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: Alright, so last week I talked about a Kingdom of God revolution, kind of a part one.
SPEAKER_01: And what you guys don't know is that sometimes I get into a sermon and I realize, man, there is no way I'm going to get through this sermon.
SPEAKER_01: It's not going to happen.
SPEAKER_01: And so I made it part two.
SPEAKER_01: And I've been planning on that when I looked at it.
SPEAKER_01: Monday's my study day.
SPEAKER_01: So Monday, when I was looking at it last week, I went, there's no way I can do justice to this passage and the theme of who this church is without a part two.
SPEAKER_01: So you got part one.
SPEAKER_01: Now we're going to go into part two.
SPEAKER_01: So turn in your Bibles to Matthew chapter four.
SPEAKER_01: Matthew chapter four.
SPEAKER_01: And our vision at the road is a kingdom of God revolution in the Rockies.
SPEAKER_01: I know that sounds a little uppity-uppity, but it's what God gave us.
SPEAKER_01: And I believe God's going to do it.
SPEAKER_01: I don't think he would have given us the vision if he wasn't going to do it.
SPEAKER_01: And then the mission of the road is empowering people to change the world.
SPEAKER_01: So this church is very active.
SPEAKER_01: We're very activistic too.
SPEAKER_01: So we believe that God has called us to make an impact in all spheres of influence.
SPEAKER_01: But here's where it starts.
SPEAKER_01: This is the first sermon by Jesus, verse 17, Matthew 4, 17.
SPEAKER_01: From that time Jesus began.
SPEAKER_01: So here's the thing that's interesting about the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible, really, the Gospels are only little snippets of things that Jesus did.
SPEAKER_01: Even Luke says at the end, he says, if we could, if we could write all the books that could be written about what Jesus did, you know, there would be no way to include them all.
SPEAKER_01: So really, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John are just episodes, key episodes that that particular author gave us.
SPEAKER_01: So here you see it right now.
SPEAKER_01: From that time, Jesus began to teach and say, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
SPEAKER_01: So guys, write this down.
SPEAKER_01: Don't miss this.
SPEAKER_01: It's important.
SPEAKER_01: The kingdom of God was the theme of the ministry of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: He spoke over a hundred times that is actually in our text on the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_01: When he healed the sick, at times he said, You now know the kingdom of God has come.
SPEAKER_01: When he cast out demons, he says, the kingdom of God has come, the finger of God.
SPEAKER_01: He told us to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness.
SPEAKER_01: He told us to pray, Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: It's the theme of the ministry of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus came to bring a kingdom of God revolution.
SPEAKER_01: Here's the definition I gave last week.
SPEAKER_01: A kingdom of God revolution is the ongoing move of God administered through local churches who are equipping the saints, the citizens of the kingdom, to influence different cultural spheres in a local city, county, and state that brings kingdom transformation and a new way of life that lasts for hundreds of years.
SPEAKER_01: Abraham Kuyper, former prime minister of the Netherlands, once said, there's not one square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is sovereign over all, doesn't cry mine.
SPEAKER_01: So we were up in the mountains and I was up fly fishing for a few days up in fair play area, and here we woke up and there were snow capped mountains.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it was not snow capped, and then snow capped.
SPEAKER_01: And you look up and you go, that's God's kingdom.
SPEAKER_01: That's the kingdom of God over those mountains.
SPEAKER_01: Those mountains represent this kingdom power of God that's over us.
SPEAKER_01: And when you look at creation, when you look at a human being, the highest creation of all, that little child, that little baby, and to think that that baby's gonna grow, it's growing daily, you're like, what?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, there was something I had to do with it to have the baby, but the fact that everything's there in the DNA of that child, everything that is needed to make that child's personality, their height, their unique qualities of even interest, were all in that cell that began at conception.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's amazing, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01: That's the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_01: He's a little bit smarter than us.
SPEAKER_01: And I was talking to someone recently who's, you know, been through a lot in her life, and she's sharing some stuff, and she said, I'm following Jesus now.
SPEAKER_01: And she has been for the last 10 years.
