SPEAKER_00: You're listening to the road by Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.
SPEAKER_01: It's Dom to keep living in the past.
SPEAKER_01: Everybody say it's Dom to keep living in the past.
SPEAKER_01: It's more to live toward the future.
SPEAKER_01: That's how God views you.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I love you.
SPEAKER_01: You're beloved.
SPEAKER_01: You're precious in my sight.
SPEAKER_01: Yes.
SPEAKER_01: I know all things, so I know what's happened in the past.
SPEAKER_01: I know what you've done.
SPEAKER_01: But quit looking in the rearview mirror and start looking forward by being in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Quit being in you.
SPEAKER_01: Got a new vehicle.
SPEAKER_01: New creation.
SPEAKER_00: At The Road, our mission is to empower people to change the world.
SPEAKER_00: For more information on the road, visit theroad.org.
SPEAKER_00: We hope you are encouraged by today's message from Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.
SPEAKER_01: Well, we're in Ephesians.
SPEAKER_01: And let's just start at verse 1 because we've had two weeks we missed because of snow last week.
SPEAKER_01: And uh and we're we're actually at verse 9.
SPEAKER_01: But let's look at Ephesians 1:1.
SPEAKER_01: Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God to the saints who are in Ephesus and faithful in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and Lord Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who's blessed us with every, every, say every, every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 5, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 6, to the praise of the glory of his grace, by which he made us accepted in the beloved.
SPEAKER_01: In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace, which he made to abound toward us in all wisdom and proofs.
SPEAKER_01: Now, this first part, he starts off by saying that you're in Christ and you're in Ephesus.
SPEAKER_01: And I mentioned before that you have two addresses.
SPEAKER_01: You have an address in heaven, you have an address on earth.
SPEAKER_01: And you are in Christ, but you're also in Colorado Springs, men and women.
SPEAKER_01: You are in the Pikes Peak region.
SPEAKER_01: Be all here.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: I'm not going anywhere.
SPEAKER_01: I don't care what happens in Denver.
SPEAKER_01: I'm still called to this state.
SPEAKER_01: I'm still called to fight here.
SPEAKER_01: I'm still called to battle here.
SPEAKER_01: And that's why we've got to have a long-term view about short-term problems that we have right now.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: And so you are in Colorado Springs.
SPEAKER_01: You're in El Paso County.
SPEAKER_01: You're here.
SPEAKER_01: So be all here.
SPEAKER_01: He's saying that you have two addresses, and one is in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: 14 times in Ephesians, he says, you're in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: What does that mean?
SPEAKER_01: That means that the Christ in you, the hope of glory, enables you to be something you can't naturally be.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you can do things, you can believe God for things that you could not naturally do in you.
SPEAKER_01: Anybody tired of you?
SPEAKER_01: Okay, if you're not tired of you, ask your spouse if she is or he is.
SPEAKER_01: All right?
SPEAKER_01: So we get tired of you.
SPEAKER_01: I get tired of me.
SPEAKER_01: I look in the mirror and I'm tired of you.
SPEAKER_01: But, but, listen, I'm beloved.
SPEAKER_01: I'm called to a purpose.
SPEAKER_01: You're called to a purpose is a plan for your life.
SPEAKER_01: And that plan for your life is to make an impact.
SPEAKER_01: You're not here just to take up space.
SPEAKER_01: You're not here to escape.
SPEAKER_01: That's Hinduism and Buddhism.
SPEAKER_01: Christianity says you're here to take over, to take possession.
SPEAKER_01: And I believe God wants us to take possession in Denver.
SPEAKER_01: I believe God wants us to take possession in El Paso County.
SPEAKER_01: I believe God wants us to take possession of city council.
SPEAKER_01: What I mean by that is not in some militant, aggressive way, but with the love of the Father and the love of the Spirit and the love of Jesus, we come and we have been given a responsibility.
