SPEAKER_01: Hey, I'm Steve Holt, the senior pastor of the Road at Chapel Hills.
SPEAKER_01: This is the Road Podcast.
SPEAKER_01: Thanks for joining us.
SPEAKER_01: My heart is to empower you to change the world.
SPEAKER_01: I hope this message impacts you.
SPEAKER_01: Alright, so we are on sabbatical.
SPEAKER_01: I want to thank you so much for the opportunity for a sabbatical.
SPEAKER_01: And supposed to rest on a sabbatical.
SPEAKER_01: Been pretty far from resting, but we're going to get there.
SPEAKER_01: We've been working hard on something, a cabin that we got, and we're kind of putting it together and all, and it's been a real blessing to us.
SPEAKER_01: I've been doing some fly fishing and some things like that.
SPEAKER_01: But the main the main point of this vision sabbatical is to get more fired up for Jesus than ever before.
SPEAKER_01: That's our goal.
SPEAKER_01: So I get up early in the morning, I do my exercises that I do, and then whether we're at home here or the other home that we have, we get in there and we get into the Word and we spend time with Him.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm saying, God, what do you want to do over the next 10 years at the road?
SPEAKER_01: What do you want to do in El Paso County?
SPEAKER_01: God, what do you want to do in the city of Colorado Springs?
SPEAKER_01: Lord, what do you want to do in the state of Colorado?
SPEAKER_01: I want to be a part of a Kingdom of God revolution.
SPEAKER_01: And so that's the heart of it.
SPEAKER_01: And the hard part is that I know that if I fail, if Liz and I fail in our calling, we pull a whole lot of people with us.
SPEAKER_01: But if we succeed in the victory of what God wants to do over the next 10 years in this state, we could become known as a place where the kingdom of God is so moving that people will be moving here.
SPEAKER_01: They'll be coming here because they want to be empowered and equipped to change the world.
SPEAKER_01: I believe that's possible.
SPEAKER_01: Really do.
SPEAKER_01: So that leads into what I want to do at Father's Day.
SPEAKER_01: I want to talk about a typical situation in the Bible that lines up with where I think we're at right now in America.
SPEAKER_01: Where God had ordained a man named Saul to be the first king of Israel.
SPEAKER_01: And then Saul became demonized, and in the process of becoming demonized, began to take the whole nation of Israel in the wrong direction.
SPEAKER_01: And then along comes a young shepherd boy who's probably 13 when he met Goliath in the Valley of Elah.
SPEAKER_01: And God begins to raise him up because he's a man after God's own heart.
SPEAKER_01: And so he moves into prominence with victory after victory, and Saul becomes more and more jealous.
SPEAKER_01: And then Saul turns on David.
SPEAKER_01: David's an outlaw for probably 14 years.
SPEAKER_01: But as he is an outlaw against everything that the whole culture has believed was right by making Saul king, men and women all across Israel began to see God's hand on David.
SPEAKER_01: And so they went against the grain, they went against popular culture to make David king.
SPEAKER_01: And there's 1 and 2 Kings, there's 1 and 2 Samuel, and there's 1 and 2 Chronicles that draw from different perspectives what was happening during that time.
SPEAKER_01: 1 and 2 Chronicles, I would call it the spiritual nature of the coming reign of David and in the reign of David as he became king.
SPEAKER_01: And in chapters 11 and 12, they're very interesting because in chapters 11 and 12, Samuel, who probably wrote Chronicles, says there, here are the men, here are the people that made David king.
SPEAKER_01: And then it begins to give you a list of what are classically called the mighty men of God.
SPEAKER_01: I want to call this message a call to the lion-hearted.
SPEAKER_01: Because listen, church, without lion-hearted people, nothing happens in culture that's good.
SPEAKER_01: Cowards win, when the lion-hearted sit back.
SPEAKER_01: Cowards destroy culture, they destroy everything we believe in because they feel like they're unopposed.
SPEAKER_01: But it's in those kinds of situations that God raises up men and women.
SPEAKER_01: Now, this is Father's Day, but even from the beginning of writing this out, I felt this is for everybody.
SPEAKER_01: This is for everybody in this room.
SPEAKER_01: I don't care what your gender is, this is for everybody.
SPEAKER_01: Everybody's called to be lionhearted through the power of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: And I would say this as I began to say, everything that I'm going to say, that the weaker you are, the better candidate you are to be lionhearted.