SPEAKER_01: It's not like now, but I mean, we were talking about that.
SPEAKER_01: I said, Yeah, I'm going through Genesis again.
SPEAKER_01: I'm going through Genesis in my own time with the Lord, and I can't, I mean, I've spent three weeks in Genesis 1 through 4.
SPEAKER_01: Because it's so foundational.
SPEAKER_01: So I'm digging into Genesis, I'm loving Genesis, I'm right there in Genesis, and one thing that comes out when you compare Genesis, especially with Deuteronomy, is if you do it God's way, it really works out better.
SPEAKER_01: It really does.
SPEAKER_01: And that as you begin to follow the Lord, he says, you know, if you'll follow me, if you'll obey me, if you'll listen to me, you can possess the land.
SPEAKER_01: If you'll obey me, I'll bless you financially.
SPEAKER_01: If you'll bless me, and he just goes through all these blessings that come, that's Deuteronomy 24, gang.
SPEAKER_01: And when you read the blessing, I've always wanted that.
SPEAKER_01: I come from Georgia, I'm not real smart, but somewhere along the line I figured it out.
SPEAKER_01: That right here, I want the blessing, I don't want the cursing.
SPEAKER_01: And when you read the cursing, it sounds like America today.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, really.
SPEAKER_01: And so this kingdom work should be affecting everything.
SPEAKER_01: So last week I talked about 13 cultural spheres.
SPEAKER_01: Some call it seven.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, I think it was Bill Bright with Campus Crusade and Lauren Cunningham with WyWham, who came up with the idea of seven mountains of influence.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, so I made it 13 to make it easier.
SPEAKER_01: Um, so here's let me just go through those.
SPEAKER_01: I went through them, I'll go really quick through this time, just kind of a rehearsal for you that weren't there.
SPEAKER_01: Um, number one, marriage, family, home is one category.
SPEAKER_01: Two is church, three, community, relationships, four, government, five, food and agriculture, six, business and entrepreneurship, seven, media, eight, education, nine, health care, ten, finance and banking, eleven, first responders.
SPEAKER_01: I think that's a unique category with our sheriff's department, our police department, our um guys that are in that in that I explained it last week.
SPEAKER_01: Then 12 is military, and then 13 in art.
SPEAKER_01: So three aspects of the kingdom that we're gonna look at from Matthew 4 would be the person of the kingdom, the pattern of the kingdom, and the power of the kingdom.
SPEAKER_01: So let's look back at verse 17, Matthew 4.
SPEAKER_01: From that time Jesus began to preach and say, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus, walking by the Sea of Galilee, saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen.
SPEAKER_01: And then he said to them, Follow me.
SPEAKER_01: Now, my Bible I circled me.
SPEAKER_01: Follow me.
SPEAKER_01: Everything starts there.
SPEAKER_01: Everything that you're longing for in this life is found in Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Now, I say that in the context of what I'm gonna say in number two, so you can't separate the two, but this is the starting point.
SPEAKER_01: This is the starting point.
SPEAKER_01: So when I gave my life to Christ while I was in college, everything changed, man.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it was crazy.
SPEAKER_01: And it didn't happen overnight, but over, but over the next year, almost everything changed in my life.
SPEAKER_01: Because Jesus came to bring a kingdom revolution first to your heart.
SPEAKER_01: It all starts with your heart.
SPEAKER_01: And if you won't let him into your heart, you certainly can't be a kingdom revolutionary out there if it hasn't become you haven't become a kingdom revolutionary in here.
SPEAKER_01: And so it starts in the heart where you're born again.
SPEAKER_01: When we're born again, the kingdom values as you read God's word begin to happen in your life.
SPEAKER_01: And it's it's kind of organic because it's the Spirit doing it.
SPEAKER_01: E.
SPEAKER_01: Stanley Jones writes, the kingdom of God is God's total order, expressed as a rim and a reign in the individual and society, which is to replace the present unworkable world order with God's order in the individual and society.
SPEAKER_01: And while the nature of the kingdom is social, the entrance into it is by a personal new birth now.