SPEAKER_01: So each one of the letters in the Bible, they're to Galatia, they're to Ephesus, they're to Rome.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, the heart of the Father is that wherever you live and wherever God has placed you, that He's put you as the Ecclesia.
SPEAKER_01: The Ecclesia is the church.
SPEAKER_01: And he says, I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
SPEAKER_01: So listen, if God builds a church, which by the way, he's not building all churches.
SPEAKER_01: You know how you know that?
SPEAKER_01: We know that just with COVID.
SPEAKER_01: 30% of churches are going to close down forever because of COVID.
SPEAKER_01: Now, how could that happen if Jesus is building his church?
SPEAKER_01: It's because Jesus wasn't building those churches.
SPEAKER_01: So you can be a pastor of a church that you're pastoring and that you're building, but Jesus is not.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not the senior pastor.
SPEAKER_01: I'm the small S, small P senior pastor.
SPEAKER_01: He's the capital S and Capital P senior pastor.
SPEAKER_01: He's building this church.
SPEAKER_01: And when he builds his church, the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.
SPEAKER_01: I'm from Georgia.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not real smart.
SPEAKER_01: I figured it out.
SPEAKER_01: If he builds a church, the gates of hell will not prevail against it.
SPEAKER_01: It'd be pretty dumb for me to build the church.
SPEAKER_01: So Ephesians is a manual for war.
SPEAKER_01: It's a manual for how to fight.
SPEAKER_01: And so what he's doing in this first part is he's talking about the spiritual blessings in the heavenly places.
SPEAKER_01: And we've talked about a number of these, but let's pick it up at verse 9.
SPEAKER_01: Having made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in himself.
SPEAKER_01: Now, the mystery of his will, most PhDs do not have a clue about.
SPEAKER_01: So most of the stuff that your kids are getting at school is not about the mystery of his will.
SPEAKER_01: Who instructs our children in the mystery of his will?
SPEAKER_01: You do.
SPEAKER_01: We've got your kids for an hour and a half at best on Sunday.
SPEAKER_01: If they're in high school, we have them for an hour and a half at best on Wednesday.
SPEAKER_01: But the the main responsibility of equipping, empowering, and building these young people that are along this front row out here is mom and dad.
SPEAKER_01: It is.
SPEAKER_01: And so one of the great intellectuals of the 20th century was a guy named Alan Bloom.
SPEAKER_01: A Jewish intellectual who's not a Christian, a professor at University of Chicago, Yale, and Cornell, considered a prodigy in his time.
SPEAKER_01: He was accepted to University of Chicago at 15 years old and graduated at 18.
SPEAKER_01: And he wrote a book that I read 25 years ago called The Closing of the American Mind.
SPEAKER_01: And he said this about Western thought, his belief that we were devaluing the source of wisdom but not reading great literature.
SPEAKER_01: By the way, they're starting to ban great literature.
SPEAKER_01: Bloom said this quote, I do not believe that my generation, my cousins who have been educated in the American way, all of whom are MDs or PhDs, have any comparable learning to my uneducated grandparents.
SPEAKER_01: When they talk about heaven and earth, the relations between men and women, parents and children, the human condition, I hear nothing from the MDs and the PhDs but cliches, superficialities, the material of satire.
SPEAKER_01: I mean that as my grandparents have always believed, that the life of this earth is based in the book.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible is closer to the truth, that it provides the material for deeper research and access to the real nature of things.
SPEAKER_01: Men and women, we have the mystery of his will.
SPEAKER_01: Right here.
SPEAKER_01: The mystery of his will.
SPEAKER_01: We know how it started, we know why we've got problems, and we know how it's going to culminate.
SPEAKER_01: So I, when I was studying this, I thought, you know, if I was on a desert island and I only had, you know, seven books of the Bible, what would they be?
SPEAKER_01: And so I went and asked two of my pastor friends, if you had seven books of the Bible, what would you tell your people to read?
