.
SPEAKER_01: So be careful with that stuff.
SPEAKER_01: Thus saith the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: But we can say things and frame things in a way that are honoring each other.
SPEAKER_01: And in ministries like that, you want more anointing in serving others, then serve.
SPEAKER_01: You want stronger power in your teaching, then teach.
SPEAKER_01: If you want to grow in exhortation, then exhort.
SPEAKER_01: If you want, usually with the gift of giving, there's a gift of making.
SPEAKER_01: How many would like the gift of giving if with the gift of giving comes the gift of making?
SPEAKER_01: The rest of you are liars, I know.
SPEAKER_01: So the gift of generosity comes to people who make a lot of money in most cases.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm talking about the gift of giving financially.
SPEAKER_01: There's other ways of giving, for sure, but you can't give anything if you don't know how to make anything.
SPEAKER_01: So a lot of times you become a conduit for ministry through the gift of giving, and that means that the more you give, and this is not amazing.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, Steve's a prosperity gospel guy.
SPEAKER_01: Well, I am in one sense.
SPEAKER_01: Because I think this is so biblical.
SPEAKER_01: That when we give what we've been given, God gives us more.
SPEAKER_01: Pressed down and shaken together is what the scriptures say.
SPEAKER_01: And I know Liz and I have tested that for over 35 years.
SPEAKER_01: Giving, tithing, and we are so blessed because we do.
SPEAKER_01: So if you're having trouble giving because you ain't got nothing, then why don't you start giving and then you'll have something?
SPEAKER_01: Because God will give you more because you're now becoming a conduit of the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_01: Now, this next part's interesting.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 9 to 21, the rest of chapter, I'm calling authentic love, and that's what I would say is the third quality of a church that Jesus would attend is a church of authentic love.
SPEAKER_01: And I don't think there's any passage in all of Scripture that's more practically descriptive of what authentic love looks like.
SPEAKER_01: Now, we all at our weddings, and I've done so many weddings through the years, everybody quotes 1 Corinthians 13.
SPEAKER_01: That's a good passage.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's poetic and everything, but I don't know half of what it means.
SPEAKER_01: But but I'll say it if you want me to at your wedding, I'll say it.
SPEAKER_01: But I'm not gonna teach on it because I don't know what it means.
SPEAKER_01: Um I know what this means.
SPEAKER_01: I know what he's saying here.
SPEAKER_01: I'd like to see somebody, anybody who's planning on getting married, I'd like to see someone use this one.
SPEAKER_01: Because if you're living this, you're gonna have a happy marriage.
SPEAKER_01: And um and it's not that flowery.
SPEAKER_01: It's like right down to practically how you do love.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, isn't it interesting that 1 Corinthians 12 is about spiritual gifts?
SPEAKER_01: 1 Corinthians 14 is about spiritual gifts, and what's right in the middle?
SPEAKER_01: 1 Corinthians 13.
SPEAKER_01: Love.
SPEAKER_01: Here, Romans 12, he's talking about spiritual gifts, and what does he come to?
SPEAKER_01: Love.
SPEAKER_01: Because that's the covering.
SPEAKER_01: You guys, that's the rainbow.
SPEAKER_01: That should be the rainbow over the road is authentic love.
SPEAKER_01: The purples and the reds and the yellows and all the beautiful hues should be authentic love.
SPEAKER_01: And here's a little bit of what it looks like.
SPEAKER_01: Let love be without hypocrisy.
SPEAKER_01: That's why I'm calling it authentic love.
SPEAKER_01: Let love be without hypocrisy because we can fake it.
SPEAKER_01: We can be posers, we can be pretenders.
SPEAKER_01: Church is the worst place in the world for posers.
SPEAKER_01: Posers gravitate toward church.
SPEAKER_01: And the reason they do is because you can fake it that one hour a week or an hour and a half if you're at our church.
SPEAKER_01: You know, you're there and everything's, hey, what's happening, bro?
SPEAKER_01: What's going on?
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, man, it couldn't be better, yeah, couldn't be better.
SPEAKER_01: That's full of crap, man.
SPEAKER_01: It's like, I don't think, you know, when we come here, let's be authentic, let's be real about it, okay?
SPEAKER_01: So he says, without hypocrisy, abhor what is evil, cling to what is good.
SPEAKER_01: Be kindly affectionate to one another, husbands, towards your wives, wives towards your husbands, affectionate toward one another, with brotherly love, in honor, giving preference to one another.
SPEAKER_01: So we've talked over the years on the staff team at the road about an honor code.
SPEAKER_01: So we have an honor code.
