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: Hey, this morning I want to talk about being a bold and confident church.
SPEAKER_01: This is my last message for the summer.
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to take uh Vision Sabbatical uh for the next two months.
SPEAKER_01: And um I just I just have to be honest with you guys and say that um the last year has been probably the most fun year of my career.
SPEAKER_01: I've been in ministry for over 40 years, and I just loved COVID.
SPEAKER_01: I thought COVID was a gift from God.
SPEAKER_01: Now, I don't mean that from the perspective of the deaths that were inflicted on people, not at all.
SPEAKER_01: Of course not.
SPEAKER_01: We're compassionate for that.
SPEAKER_01: But what I mean is that sometimes in our lives, you guys, God takes you through things that are very, very hard to reveal who you really are.
SPEAKER_01: And I think COVID has revealed a lot about churches in America.
SPEAKER_01: COVID has revealed a lot about politicians in America.
SPEAKER_01: COVID has been used by God to unite and divide.
SPEAKER_01: Not all division is bad.
SPEAKER_01: Not all unity is good.
SPEAKER_01: But when it's kingdom unity built on the word of God through the Spirit of God by our heavenly Father, it's always good.
SPEAKER_01: God moves the church forward through difficult times, and that's what He's doing.
SPEAKER_01: And so when I look at the New Testament church in the book of Acts, I see a bold and a confident church.
SPEAKER_01: And God wants us to be a bold and confident church.
SPEAKER_01: Every one of you are the church, but I'm talking about the local church in a local place making a local impact.
SPEAKER_01: But what's happened in the church is that we now have two kinds of churches.
SPEAKER_01: We have the awoke church and we have the awakened church.
SPEAKER_01: The awoke church tends to fear man and flow with the culture, and the awakened church fears God and works against the culture.
SPEAKER_01: Now, let me say this.
SPEAKER_01: You've heard me say this many times, word-rooted, spirit alive, culturally engaged.
SPEAKER_01: What I mean by that is that we don't run from the culture.
SPEAKER_01: Not everything in the culture is bad, not at all.
SPEAKER_01: But when I look at the book of Acts, when I look at the church, I see a church that's influencing culture and then changing it.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, not just influencing to get along, but influencing it that the kingdom would be enhanced within the culture.
SPEAKER_01: And it's hard work.
SPEAKER_01: Really hard work.
SPEAKER_01: It's easier, believe me as a pastor, it's easier just to float along.
SPEAKER_01: It's easier just to go along, you know, and just kind of flow it there.
SPEAKER_01: Everybody likes you.
SPEAKER_01: And I've been in the news a lot this year because of the stands we took from Sean Foyt to other things that we've done, and I never listen anymore to whatever they report on.
SPEAKER_01: So I get interviewed, I don't want to see the news.
SPEAKER_01: Because it always gets spinned in some weird way.
SPEAKER_01: Like, like, can you imagine you got 6,000 people at Memorial Park, hundreds getting baptized?
SPEAKER_01: All the reporters are there.
SPEAKER_01: I know, because they all in front of me interviewing me afterwards.
SPEAKER_01: They were all there.
SPEAKER_01: And all they want to say is this COVID spreader.
SPEAKER_01: Super spreader.
SPEAKER_01: And I said, I looked at all of them and I said, Man, you guys really miss it.
SPEAKER_01: You're so missing it.
SPEAKER_01: You're not reporting the news, you're spinning it.
SPEAKER_01: Don't you see that?
SPEAKER_01: Look at the lives that are being changed.
SPEAKER_01: 6,000 people.
SPEAKER_01: And I said to one of them, I said, I'll predict that one of you guys will write tomorrow, 500 people were here.
SPEAKER_01: And that's exactly what they did.
SPEAKER_01: Somebody took me up on it.
SPEAKER_01: And I think they said a thousand, but you guys hear what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_01: So if you need press clippings, if you need people to applaud you and just say, oh, you're so awesome, you know, you're the best, then you're never gonna get anything done.
SPEAKER_01: But if you begin to push forward through the fear of God and the love of God, it's exciting.
SPEAKER_01: That's when it gets fun.
SPEAKER_01: It's because the German church was asleep that Hitler took over.
SPEAKER_01: It's when the Russian Orthodox Church was asleep that Lenin took over.
SPEAKER_01: You think it can't happen in this country?
SPEAKER_01: Are you kidding me?
SPEAKER_01: We're on the verge of a cultural revolution.
SPEAKER_01: You won't even recognize America in the next five years if we don't hold the line.
SPEAKER_01: Gotta hold the line.
