SPEAKER_01: You're listening to the road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.
SPEAKER_00: If you've not given your heart to Christ, you should do that today.
SPEAKER_00: You're here because of that.
SPEAKER_00: It's time to repent, not just turn from your sin, but to turn from your way of thinking, have a change of mind, begin to think the Jesus way, and that's where joy comes.
SPEAKER_00: That's where righteousness, peace, and joy begins to rule our lives.
SPEAKER_01: At The Road, our mission is to empower people to change the world.
SPEAKER_01: For more information on The Road, visit theroad.org.
SPEAKER_01: We hope you are encouraged by today's message from Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.
SPEAKER_00: Imagine a city of Colorado Springs the way God meant it to be.
SPEAKER_00: Imagine a city where the very feeling of the atmosphere is righteousness, peace, and joy.
SPEAKER_00: Imagine a city where people celebrate life, think creatively, and dream imaginatively.
SPEAKER_00: Imagine a place where you would feel safe on any city street at night.
SPEAKER_00: Imagine a city with doctors, hospitals, and clinics that have the conviction that every life is protected and fought for, whether born or unborn.
SPEAKER_00: Imagine a city where there is hope in the schools because the kids are excited about their future and desire to dream the dreams of changing the world.
SPEAKER_00: Imagine a place where there's prosperity throughout every sphere of influence, whether it's media, government, healthcare, education, business, military, church, or family, people love what they do and can't wait to bring the kingdom of God into their God calling.
SPEAKER_00: Imagine Colorado Springs being a model city to the rest of the nation.
SPEAKER_00: Imagine a city where the community comes together and works on issues and problems with the goal of prosperity for all people, regardless of race, ethnicity, or socioeconomic background.
SPEAKER_00: Imagine the Colorado Springs being seen as Zechariah's vision in Zechariah chapter 8.
SPEAKER_00: This is what the Lord Almighty says.
SPEAKER_00: Once again, men and women of ripe old age will sit in the streets, each of them with a cane in their hand because of their age.
SPEAKER_00: The city streets will be filled with boys and girls playing there.
SPEAKER_00: Or Jeremiah 29.
SPEAKER_00: This is what the Lord Almighty says, the God of Israel, to all those I've carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon, build houses, settle down, plant gardens, and eat what they produce.
SPEAKER_00: Marry and have sons and daughters.
SPEAKER_00: Find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters.
SPEAKER_00: Increase in number there, do not decrease.
SPEAKER_00: Also seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile.
SPEAKER_00: Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.
SPEAKER_00: God wants a prosperous city, men and women.
SPEAKER_00: I'm on my bike, and I'm navigating through these neighborhoods, and I heard the Lord say to me, Build and rebuild the church, build and rebuild the city.
SPEAKER_00: God wants a new kind of church.
SPEAKER_00: God wants to rebuild the church.
SPEAKER_00: God wants a church that looks more like the Bible than American culture.
SPEAKER_00: God is building a new kind of church.
SPEAKER_00: God wants families where we equip our kids, we love our kids, we're there for our kids, where we have marriages that we bring Jesus into the middle of it.
SPEAKER_00: That's why we're doing the conference on Valentine's Day.
SPEAKER_00: If you want Jesus in the middle of your marriage, if if you have Jesus, many of you have Jesus in your middle of your marriage, but you want to rub shoulders with others as we learn how to do it even better, then join us for that.
SPEAKER_00: For your kids and your young people that are a part of that age group in high school, go to the retreat and learn about identity and worldview.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to be training our kids in those things.
SPEAKER_00: And so God spoke that.
SPEAKER_00: And then a few years later, Liz had this word, I believe it was Liz, and she said, I believe God said to me last night that God wants to make Colorado Springs a model city to the nation.
SPEAKER_00: We're far from that right now, but I believe that's God's heart.
SPEAKER_00: I believe He planted us here.
SPEAKER_00: I believe He planted me to plant mountain springs and then to plant the road that we might be a light on a hill.
SPEAKER_00: We might be a beacon light to our city, that we might become a model city.
SPEAKER_00: And that means economically, that means spiritually, that means politically, that means militarily, all these areas, all these spheres of influence, God wants to use you.
SPEAKER_00: God wants to equip you to be a kingdom revolutionary.