SPEAKER_01: And in that honor code, everybody signs off on that when they come on staff, because we honor each other through practical things that we do under certain circumstances.
SPEAKER_01: So if I were thinking in terms of values, the values of authentic love, it would be honoring each other.
SPEAKER_01: Think what would happen if in Congress, in Congress, you went before a judge, maybe a Supreme Court judge, and you held up your right hand and you had some kind of an honor code that you had to follow in Congress toward those on the other side of the aisle.
SPEAKER_01: Wouldn't that be amazing?
SPEAKER_01: I think that's what we're longing for, because everything's so vitriolic now.
SPEAKER_01: And um, so to honor each other means that we have brother love, what's he say?
SPEAKER_01: We give preference to the other.
SPEAKER_01: Not lagging in diligence, fervent in spirit, serving the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: It's exciting to see that not lagging in diligence, fervent in spirit means we're serving the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: So sometimes we think of service as being something we do for somebody else, but actually it can be a spirit that we have about us.
SPEAKER_01: We serve the Lord by being diligent in love, by being fervent in our spirit in love, and then serving other people.
SPEAKER_01: Rejoicing in hope.
SPEAKER_01: Patient in tribulation.
SPEAKER_01: Continuing steadfastly in prayer.
SPEAKER_01: I think verse 12 is so practical.
SPEAKER_01: You continue steadfastly and read it the opposite.
SPEAKER_01: This is what I do.
SPEAKER_01: So if I'm steadfast in prayer, then I tend to have patience in tribulation because I'm rejoicing and hope that it's gonna all work out.
SPEAKER_01: Isn't that exciting?
SPEAKER_01: So during my study break, when I was rewriting the book coming out, strong and courageous, I'm not saying you should ever do this, but this is what I did, is I love history.
SPEAKER_01: And so I read the book, JFK and the Unspeakable.
SPEAKER_01: Anybody ever heard of that book?
SPEAKER_01: Okay, not many of you.
SPEAKER_01: JFK and the Unspeakables.
SPEAKER_01: And it was a it was a New York Times bestseller, I'm gonna say ten years ago.
SPEAKER_01: And what it is, it's the most comprehensive work ever done on what happened to the assassination of John F.
SPEAKER_01: Kennedy.
SPEAKER_01: And I mean, it has got 700 footnotes.
SPEAKER_01: And that's my kind of book, by the way.
SPEAKER_01: I know it's weird, but that's the way I am.
SPEAKER_01: But it's got source material about that.
SPEAKER_01: Now I'm not gonna tell you the kicker in it, but I'll just tell you, after reading 650 pages, or whatever it was, it gets pretty depressing.
SPEAKER_01: So I probably shouldn't read it.
SPEAKER_01: Um but I read it because I want to be informed.
SPEAKER_01: I'm a truth seeker, and I tend to go after things.
SPEAKER_01: If you think the deep state is something recent, you know, you need to have another cup of coffee because um I'd say the deep state's been growing in America since World War II.
SPEAKER_01: And uh so the surveillance state that we've created has been there a long time.
SPEAKER_01: The difference is the first 20 years to 25, 30 years after World War II, it was it was more toward the values of what we would consider what we believe in in America, but there's been a shift.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, there's been a shift, and so now we don't like it.
SPEAKER_01: It was fine before, but now we don't.
SPEAKER_01: Because we're now, the conservatives are now in the bullseye.
SPEAKER_01: We're more in the crosshairs of what's happening.
SPEAKER_01: So it's kind of dis it's kind of discouraging.
SPEAKER_01: It's way bigger than anything you can believe, how it's infiltrated everything.
SPEAKER_01: So if you don't become a person of prayer and a hope that God's gonna bring a kingdom of God revolution in our time, you can get pretty discouraged.
SPEAKER_01: Well, I'm not gonna get discouraged.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna have to renew my mind with things that are noble and wholesome and pure and right, and believe that God is more powerful than the CIA.
SPEAKER_01: God is more powerful than the FBI, God is more powerful than the deep state, and that he's not done with America yet, and he wants to bring a kingdom of God revolution.
SPEAKER_01: That's through us.
SPEAKER_01: It's people like us.
SPEAKER_01: It's God showing up in this church in a revolutionary, powerful Holy Spirit revival that touches our city and makes an impact.
SPEAKER_01: You're more powerful than you can imagine.
SPEAKER_01: You carry the Holy Spirit, the creator of the universe, the kingdom of God is within you.
SPEAKER_01: Believe it, walk in it.
SPEAKER_01: That's what he's saying.
SPEAKER_01: Authentic love is an expression of the kingdom of God within.
SPEAKER_01: Rejoicing in hope, patient in tribulation.