SPEAKER_01: It's the five-tool guy.
SPEAKER_01: It's the most talented people, it's the most intelligent people that sometimes make the worst disciples because they depend on themselves.
SPEAKER_01: They've got their act together.
SPEAKER_01: They're so cool.
SPEAKER_01: They, you know, they know how to how to formulate their success story.
SPEAKER_01: It's the person who says, Man, I don't know what to do.
SPEAKER_01: In me, I know that my heart is always a betrayer.
SPEAKER_01: And that I'm actually a coward and very weak.
SPEAKER_01: That's the person that God most often uses.
SPEAKER_01: And when I look at David, I see someone who wasn't tall, wasn't handsome, wasn't cool.
SPEAKER_01: He's from the laboring class.
SPEAKER_01: He's the last of all the sons, which speaks volumes biblically about how he was viewed at that time as the eighth son.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: Saul was taller than all the rest, smarter than all the rest, and came from, it seems like a prominent family.
SPEAKER_01: So what does it mean to be lion-hearted?
SPEAKER_01: So here we see some lion-hearted men, and I can't imagine that the men didn't go to war to fight for David to be king without approval from their wives, because we all know even if you're the head of your if you're the head of your family, your wife is the neck.
SPEAKER_01: And she moves the head.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: So I'm gonna, so I'm gonna come at this from the perspective not of mighty men of valor, mighty people of valor being lionhearted.
SPEAKER_01: So turn in your Bibles to 1 Chronicles chapter 12.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, look at verse 1, because this kind of gives you a summation of what's happening here.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 1 says, Now these were the men, and I'm gonna say the people, these are the people who came to David at Ziglag while he was still a fugitive from Saul, the son of Kish, and they were among the mighty men, helpers in the war.
SPEAKER_01: So, how many of you felt when you look at the movement of culture, where it's going, that you feel almost helpless with what to do?
SPEAKER_01: I think that's exactly the way they might have felt at that time, but these lion-hearted men, these lion-hearted families, these lion-hearted women, they came forward to make David king against the Oz.
SPEAKER_01: Now look at verse 23, and this is where I want to camp today, verse 23.
SPEAKER_01: Now, these were the numbers of the divisions that were equipped for war and came to David at Hebron to turn over the kingdoms of Saul to him according to the word of the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Of the sons of Judah, bearing shield and spear, 6,800, armed for war, underline that.
SPEAKER_01: Of the sons of Simeon, mighty men of valor, fit for war, 7,100.
SPEAKER_01: Underline that.
SPEAKER_01: The sons of Levi, 4,000.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 28, Zadok.
SPEAKER_01: Zadok's interesting here, you guys.
SPEAKER_01: Zadok is a young man, a valiant warrior.
SPEAKER_01: Zadok would later become the high priest, and he would also become the key high priest that was supportive of David even during Absalom's rebellion.
SPEAKER_01: So he's actually a very key person here.
SPEAKER_01: Then look at verse 30.
SPEAKER_01: Of the sons of Ephraim, 20,800 mighty men of valor, famous men throughout their father's house.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 32.
SPEAKER_01: Of the sons of Issachar, who had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do.
SPEAKER_01: Their chiefs were 200, and all their brethren were at their command.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 33.
SPEAKER_01: Of Zebulun, there were 50,000 who went out to battle, experts in war with all weapons of war, stout-hearted men who could keep ranks.
SPEAKER_01: So when I look at stout-hearted and look up the Hebrew for stout-hearted, the word that kept coming to my mind was lion-hearted.
SPEAKER_01: You don't say he's really, really stout-hearted.
SPEAKER_01: Wow, I mean, if some woman heard you say, well, she's a stout-hearted woman, you have all kinds of the wrong images.
SPEAKER_01: But lion-hearted to me is a kind of a 21st century vernacular of what we're saying.
SPEAKER_01: Being lion-hearted.
SPEAKER_01: These were lion-hearted men and women who went against the odds, they went against the grain to make David king.
SPEAKER_01: So let me give you some words here from Webster's dictionary for lion-hearted.
SPEAKER_01: Brave, determined, exceptional courage and bravery.
SPEAKER_01: I like that.
SPEAKER_01: Exceptional courage and bravery.
SPEAKER_01: Proverbs 28:1 is an interesting verse.