SPEAKER_00: And so turn in your Bibles, if you would, to Matthew chapter 4.
SPEAKER_00: Matthew chapter 4.
SPEAKER_00: The vision of the road is a kingdom of God revolution.
SPEAKER_00: And you've heard me say this.
SPEAKER_00: I think it's been a while.
SPEAKER_00: For you that are new to our church, you probably haven't heard this.
SPEAKER_00: I said it briefly uh last week.
SPEAKER_00: But you have 85% better retention if you write things down.
SPEAKER_00: Did you know that?
SPEAKER_00: And I'm not even talking about typing it or using an iPad, but I mean you actually write stuff down, you'll have an 85% better retention.
SPEAKER_00: All the pedagogy teaches that.
SPEAKER_00: All the scholars talk about that.
SPEAKER_00: And yet, I remember even my last year of graduate school, I was so shocked what had happened in one year.
SPEAKER_00: Everybody had laptops.
SPEAKER_00: And that's like early 90s.
SPEAKER_00: Actually, mid-90s, people had laptops in the classes.
SPEAKER_00: But and I didn't know anything about that because that just seemed like well, that's a quicker way than me having to transport it back in through my writing that I was doing.
SPEAKER_00: But we believe that.
SPEAKER_00: And since we're at equipping church, we believe in equipping the saints for ministry.
SPEAKER_00: We have a book that we put this out every year, and Jay Inman has worked hard with Anna, my daughter, to put this out, and it's going to be ready tonight.
SPEAKER_00: Just we had 200 books come in.
SPEAKER_00: It's called We Will Abide 2021.
SPEAKER_00: And it actually has Bible verses, it has a harmony of the gospels, it has prophecies, Old and New Testament, all a part of it, but you can take notes throughout the whole year, and you'll go through the whole Bible in one year if you use this.
SPEAKER_00: Now, here's what is happening is someone has donated the first 200 books.
SPEAKER_00: So they're free tonight.
SPEAKER_00: Up to two per family.
SPEAKER_00: So we'll take care of a couple, but if you want a third one, you need to pay for that.
SPEAKER_00: I think it's five bucks.
SPEAKER_00: But um, they're available.
SPEAKER_00: First come, first serve.
SPEAKER_00: We'll make them available 530.
SPEAKER_00: Let's say 530.
SPEAKER_00: Is that okay?
SPEAKER_00: So it's at 530, and when we run out, we run out.
SPEAKER_00: And then we've got 400 more coming, but it'll be a couple weeks before they come.
SPEAKER_00: So if you really want to be, you know, with it and everything, you should try to get this.
SPEAKER_00: And people will be fighting and everything, ripping people down.
SPEAKER_00: Um, but it's pretty cool because it's got like it's got your passages for the day, and then it's got a place for your notes, and then application for your life in each day.
SPEAKER_00: It's really cool.
SPEAKER_00: Great job, Jay.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much.
SPEAKER_00: Fantastic.
SPEAKER_00: Really, really good.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm gonna keep this close to me.
SPEAKER_00: Don't try to come up here and like swipe it.
SPEAKER_00: All right, turn to Matthew 4.
SPEAKER_00: I think you already have.
SPEAKER_00: I wanna I want to talk about the ministry of Jesus as it relates to a kingdom of God revolution.
SPEAKER_00: And I got kind of revolutionized in the mid and late 90s with the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_00: Never heard about the kingdom of God except in a maybe a passing reading of a gospel lesson as a Lutheran kid.
SPEAKER_00: And even with the group I was a part of, a conservative evangelical group and I was a missionary, we never talked about the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_00: But then I became a part of another group and I began to learn about the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_00: And I realized that this was the essence, this was the theme of Jesus' ministry.
SPEAKER_00: So let's look at Matthew 4.
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus at this point has been baptized by John.
SPEAKER_00: He has been in the desert, being tempted by Satan.
SPEAKER_00: This is the first time he speaks.
SPEAKER_00: The first words out of Jesus' mouth in relation to preaching is verse 17.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 17.
SPEAKER_00: From that time Jesus began to preach and say, so, in other words, Matthew summing up what Jesus is doing in those first days of his ministry, repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
SPEAKER_00: Now, Matthew's unique because he uses kingdom of heaven as much as he uses kingdom of God, but it's the same meaning.
