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: All right, we're in the book of Romans, Church.
SPEAKER_01: And if you're a guest with us today, we we welcome you here and we go through the Bible chapter by chapter and verse by verse, and we're in Romans.
SPEAKER_01: You can, if you don't have your Bible with you, the next time you come, bring your Bible, or you can just look on your phone and you can find a Bible.
SPEAKER_01: I use the New King James Version, and that is my favorite version.
SPEAKER_01: I'm kind of a King James guy, and I like the New King James Version.
SPEAKER_01: I use that, but I know many of you use, probably the most popular Bible translation is the NIV, and that's fine.
SPEAKER_01: But we're in verse 9 of Romans chapter 1.
SPEAKER_01: For God is my witness, whom I serve with my spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Underline that.
SPEAKER_01: It was Martin Luther who said, Christianity is the unique and only religion of the possessive pronoun.
SPEAKER_01: Christianity is the unique and only religion of the possessive pronoun.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, you could be a Buddhist, but you don't have a relationship with Buddha.
SPEAKER_01: You can be into Islam, but you don't have a relationship with Muhammad.
SPEAKER_01: Only in Christianity is our faith built on knowing intimately the founder, knowing intimately Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: It is a spirit-to-spirit encounter when we're born again, when we come to know Christ for the first time, but it's a spirit-to-spirit encounter throughout your whole life.
SPEAKER_01: And some of you in this room may have grown up in a churchy background where you went to church every Sunday, or you grew up in a very moralistic background, very ethical parents.
SPEAKER_01: But have you had a spirit-to-spirit encounter with Jesus Christ?
SPEAKER_01: Going to church doesn't make you a Christian any more than going to McDonald's makes you a hamburger.
SPEAKER_01: So church is great.
SPEAKER_01: I love church.
SPEAKER_01: I love being here.
SPEAKER_01: You're my favorite people in the whole world.
SPEAKER_01: And the more I travel and speak in places, the more I love you guys even more.
SPEAKER_01: Because I go into situations where sometimes it's stale and it's dry and it's super religious.
SPEAKER_01: We're talking about spirit-to-spirit communion with God.
SPEAKER_01: A heart-to-heart connection with the creator of the universe.
SPEAKER_01: That's what Paul starts off with.
SPEAKER_01: That I serve God in the Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: It is a spirit-to-spirit connection with Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Paul didn't have that before.
SPEAKER_01: Paul had a relationship with the law.
SPEAKER_01: Paul had a relationship with God through the law, and God came to him through the Messiah Jesus in a vision, and he had a spirit-to-spirit encounter.
SPEAKER_01: Have you had that?
SPEAKER_01: Has your spirit encountered the Holy Spirit so that you're born again?
SPEAKER_01: Jeremiah and Ezekiel say that there is a time coming when God will give us a new spirit and a new heart.
SPEAKER_01: You have a new spirit and you have a new heart given by God when you're born again.
SPEAKER_01: Do you have a spirit to spirit connection with Jesus?
SPEAKER_01: It's the key to everything.
SPEAKER_01: That's why we talk about being wholehearted.
SPEAKER_01: That's why we had the whole heart advance.
SPEAKER_01: We don't call it a retreat, we call it an advance.
SPEAKER_01: We want you men to have a whole heart, spirit to spirit, encounter with Jesus Christ that advances you into a personal, vital, dynamic, growing, supernatural relationship with Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: That's what whole-hearted is.
SPEAKER_01: Most believers are half-hearted.
SPEAKER_01: That's the reason I love coming here.
SPEAKER_01: Because most of you here are whole-hearted, and most of the Christians I meet out there are half-hearted.
SPEAKER_01: And that's what we talk about at the advance.
SPEAKER_01: We talk about what is the, why are we half-hearted?
SPEAKER_01: What are the hindrances?
SPEAKER_01: And I don't want to give it away because I want you to go to hear it because I can't do justice in a sermon like this, but I will say a lot of times it's related to shame.