SPEAKER_01: And we got an the three of us in a little triangle, we only missed by one book.
SPEAKER_01: We all said the same things.
SPEAKER_01: And then when my dad was here last week, my Lutheran pastor dad, I asked him, and we were, again, only one book were we off.
SPEAKER_01: And they were they were probably right, not me.
SPEAKER_01: But but let me give you these.
SPEAKER_01: Write these down.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what I think are the seven most important books.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna call them the power seven of the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: Now, all the books of the Bible, 66 books, they're all inerrant, they're all infallible, old and new testament.
SPEAKER_01: Totally believe that.
SPEAKER_01: But if I were to say to you, you could just start with seven this year.
SPEAKER_01: Just start with seven in 2021.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what I'll say.
SPEAKER_01: Number one is Genesis.
SPEAKER_01: Read all of Genesis.
SPEAKER_01: Genesis is the found, if you wanted a title, it's the foundations of everything.
SPEAKER_01: I think that's pretty inclusive.
SPEAKER_01: So the foundations of everything are found in Genesis.
SPEAKER_01: It's the foundations of humankind, it's the foundations of sin.
SPEAKER_01: It's the foundations of covenant.
SPEAKER_01: It's the foundations of Israel.
SPEAKER_01: Second book, Psalms.
SPEAKER_01: Read the book of Psalms.
SPEAKER_01: And you know that there's 150 Psalms.
SPEAKER_01: And so you can, if you read five Psalms a day, which is that's quite a task because some of them are long.
SPEAKER_01: If you did five Psalms a long time, you'd read all the Psalms every month.
SPEAKER_01: But read the Psalms.
SPEAKER_01: The Psalms are about prayer, they're about the love of God, they're about the human condition in relationship with God.
SPEAKER_01: And if you were to just take your Bible, as you know, and just kind of go like this and just kind of open it in the middle, go boop, ha! Psalms.
SPEAKER_01: So it's right in the middle.
SPEAKER_01: And it's there.
SPEAKER_01: It's the Psalter, it's the worship hymnal of the nation of Israel.
SPEAKER_01: Genesis, Psalms number three would be Matthew in the New Testament.
SPEAKER_01: Read Matthew.
SPEAKER_01: Matthew is about the king and the kingdom.
SPEAKER_01: And as you guys know, our vision at the road is a kingdom of God revolution in the Rockies.
SPEAKER_01: That's what we believe in.
SPEAKER_01: That's what we're striving for.
SPEAKER_01: In media, in education, in government, in church, in the military.
SPEAKER_01: We want to see a kingdom of God revolution.
SPEAKER_01: Well, Matthew is how Jesus did it.
SPEAKER_01: All right.
SPEAKER_01: Fourthly, Acts.
SPEAKER_01: Read the book of Acts.
SPEAKER_01: This is the history of the church.
SPEAKER_01: And what God has done in the past, He's going to do again in the future.
SPEAKER_01: The next book would be Romans.
SPEAKER_01: I would pick Romans.
SPEAKER_01: Romans is the theology of the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: So Genesis, foundations, Psalms, the love of God, Matthew, the kingdom, Acts, the history of the early church, Romans, theology of the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: Ephesians, the warfare manual.
SPEAKER_01: That's what we're in right now.
SPEAKER_01: So keep hanging with us over the next couple months.
SPEAKER_01: We'll get through Ephesians.
SPEAKER_01: And then lastly, Revelation.
SPEAKER_01: Know the book of Revelation, the culmination of all things, is found in Revelation.
SPEAKER_01: And in so walking through these seven books, you get the mystery.
SPEAKER_01: You get a thumbnail sketch of the mystery of his will.
SPEAKER_01: Isn't that exciting?
SPEAKER_01: So dive into the book.
SPEAKER_01: Dive into the book.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 10.
SPEAKER_01: That in the dispensation of the fullness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: So 14 times he's going to say, in Christ in Ephesians.