SPEAKER_01: You say, Well, I don't want to get involved politically.
SPEAKER_01: You're already involved politically.
SPEAKER_01: Did you drive here?
SPEAKER_01: Did you stop at a stop sign?
SPEAKER_01: Did you stay on the right-hand side of the road?
SPEAKER_01: You're already political.
SPEAKER_01: Everything is political.
SPEAKER_01: Everything is.
SPEAKER_01: Every cent you pay to taxes is political.
SPEAKER_01: By who decided those laws that made you pay those taxes.
SPEAKER_01: So why not flow with our founding fathers who believed that you're that we can vote people in, that we can be involved and we can make a difference.
SPEAKER_01: And what's happened to all of us, including myself, is we've been lulled into complacency because it's kind of been good.
SPEAKER_01: Well, it's not gonna get better, folks, unless we battle back and are involved in these things.
SPEAKER_01: But it begins with a relationship with God and the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_01: J.B.
SPEAKER_01: Phillips describes well the difference between present-day Christianity and the New Testament church in his preface to the letters to young churches.
SPEAKER_01: And what this was, this was a book, I believe it was written in the 60s, 50s or 60s, that I've loved.
SPEAKER_01: And it's basically in modern English, looking at the epistles.
SPEAKER_01: So the epistles are the letters of the New Testament.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what he says: one of my favorite quotes of all time.
SPEAKER_01: The great difference between present-day Christianity and that of which we read in these letters is that to us, it is primarily a performance.
SPEAKER_01: To them, it was a real experience.
SPEAKER_01: We're apt to reduce the Christian religion to a code or at least a rule of heart and life.
SPEAKER_01: To these men, it is quite plainly the invasion of their lives by a new quality of life altogether.
SPEAKER_01: Mere moral reformation will hardly explain the transformation and the exuberant vitality of these men and women's lives.
SPEAKER_01: Even if we could prove a motive for such reformation, and certainly the world around offered little encouragement to the early Christians, were practically driven to accept their own explanation, which is that their little human lives had, through Jesus Christ, been linked up to the very life of God.
SPEAKER_01: These early Christians were on fire with the conviction that they had become, through Christ, literally sons and daughters of God.
SPEAKER_01: They were pioneers of a new humanity, founders of a new kingdom.
SPEAKER_01: They still speak to us through the centuries.
SPEAKER_01: Perhaps if we believed what they believed, we might achieve what they achieved.
SPEAKER_01: And so we see this hodgepodge of cowardly men and women in an upper room, scared to death of the Romans, scared to death of the Jews.
SPEAKER_01: Guess what they do?
SPEAKER_01: Acts 1 covers it, they vote.
SPEAKER_01: They start voting over who's on the team.
SPEAKER_01: That's what we do.
SPEAKER_01: That's what we men do in our churches when we have no power is we vote on things.
SPEAKER_01: That's what you do in churches that have no power.
SPEAKER_01: They have tons of committees.
SPEAKER_01: There's a committee for this, there's a committee for that.
SPEAKER_01: And we're always having committees, and you always want to be like the director of something, you know, right?
SPEAKER_01: But then in Acts 2, the Holy Spirit falls, and who cares about Acts 1 now?
SPEAKER_01: They're not cowardly anymore, they're not scared anymore.
SPEAKER_01: They're fired up because they're filled with the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: And by Acts 17, 6, the Thessalonians, it is said, these men who have upset the world have come here also.
SPEAKER_01: Men and women, that we might turn El Paso County right side up, that we might turn Colorado Springs right side up.
SPEAKER_01: May we be used of God to bring a revival all over the state of Colorado and up through the Rockies, all the way into Canada by the power of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: That's why we're here.
SPEAKER_01: So turn in your Bibles.
SPEAKER_01: This will be my last message for the summer from our study of Ephesians, and we'll pick up chapter four in two months.
SPEAKER_01: We'll come back to it.
SPEAKER_01: All the our pastors will be teaching.
SPEAKER_01: There'll be guest speakers while I'm gone.
SPEAKER_01: It's gonna be a great summer for you guys.
SPEAKER_01: But it's gonna be a summer for my wife and I to really pray about the next 10 years.
SPEAKER_01: I feel like I'm on the home stretch.
SPEAKER_01: You know?
SPEAKER_01: Like they talk about getting that kick at the end when you're in a marathon.
SPEAKER_01: Get that kick.
SPEAKER_01: I want that kick.
SPEAKER_01: You know, as we come into this last good, powerful 10 years that God has for the road and for me, and then I'll be handing it over to somebody else.