SPEAKER_01: It says, the wicked flee when no one pursues, but the righteous are as bold as a lion.
SPEAKER_01: Now, if you're buying the box, the school in a box, the summer fear box that Liz and her team put together, it's all about being lionhearted, also, which I didn't even realize until I started doing this separate from Liz.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, there's a message here, at least for the first part of the summer to the road.
SPEAKER_01: God's calling us to be lion-hearted in our time.
SPEAKER_01: Not just go to movies and watch it, because we love it, don't we?
SPEAKER_01: We all go to movies like Braveheart, or we go to movies that have to do with, you know, born supremacy or whatever.
SPEAKER_01: It's always about that guy or that gal is lion-hearted, and there's something vicarious that happens with them.
SPEAKER_01: I want to be like that.
SPEAKER_01: Well, you can be.
SPEAKER_01: Through the power of the Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: You can be a lion-hearted, whole-hearted disciple of Jesus, just like these men were.
SPEAKER_00: I have something to say.
SPEAKER_00: Um, our devotional is called lizards and lions.
SPEAKER_00: And a lizard is someone who is like a chameleon, will change depending on what's advantageous for that creature.
SPEAKER_00: A lion is always bold.
SPEAKER_00: I think we all struggle with our boldness, don't we?
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes we want to just blend in.
SPEAKER_00: And I feel like we need to pray today, starting today, that we would be more 24-7 lions, not the kind that kind of can blend in to fit in with others.
SPEAKER_00: We need to be bold all the time.
SPEAKER_00: And um so lizards uh and lions are an important contrast.
SPEAKER_00: Peter was a lizard when he denied that he knew Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Um, then he was bold as a lion when he was preaching Jesus in Acts 4.
SPEAKER_00: And so we can flip-flop, can't we?
SPEAKER_00: So I really want to pray that today we will become more 24-7 lions and just be willing to shut out the fear of man and stay focused on the fear of the Lord.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: So I want to look at four character qualities.
SPEAKER_01: There's many, but I, you know, I think about lion-hearted, I I kept coming back to this passage, and I see four key qualities of being lionhearted.
SPEAKER_01: So let's look at verse 23 again.
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 23.
SPEAKER_01: Now, these were the numbers of the divisions that were equipped for war.
SPEAKER_01: And by the way, war is the operable word here.
SPEAKER_01: Have you noticed that?
SPEAKER_01: War.
SPEAKER_01: War is the operable word throughout this passage.
SPEAKER_01: Five times Samuel writes about war.
SPEAKER_01: Came to David at Hebron to turn over the kingdom of Saul to him according to the word of the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Now, jump down to verse 32.
SPEAKER_01: Of the sons of Issachar who had understanding of the times, to know what Israel ought to do.
SPEAKER_01: So here's the first quality.
SPEAKER_01: The first quality of being lionhearted is understanding the times and knowing what God's doing.
SPEAKER_01: Church, God's doing something right now.
SPEAKER_01: Understanding the times is huge.
SPEAKER_01: It could be in the arena of political, education, business, economics, health.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, we had a we had a meeting with a group of about six of us about health and food distribution for the road about four months ago, Jerry, something like that.
SPEAKER_01: And I came away not knowing what to do with the information that was given.
SPEAKER_01: Here were four zealous people, had all these great ideas about greenhouses and organic foods and organic beef and all this stuff that we came up, but I didn't know what to do with it.
SPEAKER_01: And then as things have happened with COVID more and other things that have happened with variances of COVID, stuff like that, it started to dawn on Liz and I, we know what to do.
SPEAKER_01: We know what God's calling this church to do to develop a ministry of health.
SPEAKER_01: And I'll share more about that when I come back in August because it's still forming.
SPEAKER_01: But I was meeting with a guy earlier today about it, and it's so clear now.
SPEAKER_01: But you gotta understand the times before you know what to do.
SPEAKER_01: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_01: So sometimes you gotta understand what's happening in the school system before you know what to do.
SPEAKER_01: You have to understand what's happening in the church before you know what you're supposed to do.
SPEAKER_01: As we've grown here and we've seen the growth of the church, and then we've seen, maybe I would call it the embryonic demonic attacks of the last year, it begins to form within my heart and our heart as a leadership team.
SPEAKER_01: We've got to develop a small group structure in our church, which we're gonna, which we're calling 242 community groups, because they could shut us down.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, that could that could potentially happen is a shutdown of the church by big Gov, right?