SPEAKER_01: The character of that kingdom is seen in the character of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: The kingdom is this, I love this.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I love the whole quote, but I love this part.
SPEAKER_01: The kingdom is Christ's likeness universalized.
SPEAKER_01: So you understand what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_01: So when I speak of a particular rim that you might have a heart for, or you might actually have a vocation in, Heidi is in the political arena, but before that, she's over a system, an educational system, and her heart is for the educational rim, even though she's expressing it through running for governor.
SPEAKER_01: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_01: So you could have a particular area that's a passion of yours, and you didn't even sign up for this.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, leave me alone.
SPEAKER_01: Leave me alone.
SPEAKER_01: I just want to have a family, I want to go fly fishing a lot, and I want to just like, you know, play volleyball or whatever, you know, I don't know.
SPEAKER_01: But then what happens is demons start to encroach in some territory that you have a passion for.
SPEAKER_01: And so it kind of wakes you up and you go, well, maybe I'm supposed to do something.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe I'm supposed to knock on doors.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe I'm supposed to go after that invention that I feel like God gave me.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe I'm gonna become not just a doctor who's a Christian, but I'm gonna become a Christian doctor.
SPEAKER_01: You know, whatever it is.
SPEAKER_01: And that's why one of the rims of influence that I put in that's never nobody ever has done before, is this idea of community influence.
SPEAKER_01: Because sometimes it seems, whoa, it's like way out there, that's this version.
SPEAKER_01: But the reality is that when you leave today, you're gonna go back to your house, you may get gas, you may need to go shopping, and most of us shop and get gas at pretty much the same places.
SPEAKER_01: We have the same neighbors.
SPEAKER_01: Why isn't that actually one of the most important spheres of influence?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I would I you when you talk to a waiter or waitress, they'll tell you Sunday afternoon from the church crowd is the worst group.
SPEAKER_01: Because they come in and they're talky and they're demanding and they don't tip you well.
SPEAKER_01: They give you a little four spiritual laws or something.
SPEAKER_01: I guess that's the tip.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
SPEAKER_01: Don't do that.
SPEAKER_01: Road people don't do that.
SPEAKER_01: I want it to be someday that all these new restaurants and entrepreneurs they want to set up all around the road because they can't wait for road people to evacuate the church and tip them really good.
SPEAKER_01: Because we're kingdom.
SPEAKER_01: So that's an area, you know.
SPEAKER_01: Be don't preach the good news if you're the bad news.
SPEAKER_01: And so, and so when you come in, be Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, be Jesus to those.
SPEAKER_01: And I talked a lot about that last week.
SPEAKER_01: So look, let's look at verse 19.
SPEAKER_01: Then he said to them, Follow me, and I'll make you fishers of men.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, follow me, comma, and I will make you fishers of men.
SPEAKER_01: They immediately left their nets, followed him.
SPEAKER_01: Going on from there, he saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee, John his brother, in the boat with Zebedee, their father, mending their nets.
SPEAKER_01: He called them, and immediately they left the boat and their father and they followed him.
SPEAKER_01: So, first is the person of the kingdom, which is Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Second is the pattern of the kingdom, which is becoming disciples.
SPEAKER_01: He didn't say, follow me and just keep coming to church.
SPEAKER_01: Follow me and start learning how to give a lot of money to me.
SPEAKER_01: No, he said, follow me and I will make you.
SPEAKER_01: I will transform you, I will change you into being a fisher of men.
SPEAKER_01: Now, before we embellish too much the fisher of men concept, he's talking to fishermen.
SPEAKER_01: So they understood what that means, they catch fish for a living.
SPEAKER_01: These are not fly fishermen, these are commercial fishermen.
SPEAKER_01: This is their livelihood, this is their vocation, this is their job.
SPEAKER_01: If you're a computer programmer, which we seem to have a lot of in this church, then if Jesus came to you, he says, follow me and I'll make you a programmer of men.
SPEAKER_01: If you're an inventor, and this church has an inordinate number of nerds, we have a large number of nerds in this church, we have a lot of inventors, and many of them have told me that the invention, and usually when people invent, they invent more than one thing.