SPEAKER_01: But, you know, this is a time to focus.
SPEAKER_01: It's not time for shotgun, it's time for a rifle shot.
SPEAKER_01: It's like getting the bullseye.
SPEAKER_01: What are you calling us to do?
SPEAKER_01: County, city, state, rocky mountains.
SPEAKER_01: And so I feel like I need to pull away for a while and fly fish.
SPEAKER_01: I get as much revelation fly fishing as I do in the shower.
SPEAKER_01: So when to be able to rest and pull away, that's what we'll be doing.
SPEAKER_01: But I think this is, I mean, I didn't even plan it this way, but I felt like we should pick it up at verse 10.
SPEAKER_01: When I was praying about today's message, we're going verse by verse through Ephesians.
SPEAKER_01: I wanted to go back a couple verses from last week to verse 10.
SPEAKER_01: Let me read this.
SPEAKER_01: This is the verse that God used in my life.
SPEAKER_01: When would that be?
SPEAKER_01: That would be 1991.
SPEAKER_01: So in 1991, over in Japan, ministering in Japan, loving the Japanese, still love the Japanese people, love Japan.
SPEAKER_01: I could live there for the rest of my life.
SPEAKER_01: I could retire there.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's just such a I just love Japan.
SPEAKER_01: Even though it's only 1% or less Christian, the people are beautiful people.
SPEAKER_01: I love the people of Japan.
SPEAKER_01: And God used verse 10 of Ephesians chapter 3 to change my direction from being involved in a parachurch organization like Campus Crusade to seeing, you know where it's at?
SPEAKER_01: That the action is in the local church.
SPEAKER_01: The action is planting solid Bible, spirit, empowered, kingdom of God, revolutionary churches.
SPEAKER_01: That's the answer.
SPEAKER_01: Look at this verse, it's like amazing.
SPEAKER_01: To the intent that now the manifold wisdom of God might be made known by the government.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, no, no, I didn't say that.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, by the parachurch organization, by the church, the local church, to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places, according to the eternal purpose which he has accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord.
SPEAKER_01: So verse 10 says, to the intent.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 11 says, according to the eternal purpose, that's the point.
SPEAKER_01: Folks, that's the point of Calvary.
SPEAKER_01: Calvary is not just saving us from our sins, it's igniting and empowering us to change the world through the local church.
SPEAKER_01: So if someone you know, obviously you're here, you that are watching online, if you have someone in your life who says, I'm a Christian, I believe me, but they hardly ever come to church, I doubt they're even a believer.
SPEAKER_01: You cannot disassociate being involved in a local church and being a committed Christian anywhere in the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: That's an American, that's a new kind of 20th and 21st century kind of new thing where I just worship God when I'm out camping, where I worship God when I'm out fishing.
SPEAKER_01: And all that is, is a selfish way to say, I'm gonna do it my way.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna make the church my way.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is the one who created the church.
SPEAKER_01: And so I believe he wants us to be a bold and confident church.
SPEAKER_01: I believe he wants all of you in this room to be a bold and confident church.
SPEAKER_01: He wants you to be excited, humble, a beautiful person, but you're also bold and confident in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: So here's my first point.
SPEAKER_01: Here's my first point this morning.
SPEAKER_01: Number one, write this down.
SPEAKER_01: By the way, you have 80% retention if you write things down.
SPEAKER_01: So I know who's serious in here when they write stuff down.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, there you go.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, number one, the bold and confident church is making known the manifold wisdom of God to principalities and powers.
SPEAKER_01: Now that is crazy.
SPEAKER_01: Guys, that's crazy.
SPEAKER_01: God's saying that when we prayed just now together, that there were demonic powers out there that were pushed back by our prayers.
SPEAKER_01: And that when you, and we'll I'm gonna cover this in my second point, but I'll just say this real quick.
SPEAKER_01: That when you pray about stuff, it moves powers.
SPEAKER_01: There are demonic powers trying to take over your home.
SPEAKER_01: There are demonic powers trying to take over your marriage.
SPEAKER_01: There's demonic powers that want to take over your life.
SPEAKER_01: There's demonic powers over our educational system, there's demonic powers over government, there's demonic powers over your company.
SPEAKER_01: But when you become a believer and you really start to become a Christian, you are proclaiming by your life and your prayers the manifold wisdom of God to principality's powers.
SPEAKER_01: I can't make this up.
SPEAKER_01: This is in the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: Hello?
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: That's why what Liz said was so apt that when you begin to pray just 12 minutes a day, it changes you.