SPEAKER_00: It's this idea of the king coming with a kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: And a hundred times, men and women, Jesus spoke about the kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: It is literally the theme of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: The theme of Jesus is the coming of the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_00: And if you look in your Bibles, if you've got your Bible open, you'll notice you get to chapter 5.
SPEAKER_00: It's just a few verses away, and that's called the Sermon on the Mount.
SPEAKER_00: Some of your Bibles might say the Beatitudes.
SPEAKER_00: Those are the blessed part of the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5, 6, and 7, considered the greatest sermon that Jesus ever gave.
SPEAKER_00: And most scholars that have studied it would say it's the greatest sermon or the greatest speech ever given.
SPEAKER_00: Matthew 5, 6, and 7.
SPEAKER_00: Well, here's what's interesting about it.
SPEAKER_00: It's all about the kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: And I taught on this last year.
SPEAKER_00: See, a year and a half ago, I taught on Matthew 5, 6, and 7.
SPEAKER_00: You can go in and find it in our sermons under the book of Matthew.
SPEAKER_00: I call Matthew 5, 6, and 7 the ethics of the kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: It's really about the ethical life of the kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: Now, what's interesting about that is that as he emphasizes what the kingdom life is all about, and then you juxtapose that to Matthew chapter 13, you see parables of it, metaphorically speaking.
SPEAKER_00: Here he's speaking literally about how to live.
SPEAKER_00: He then says, Pray, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: And that was our emphasis Tuesday night.
SPEAKER_00: Over 300 of you were in here in prayer.
SPEAKER_00: We were calling out to God for what was happening in Washington.
SPEAKER_00: And if you recall, several times we said, God, would you pray?
SPEAKER_00: We pray, your kingdom come.
SPEAKER_00: We don't know what that means, but we are interceding for our nation, and we know that you answer prayer.
SPEAKER_00: Then after that, if you remember the passage in Matthew 6, it then moves into worry.
SPEAKER_00: Worry and fear in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to do all the Sermon on the Mount, but I'm just setting it up here.
SPEAKER_00: He then says, You're all worried about all these things, about your material things, you're worried about your finances, you're worried about the clothing that you wear.
SPEAKER_00: And then he says, What?
SPEAKER_00: Seek first the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_00: So seek first the kingdom, and all these things will be added unto you.
SPEAKER_00: So here's the deal, guys.
SPEAKER_00: When a family, let me start with this.
SPEAKER_00: When an individual begins to learn to pray, thy kingdom come, they will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
SPEAKER_00: When a kingdom person begins to pray and seek God's kingdom and all that they do, you prosper.
SPEAKER_00: You always prosper.
SPEAKER_00: When you hear that word, you tend to think, you know, materially.
SPEAKER_00: I think you do prosper materially, but I'm talking about primarily you prosper in your heart because you become a righteousness, peace, and joy kingdom agent.
SPEAKER_00: You become a carrier of a virus.
SPEAKER_00: The right kind of virus, okay?
SPEAKER_00: You become a carrier, you don't have to wear a mask.
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
SPEAKER_00: Matter of fact, you don't want to wear a mask because you want to talk about it a lot.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, so you wanna you kind of want to be a um super spreader.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, you want to be a super spreader of the kingdom of God wherever you go because as you become a kingdom revolutionary, you start to prosper and you have something to say because God's working in your life.
SPEAKER_00: Your messed up marriage starts to get better, your bad relationship with your kids starts to improve.
SPEAKER_00: You begin to come to work on time, you begin to wake up and have open the word and spend time in God's word.
SPEAKER_00: Because what God's doing is He's making you like Himself.
SPEAKER_00: And you go from being a Christian to being a kingdom person, to being a kingdom revolution.
SPEAKER_00: There's a lot of Christians in America, but they're not kingdom people.
SPEAKER_00: And they make a bad name for all of us, right?
SPEAKER_00: I make a bad name for some of us sometimes too.
SPEAKER_00: You know, sometimes we want to say the good news, but we're the bad news.
SPEAKER_00: And so what God wants to do is he wants to transform us that we become kingdom people.
SPEAKER_00: So the kingdom of God on earth is coming through us.
SPEAKER_00: So let me give you three three thoughts.