SPEAKER_01: It's related to stuff in our background that hinders us.
SPEAKER_01: They can even be demonic strongholds that hinder you from being wholehearted.
SPEAKER_01: You may remember a time in your life where you were wholehearted about something and you got shut down by a person in authority.
SPEAKER_01: And that still lingers with you that you're never going to put yourself out there again.
SPEAKER_01: I'm telling you, Jesus wants you to put yourself out there.
SPEAKER_01: And he will strengthen you with his spirit, he will empower you with his Holy Spirit, and he'll do miracles in your life.
SPEAKER_01: So Paul says right out of the chute, he says right here, he says, with my spirit I'm God's witness of the gospel of his son.
SPEAKER_01: That without ceasing I make mention of you always in my prayers.
SPEAKER_01: So what's he saying?
SPEAKER_01: He's saying that he has a spirit-to-spirit connection with Jesus, but he also has a spirit-to-spirit prayer life.
SPEAKER_01: He has a spirit-to-spirit prayer life.
SPEAKER_01: Jude 20 says, but you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in, praying in the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: So, folks, it's a it's a spirit-to-spirit connection that builds up our faith when we pray.
SPEAKER_01: And what is prayer?
SPEAKER_01: Prayer is connecting heart to heart with God about what's on your heart.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's simply sharing with God your heart and letting him share his heart with you.
SPEAKER_01: That's what prayer is.
SPEAKER_01: Prayer is spirit to spirit.
SPEAKER_01: So there must be a prayer that's not spirit to spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus says, don't pray like the Pharisees who stand on the corner and shout up their prayers that everybody else can hear.
SPEAKER_01: They're hypocrites.
SPEAKER_01: They're not praying to me, they're praying to be noticed.
SPEAKER_01: God wants a spirit-to-spirit connection with him in prayer.
SPEAKER_01: We have this interesting story of Peter.
SPEAKER_01: So Peter, who's a devout Jew who's never eaten anything unclean, he's never had pork, he's never had bacon.
SPEAKER_01: Poor guy.
SPEAKER_01: Bacon is the answer to everything.
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
SPEAKER_01: But he, well, not you guys know being facetious.
SPEAKER_01: Not really, no.
SPEAKER_01: But but he had never had that.
SPEAKER_01: He was a devout, law-committed Jew.
SPEAKER_01: And then he has a vision in Acts chapter 10.
SPEAKER_01: Remember the vision?
SPEAKER_01: He has a vision and these unclean animals, you know, like porky pig and stuff, they came down in the vision, and then the Lord said, Eat.
SPEAKER_01: Eat.
SPEAKER_01: And then Peter says, I can't eat, I've never eaten anything unclean.
SPEAKER_01: And then the Lord says in the vision, what God has cleansed, you must not call common.
SPEAKER_01: So what he was doing is God was bringing a new dispensation of openness to the grace of God to even a Jew like Peter.
SPEAKER_01: So then Peter is led by the Lord to a man's house named Cornelius.
SPEAKER_01: So he starts his interaction with Cornelius, who's a Gentile, which Peter before the vision would have nothing to do with, because he was unclean.
SPEAKER_01: Cornelius said, this is Acts 10, 30, four days ago I was fasting until this hour.
SPEAKER_01: And at the ninth hour I prayed in my house, and behold, a man stood before me in bright clothing.
SPEAKER_01: So he's praying in private.
SPEAKER_01: The Lord or an angel comes, a shining, a shining person of some sort, a spiritual being.
SPEAKER_01: And then Peter responds by saying, this is my point here.
SPEAKER_01: Cornelius, your prayer has been heard.
SPEAKER_01: And your alms are remembered in the sight of God.
SPEAKER_01: That's really important because the prayer that spirit to spirit is private prayer, a secret history with God that nobody sees but God does.