SPEAKER_01: It actually restructures your brain.
SPEAKER_01: And it's because of Darwinism.
SPEAKER_01: Not just that, but part of it is that the whole like the whole concept of evolution, it's going to come down.
SPEAKER_01: It will.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you believe in it.
SPEAKER_01: Fine.
SPEAKER_01: You just don't, you just need to understand that God's on the move, even in the science community.
SPEAKER_01: Look up the Hoover Institute at Stanford University, 2020 broadcast, YouTube, the mathematical problem with Darwin's theory of evolution, talking that from a mathematical perspective.
SPEAKER_01: It's coming from every angle.
SPEAKER_01: It's coming down.
SPEAKER_01: Because kids grow up now, and the way they're educated is, you know, you're just you came from some monkey or you came from some fin of a whale or whatever, and there's no evidence to support it.
SPEAKER_01: Again, big believer in microevolution, everybody knows that.
SPEAKER_01: Everybody believes that.
SPEAKER_01: You know, that species can change based on their environment.
SPEAKER_01: There's white leopards in parts of Antarctica, and there's greener to yellowish leopards that are in the foliage of the Amazon.
SPEAKER_01: We all know that.
SPEAKER_01: But then to extrapolate that a leopard becomes a human or that an ape becomes a human, there's no evidence.
SPEAKER_01: Zero.
SPEAKER_01: And yet we're teaching it like it's fact.
SPEAKER_01: Because it goes unchallenged.
SPEAKER_01: So when the church comes alive through the revival power of God, it's the manifold wisdom.
SPEAKER_01: You know what manifold means?
SPEAKER_01: It means varied colors.
SPEAKER_01: That's what it means in Greek.
SPEAKER_01: Varied color.
SPEAKER_01: You know what that says to me?
SPEAKER_01: That says that denominations are beautiful.
SPEAKER_01: Church denominations are good.
SPEAKER_01: So whether you got an Eastern Orthodox church and you're into the bells and the smells, that's great.
SPEAKER_01: No, seriously, it is.
SPEAKER_01: You know, if you like liturgies in the Presbyterian church, beautiful, manifold, many-colored wisdom.
SPEAKER_01: You come here because of what we offer, because God's called you to be here.
SPEAKER_01: Be here, be all here.
SPEAKER_01: You know, if you're if you're in a church, I'm talking about Bible-believing, spirit-filled, culturally engaged churches.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not talking about dead churches.
SPEAKER_01: I just got a text right before I got up.
SPEAKER_01: In the first service, someone sent me that there was an article in one of the periodicals that just came out that said 3,800 churches closed last year in the United States, and only 2,000 new churches were started.
SPEAKER_01: And it was like, oh no, where's you know, we're falling off, you know, in Christianity in America and all this.
SPEAKER_01: And I was like, no, I rejoice in that.
SPEAKER_01: That's 38 churches we didn't need.
SPEAKER_01: Because I believe Matthew 16, 18.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus said, I will build my church and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
SPEAKER_01: So if Jesus isn't building it, then the hell, the gates of hell are prevailing against it.
SPEAKER_01: We don't need it anyway.
SPEAKER_01: So what we need is churches that Jesus built.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: He's the CEO, he's the senior pastor of this church.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not.
SPEAKER_01: I'm just under I'm an undersecretary to him.
SPEAKER_01: He's the one running this place.
SPEAKER_01: And then I'm confident that whether Governor Polis likes me or not, I really don't care.
SPEAKER_01: Because the gates of hell are not going to prevail against it.
SPEAKER_01: So that's what it says.
SPEAKER_01: He says here, my church is proclaiming the manifold wisdom of God, even to demonic powers and principalities in the heavenly realm.
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 12.
SPEAKER_01: In whom we have boldness and access with confidence.
SPEAKER_01: That's where the title came.
SPEAKER_01: This is God speaking to us.
SPEAKER_01: You should have boldness and confidence.
SPEAKER_01: Through faith in him.
SPEAKER_01: So your faith in Christ should make you a bold and confident Christian.
SPEAKER_01: Not like afraid to talk about your faith and stuff.
SPEAKER_00: Like, well.
SPEAKER_00: I believe in God.
SPEAKER_00: And I know you don't, but you should, maybe, kinda.
SPEAKER_01: God wants to fill you with His Holy Spirit and make you confident.
SPEAKER_01: He said, I believe in God.
SPEAKER_01: You don't?
SPEAKER_01: You should.
SPEAKER_01: It's a good deal.
SPEAKER_01: You're healthier.