SPEAKER_00: Today I'm gonna talk about the person of the kingdom, the pattern of the kingdom, and the power of the kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: The person of the kingdom, the pattern of the kingdom, and the power of the kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus starts off by saying, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 18.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus, walking by the Sea of Galilee, saw two brothers, Simon called Peter and Andrew his brother, casting their net into the sea, for they were fishermen.
SPEAKER_00: Then he said to them, Follow me, and I'll make you fisher's men.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to circle me.
SPEAKER_00: Follow me.
SPEAKER_00: The person of the kingdom is Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is the embodiment of the kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: So when we talk about what is the kingdom of God, we look at Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: He is the kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: So let me give you a definition.
SPEAKER_00: Here's a definition of the kingdom of God.
SPEAKER_00: It's a good definition.
SPEAKER_00: I start basically talking about kingdom in general, and then we get more specific.
SPEAKER_00: A kingdom is a domain ruled over by a king.
SPEAKER_00: Now we in America have a democracy, we have a president, every four years we elect a president, so we don't understand what we mean by kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: We tend to be a democratic republic.
SPEAKER_00: But where it's a kingdom, there is one ruler.
SPEAKER_00: You don't get a vote in a kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: There is one ruler, there's a king who leads, guides, and protects the citizens of the kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: So in other words, you're you're born into a kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: Do you understand?
SPEAKER_00: Okay, you're born into a kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: The kingdom of God, you're born into.
SPEAKER_00: Not by physical birth, but by spiritual birth.
SPEAKER_00: And some of you aren't born again yet.
SPEAKER_00: You're here, you're coming because somebody invited you.
SPEAKER_00: You like kind of the ethics of Christianity, seems like a good thing.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's a place where you can even get some business deals.
SPEAKER_00: I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: A lot of people come to church for a lot of different reasons.
SPEAKER_00: But you have to be born into the kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: And so the kingdom of God, then, is the reign and the rule of Christ over his domain.
SPEAKER_00: He is the king over his kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: His kingdom begins with the king himself.
SPEAKER_00: So here's another perspective.
SPEAKER_00: Abraham Kuyper, former prime minister to the Netherlands, turn of the century, 19th to 20th century, said this.
SPEAKER_00: He said, There is not one square inch on the earth from which God doesn't say mine.
SPEAKER_00: So, in one sense, God's ruling over the United States, He's ruling over the whole world, He's sovereign, He's in control over all of that.
SPEAKER_00: But there's also a kingdom agent called Satan, the fallen angel of Lucifer who rules over this earth.
SPEAKER_00: So I had a young man bring a shipment of some tile to me this week, and we got in an animated conversation about Christ, both as we both hauled the tile over to my house and then back to the truck and did it again.
SPEAKER_00: And it was a it was a pretty fun conversation.
SPEAKER_00: But one thing that he said, which is very typical, and many of you have said this, is how can there really be a loving God with all the bad stuff and the cancer on little kids and leukemia and all that?
SPEAKER_00: And I said, Because you need to understand there is a battle between light and darkness, between good and evil.
SPEAKER_00: Do you believe in evil?
SPEAKER_00: He said, Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00: I said, that's satanic.
SPEAKER_00: That comes from another kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: So men and women, there's two kingdoms on the earth.
SPEAKER_00: In one sense, Jesus says, about all of it, it is mine, but on the other sense, the kingdom of God is ours to propagate.
SPEAKER_00: He's given it to us.
SPEAKER_00: So, in a sense, the coming of the kingdom, and Jesus is called the second Adam.
SPEAKER_00: Do you remember that?
SPEAKER_00: In Scripture, he's called the second Adam, because the first Adam gave up his rights to Satan.
SPEAKER_00: Listen to this.
SPEAKER_00: This is Genesis 1.
SPEAKER_00: Then God said, Let us make man in our own image, according to our likeness, let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.
SPEAKER_00: So God created man in his own image.
SPEAKER_00: In the image of God, he created him, male and female.
SPEAKER_00: So God gave Adam and Eve dominion, and then they lost it.
SPEAKER_00: They sinned, they handed it over to Satan, and Satan rules this globe.
SPEAKER_00: And so God sends his son, Jesus Christ, as the second Adam to listen now, to reinstate his vision and dream that we might be his agents.