SPEAKER_01: And some of you in this room have been crying out to God about stuff in your life, about situations in your life where you feel helpless.
SPEAKER_01: You're crying out to God, you need God to move in a supernatural way.
SPEAKER_01: Guess what?
SPEAKER_01: He hears that prayer.
SPEAKER_01: When you give financially, when you give, when you tithe, when you give, God notices.
SPEAKER_01: It's called developing a private history with God.
SPEAKER_01: That spirit to spirit prayer.
SPEAKER_01: So I was talking to a young lady in another part of the country when I was out speaking, and she shared some stuff that she was struggling with, and I said, You need to develop a secret history with God.
SPEAKER_01: She goes, What are you talking about?
SPEAKER_01: I said, You need to start learning to give to others and love others where nobody else can notice.
SPEAKER_01: Because you're kind of full of yourself.
SPEAKER_01: Well, all of you are.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, admit it.
SPEAKER_01: Did you look in the mirror this morning and come, you're, you know, we all are kind of into ourselves.
SPEAKER_01: But in this case, what I wanted to do is I wanted to break a spirit in her of doing faith things to be noticed by men when she needed to learn how to do it for God only.
SPEAKER_01: And that's a secret history with God.
SPEAKER_01: If you can't do that without telling people that you did that, then you got some issues you need to work through.
SPEAKER_01: I'm talking about a secret history with God, spirit to spirit, where you're doing it all for the glory of God, you give for the glory of God, you pray for the glory of God, you're crying out to him.
SPEAKER_01: And here's what it says about Cornelius: God notice that.
SPEAKER_01: When man doesn't know, God does.
SPEAKER_01: And sometimes prayers cannot be answered because we still need to be noticed by men.
SPEAKER_01: I find it interesting that Cornelius is up as a Gentile in his house praying, nobody knows about it, and then here's Peter, who has a conviction that he would never, ever step into the house of a Gentile, and God gives him a vision, speaks to him, sends him to Cornelius, who is praying, because Cornelius is praying.
SPEAKER_01: And sometimes, church, when we go to God and we feel like nobody knows and he doesn't even know, and our prayers aren't getting any higher than the ceilings in our room, that God is noticing that.
SPEAKER_01: And as you continue to cry out to Him, He's gonna send people into your life.
SPEAKER_01: He's gonna send situations into your life to move in a mighty way if you don't give up.
SPEAKER_01: But it starts with a spirit-to-spirit relationship with Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Do you have that?
SPEAKER_01: You can.
SPEAKER_01: You can today if you don't.
SPEAKER_01: Give your whole heart to Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Drop the religion and come into a personal, vital, dynamic, growing relationship with Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: God hears our prayers.
SPEAKER_01: So we had a 24-hour burn about a was that like three weeks ago.
SPEAKER_01: So many of you came to that.
SPEAKER_01: We have noonday prayer Monday through Friday, noon to one.
SPEAKER_01: So many of you come to that.
SPEAKER_01: So you say, Well, you know, I did that, I don't see anything happening.
SPEAKER_01: I do this, I don't see anything.
SPEAKER_01: God is noting that.
SPEAKER_01: God is noting that you took your lunch break off on Tuesday or Wednesday or Thursday or Friday or something like that, and you drove over here and you went into a room, and as Josh led us in worship and prayer, you cried out to God, you prayed to God, you left, you didn't feel anything, but you did it in obedience to the Lord because you love him.
SPEAKER_01: He notices that you do that.
SPEAKER_01: And I share with you guys the story of the unforgiveness that I felt towards some men who betrayed me a number of years ago.
SPEAKER_01: Five years of prayer walking.
SPEAKER_01: Five years of walking five, ten miles a day, almost every day of the week, pronouncing forgiveness.
SPEAKER_01: And then one day in Uray, on a bear hunt, the Spirit of God came into that room and I and I forgave.
SPEAKER_01: The feeling of unforgiveness left me and it's never come back.