SPEAKER_01: These patents that they have, they said it was supernatural.
SPEAKER_01: Like they analyzed something, and as they did, they saw a missing thing they'd never seen before by putting on the mind of Christ, and they started figuring stuff out that they couldn't figure out before, and they give all the glory to God.
SPEAKER_01: Isn't that exciting?
SPEAKER_01: So this mind of Christ, this work of Christ, this pattern of Christ is He's sanctifying us.
SPEAKER_01: So there's two words, two theological words, justification and sanctification.
SPEAKER_01: So justification is that we are justified in Christ, declared righteous, which is going to be one of our songs that we're gonna sing after I'm done.
SPEAKER_01: We're declared righteous, but then that's just the beginning, gang.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's just getting started.
SPEAKER_01: That gets Jesus in the house.
SPEAKER_01: But then guess what?
SPEAKER_01: Jesus wants to take over every room in your house.
SPEAKER_01: And as you allow him and you surrender more to him, that's called sanctification.
SPEAKER_01: That's the part where he's making you more holy.
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't happen overnight, takes time.
SPEAKER_01: That's why it's ill-advised to place where you're at on someone else who's a new believer, or they're they're fairly new in the Lord, because God's got them on a different journey than he had you on.
SPEAKER_01: Or maybe it's the other way around.
SPEAKER_01: They're like fired up and they're going for it, and you're kind of a slug as far as your Christianity.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: And so you're going, oh man, like they're like way ahead of me.
SPEAKER_01: That's good.
SPEAKER_01: That's called iron sharpening iron.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's God saying to you, maybe you need to wake up and smell the coffee, right?
SPEAKER_01: So, so this process is what the church is all about.
SPEAKER_01: Ephesians 4, Paul's describing the purpose of the church, and he says, he gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers.
SPEAKER_01: For the equipping of the saints, for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, verse 13, till we all come to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: So here's what he's saying.
SPEAKER_01: He's saying, look, the purpose of our journey in the church is to work toward being like Christ.
SPEAKER_01: It's really hard.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'm getting ready to do a series for wholehearted men.
SPEAKER_01: And it's gonna be called Lions, Demons, and Blood.
SPEAKER_01: And you'll see it, you'll see the video next week about it.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna start it in November at Wholehearted Men.
SPEAKER_01: And kind of the thesis is that every man wants to be lion-hearted, but the problem is demons guard the palace of their heart.
SPEAKER_01: And it takes blood to become lion-hearted.
SPEAKER_01: It's a sacrifice, it's hard.
SPEAKER_01: And so sanctification is hard, and we need each other.
SPEAKER_01: And so the body of Christ is to empower each other to be blood-stained allies, to stick together, and to fight together.
SPEAKER_01: And so Jesus came to build whole-hearted disciples through blood.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's hard.
SPEAKER_01: It's hard to pick up your cross and follow Christ.
SPEAKER_01: We don't just follow Christ, we actually get the cross too.
SPEAKER_01: We crucify ourselves, we surrender to him so that he can live his life through us.
SPEAKER_01: Galatians 2.20.
SPEAKER_01: I've been crucified with Christ.
SPEAKER_01: It's no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me.
SPEAKER_01: And the life that I live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who delivered himself up for me.
SPEAKER_01: So we are constantly on a push, on a roll, in a battle to be crucified with Christ so that he can live his life through us.
SPEAKER_01: So the crucifixion life, though it's bloody, it's what you're longing for.
SPEAKER_01: At the end of the day, that's what every one of us in this room wants.
SPEAKER_01: We want righteousness, peace, and joy, which is the fruit of the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_01: And so that comes through becoming a disciple.
SPEAKER_01: So when Polis, Governor Polis, shut down everything in our state, starting with churches too, and yet all the big box stores that were so essential were open, and all the small guys that you know didn't even have as big a crowd, they were not essential.
SPEAKER_01: So Walmart was essential, but if you had a small enterprise over here where maybe five people come into your shop every day and about 500 come through Walmart, then you're not essential.