SPEAKER_01: He's going to, the culmination, all things are in Christ, both which are in heaven and things that are on earth, in him.
SPEAKER_01: Now this is the progression, okay?
SPEAKER_01: This is the constant, maybe juxtaposition of Ephesians, is that one minute he's talking about being in Christ in the heavenlies, and then the next minute he's talking about being in Christ on earth.
SPEAKER_01: So what in the world is he talking about?
SPEAKER_01: What he's saying is that there's this mystery of you being in Christ, where you've been given all of the spiritual blessings that are in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: You haven't experienced it totally yet.
SPEAKER_01: You're not even going to totally experience it at any point, but you're going to keep experiencing it more and more as you grow and mature in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: So here's what you're doing.
SPEAKER_01: When we pray, our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven, what we're doing is we're bringing down the heavenlies to the earth.
SPEAKER_01: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_01: So in other words, there's total healing in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: Nobody's sick in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: So when we pray for people up front and we're praying for healing, we're praying for the kingdom come in heaven to come down to earth.
SPEAKER_01: Does it always work?
SPEAKER_01: Does everybody get healed?
SPEAKER_01: No, they don't.
SPEAKER_01: Because we live in a sinful world.
SPEAKER_01: We we have this thing called atrophy.
SPEAKER_01: I believe that God can heal at any time.
SPEAKER_01: I believe that I've seen probably as many miraculous healings as anyone, but I had LASIK surgery on my eyes.
SPEAKER_01: I have graying hair.
SPEAKER_01: It's called atrophy.
SPEAKER_01: So it's when we pray for the kingdom to come, it's the, listen, it's the already, but the not yet.
SPEAKER_01: It's the already, but the not yet.
SPEAKER_01: It's not complete.
SPEAKER_01: It's never going to be complete here, but does that mean we don't trust him?
SPEAKER_01: Does that mean that when we've got people here, I'll tell you this.
SPEAKER_01: The more people we pray for for healing, the more people get healed.
SPEAKER_01: I'm really smart.
SPEAKER_01: And when people decide I'm gonna get out of debt and I'm gonna start working toward that, I'm gonna battle for that, I'm gonna trust God, and when they do, their finances do get better.
SPEAKER_01: That when you have had diabetes or you've had struggles in your life, or you've been through a divorce, and you've been burned, and you've been betrayed, and you don't quit, but you keep battling for the mystery of his will, you keep coming to church, you keep getting involved with other believers, and you have blood-stained allies in your life, you get better.
SPEAKER_01: You just get better.
SPEAKER_01: And you say, Well, I don't, I don't, I'm not getting, I'm not, I'm not very far along.
SPEAKER_01: Well, that's the right answer.
SPEAKER_01: You're not, but you're further along than you were.
SPEAKER_01: So when people ask, are we living in the last days?
SPEAKER_01: They say, Well, they're they're laster than yesterday.
SPEAKER_01: All right?
SPEAKER_01: All right, are they the capital L last days?
SPEAKER_01: Only God knows.
SPEAKER_01: Even the angels in heaven don't know that.
SPEAKER_01: So I'm not gonna answer that question, but they're my last days.
SPEAKER_01: They're my last days, they're your last days.
SPEAKER_01: Let's make an impact.
SPEAKER_01: So he's saying there's a culmination of all things because you guys, we have a future-looking God.
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't care about your past.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, he cares about it in the sense that sometimes you need to go back to the past to get healed up for the future, but as far as how he views you, we've got people in this church that are ex-prostitutes.
SPEAKER_01: We have people in this church that have been alcoholics, we have people in this church that have been addicts to something.
SPEAKER_01: We have people in church right now that how that are struggling in all those areas.
SPEAKER_01: And God can come and heal, and he can make you a new creation in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And the old has passed away, and the new can come.
SPEAKER_01: But it's up to you.
SPEAKER_01: Do you want it?