SPEAKER_01: And it was years ago.
SPEAKER_01: So all I can say is that sometimes when we pray, it's almost like the tears, scripture talks about the tears being remembered by God, our prayers being, it's like there's a tipping point.
SPEAKER_01: I think there's almost like a tipping point that as you continue to do the right thing, you continue to pray, you continue to seek God, there seems to be at some point in God's sovereign plan a tipping point, and he pours grace upon your life that you could never pronounce yourself.
SPEAKER_01: It's a work of his spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus says, until now you've asked nothing in my name.
SPEAKER_01: Ask and you will receive, that your joy may be made full.
SPEAKER_01: I can tell you when that happened to me, joy was made full.
SPEAKER_01: And I went back and called almost all of those men, set up coffee appointments, and just said, um, I didn't say I forgive you for what a jerk you are or anything like that.
SPEAKER_01: That is what sometimes happens in these things.
SPEAKER_01: It's like bad call, man.
SPEAKER_01: No, I just said I want you to know that that um I appreciate you, I love you, and I know that God is with you, or something like that.
SPEAKER_01: I didn't even go back to that, but I needed to do that.
SPEAKER_01: They didn't need that probably, but I needed to do that.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus said, Ask and it will be given to you.
SPEAKER_01: Seek and you shall find.
SPEAKER_01: Knock, and the door shall be open to you.
SPEAKER_01: For everyone who asks receives, he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be open.
SPEAKER_01: That's what Jesus said.
SPEAKER_01: I think Jesus knows a little bit about prayer.
SPEAKER_01: And he's saying, look, ask, seek, knock.
SPEAKER_01: It's in the air's tense in the Greek.
SPEAKER_01: It means keep asking, keep seeking, keep knocking until you receive.
SPEAKER_01: That's a spirit to spirit resiliency.
SPEAKER_01: I don't think you can have this kind of resiliency without spirit-to-spirit connection with God.
SPEAKER_01: What about seemingly unanswered prayer?
SPEAKER_01: Verse 10.
SPEAKER_01: Making request, if by some means now at last I may find a way in the will of God to come to you.
SPEAKER_01: So for years, Paul has been asking to go to Rome.
SPEAKER_01: He's been desiring to go to Rome.
SPEAKER_01: And God has not allowed him to go to Rome.
SPEAKER_01: Nobody was more faithful, more holy, more committed, more devout than Paul.
SPEAKER_01: And Paul hasn't been allowed to go to Rome yet.
SPEAKER_01: It will be three years later before he gets to Rome.
SPEAKER_01: And he's he's crying out to God.
SPEAKER_01: So let me just say this: unanswered prayer is an oxymoron.
SPEAKER_01: God always answers our prayers.
SPEAKER_01: We just don't like the way he answers.
SPEAKER_01: It's yes, no, or wait.
SPEAKER_01: It's me coming to my dad at 14 years old and saying, Dad, I want a motorcycle, and dad's saying no.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know why.
SPEAKER_01: I do know that my mom had some impact on a lot of the decisions that my dad made.
SPEAKER_01: And when I did finally get it at 16, she said, I hope you won't, I hope you'll be the first person I know that hasn't had an accident on a motorcycle.
SPEAKER_01: Very encouraging.
SPEAKER_01: It's being at my granddaddy's ranch, and he had this one horse that nobody could ride, and I wanted to ride it at 14.
SPEAKER_01: And granddaddy say, No, you're not ready.
SPEAKER_01: And by the way, I was never ready.
SPEAKER_01: So, but no, you're not ready.
SPEAKER_01: So God oftentimes says no, because we're not ready.
SPEAKER_01: We're not ready for what God has for us, and he's actually working in us through our prayers a work of his spirit so that we're ready for his answers to our prayers.
SPEAKER_01: So sometimes our prayers need to be more about Lord, Lord, change her to Lord, change me.