SPEAKER_01: And then the church isn't essential.
SPEAKER_01: And so, you know, at the row, we drank the Kool-Aid for about four weeks.
SPEAKER_01: And by the way, I liked being closed.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, if you actually want to know my heart, it was kind of cool staying home, being with my family, got a hot tub, um, you know, go fishing, you know, go hunting.
SPEAKER_01: It's like, this is great.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I understand why so many pastors didn't open up.
SPEAKER_01: It's because it's sweet, man.
SPEAKER_01: You get a salary and you don't do anything.
SPEAKER_01: And then you take a couple hours, you do a little streaming thing, you know, and total fake.
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
SPEAKER_01: And then I don't have to deal with you.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, I don't have to deal with anybody.
SPEAKER_01: Nobody's problem.
SPEAKER_01: Because I can't meet with them because they might get COVID.
unknown: Right?
SPEAKER_01: So they're like, why is this a sweet deal?
SPEAKER_01: Only problem is it's not biblical.
SPEAKER_01: That's a small problem.
SPEAKER_01: And so we gathered 87 pastors here, and we said, look, the three of us, we're opening up.
SPEAKER_01: Why don't you guys open up?
SPEAKER_01: Here's why we're opening up.
SPEAKER_01: So about 25 did, and we did that.
SPEAKER_01: Well, then all that, and then there's a mask mandate, and then they came really close to doing a shot thing and all that stuff.
SPEAKER_01: So I just felt like this sounds like a I need to have a meeting with the county commissioners.
SPEAKER_01: So I met with the county commissioners and I said, look, you guys, why don't I know it doesn't have any legal bearing, but why don't you make a declaration?
SPEAKER_01: Why don't you make a declaration that we're a Liberty County?
SPEAKER_01: And here's what was fun is that Stan, Amy Stan was already thinking that.
SPEAKER_01: So Stan and Holly and I think Carrie were already kind of, they already had some things in the works.
SPEAKER_01: And it was just a little bit of encouragement that they needed, and so they did it.
SPEAKER_01: Remember, they came and they gave it here.
SPEAKER_01: So they gave it here, and it's, I mean, we got so many standing obeys.
SPEAKER_01: I can't remember how many.
SPEAKER_01: But then we went down and they did it at Centennial Hall.
SPEAKER_01: We packed out Centennial Hall.
SPEAKER_01: All the county commissioners said, we've never had this many people come to a board meeting.
SPEAKER_01: And I won't go into what Liz said, it her thing, but let's just say there's a guy in the Bible called Nebuchadnezzar, and she made an association with the governor.
SPEAKER_01: So, anyway, that's what happened.
SPEAKER_01: Um and so then, so then we we we stood out, gave him 11 standing ovations with this declaration.
SPEAKER_01: So, what's that about?
SPEAKER_01: Here's what that's about is that I I hope and pray that each one of you in this room that live here would come to realize that this is your city and this is your county, and that's the school where your children go to school.
SPEAKER_01: And you will not acquiesce to what they tell you has to happen, but that you'll stand for what you know is right.
SPEAKER_01: Doesn't mean you always win.
SPEAKER_01: This is a 15-round, heavyweight boxing match.
SPEAKER_01: And you're gonna get knocked down in the first and second round.
SPEAKER_01: Most of us will because we don't know what we're doing.
SPEAKER_01: But then you're gonna get back up, you're gonna go into your corner, you're gonna listen to your trainer, the Holy Spirit, and you go back out and fight again.
SPEAKER_01: So we do that through worship, we do that through sharing our faith, we do that by sometimes even running for office and things like that.
SPEAKER_01: It's Liz, my wife, doing this pro-life conference when we did that, you know, creating his image.
SPEAKER_01: Big crowd turned out.
SPEAKER_01: We were so surprised.
SPEAKER_01: You know what they find?
SPEAKER_01: That in churches that talk about being pro-life, in churches where they talk about that you're creating the image of God, in churches that take seriously Genesis 1 and 2, 90% of those young people that graduate from high school and go to college, keep their faith.