SPEAKER_01: This is under Nero.
SPEAKER_01: He's writing this with the worst emperor Rome ever had in power.
SPEAKER_01: He seems to be pretty happy.
SPEAKER_01: Distributing to the needs of the saints, given to hospitality.
SPEAKER_01: That's the church that Jesus would attend.
SPEAKER_01: That's pretty cool.
SPEAKER_01: Well, then it switches gears again, and he talks about I'm going to call it second-level love.
SPEAKER_01: Second level love is what do you do with people who oppose you, people who don't like you, people who consider you an enemy, people who write things about you, or say things about you, or stab you in the back, or betray you.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what he says.
SPEAKER_01: Bless those who persecute you.
SPEAKER_01: Bless and do not curse them.
SPEAKER_01: Rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep.
SPEAKER_01: Be of the same mind toward one another.
SPEAKER_01: Do not set your mind on high things, but associate with the humble.
SPEAKER_01: Do not be wise in your own opinion.
SPEAKER_01: Do you see the context here?
SPEAKER_01: This is actually a paragraph here, starting with bless those who persecute you.
SPEAKER_01: And then at the end he says, Do not be wise in your own opinion.
SPEAKER_01: What he's saying, I think, is the way you bless those who persecute you is you spend your time with the humble and those who need your love.
SPEAKER_01: So we had a conference here about a year ago, and there was a lady that came who I knew she was coming because she had told a lot of people that she was coming.
SPEAKER_01: She's written a lot of nasty things about me.
SPEAKER_01: And I said, Find where she's sitting.
SPEAKER_01: And they thought I was like worried she was gonna assassinate me or something.
SPEAKER_01: But no, I'm not worried about that.
SPEAKER_01: Just tell me where she's sitting.
SPEAKER_01: So she was sitting right over here, and I went up to her and I said, You're really a good writer.
SPEAKER_01: And I really meant it.
SPEAKER_01: She is a good writer.
SPEAKER_01: Um, you know, I think that you and I could probably find a lot of things in common if we had coffee together and we could talk one-on-one.
SPEAKER_01: And I mean, you could see the defenses just fall off.
SPEAKER_01: And that began a little bit of a relationship.
SPEAKER_01: So sometimes God calls us to go in the opposite spirit, break up the whole thing, by not responding the way the other person thinks you're going to respond, because that's the way they would respond if you were saying that to them.
SPEAKER_01: But we blow the whole thing up with the upside down kingdom.
SPEAKER_01: The kingdom of God's upside down.
SPEAKER_01: It's the opposite of the culture.
SPEAKER_01: Repay no unevil for evil, have regard for good things in the sight of all men.
SPEAKER_01: If it is possible, as much as it depends on you, live peaceably with all men.
SPEAKER_01: Try to build bridges of peace with each other.
SPEAKER_01: Beloved, do not avenge yourselves, but give place to wrath.
SPEAKER_01: For it is written, Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: So remember, God loves you so much that He's got your He's got your back.
SPEAKER_01: But don't say things and do things where God can't have your back anymore.
SPEAKER_01: So if you're out and you're smoking dope over here on the side, you're sleeping around, you're doing that, and you say, Well, man, I can't believe this happened to me.
SPEAKER_01: It's like, no, you did it to yourself, man.
SPEAKER_01: But if you walk in seeking the kingdom first in his righteousness, God will have your back.
SPEAKER_01: God will protect you.
SPEAKER_01: And that's good news.
SPEAKER_01: Same with your finances.
SPEAKER_01: When you're tithing, when you're giving, and you lose your job, and that's gonna happen.
SPEAKER_01: Everybody goes through hard times financially.
SPEAKER_01: But if you've been generous in your giving, you're following kingdom ways, God's got your back.
SPEAKER_01: Watch what he'll do, it'll be amazing.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore, if your enemy is hungry, feed him.
SPEAKER_01: If he's thirsty, give him a drink.
SPEAKER_01: For in so doing, you'll heap coals of fire on his head.
SPEAKER_01: I don't think there's anything I can say or do to someone who opposes me that puts coals on the fire of their head.
SPEAKER_01: Fire on their head, coals.
SPEAKER_01: God can, though.
SPEAKER_01: So God can convict people.
SPEAKER_01: And do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
SPEAKER_01: So let's be a people of goodness, love, and authentic, not hypocritical, authentic love.
SPEAKER_01: It's a good way to live.
SPEAKER_01: You'll have a smile on your face more often.
SPEAKER_01: You'll sleep better at night.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening to the Foreign 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 Steveholtonline.org.
SPEAKER_00: God bless.