SPEAKER_01: So God's working out his plan in our lives with yes, no, or maybe, or yes, no, or wait, or yes, no, you're not ready, whatever you want to call it, because he's working out character in our lives.
SPEAKER_01: He's making us the answer to our prayers by the transformation in our lives as we seek him in prayer, because it's a spirit-to-spirit relationship.
SPEAKER_01: For I long to see you, that I may impart to you some spiritual gift so that you may be established.
SPEAKER_01: That is, that I may be encouraged together with you by the mutual faith, both of you and me.
SPEAKER_01: So Liz, my wife, on Sunday mornings often wants me to read my sermon to her.
SPEAKER_01: And I don't like that.
SPEAKER_01: Because I like to be in the mood, man.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm just reading it so I know it, but I don't want to read it to somebody.
SPEAKER_01: But then they say, read it to me.
SPEAKER_01: So we did that this morning, and she said that word established is so key here.
SPEAKER_01: So I circled it.
SPEAKER_01: She didn't say circle it in obedience to her.
SPEAKER_01: I just did, I circled it.
SPEAKER_01: But she said, and I think it's right, and she ministers to women a lot, and I minister to men a lot, we need men and women who are established in the faith.
SPEAKER_01: We need good foundations.
SPEAKER_01: That's why next Sunday I'm not gonna do Romans.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna, it's Thanksgiving weekend.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna speak on the establishment of America and what was the original vision of America?
SPEAKER_01: Thanksgiving and the original vision of America.
SPEAKER_01: I want to talk about the pilgrims.
SPEAKER_01: A couple years ago, I talked about the Puritans.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna talk about the pilgrims.
SPEAKER_01: What was the original vision?
SPEAKER_01: Because I think it's important in our day and age right now that we understand why our nation was founded.
SPEAKER_01: What are the facts about the founding of our nation?
SPEAKER_01: Not revision revisionist historians' perspective based on problems that we might have in the 21st century to then read into something that wasn't necessarily there in the 16th century, in the 17th century.
SPEAKER_01: So we're gonna talk about that.
SPEAKER_01: Because this is why.
SPEAKER_01: We need to be established.
SPEAKER_01: You need to be established in your faith.
SPEAKER_01: You need to have, you need to be established and mature in your walk with God.
SPEAKER_01: That that takes a lot of work, man.
SPEAKER_01: That takes a lot of work to be established.
SPEAKER_01: That means maturity.
SPEAKER_01: So I like to use the word convergence.
SPEAKER_01: And it's been the prayer.
SPEAKER_01: When I first heard this term 20 years ago, when I was, no, it was 25 years ago, when I heard this term in a graduate school class, it resonated.
SPEAKER_01: You know, so much of what you hear in school, you forget about.
SPEAKER_01: But there's a few things you remember.
SPEAKER_01: This is one of those things that I remembered: convergence.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what convergence is: Convergence is spiritual gifts, natural talents, life experience, and mature character coming together in a person.
SPEAKER_01: That should be your goal.
SPEAKER_01: As you grow older, and you that are young, it should be your goal right now.
SPEAKER_01: It was definitely my goal when I was younger, is that as I get older, I want to see spiritual maturity through my character.
SPEAKER_01: I want to be using my spiritual gifts.
SPEAKER_01: I want to be using my natural talents, and I want to learn, this is important, learn from life experience.
SPEAKER_01: So many people become bitter because they're always angry about everything that's happened in their life and they don't learn from it.
SPEAKER_01: Things don't happen to you, things happen for you.
SPEAKER_01: And so you're gonna go through hardship.
SPEAKER_01: Everybody does.
SPEAKER_01: Everybody in this room has shame.
SPEAKER_01: Everybody in this room has had parents that did them wrong.
SPEAKER_01: Every one of you in this room have had a coach or an authority figure that betrayed you or hurt you, or in some way, shape, or form.
SPEAKER_01: That's happened to most of us in this room, if not all of us.