SPEAKER_01: All the statistics, all the science shows.
SPEAKER_01: The healthiest people are in spirit-filled churches.
SPEAKER_01: They just are.
SPEAKER_01: Guys, we've been open for over a year.
SPEAKER_01: Against polis.
SPEAKER_01: 10,000 people or more have come through here.
SPEAKER_01: No one has died.
SPEAKER_01: Zero, none.
SPEAKER_01: That is unprecedented.
SPEAKER_01: You know why?
SPEAKER_01: Two things.
SPEAKER_01: One, the protection of the Lord is over us.
SPEAKER_01: But number two, you guys are joyful.
SPEAKER_01: And when you get people who are in connection with each other and they're interacting with each other and they're loving each other, you're healthier.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not real smart.
SPEAKER_01: I'm from Georgia.
SPEAKER_01: I figured that out.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: When you have connection with people and you love people and your relationship with people, you're a happier person and you're healthier.
SPEAKER_01: So when we get sick around here, we get help to them.
SPEAKER_01: We get them vitamins.
SPEAKER_01: We say, look, your body can heal itself.
SPEAKER_01: We're going to help you grow.
SPEAKER_01: And that's why one of the things I'm excited about in the fall is starting a whole, a whole kingdom ministry of health that we're talking about mentally, emotionally, spiritually, physically.
SPEAKER_01: Help people to get.
SPEAKER_01: I want to be the healthiest church in the United States.
SPEAKER_01: I want to be a church where millionaires are coming out of this place because they learned how to be an entrepreneur here.
SPEAKER_01: They learned how to start a business.
SPEAKER_01: They were bold and confident in Christ, and then they went out and just lit the world on fire.
SPEAKER_01: That's what we need.
SPEAKER_01: Because if you don't, then the devil wins, and that's a travesty.
SPEAKER_01: So we have boldness and confidence, verse 12, through faith in him.
SPEAKER_01: So that's how the boldness and confidence is not arrogance, it's through faith in him.
SPEAKER_01: It's humility, actually.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore I ask that you do not lose heart in my tribulations for you, which is your glory.
SPEAKER_01: Now look at verse 12 and 13 together.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what's interesting that on the one is that we have boldness and access with confidence through faith in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: But then he says, don't lose heart.
SPEAKER_01: Because here's what happens in all of our lives.
SPEAKER_01: We do lose heart, right?
SPEAKER_01: We struggle.
SPEAKER_01: We get discouraged.
SPEAKER_01: We despair.
SPEAKER_01: Everybody gets discouraged.
SPEAKER_01: And if you don't have the local church, other people, blood-state allies to hang out with, you go to some bad places.
SPEAKER_01: You go to some dark places, right?
SPEAKER_01: You do.
SPEAKER_01: And you need people, you need others to say, no, don't do that.
SPEAKER_01: That's not who you are.
SPEAKER_01: You're bigger than that.
SPEAKER_01: So look, here's number two.
SPEAKER_01: Here's number two.
SPEAKER_01: A bold and confident church has access to Christ through prayer.
SPEAKER_01: This is about prayer.
SPEAKER_01: Boldness and access with confidence through faith in Him.
SPEAKER_01: He's talking about prayer.
SPEAKER_01: He's talking about asking God for stuff.
SPEAKER_01: Let me give you my definition of prayer: asking for and receiving God's will on the earth.
SPEAKER_01: That's what prayer is.
SPEAKER_01: Prayer is asking for or crying out for, as Liz said earlier, and then receiving God's will on the earth, in your family, with your kids, in our schools.
SPEAKER_01: Now, prayer, where all we do is worship, is worship.
SPEAKER_01: It's not prayer.
SPEAKER_01: It's worship.
SPEAKER_01: It's beautiful.
SPEAKER_01: We should worship.
SPEAKER_01: Having a devotional life in the morning where you're got your earphones on and you're listening to music and you're and you're there with God, that's a devotional life.
SPEAKER_01: But when you start to ask for stuff that you need, that's what Jesus described as prayer.
SPEAKER_01: So turn in your Bibles, keep your finger in Ephesians 3, but turn to the left to Matthew 6.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus defines prayer in Matthew 6.
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 5.
SPEAKER_01: And when you pray, you should not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray, standing in the synagogues and on the corners of the streets, that they may be seen by men.
SPEAKER_01: Assuredly I say to you, they have their rewards.
SPEAKER_01: So he's saying, Don't pray to be seen.
SPEAKER_01: That's what he's saying.
SPEAKER_01: Don't make a spectacle of prayer.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 6.