SPEAKER_01: Everybody understand what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_01: Just okay.
SPEAKER_01: All right, so so that means you've got to understand the times of your own family.
SPEAKER_01: You've got to understand the times before you know what to do.
SPEAKER_01: So is the sons of Issachar understood the times and they knew what to do.
SPEAKER_01: Now, everybody look at me.
SPEAKER_01: Everybody look at me right now.
SPEAKER_01: Many of us in this room, you are clueless.
SPEAKER_01: You are absolutely clueless.
SPEAKER_01: I'll start to talk to you about stuff, and I can tell that I see that glazed over look, you know?
SPEAKER_01: And when I'm up in fair play, where we have got a cabin now, where I mean, I'm talking to people, I'm meeting people in stores, and I talk about stuff like Kingdom Revolution stuff, and it's like, they're like, Man, are you from Mars?
SPEAKER_01: And these are supposedly spirit-filled Christians.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: You ever talk to anybody outside this church about what we do at this church?
SPEAKER_01: You ever see the reaction you get?
SPEAKER_01: So I've been to I've been to two weddings, I've been to two weddings over the last two weeks.
SPEAKER_01: So I'm meeting people I don't know.
SPEAKER_01: But almost everybody at these weddings are solid Christians.
SPEAKER_01: But they're coming from other cities and stuff, and some of them are actually from this city.
SPEAKER_01: So I say, so I'll just I'm just trying to make conversations find my pastor.
SPEAKER_01: They go, well, how's it been going in your church?
SPEAKER_01: I said, great.
SPEAKER_01: But I mean, I mean the COVID thing, that must have been hard.
SPEAKER_01: I said, no, it's not been hard.
SPEAKER_01: They go, what?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, we got all kinds of infighting.
SPEAKER_01: You got the people that say, you know, follow the government, and we have this other group that says, screw the government, you know, and it's like we're always having these problems.
SPEAKER_01: He said, That you had those problems?
SPEAKER_01: I said, nope.
SPEAKER_01: I said, why not?
SPEAKER_01: I said, it's to me, it's like so simple.
SPEAKER_01: If you feel like you're gonna come to a group where you can get COVID, don't come.
SPEAKER_01: You can stream it.
SPEAKER_01: Everybody wants to come, come.
SPEAKER_01: You want to wear a mask?
SPEAKER_01: Wear a mask.
SPEAKER_01: You don't want to wear mask, don't wear a mask.
SPEAKER_01: If you don't like that, we don't wear a mask, then don't come.
SPEAKER_01: I don't care.
SPEAKER_01: I really don't care.
SPEAKER_01: Here's why.
SPEAKER_01: Here's why, because I believe there's a genius born every day.
SPEAKER_01: You guys are smart.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I bet you most of you in this room have high SAT scores, or you wouldn't be at this church.
SPEAKER_01: I'm serious.
SPEAKER_01: We're a smart church.
SPEAKER_01: You can make up your own mind.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not gonna tell you what to do.
SPEAKER_01: So I'm not sitting here voting or, you know, oh, oh, Larry Dean over here who gives all this money to the church.
SPEAKER_01: He's all mad at me because I'm going against polis.
SPEAKER_01: Get a life, man.
SPEAKER_01: Seriously.
SPEAKER_01: This is our guide, not what happens in Denver.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: Go.
SPEAKER_01: You gotta understand the times.
SPEAKER_01: Guys, get you know, listen to and read alternative forms of news.
SPEAKER_01: Don't listen to the mainstream media.
SPEAKER_01: It's all propaganda, man.
SPEAKER_01: You guys that are university students, be careful with the crap you're getting in some of the history classes and social studies classes and things like that that you get.
SPEAKER_01: It's propaganda.
SPEAKER_01: Use your brain.
SPEAKER_01: Use your brain and the Bible and become a student of God's word.
SPEAKER_01: You've got to, remember, we've we've used this word for so long called self-medicate, right?
SPEAKER_01: And how that develops addictions and stuff.
SPEAKER_01: Well, self-educate.
SPEAKER_01: Self-educate.
SPEAKER_01: Read lots of books.
SPEAKER_01: So I have all these guys in the church.
SPEAKER_01: You guys are, I mean, this is a crazy.
SPEAKER_01: We have so many guys in this church that are friends of mine that are kind of in that blue-collar job where you're working, you know, you're putting in cabinets or you're putting in floors or you're painting and stuff.