SPEAKER_01: It's dumb to keep living in the past.
SPEAKER_01: Everybody say it's dumb to keep living in the past.
SPEAKER_01: It's smart to live toward the future.
SPEAKER_01: That's how God views you.
SPEAKER_01: He's going, Man, I love you.
SPEAKER_01: You're beloved, you're precious in my sight.
SPEAKER_01: Yes, I know all things, so I know what's happened in the past, I know what you've done.
SPEAKER_01: But quit looking in the rearview mirror and start looking forward by being in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Quit being in you.
SPEAKER_01: You got a new vehicle, a new creation.
SPEAKER_01: So Colossians 1.
SPEAKER_01: For by him all things were created that are in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or principalities or powers.
SPEAKER_01: All things were created through him and for him.
SPEAKER_01: And he is before all things, and in him all things consist.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 20.
SPEAKER_01: And by him to reconcile all things to himself, by him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of his cross.
SPEAKER_01: That's what Good Friday's about.
SPEAKER_01: We're gonna come here on Good Friday.
SPEAKER_01: It's gonna be dark in this room, and there's gonna be a light shining on this cross, and we're gonna celebrate together the cross because of the blood of Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And when you experience that at the deepest level, it's gonna make Resurrection Day pop in your heart.
SPEAKER_01: It is.
SPEAKER_01: And so that's why we do it.
SPEAKER_01: Because we're being reconciled in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: So, in one sense, positionally, we are reconciled in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: All our sins are forgiven, past, present, and future.
SPEAKER_01: But in another sense, we're experiencing that reconciliation by being in Christ, by the choices we make every day to be surrendered to Him.
SPEAKER_01: So you're reaching up into heaven and bringing it down each time we make a godly decision.
SPEAKER_01: Each time we we have responsibility for our actions, each time we ask for forgiveness because we blow it, we hurt people's feelings.
SPEAKER_01: That's why we have a covenant of harmony here.
SPEAKER_01: It's because we we challenge each other.
SPEAKER_01: And you that are coming to the newcomer's luncheon today, you'll hear about the covenant of harmony.
SPEAKER_01: But we always encourage you from Matthew 18, work it out.
SPEAKER_01: Work it out.
SPEAKER_01: And have covenantal, harmonious relationships.
SPEAKER_01: In him, verse 11, also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will.
SPEAKER_01: So what he's saying here is that pro-horizo, that's the Greek word.
SPEAKER_01: He, he, pro, ahead, pro horizo, he knows your horizons.
SPEAKER_01: Who would wanna, who would want to worship a God who doesn't know the future?
SPEAKER_01: If he doesn't know the future, then definitely don't read Revelation.
SPEAKER_01: If he doesn't know the future, then forget 450 prophecies about the Messiah Jesus that we celebrate at Christmas, about the coming of Messiah.
SPEAKER_01: He knows the future.
SPEAKER_01: He knows the future of America.
SPEAKER_01: He knows the future of this county in this city.
SPEAKER_01: And he's just looking for men and women who want to partner with him to accomplish the great works that he has for us.
SPEAKER_01: I just personally don't believe that God's done with America yet.
SPEAKER_01: I personally don't believe God's done with the church yet.
SPEAKER_01: Now it's gonna change.
SPEAKER_01: I think we're gonna see changes in the days ahead, some positive, some negative.
SPEAKER_01: But we push forward knowing pro-horizo, his predestinated plan in it, we will see the glory of God on earth.
SPEAKER_01: And here's the other thing: we're gonna see a united church.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's I'm writing it, I wrote an op-ed the last four days with some of you guys helping me put it together.
SPEAKER_01: I got 12 pastors behind it to support our county commissioners.
SPEAKER_01: This can go out in the Gazette.
SPEAKER_01: Because we support them.
SPEAKER_01: Well, it's 12 pastors that also support them.
SPEAKER_01: Do you guys hear that?