SPEAKER_01: But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you shut your door, pray to your father who is in a secret place.
SPEAKER_01: So prayer, by and large, men and women, is a secret place that we go to.
SPEAKER_01: We have corporate prayer at times in this church, the semi-regular basis, but real prayer happens in your own personal room there alone with him.
SPEAKER_01: And your father, who sees you in secret, will reward you openly.
SPEAKER_01: That means, first of all, prayer is asking for something because you're asking and you get a reward.
SPEAKER_01: He wants to reward you.
SPEAKER_01: Then he goes into more detail.
SPEAKER_01: He says this, verse 7.
SPEAKER_01: When you pray, do not use vain repetitions as the heathen do, for they think that they'll be heard for their many words.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore, do not be like them, for your father knows the things that you have what?
SPEAKER_01: Need of before you what?
SPEAKER_01: Ask him.
SPEAKER_01: Asking and receiving needs in your life.
SPEAKER_01: Then he gave us a model prayer.
SPEAKER_01: And if you read it, I'm going to say it now.
SPEAKER_01: The Lord's prayer that many of us learn in our catechism or our confirmation classes, it's all about asking.
SPEAKER_01: Every one of the points in there is asking God, our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
SPEAKER_01: That's worship.
SPEAKER_01: Then he says, Thy kingdom come, thy will be done.
SPEAKER_01: You're asking on earth as it is in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: Give us this day our daily bread.
SPEAKER_01: Forgive us not our trespasses, we forgive those who trespass against us.
SPEAKER_01: Lead us not in temptation, but deliver us from evil.
SPEAKER_01: For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: That's all asking, asking, asking, asking, asking.
SPEAKER_01: Well, it doesn't stop there.
SPEAKER_01: Now look at this illustration.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna put it up on the screen, Luke 18.
SPEAKER_01: Now, this is a parable from Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: He says, then he spoke a parable to them that men always ought to pray and not lose heart.
SPEAKER_01: So the point of the parable of Luke 18 is about prayer and not losing heart, saying, verse 2, there was in a certain city a judge who did not fear God nor regard man.
SPEAKER_01: Now there was a widow in that city, and she came to him saying, Get justice for me from my adversary.
SPEAKER_01: And he would not for a while, but afterward he said within himself, Though I do not fear God nor regard man, yet because this widow troubles me, some translations say pesters me, I will avenge her, lest by her continually pestering me she wear me out.
SPEAKER_01: Then the Lord said, Hear what the unjust judge said.
SPEAKER_01: And now Jesus says, And shall God not avenge his own elect who cry out day and night to him, though he bears long with them, I tell you that he will avenge them speedily.
SPEAKER_01: Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he really find faith on the earth?
SPEAKER_01: So here's what he's saying.
SPEAKER_01: He's saying, look, it's hyperbole.
SPEAKER_01: He's talking about, he's given an extreme example that like there's this judge who doesn't even fear God, yet because his widow just bothers him and bothers him and bothers him, he finally gives her what she wants.
SPEAKER_01: He said, Aren't I more loving than that?
SPEAKER_01: Aren't I more generous than that?
SPEAKER_01: Won't God meet you?
SPEAKER_01: If you cry out for an answer, you cry out for God to move in a mighty way.
SPEAKER_01: He will.
SPEAKER_01: We're at something like 250 days straight of noonday war room prayer in this facility, praying, crying out to God.
SPEAKER_01: And so prayer, you guys, is about not letting the enemy win.
SPEAKER_01: You need a job, cry out to God for a job.
SPEAKER_01: You need a better job, cry out to God for a better job.
SPEAKER_01: Need God to move in your marriage, then pray for God to move in your marriage.
SPEAKER_01: Getting persecuted at work, ask God to show you what to do.
SPEAKER_01: You need wisdom.
SPEAKER_01: But he he ends with saying, Will I find faith on the earth?
SPEAKER_01: That's how he ends that parable.
SPEAKER_01: It's like, do you have faith?
SPEAKER_01: Church, do you have faith in me?
SPEAKER_01: You should be walking in miracles every day.
SPEAKER_01: You should see miracles happening.
SPEAKER_01: It's only our lack of faith, and I'm looking at myself in the mirror too, that we don't see more happen.
SPEAKER_01: But may we be known in the years to come as a miracle center.
SPEAKER_01: As a place where people come and they're unemployed and they get a job and then they become successful.
SPEAKER_01: That we'd be a place where people's needs are met.
SPEAKER_01: Where we who have more help out those who have less.