SPEAKER_01: And that churches that ignore it, acquiesce to it, and will not take a stand about it, 90% of those kids drop off when they go to college.
SPEAKER_01: Now that is the responsibility of the church on the one hand, but even more importantly, it's the responsibility of you, the parents.
SPEAKER_01: Are you training your kids in biblical values?
SPEAKER_01: Are you training your kids in spending by spending time in the word?
SPEAKER_01: Don't get so busy that you don't have time to disciple the most important product that God's given you, and that's your children.
SPEAKER_01: Because nobody else is gonna do it.
SPEAKER_01: 168 hours a week, we have about an hour and a half with your kids.
SPEAKER_01: Don't expect us to make that big of an impact like you do.
SPEAKER_01: And so we do that.
SPEAKER_01: We're for that.
SPEAKER_01: That's the pattern.
SPEAKER_01: That's why we do wholehearted men on Tuesday morning.
SPEAKER_01: Somewhere between 370, 300, 400 men come.
SPEAKER_01: 105 churches represented.
SPEAKER_01: We're discipling men.
SPEAKER_01: Listen, you get a man, you get a marriage.
SPEAKER_01: You get a marriage, you get a family.
SPEAKER_01: You get a family, you get a community.
SPEAKER_01: You get a community, you get a school.
SPEAKER_01: You get a school, you get a county, and you change the nation.
SPEAKER_01: So you women get it.
SPEAKER_01: Seriously.
SPEAKER_01: Women are so much more relational.
SPEAKER_01: You're so much more in tune spiritually.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, Liz is always telling me, why don't you have this vision?
SPEAKER_01: And then she'll tell me something, I'll be like, okay, that's my vision now.
SPEAKER_01: No, I'm serious, man.
SPEAKER_01: And two-thirds of the ideas that come through this church come through women, like you, and like my wife and others, you know.
SPEAKER_01: But men, we're weird, man.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, we're we're like, don't tell me what to do.
SPEAKER_01: I'm in charge of my life.
SPEAKER_01: I'm independent, and I'm I'm my own man.
SPEAKER_01: And most men in the church don't have any other close men friends, they don't have bloodstained allies.
SPEAKER_01: So guess where they end up about five years after they follow Christ?
SPEAKER_01: Back in paganism, back in not following Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Because it's hard to be a man.
SPEAKER_01: This culture has so feminized men, made them so passive, cut away all of their strength.
SPEAKER_01: And then when things happen, like 9-11, we're like, well, wow, look at our first responders.
SPEAKER_01: What do we lost 470 firefighters or something on 9-11?
SPEAKER_01: Those were all men.
SPEAKER_01: So God has a special anointing on men to be wholehearted.
SPEAKER_01: So discipleship with men's important, you guys.
SPEAKER_01: And when I was at this church in Atlanta a couple weeks ago, I've got another one in Connecticut that I'm going to.
SPEAKER_01: They want to start a men's ministry like ours.
SPEAKER_01: These guys want that because they recognize that.
SPEAKER_01: You got Jordan Peterson, not even a Christian.
SPEAKER_01: Clinical psychologist, young Ian psychologist, who does a broadcast about two weeks ago or whatever it was, I saw it two weeks ago, it might have been three months ago, to the church.
SPEAKER_01: Two pastors.
SPEAKER_01: And he's so great.
SPEAKER_01: He says, I don't know why I'm telling you guys.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not a pastor.
SPEAKER_01: But he says, go after young men.
SPEAKER_01: Because they feel lonely.
SPEAKER_01: There's no place for them anymore.
SPEAKER_01: Well, let's make a place for them here.
SPEAKER_01: And it's more than just handing out bulletins on Sunday morning, it's making a difference and making an impact.
SPEAKER_01: So there's this pattern.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus chose 12 men.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus can do whatever he wants.
SPEAKER_01: He's Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: He could have chosen six women and six men.
SPEAKER_01: He chose twelve men.
SPEAKER_01: So men, if you're looking at me, God's got a great plan on your life, and there's some unique qualities on you that you think you don't have and you think your wife's got it all, and I understand that.
SPEAKER_01: I've been there.