SPEAKER_01: So God's bringing unity and synergy with certain pastors here in the city.
SPEAKER_01: That's a mighty, mighty, supernatural work of God.
SPEAKER_01: And it's a good thing.
SPEAKER_01: But sometimes you don't realize that until you go through tough times.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 12 that we who first trusted in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Should be to the praise of his glory.
SPEAKER_01: So look at that.
SPEAKER_01: He says the praise of his glory in verse 12.
SPEAKER_01: You go to verse 14.
SPEAKER_01: Look at the last part of verse 14.
SPEAKER_01: He talks about to the praise of his glory.
SPEAKER_01: That's what this is all about.
SPEAKER_01: It's not about the road, it's not about the county commissioners.
SPEAKER_01: It's not about our governor.
SPEAKER_01: It's not about the Republican Party.
SPEAKER_01: It's about praise and glory to him.
SPEAKER_01: So if we would keep that focus, then we could get past all the egos.
SPEAKER_01: When we have Elijah Fire Prayer here, when we have noonday prayer, which I think we're on like 180 straight days of noonday war room prayer here at the church, we go after the praise and the glory of God on earth.
SPEAKER_01: And I believe what we're seeing happen here is because of those prayers.
SPEAKER_01: And we pray for the county commissioners and we pray for our governor and we pray for uh parties and stuff and we pray for God to show up in a mighty way.
SPEAKER_01: We pray for your loved ones to get saved.
SPEAKER_01: We pray for our educational system.
SPEAKER_01: And by the way, the the school board elections are coming up next.
SPEAKER_01: We'll also have that next in our voter guide.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you need to run for the school board.
SPEAKER_01: Hello?
SPEAKER_01: Okay, really?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, what a great place to make an impact on the school board.
SPEAKER_01: That he who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of his glory in him.
SPEAKER_01: Here we go again.
SPEAKER_01: You also trusted after you heard the word of truth.
SPEAKER_01: So two things there, men and women.
SPEAKER_01: You trust, you can't trust in something you haven't heard of.
SPEAKER_01: So that's why we share our faith.
SPEAKER_01: That's why when we go to the restaurant, we try to share our faith.
SPEAKER_01: That's why we try to share our faith with our neighbor and co-worker.
SPEAKER_01: That's what the whole Worldview conference was about.
SPEAKER_01: The last two messages were all about how to share your faith, how to handle difficult questions that come your way.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it was copyright, so we can't, you can't listen to it, but next time we have one, you should be a part of that.
SPEAKER_01: But um he just, they were they were excellent and how to deal with some of the sort of issues of our time, questions.
SPEAKER_01: But we have to hear it.
SPEAKER_01: And so the hearing is what Romans 10 is speaking of when Paul writes, how then shall they call on him in whom they've not believed?
SPEAKER_01: And how shall they believe in whom they have not heard, and how shall they hear without a preacher?
SPEAKER_01: Well, there's hundreds and hundreds of people right now online listening to me speak.
SPEAKER_01: That's so insignificant compared to the spheres of influence of each of you by being Christ-like wherever you go.
SPEAKER_01: And speaking of Christ whenever God gives you the chance.
SPEAKER_01: It's us at Saltgrass Steakhouse, right down here off Jamboree with the speakers on Friday, and we and we had this precious Hannah, who was our second generation Filipino server that Al and I got to pray with.
SPEAKER_01: And we prayed in Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_01: So in our small way, we were a witness for her.
SPEAKER_01: People can't believe if they haven't heard.
SPEAKER_01: And then he says they believe.
SPEAKER_01: And the word here is listen, it's peace you okay.
SPEAKER_01: It's not walk the aisle and sign the paper and become a Christian.
SPEAKER_01: It's trusting.
SPEAKER_01: The word means trust.
SPEAKER_01: It means credit by implication to give credit, to entrust.