SPEAKER_01: We care for the poor.
SPEAKER_01: We're known as uniting church.
SPEAKER_01: We don't speak against other churches.
SPEAKER_01: We unite churches.
SPEAKER_01: We'd be a church of prayer that believes in this stuff.
SPEAKER_01: We don't just talk about it, but we believe it.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 14 now, back to Ephesians 3, verse 14.
SPEAKER_01: And for this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, for whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, that he would grant you, according to the riches of his glory, to be strengthened, and this is the operable phrase, with might through his what?
SPEAKER_01: Say it louder.
SPEAKER_01: Say it again?
SPEAKER_01: Through his Holy Spirit in the inner man.
SPEAKER_01: Number three, a bold and confident church is strengthened by the power of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: So when you read Acts chapter 1, this this cowardly group of disciples up in an upper room, hiding out from the Jews, hiding out from the Romans, what do they do?
SPEAKER_01: They vote.
SPEAKER_01: That's what churches do when they don't have anything going on.
SPEAKER_01: They vote on things.
SPEAKER_01: They have committees.
SPEAKER_01: How many have been in a church where there's about a million committees?
SPEAKER_01: All right.
SPEAKER_01: But in Acts chapter 2, the Holy Spirit falls.
SPEAKER_01: There's no more committees.
SPEAKER_01: There's no more voting anywhere else in all of the book of Acts because they're so busy with the mission of Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: So some of you in this room have never been filled with the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: You've never been baptized in power.
SPEAKER_01: And the way you know it is that if you walk in fear a lot, you got a lot of fears, you need to get filled with the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: And it's not a one-time thing.
SPEAKER_01: It's not get zapped by God one day.
SPEAKER_01: It's actually the word being filled with the Spirit in Ephesians, which we'll talk about Ephesians later on, Ephesians 5.18, is continual action.
SPEAKER_01: So you could have had a credible experience five years ago.
SPEAKER_01: Holy Spirit came upon you, boom, and whoa, it was awesome.
SPEAKER_01: And since then, you've been embezzling money at your company.
SPEAKER_01: But then you say, Well, I'm spirit-filled, because I remember five years ago, nah, nah, nah.
SPEAKER_01: But here's the deal spirit-filled is not a title, it's a lifestyle.
SPEAKER_01: Really, really important.
SPEAKER_01: Because people come in here sometimes and say, Are you a spirit-filled church?
SPEAKER_01: And I said, Well, what day are you talking about?
SPEAKER_01: They said, What?
SPEAKER_01: And I said, We were pretty spirit-filled on Monday, but you should have seen us on Tuesday.
SPEAKER_01: Because it's a function of who's on the throne of your heart.
SPEAKER_01: If Christ is on the throne, you're walking in the power of the Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: If you're on the throne, you're not.
SPEAKER_01: I don't care what church you go to, what allegiances you have, or who you voted for.
SPEAKER_01: It's who's in who are you surrendered to.
SPEAKER_01: Let's surrender to Christ in fresh new ways.
SPEAKER_01: It's the power of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: That Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.
SPEAKER_01: That you being rooted and grounded in love, underline that.
SPEAKER_01: That's a beautiful, beautiful phrase.
SPEAKER_01: That you being rooted and grounded in love.
SPEAKER_01: May be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height.
SPEAKER_01: To know the love of Christ, which surpasses knowledge.
SPEAKER_01: That you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
SPEAKER_01: That him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us.
SPEAKER_01: Number four.
SPEAKER_01: The bold and confident church is rooted and grounded in love.
SPEAKER_01: Oh church.
SPEAKER_01: That we would be known as the most loving church possible.
SPEAKER_01: That we love all people.
SPEAKER_01: We don't care about the color of their skin or their socioeconomic background.
SPEAKER_01: We love them.
SPEAKER_01: Because Christ does.
SPEAKER_01: He died for everybody on the face of the earth.
SPEAKER_01: We're one blood.
SPEAKER_01: All from Adam.
SPEAKER_01: We're one blood.
SPEAKER_01: If we could just take mainstream media and Facebook and say, you cannot say anything for one ear.
SPEAKER_01: We'd be the most united country in the world.
SPEAKER_01: You guys understand what's going on?
SPEAKER_01: It's satanic.
SPEAKER_01: They want to divide us.
SPEAKER_01: They want to make us hate each other.
SPEAKER_01: In the name of unifying us.
SPEAKER_01: Only Christ can be true to unity.
SPEAKER_01: That's why the answer is in the church through Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: It's Christ working in the church.
SPEAKER_01: We're so divided.