SPEAKER_01: And these guys listen to audio books constantly.
SPEAKER_01: Greg Wagner's son, back here, Greg's son, he, this guy is worked, you know, in the area of um of putting in um roofs and stuff.
SPEAKER_01: And he's always listening.
SPEAKER_01: Listen, he listened last time he and I were on a bear hunt, listened to 120 books last year.
SPEAKER_01: And he asked me stuff, and I'm going, What are you asking me, man?
SPEAKER_01: You're way, you know more than I do on that.
SPEAKER_01: And that's like he's teasing me.
SPEAKER_01: It's like, if you think, how do you think um, you know, Winston Churchill would have handled, you know, the Battle of the Bulge if he was in charge?
SPEAKER_01: And I'm going, why are you asking me that question?
SPEAKER_01: You already know the answer because you read four books on it, you know.
SPEAKER_01: But I love that.
SPEAKER_01: Self-educate, grow, you guys.
SPEAKER_01: Keep growing, stay on the cutting edge.
SPEAKER_01: Don't let these other people that call themselves professors tell you stuff that's wrong.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, some of it's right, but some of it's wrong.
SPEAKER_01: And you got to be smart enough to discern the time.
SPEAKER_01: So there you go.
SPEAKER_01: That's what being lionhearted.
SPEAKER_01: So lionhearted is first of all, understanding of times and knowing what God wants to do.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, I have something to say.
SPEAKER_00: Um there's a few things we know that the road is called to do.
SPEAKER_00: First of all, um, 30 years ago, Steve had a lady at the Anaheim Vineyard who didn't know us, didn't know that we felt already called to Colorado Springs, this is before we moved here, say to Steve, I see you standing on the Rocky Mountains.
SPEAKER_00: And back then we thought, oh, this is just another confirmation, yes, move to Colorado.
SPEAKER_00: And what we're seeing as you would probably be able to see through the Nation of Israel or even Abraham, that when you take one step of obedience, it seems very small in a way.
SPEAKER_00: And then you take another step and you take another step into your promised land, the things that God has called you to do, and you find out the vista is huge of what God has for you.
SPEAKER_00: So now that we are in these times, we can see that if we don't take over the Rocky Mountains for Jesus, the enemy will prosper.
SPEAKER_00: So this guy is called to take over the Rockies.
SPEAKER_00: And if you're in this church, you're called to do that too.
SPEAKER_00: And it's gonna be exciting.
SPEAKER_00: So I want to say that we're called to take over the Rockies, not for ourselves, but for the love of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And the blood of Jesus is going to be our cleansing, our power.
SPEAKER_00: That's how we're gonna do it.
SPEAKER_00: And then secondly, I believe this church has a mandate to pray against Roe v.
SPEAKER_00: Wade, and it will be taken down.
SPEAKER_00: I've seen it in the night seasons, and you can clap for God because He's gonna help us do it.
SPEAKER_00: And we're gonna be a part of a big movement that takes down Roe v.
SPEAKER_00: Wade, and he's going to do it.
SPEAKER_00: And then also, I've seen in a dream that Darwinism, God is exposing Darwinism as a thief.
SPEAKER_00: The thief of Darwinism has taken away the fact that God has created us, He's taken away that knowledge in our schools, and God has said enough.
SPEAKER_00: And we are all gonna be a part of praying that down.
SPEAKER_00: Then also I've I've heard that from the Lord that our governor is not going to be with us after this um this uh whatever he has term.
SPEAKER_00: Um the Lord told me that the kingdom has departed from him.
SPEAKER_00: So we need to be praying in that direction too, because we win battles with prayer.
SPEAKER_00: But God shows us the promised land.
SPEAKER_00: The promised land is no more Roe v.
SPEAKER_00: Wade, no more Darwinism, and goodbye, Polis.
SPEAKER_00: See you later.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 24.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 24, it says, armed for war.
SPEAKER_01: Last three words of the verse, armed for war.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 28, Zadok, a young man, a valiant warrior.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 30, mighty men of valor.
SPEAKER_01: So listen, number two is you've got to be equipped for spiritual warfare, men and women.
SPEAKER_01: Now write this down.
SPEAKER_01: Don't miss this.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna read this to you.
SPEAKER_01: If you don't get equipped in peacetime, you'll never survive in wartime.