SPEAKER_01: So if you have entrusted your soul and your heart to Christ, you're saved.
SPEAKER_01: You're a believer.
SPEAKER_01: You're a Jesus follower.
SPEAKER_01: You say, yeah, but man, when I did it, I didn't, my life didn't clean up overnight.
SPEAKER_01: Of course it didn't.
SPEAKER_01: Nobody here has that testimony.
SPEAKER_01: It took time.
SPEAKER_01: So there's a difference between justification and sanctification.
SPEAKER_01: Justification means you are justified.
SPEAKER_01: You are now counted free, innocent, forgiven.
SPEAKER_01: Sanctification means that you're becoming holier as you walk with Christ.
SPEAKER_01: The problem in America is we've got a lot of people who think they're justified without being sanctified.
SPEAKER_01: And I can tell you, if Jesus Christ is living in you and you have no desire to live a holy life, you're not justified.
SPEAKER_01: So justification is just the beginning, it's the marriage ceremony.
SPEAKER_01: So Liz and I at St.
SPEAKER_01: Park Church in Tokyo, Japan, got married 35 years ago.
SPEAKER_01: And we went and we did the little thing.
SPEAKER_01: And man, I had no idea what I was getting myself into.
SPEAKER_01: The honeymoon was awesome.
SPEAKER_01: But then we had to learn to live together, right?
SPEAKER_01: And she's smarter than me on some things, and and I'm smarter than her on some things, and she's wiser, and I'm wiser, and and the problem is she thinks she's wiser in more things than she is.
SPEAKER_01: And I think I'm wiser in more things than I is.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: You know what I'm talking about?
SPEAKER_01: So that's that's what it's all about with Christ, too.
SPEAKER_01: Christ is saying to us in Psalms.
SPEAKER_01: He says things about how to pray, and we don't believe him, we don't agree with him, and so we have this little internal battle going on.
SPEAKER_01: And when we do that, it's called sanctification.
SPEAKER_01: It's okay.
SPEAKER_01: He can take it.
SPEAKER_01: That's why you come to church, is so we grow.
SPEAKER_01: And it's and it's exciting if you realize that you don't have to be perfect, but you're becoming more perfect than you were yesterday by going after Christ in your life.
SPEAKER_01: So in him, you also trusted after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and him also having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance and to the redemption of the purchased possession, again, to the praise of his glory.
SPEAKER_01: And the in the word here is really interesting.
SPEAKER_01: The word for guarantee or earnest is arobana.
SPEAKER_01: Arobana is actually the same word in the Greek, in current Greece, for an engagement ring.
SPEAKER_01: So when you give your heart to Christ, you get a guarantee.
SPEAKER_01: It's called the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: The Holy Spirit comes to live within you.
SPEAKER_01: And I know there's some traditions in church theology out there that you don't really get the Holy Spirit until you speak in tongues or something like that.
SPEAKER_01: I don't agree with that because this is very clear.
SPEAKER_01: When you put your faith in Christ, you get all of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: You don't get like half of it, you don't get like the arm or the leg.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you get it all.
SPEAKER_01: You get all the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: But listen, listen, there's subsequent fillings of the Holy Spirit, there's subsequent encounters of the power of the Holy Spirit that bring all the spiritual gifts and brings parts of spiritual gifts.
SPEAKER_01: So keep going for it.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: In other words, if you've got a treasure house of gifts and talents that are available to you, you got to go and knock on that door.
SPEAKER_01: You've got to go for it because it's available to you, but he's not gonna dump it all on us, he asks us to seek in.
SPEAKER_01: And that's the reason he says, seek, ask not for this thing in our life.
SPEAKER_00: You've been listening to The Road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.
SPEAKER_00: We hope you have been blessed by today's message.
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SPEAKER_00: If you are walking through a difficult time, we want to pray for you.
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SPEAKER_00: Thanks again for tuning in today, and be sure to listen to the next edition of The Road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.