SPEAKER_01: And the reality is, what are you gonna do with it?
SPEAKER_01: Are you gonna give it to God and trust that God is sovereignly working out a plan in your life to make you a person who can reach convergence?
SPEAKER_01: Matter of fact, the people who've been damaged the most oftentimes are the ones who have the greatest kingdom impact.
SPEAKER_01: Because he who has been sinned against much often learns to forgive much, and with that forgiveness comes an understanding and an empathy for those that have hurt them that causes them to accelerate in their growth ahead of others.
SPEAKER_01: But if you're here today and you're carrying bitterness and unforgiveness, get prayer.
SPEAKER_01: God can heal you, man.
SPEAKER_01: God can set you free.
SPEAKER_01: Prayer is asking, seeking, knocking, barraging heaven.
SPEAKER_01: God, I'm not a mature person.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, I still carry unforgiveness for that thing that happened 25 years ago.
SPEAKER_01: I need your grace.
SPEAKER_01: I need your faith.
SPEAKER_01: I need your hope to invade my life.
SPEAKER_01: You see, that spirit-to-spirit connection.
SPEAKER_01: Forget religion, forget the repetitious prayers.
SPEAKER_01: That's the way I grew up with repetitious prayers.
SPEAKER_01: And it didn't mean anything for my formalism that we did.
SPEAKER_01: That's what Jesus speaks against.
SPEAKER_01: The Lord is looking for a church and for a people who will have a relationship with him that we can cry out with honesty and authenticity to him and let his spirit come and bring healing.
SPEAKER_01: He will.
SPEAKER_01: That's weird, man.
SPEAKER_01: That's super weird that God, I mean, you should just be able to read good books about it.
SPEAKER_01: Just read a book on spiritual gifts and take the test.
SPEAKER_01: How many have done spiritual gifts tests?
SPEAKER_01: Okay, I think they're fine.
SPEAKER_01: That's okay.
SPEAKER_01: No, I think they are, because some people just literally don't know anything, and then it's and it's helpful to them, and it's helpful to you, even if you know some stuff.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, it's good.
SPEAKER_01: But there's actually another part to this scripturally that Paul said, Look, I laid hands on you, Timothy, and I want you to stir up the gift of God in you because I imparted to you a spiritual gift.
SPEAKER_01: He's saying the same thing to the Romans.
SPEAKER_01: So this morning at the end of the service, what we're gonna do is I'm gonna have a group of people that I've asked ahead of time to come up here, along with anybody on the ministry team, who are gonna pray for those who'd like the gift of intercession.
SPEAKER_01: You'd like to grow in being a person of prayer that sees answers to your prayers.
SPEAKER_01: Well, I'm gonna have a group up here of people who see that happen regularly.
SPEAKER_01: And they're gonna lay hands on you, and there's gonna be an impartation of intercession.
SPEAKER_01: And you're gonna notice a difference because of their prayers.
SPEAKER_01: Then I've asked another group of anointed people in our church in the area of signs and wonders and miracles.
SPEAKER_01: Anybody might want to be used of God for miracles?
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
SPEAKER_01: They're gonna lay, these have these are some people that have had, in some cases, not all of them, in some cases had international ministries, worldwide ministries of signs and wonders.
SPEAKER_01: It's been amazing.
SPEAKER_01: You know what, you know what signs and wonders are, and miracles are.
SPEAKER_01: They are when God speeds up the process.
SPEAKER_01: It's not unnatural, it's supranatural in that someone comes, they have cancer, or they have diabetes, they have some struggle, and that person prays and they get healed.
SPEAKER_01: Now, there's natural ways that that person could get healed.
SPEAKER_01: But God speeds up the process, and maybe 24 hours later, boom, they're healed.
SPEAKER_01: That's what miracles are.
SPEAKER_01: So we're gonna have some, if you'd like that gift, and if you're sitting here and you want that gift, that to me is a sign enough that you have mustard seed faith for God to give that to you when they pray for you.