SPEAKER_01: If you don't get equipped in peacetime, you're never going to survive in wartime.
SPEAKER_01: Now that's true in a marriage, that's true in a family.
SPEAKER_01: It's also true in culture and society.
SPEAKER_01: So we're looking at in the fall doing some classes on spiritual warfare.
SPEAKER_01: A lot of us don't even know how demonized even our homes are because of what you were given even since birth by your family line.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's crazy, you know, that there's family lines.
SPEAKER_01: Scripture's really clear in the Old Testament, these family lines of seven generations from the sin of the past, God wants to break that off.
SPEAKER_01: You do not have to be addicted to that just because your dad and your grandfather were.
SPEAKER_01: But sometimes you need warfare prayer and warfare thinking.
SPEAKER_01: If you don't have warfare thinking, the enemy comes in and he steals and he kills and he destroys.
SPEAKER_01: That's what he does.
SPEAKER_01: So here I want to give you a few things, a few thoughts, it's really quick on the art.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna call it the art of lion-hearted warfare.
SPEAKER_01: The art of lion-hearted warfare.
SPEAKER_01: I want to give you five thoughts on this.
SPEAKER_01: Now, let me just say this.
SPEAKER_01: I'm talking about the art because it's not just a skill.
SPEAKER_01: A skill is based in knowledge and an art is built on wisdom.
SPEAKER_01: Let me explain the difference.
SPEAKER_01: The difference is that you could learn all these principles about spiritual warfare and the demonic, but if you don't know how to actually use it, then it does you no good.
SPEAKER_01: So then what happens is you go to one of these courses and you're learning about spiritual warfare and you begin to think there's a demon behind every bush, which by the way is better than the person who thinks there's a demon behind no bushes.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, but how do you how do you then frame that into a lifestyle where we've got an errant child, or we've got a marriage on the rocks, or we're going through bankruptcy.
SPEAKER_01: How do we, how do we develop that?
SPEAKER_01: So here's five thoughts on that.
SPEAKER_01: Number one is the word of God.
SPEAKER_01: First of all, it's the word of God.
SPEAKER_01: You've got to have the word of God guiding you and leading you, and it's interesting, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01: With Jesus, even when he resurrected you guys, it says on the road to Emmaus, and this is in Luke 24, they don't recognize Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: I don't get that.
SPEAKER_01: That's super weird to me.
SPEAKER_01: But they don't get it.
SPEAKER_01: Here's Jesus, they walked with him for three and a half years, but they don't recognize him.
SPEAKER_01: So I'm wondering if he was in an alternative state.
SPEAKER_01: We've wondered if he was in some kind of a state that looked different.
SPEAKER_01: We don't know yet.
SPEAKER_01: We'll know that when we get to heaven, but anyway, so he explains them.
SPEAKER_01: And then when he opens the scripture, they're listening, he's explaining things, but then when it's when they took, it was when they took communion, their eyes were open, remember, and then Jesus disappeared.
SPEAKER_01: But then it's the postscript that's key here.
SPEAKER_01: The postscript says, when when he was talking to us about the things from the scripture, did our hearts not burn?
SPEAKER_01: Remember that part?
SPEAKER_01: That's the theme of this sabbatical for Liz and I.
SPEAKER_01: We want to come out of this sabbatical with a more burning heart for Jesus than when we went in.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, that's what scripture can do if we ask for it.
SPEAKER_01: God, this morning as I open your word, may my heart burn for you as I read the scriptures.
SPEAKER_01: Now, will it always happen?
SPEAKER_01: No.
SPEAKER_01: You're not dependent on a feeling, but what you're doing is you're praying into existence something that you want in your heart.
SPEAKER_01: So number one is the word of God.
SPEAKER_01: The reason that's important is because I know people all the time that, you know, say that they're Bible-believing Christians, but they're living in sin.
SPEAKER_01: That's because they're not living by the word of God.
SPEAKER_01: So number one is the word.
SPEAKER_01: Number two is a battle in prayer, learning to battle in prayer.
SPEAKER_01: Now, here's my definition of prayer.
SPEAKER_01: And I gave this several weeks ago in the last message before the spatical, and that is this that prayer is believing God for his will on the earth.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, that's what prayer is.
SPEAKER_01: It's believing for and receiving God's will for your life.
SPEAKER_01: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_01: So prayer is not just worship.