SPEAKER_01: You gotta realize that he gave you your gender and some qualities that complement, that complement your wife, and you that are single, stay single.
SPEAKER_01: Unless you're called to be married.
SPEAKER_01: Don't, wouldn't you rather be single and wish you were married than be married and wish you were single?
SPEAKER_01: So, so be the man that God's meant you to be.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 23.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus went about Galilee teaching in their synagogues, teaching the gospel of the kingdom, healing all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease from the people.
SPEAKER_01: Then his fame went throughout all Syria, and they brought him all the sick people who were afflicted with various diseases and torments, and those who are demon-possessed, epileptics, and paralytics, and he healed them all.
SPEAKER_01: Holy Toledo! This is the power of the kingdom.
SPEAKER_01: Nobody does it like Jesus does.
SPEAKER_01: It's not just the person, it's not just the pattern, there's power.
SPEAKER_01: So can you imagine you've been with Jesus for three and a half years, you've been everywhere with him, you've seen him walk on water, you've seen him steal the storms, you've seen him take a little bunch of fishies and loaves, and then multiply it out.
SPEAKER_01: You've seen him turn water into wine, you've seen him cast out demons, heal the sick, and then he says to you, okay, after three and a half years, you've seen me do all this, you're not ready.
SPEAKER_01: What?
SPEAKER_01: You're not ready.
SPEAKER_01: Don't go out, don't do anything.
SPEAKER_01: Stay in the upper room.
SPEAKER_01: And they were happy with that.
SPEAKER_01: Like, they don't want to go out of that place.
SPEAKER_01: All the Romans and the Jews want their heads.
SPEAKER_01: They're like, hey, that's a good idea, Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: We'll just hang out up here and just eat and sleep and vote.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, that's what the church does, right?
SPEAKER_01: The church eats and votes.
SPEAKER_01: That's the typical evangelical church.
SPEAKER_01: You vote on everything.
SPEAKER_01: By the way, you may notice we don't vote on anything here.
SPEAKER_01: If I were to ask your opinion about this carpet, oh my goodness.
SPEAKER_01: We'd spend days and weeks talking about the stupid carpet.
SPEAKER_01: I don't give a rip about the carpet.
SPEAKER_01: And God doesn't either.
SPEAKER_01: Rip it all out.
SPEAKER_01: I don't care.
SPEAKER_01: But that's what's true.
SPEAKER_01: They argue over paint color.
SPEAKER_01: They argue over carpet.
SPEAKER_01: They argue all the done and you vote about it.
SPEAKER_01: But then Jesus says, no.
SPEAKER_01: There's something coming your way.
SPEAKER_01: It's called the power of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: And don't go out and try to do anything out there unless you're empowered by the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: And so 10 days later at Pentecost, tongues as of fire come upon this little group of 120, and bam.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, bam.
SPEAKER_01: They're transformed.
SPEAKER_01: When I was speaking at a church in Atlanta, I said when I was talking about the six marks of a person who's on fire for God, the first one was the power of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: The power of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: When David, David's just a kid, he's probably 13 years old.
SPEAKER_01: When Samuel comes to Jesse's house, and the first thing he does when he sees him, he says, This is the one.
SPEAKER_01: And what does he do?
SPEAKER_01: He pours oil over him and says, The Holy Spirit came upon him.
SPEAKER_01: So people come up to me from time to time and say, Is your church spirit-filled?
SPEAKER_01: And I go, Well, it was on Monday, but it was not on Tuesday.
SPEAKER_01: They go, What?
SPEAKER_01: Because what they want to know is, you know, are you a hand raising, tongue speaking, contemporary worshiping, pray for healing, cast out demons kind of church?
SPEAKER_01: I'm not going to answer that question, because sometimes we are and sometimes we're not.
SPEAKER_01: Because the spirit-filled life, according to Ephesians 5.18, is you shall not be drunk with wine, but be filled with the Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: And what he was speaking of there was those believers in Ephesus had worshiped God at the temple of Artemis.