SPEAKER_01: That's what Paul is praying for.
SPEAKER_01: He's asking God, Lord, I wanna go to Rome, I wanna establish the Roman Christians, and I want to impart to them a spiritual gift.
SPEAKER_01: But look at verse 13.
SPEAKER_01: Now I do not want you to be unaware, brethren, that I often plan to come to you, but was hindered until now.
SPEAKER_01: He says, until now, parenthetically, but it's actually gonna be even three years more.
SPEAKER_01: That I might have some fruit among you also, just as among the other Gentiles.
SPEAKER_01: Now, this is interesting.
SPEAKER_01: So God came to Paul when he was in prison, and he said, You're gonna go to Rome.
SPEAKER_01: And it's not working out.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you in this room have heard things from God about your son or your daughter, about your marriage, about your future, about a job.
SPEAKER_01: You feel as strongly as ever that God spoke to you of something that God's going to do that you're hoping for, and it seems like ever since you got that vision, you're going in the opposite direction.
SPEAKER_01: Anyone know what I'm talking about?
SPEAKER_01: Well, even Paul did.
SPEAKER_01: Even Paul did.
SPEAKER_01: I actually think that the reason sometimes God gives us visions and dreams like that is because he's going to take you in the opposite direction.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, you cling to that vision.
SPEAKER_01: You need that vision because it's not going to go straight and narrow like you would have hoped.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, look at Israel coming out of Egypt.
SPEAKER_01: Have you ever looked at those maps in your Bible?
SPEAKER_01: That's not exactly a direct route, folks.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's like a straight shot right across the Sinai, and they are there.
SPEAKER_01: And they go south, and then they go west, and they go north, and then they go south.
SPEAKER_01: And the scriptures say they weren't ready for the wars that they were gonna have to fight because they were untested.
SPEAKER_01: So sometimes, church, you're not ready for what God wants to give you because you're untested.
SPEAKER_01: And then when the tests come, you run.
SPEAKER_01: Man, press into the test.
SPEAKER_01: Say, God, I'm here.
SPEAKER_01: Do anything you need to do in my life to make me the kind of mature disciple where I can see you move in a mighty and powerful way in my life.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, life is hard, man.
SPEAKER_01: Difficult.
SPEAKER_01: And some of you are laboring.
SPEAKER_01: I know because I've talked to you.
SPEAKER_01: You're praying for your teens.
SPEAKER_01: You're praying for your family.
SPEAKER_01: You're praying for a mate.
SPEAKER_01: You're praying for a child.
SPEAKER_01: You're praying for healing.
SPEAKER_01: Keep praying.
SPEAKER_01: Stay close to the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Give him praise.
SPEAKER_01: Give him glory in the midst of it.
SPEAKER_01: He is bringing a harmony into your life that he has and you lack.
SPEAKER_01: And sometimes he does that for the very essence of the work of fighting and battling.
SPEAKER_01: Spiritual warfare prayers matter.
SPEAKER_01: We need spiritual warfare prayers over this city.
SPEAKER_01: We need spiritual warfare prayers over this church.
SPEAKER_01: We need spiritual warfare prayers over your life.
SPEAKER_01: You gotta fight, man.
SPEAKER_01: You gotta battle sometimes.
SPEAKER_01: You gotta put on the helmet of salvation, breastplate of righteousness, belt of truth, shield of faith, sword of the spirit, shodding our feet with the gospel of peace every day.
SPEAKER_01: And walk in that.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know what the spiritual demonic powers were, but it's obvious here that Paul had a plan to go to Rome, but was being hindered.
SPEAKER_01: Folks, God has called you to something in this life, and it will be hindered.
SPEAKER_01: I promise you.
SPEAKER_01: Anything of good, anything that's wholesome, anything that's right, anything that's righteous, anything that's justice, anything that brings peace to others, it will be hindered.