SPEAKER_01: Worship's great.
SPEAKER_01: Prayer's not just meditation, that's great too.
SPEAKER_01: It's not just an intimate walk with God, that's all great.
SPEAKER_01: But prayer, according to Jesus, and I can take you out through all the scriptures, I went through it a few weeks ago, is really asking for something, believing God for something, and then getting it.
SPEAKER_01: And if you're not seeing your prayers answered, the problem's not with God.
SPEAKER_01: The problem's with you.
SPEAKER_01: And that's a whole, that's a whole nother issue about talking about how that works.
SPEAKER_01: But I know that's been true in my life.
SPEAKER_01: So you should be seeing, most of the time, you guys, at the road especially, because of the kind of church we are, you should be seeing your prayers answered.
SPEAKER_01: Because you already know how to pray because you're a person of the word.
SPEAKER_01: So if you know how to pray, then when you start to pray, and it's according to God's word, you're already knowing what God's will is.
SPEAKER_01: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_01: Then, for some reason, this is kind of strange to me, God holds up his will on the earth except to do it through you and I.
SPEAKER_01: Isn't that crazy?
SPEAKER_01: Because he gets glory for that.
SPEAKER_01: Then thirdly, worship.
SPEAKER_01: Now let me give you my definition of worship.
SPEAKER_01: Worship is exalting God through obedience.
SPEAKER_01: It's not singing songs primarily.
SPEAKER_01: Singing songs is great, and it's and that's exalting God through your words through singing.
SPEAKER_01: But at the at the base level, worship is exalting God through obedience at your job.
SPEAKER_01: So listen, you can say, I got a spirit-filled company, but then you trash all the people that you work with at your company, then you don't know you don't know anything about worship.
SPEAKER_01: Or you say you're you know a spirit-filled Christian and you cheat on your taxes, and you don't know anything about worship.
SPEAKER_01: And everybody's raise your hand if you've ever no, I'm not gonna ask that.
SPEAKER_01: And we all we all make those mistakes, but that's what worship is, so we grow in that.
SPEAKER_01: Fourthly, blood-stained allies.
SPEAKER_01: We do this together.
SPEAKER_01: We have to do this together.
SPEAKER_01: This this whole 1 Chronicles 11 and 12 is men and families coming together, working together.
SPEAKER_01: The book of Acts is about the church working together.
SPEAKER_01: And then fifthly, and this might surprise you, but the fifth point would be battling in the civic arena of culture.
SPEAKER_01: Now, this is really important.
SPEAKER_01: So bad men control areas of our culture because good men do nothing.
SPEAKER_01: Bad people make bad laws.
SPEAKER_01: Bad laws affect good people.
SPEAKER_01: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_01: There's bad professors out there in our university.
SPEAKER_01: Because there's bad administrators of the universities, there's bad presidents of universities that only care about themselves and to propagandize a Marxist theology.
SPEAKER_01: But what we have here, just take this room and take this church, maybe 1,500 or whatever we are, here on a weekend, sometimes, you know, you start getting an activated group of people who care about those things.
SPEAKER_01: We can change this city.
SPEAKER_01: We can change the culture of our county, we can change the state.
SPEAKER_01: Because people are just looking for bravery.
SPEAKER_01: People are just looking for courage, people who will stand up.
SPEAKER_01: We've had two meetings with administrators of the school where our child goes to challenge Darwinism.
SPEAKER_01: And we're probably not the most popular couple at this school.
SPEAKER_01: Three words for that.
SPEAKER_01: I don't care.
SPEAKER_01: And so when you start, if you see anything in your neighborhood, if you see anything in your school, if you see anything at the supermarket that you know is wrong, stand up.
SPEAKER_01: Be bold.
SPEAKER_01: That's a lion-hearted man, that's a lion-hearted woman.
SPEAKER_01: You see some bad guys hanging around the park where your kids play, do something about it.
SPEAKER_01: Don't scurry back to your house and just we worship God and sing kumbaya, and the devil's just ripping through your neighborhood.
SPEAKER_01: No, we fight.
SPEAKER_01: We build great cities because we're a great people, because we have a great church, and because we're not gonna let the devil win.
SPEAKER_01: And so be equipped for warfare.
SPEAKER_01: And that leads into number three be mighty men and women of valor.
SPEAKER_01: Be mighty men and women of valor.