SPEAKER_01: Temple of Artemis, you had orgies, and you got drunk with wine, and you had spiritual hallucinations, and that's how you connected with the pantheon.
SPEAKER_01: That's how you connected with the gods.
SPEAKER_01: You see?
SPEAKER_01: So if Jesus were here today, he would say, do not smoke weed and get high, be filled with the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Or as my son Daniel would say, Satan's lettuce.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: So do not, do not do heroin.
SPEAKER_01: Be filled with the spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Do not get drunk with beer.
SPEAKER_01: Be filled with the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Here's why he said it that way.
SPEAKER_01: It's about who's in charge.
SPEAKER_01: It's about who's on the throne of your life.
SPEAKER_01: It's that when you're drunk, the alcohol takes over, it has control over your life.
SPEAKER_01: When the spirit comes in, you let the spirit take control.
SPEAKER_01: So what that means is it's not a title, it's a function.
SPEAKER_01: So each day we have to decide who's going to be in charge.
SPEAKER_01: Is it going to be me or is it going to be Jesus?
SPEAKER_01: So when you put Jesus on the throne of your heart, whether you feel like it or not, whether you feel his presence or not, you can be filled with the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: It's not a feeling, it's faith and trusting him.
SPEAKER_01: And so, and so as we walk in this pattern and this person and this power of the Holy Spirit, it's amazing what you can do, what God can do.
SPEAKER_01: So listen to this.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I've said everybody knows this who comes to the road regularly.
SPEAKER_01: But you that are new, I want you to hear this too.
SPEAKER_01: That when we heard about like the COVID vaccine and all that, and then the statistics began to come out more and more of the dangers of the vaccine that were involved and all the stuff that's happened since then, which has just verified that.
SPEAKER_01: And some of you had the vaccine, and if you haven't had any um issues with it, fantastic, praise God for that.
SPEAKER_01: But that's when that's when Pam Holloway came up with her COVID protocol.
SPEAKER_01: She had been talking to Dr.
SPEAKER_01: Malone, all these top doctors all over the world, and they came up with this COVID protocol.
SPEAKER_01: Folks, through that protocol, 3,000 plus people were healed in El Paso County.
SPEAKER_01: Nobody died.
SPEAKER_01: Pretty good stat.
SPEAKER_01: And then 8,000 nationally.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think that would probably deserve a little bit of an applause.
SPEAKER_01: Just a little bit.
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
SPEAKER_01: Because that's pretty amazing.
SPEAKER_01: That's the power of the Holy Spirit in Pam to figure that out.
SPEAKER_01: And he does the same thing in every one of you.
SPEAKER_01: If you're empowered by the Holy Spirit, he's going to give you insight that you would not normally have.
SPEAKER_01: And so when we called a meeting, we called 25 pastors together to pray in the north, which was here, the south, the east, and the west.
SPEAKER_01: We prayed for revival of our city.
SPEAKER_01: Powerful time, you guys.
SPEAKER_01: We went to each place, we buried a Bible, we worshiped, prayed for God to move in a mighty way.
SPEAKER_01: National Day of Prayer.
SPEAKER_01: This place was jam-packed with like 35 pastors, and I think we had something like 27 civic leaders.
SPEAKER_01: And Andrew Walmatt got up and said, This is the most powerful prayer meeting I've ever been to in Colorado Springs.
SPEAKER_01: That's the power of God.
SPEAKER_01: And now we're on like day 765 of noonday fire room, where we've been praying at noonday for one hour.
SPEAKER_01: If you've never been, you ought to come.
SPEAKER_01: We do that every day, Monday.
SPEAKER_01: Well, I should say Monday through Friday.
SPEAKER_01: We pray.
SPEAKER_01: That's the power of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: And then lastly, great multitudes followed him from Galilee and from Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea, and beyond the Jordan.
SPEAKER_01: With the presence of Jesus and the pattern of Jesus and the power of Jesus, God will bring a kingdom revolution in our city.
SPEAKER_01: People are hungry for this.
SPEAKER_01: They long for this.
SPEAKER_01: They want that.
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 Steve Holtonline.org.
SPEAKER_00: God bless you.