SPEAKER_01: That's why I'm for everybody.
SPEAKER_01: God will take care of the mixture and all the stuff.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, well, you associate with this pastor.
SPEAKER_01: Well, he's this.
SPEAKER_01: I go, wait, wait, wait, hold on a second.
SPEAKER_01: Are you saying that he doesn't love Jesus with all of his heart, soul, mind?
SPEAKER_01: Well, no, I'm not saying that.
SPEAKER_01: What are you saying?
SPEAKER_01: Well, he's he's into that.
SPEAKER_01: Well, I'm into this.
SPEAKER_01: So who made you the arbiter of whether we can be unified?
SPEAKER_01: What if we stick together on the core issues and we actually believe that maybe some of the different varieties, the variegated colors of the manifold wisdom of God is a good thing.
SPEAKER_01: Then we don't judge and point fingers, we put our arms around people and we love them.
SPEAKER_01: Anybody married here?
SPEAKER_01: When you married her or him, was she exactly like you?
SPEAKER_01: Hello?
SPEAKER_01: Of course not.
SPEAKER_01: You actually were strengthened by the compliment that came through the differences that you have with each other.
SPEAKER_01: Well, the church is that way too.
SPEAKER_01: And the more we embrace that, the more fun it is anyway.
SPEAKER_01: Because then we quit judging and we start loving.
SPEAKER_01: So I think 1 Corinthians 13 is the great love chapter.
SPEAKER_01: We always hear it at weddings, but I'm not sure we say it enough in the church.
SPEAKER_01: So I'm just gonna read 1 Corinthians 13.
SPEAKER_01: You guys follow.
SPEAKER_01: This is what love's all about.
SPEAKER_01: Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become a sounding brass or a clanging symbol.
SPEAKER_01: And though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
SPEAKER_01: And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.
SPEAKER_01: Love suffers long, it's kind.
SPEAKER_01: Love does not envy.
SPEAKER_01: Love does not parade itself, it's not puffed up, does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil, does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth.
SPEAKER_01: Bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things.
SPEAKER_01: Love never fails.
SPEAKER_01: But whether there are prophecies, they will fail.
SPEAKER_01: Whether there are tongues, they will cease.
SPEAKER_01: Whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away.
SPEAKER_01: We know in part, we prophesy in part, but when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away.
SPEAKER_01: When I was a child, I spoke as a child.
SPEAKER_01: I understood as a child, and I thought as a child.
SPEAKER_01: But when I became a man or a woman, I put away childish things.
SPEAKER_01: For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face, now I know in part, and then I shall know just as I also am known.
SPEAKER_01: And now abide.
SPEAKER_01: Faith, hope, love, these three.
SPEAKER_01: But the greatest of these is, the greatest of these is, the greatest of these is.
SPEAKER_01: So you see, love builds faith.
SPEAKER_01: Love builds hope.
SPEAKER_01: Faith doesn't build love, love builds faith.
SPEAKER_01: You see, the more you're in love with Jesus, the more you have faith in Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: The more you're in love with Jesus, the more you have hope for your future.
SPEAKER_01: It all hinges on love.
SPEAKER_01: And then he concludes with this, verse 21, to him be glory in the church by Christ, to all generations.
SPEAKER_01: Forever and ever.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
SPEAKER_01: Number five, the bold and confident church is impacting generations.
SPEAKER_01: Impacting generations.
SPEAKER_01: Worship team's gonna come up now, and you're gonna see multi-generations up here.
SPEAKER_01: You see, worship at this show, say the last four weeks, I think it's the last four or five weeks, we've had Brian leading worship, we've had Sean Foyd and Brian leading worship, we've had Chayton leading worship, and now we have my daughter Anna, who's in from Athens, Georgia, leading worship.
SPEAKER_01: That's the manifold wisdom of God.
SPEAKER_01: Isn't that awesome?
SPEAKER_01: We must be a church for all generations.
SPEAKER_01: That's the church.
SPEAKER_01: The church should be multi-generational.
SPEAKER_01: And we that are older should be examples and mentors to the younger generation.
SPEAKER_01: You say, Well, man, you can't believe all the mistakes I've made.
SPEAKER_01: I've been through divorce or went through this or bankruptcy.
SPEAKER_01: You're perfect.
SPEAKER_01: If you learn from it, if you learn from it, you actually have a great witness.
SPEAKER_01: So we like you broken, barely making it, but you're still coming in and you're gonna finish well.
SPEAKER_01: That's the church.
SPEAKER_01: It's not about perfection, it is about endurance.
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.