SPEAKER_01: 28, Zadok, valiant warrior.
SPEAKER_01: 30, mighty men of valor.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 33.
SPEAKER_01: Went out to battle, experts in war and all weapons of war.
SPEAKER_01: Stout-hearted men.
SPEAKER_01: That's where the word lion-hearted comes from.
SPEAKER_01: It's the same, it's the same meaning of being lion-hearted.
SPEAKER_01: It means stout-hearted.
SPEAKER_01: It means steady.
SPEAKER_01: Steady at the controls.
SPEAKER_01: Don't you want a stout-hearted or a lion-hearted pilot in your plane?
SPEAKER_01: That means they're steady.
SPEAKER_01: That means they know what they're doing.
SPEAKER_01: They're flying the plane.
SPEAKER_01: They're steady.
SPEAKER_01: They strain to victory.
SPEAKER_01: It's the same word in uh in Psalm 144, 14 for an oxen.
SPEAKER_01: That's what lionheart is.
SPEAKER_01: It's an oxen.
SPEAKER_01: They don't quit, they just keep pressing in.
SPEAKER_00: I was gonna say when we met with one administrator about macroevolution and how it was being presented, uh, we talked to them, and then we went up higher, and there was a little blockade for a while that wouldn't let us have an appointment with that next level.
SPEAKER_00: And so we just kept praying, we kept pushing.
SPEAKER_00: And they said, Well, you can go meet with this person, which was actually not anyone who could make any changes, really.
SPEAKER_00: So we were supposed to just follow that, and then we didn't.
SPEAKER_00: We just kept pushing, we kept knocking, and finally we got an email from that office that was kind of blockading us saying, I'm so sorry we didn't give you an appointment.
SPEAKER_00: That happened through prayer, and some of you in here prayed for us, and so we just keep pushing, and that's what I wanted to say about just persevere.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: And then lastly, look at verse 33.
SPEAKER_01: It says they keep ranks.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I thought about that, like keep ranks.
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 38.
SPEAKER_01: All these men of war who could keep ranks.
SPEAKER_01: What does it mean?
SPEAKER_01: Keep ranks.
SPEAKER_01: It means unity, you guys.
SPEAKER_01: It means being submitted to the Lord and submitted to leadership.
SPEAKER_01: You know, you look at the book of Acts and you see a church that was unified under the apostles' teaching.
SPEAKER_01: They keep ranks.
SPEAKER_01: And I think that's the struggle, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, as I was having these conversations, you know, at these weddings and hearing about the division in churches because of COVID and all that, and I'm like, man, wake up and smell the coffee.
SPEAKER_01: God needs a united church.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, give people options.
SPEAKER_01: Who cares?
SPEAKER_01: You can watch it online, you can watch it live, it doesn't matter, but the point is, men and women, we've got to be united.
SPEAKER_01: And so it was 14 churches that came together when we brought in Sean Foyt down there at Memorial Park.
SPEAKER_01: 6,000 people came out.
SPEAKER_01: It was 25 churches and 25 pastors.
SPEAKER_01: We were united on the National Day of Prayer in this room.
SPEAKER_01: Many of you were in here, it was packed out.
SPEAKER_01: Andrew Walmack said, best prayer meeting he's ever been to in Colorado in 40 years.
SPEAKER_01: We were fired up.
SPEAKER_01: We need that gang.
SPEAKER_01: We need to be united.
SPEAKER_01: And that's what I believe being lionhearted is all about.
SPEAKER_01: And so from Branson in the south to Wellington in the north, to Grand Junction in the west, and Burlington on the eastern border.
SPEAKER_01: May God make Colorado red with the blood of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: We need revival, we need revolution, we need a move of the Spirit, and you guys have what it takes in this church to do.
SPEAKER_01: Hey, thanks for listening to the Road Podcast.
SPEAKER_01: It's been my joy to be a part of your life today.
SPEAKER_01: And you know, that's part of what we do here at The Road, and this is what I do in having this Road Podcast is to empower people to change their world.
SPEAKER_01: My passion and desire is that you would take God's word through the power of the Holy Spirit and make that relevant for your life.
SPEAKER_01: You know, the reality is that God has placed your life here on this earth to make a difference.
SPEAKER_01: And if you'd like more information about how to grow in Christ, if you need prayer, if you want more equipping in different areas of your life, go to the road.org.
SPEAKER_01: God bless you.