SPEAKER_01: The enemy doesn't want us in this culture making a difference and bringing a kingdom of God revolution.
SPEAKER_01: And you will be maligned and you'll be made fun of, and you may lose your job over it, you will be persecuted.
SPEAKER_01: If you're not being persecuted a little bit, you're probably not doing enough.
SPEAKER_01: That's the world we live in.
SPEAKER_01: That's the way it is.
SPEAKER_01: Just want to encourage you.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 14, I'm a debtor.
SPEAKER_01: That means Paul was bound by duty.
SPEAKER_01: Duty's not bad.
SPEAKER_01: Bound by duty, both to Greeks and to barbarians.
SPEAKER_01: Can you imagine Paul, who's a Jew of Jews, a Pharisee of Pharisees, he's now reaching out to Greeks and barbarians, both to wise and to unwise.
SPEAKER_01: So, as much as is in me, I'm ready to preach the gospel to you who are in Rome also.
SPEAKER_01: So, church, God's called us to reach out to the lost.
SPEAKER_01: God's called us to help those in need.
SPEAKER_01: And I don't even know, were there any boxes when you guys came in still in the opening?
SPEAKER_01: Okay, we're down to a few boxes.
SPEAKER_01: Our goal is 200 boxes to go out where we put a whole Thanksgiving dinner together.
SPEAKER_01: I feel obligated to at least do that to those that are the working poor of our city that can't have a Thanksgiving meal.
SPEAKER_01: We want to support that.
SPEAKER_01: So as you leave, if you would just grab a box, it tells you exactly what's needed on there.
SPEAKER_01: Let's get them all out of here and then bring them back.
SPEAKER_01: I think it's on Monday, Tuesday.
SPEAKER_01: It tells you what to do on there.
SPEAKER_01: But um, when you're out there doing your regular shopping, why not buy two turkeys instead of one and fill that baby up and help those people out?
SPEAKER_01: Paul felt this obligation, this duty within his heart for those who did not know Christ, for those who did not experience the relationship with Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And he was willing to give the rest of his life to that and die a martyr's death, either in Spain.
SPEAKER_01: We believe in Rome.
SPEAKER_01: It could have been he made it as far as Spain and his witness for Christ.
SPEAKER_01: So there was a man who wanted to play the violin, and he was really, really passionate about the violin.
SPEAKER_01: So he started practicing to play the violin, and it was really, really bad.
SPEAKER_01: He was horrible.
SPEAKER_01: And we've had violinists in our home, and let me tell you, it's torture.
SPEAKER_01: And um he got the music for the violin, and he got classical music to start practicing with, and he figured out that if he YouTube'd it, he could get, you know, Beethoven's fifth, or Beethoven's seventh, or he could get bronze, or he could get any of these pieces.
SPEAKER_01: And what he would do is he would listen to the music coming out of his computer, and then he would scratch along.
SPEAKER_01: And it was terrible.
SPEAKER_01: But he did it day after day and week after week and month after month and year after year.
SPEAKER_01: Every day.
SPEAKER_01: He loved the violin.
SPEAKER_01: After a while, the scratching started to sound like real music every once in a while, and then it would all be messed up again.
SPEAKER_01: But he kept on trying and he kept continuing to practice and to practice.
SPEAKER_01: Until one day, years later, you would hear the piece on YouTube, and you would hear him in his room playing, and you couldn't even tell the difference.
SPEAKER_01: He was so good.
SPEAKER_01: And I believe that's what prayer is.
SPEAKER_01: Prayer is harmonizing our lives with the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.
SPEAKER_01: And he's working out a plan, and you're doing the best you can, and it is, it really looks horrible.
SPEAKER_01: But hang in there, keep studying the music, keep trying to do the right thing, and let the harmony of heaven become the harmony of your life, and you'll begin to see God answer prayers more and more in supernatural ways.
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 you,