SPEAKER_00: We might be his kingdom people that would bring the kingdom of light into the kingdom of darkness.
SPEAKER_00: And there's a battle going on, right?
SPEAKER_00: Anyone aware of that?
SPEAKER_00: There's a little bit of a battle going on, even for the soul of our nation.
SPEAKER_00: There's a battle going on for the soul of the church.
SPEAKER_00: There's a battle going on for your soul all the time.
SPEAKER_00: There's this battle of light and darkness.
SPEAKER_00: That's why Jesus said later, it was said of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil.
SPEAKER_00: That's what he came to do.
SPEAKER_00: That's actually in 1 John.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to be in 1 John.
SPEAKER_00: We're going to study 1 John, go through 1 John in our abide nights.
SPEAKER_00: So you read the first two chapters because I'm going to be talking about the spirit of the Antichrist, which John is writing about.
SPEAKER_00: He talks about light and darkness.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to cover that tonight and talk more about that.
SPEAKER_00: So God is reinstating the kingdom through his Son and now through his kingdom carriers, the church.
SPEAKER_00: That's why Paul writes in Romans 14, for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: So that's why Jesus begins with this.
SPEAKER_00: Verse 17.
SPEAKER_00: Look at 17.
SPEAKER_00: Repent.
SPEAKER_00: Metanoia in Greek.
SPEAKER_00: Repent.
SPEAKER_00: What he's saying, and you've heard this a lot in church, if you've been kind of in a church setting, we're talking about going in a different direction when we repent.
SPEAKER_00: We do a 180.
SPEAKER_00: The problem is that many times we talk about repenting from sin, but we forget that we're listening we talk about repenting from sin when we should be also talking about repenting to the Son.
SPEAKER_00: S-O-N.
SPEAKER_00: So we repent unto Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: We come to Him.
SPEAKER_00: As we give ourselves to Jesus, He begins to transform us with the spirit of the kingdom, which is men and women, righteousness, peace, and joy.
SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_00: Righteousness, peace, and anybody want righteousness, peace, and joy?
SPEAKER_00: All right.
SPEAKER_00: So righteousness, peace, and joy is the goal of the kingdom in our lives because what we're going to be called to is to become his disciples, but you have to repent.
SPEAKER_00: And that's your choice.
SPEAKER_00: That's what you decide to do.
SPEAKER_00: That's what tonight's about.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to talk about abiding.
SPEAKER_00: How do we abide in so much darkness coming in around us unless the light is shining through us?
SPEAKER_00: And so it's kind of like two sides to a coin.
SPEAKER_00: There's one side of the coin, which is follow Jesus, but there's another side of the coin which is follow the mission of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And so that's where he's going.
SPEAKER_00: He's saying, Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
SPEAKER_00: Understand the kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: And this is what he says about a child.
SPEAKER_00: He uses He uses a little kid as the best metaphor.
SPEAKER_00: Helpless, surrendered, humble.
SPEAKER_00: Well, I don't know about that part.
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: He says this learn this well.
SPEAKER_00: Unless you dramatically change your way of thinking and become teachable and learn about heaven's kingdom rim with the wide-eyed wonder of a child, you will never be able to enter in.
SPEAKER_00: Whoever continually humbles himself to become like this gentle child is the greatest one in heaven's kingdom rim.
SPEAKER_00: And if you tenderly care for this little one on my behalf, you're tenderly caring for me.
SPEAKER_00: Very interesting.
SPEAKER_00: He's saying you've got to become like a child, and then you're supposed to take care of the children.
SPEAKER_00: So there's kind of a word and a deed.
SPEAKER_00: There's this correlation between not just the man, Christ Jesus, whom we love, but there's also this connection to the mission of the man that we love in following him.
SPEAKER_00: So the person of Jesus, if you've not given your heart to Christ, you should do that today.
SPEAKER_00: You're here because of that.
SPEAKER_00: It's time to repent, not just turn from your sin, but to turn from your way of thinking, have a change of mind, begin to think the Jesus way, and that's where joy comes.
SPEAKER_00: That's where righteousness, peace, and joy begins to rule in our life.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Everybody say yes.
SPEAKER_00: Good church.
SPEAKER_00: Because that's how it works.
SPEAKER_00: So he starts off with that, and then he says this.
SPEAKER_00: He says, Repent for the kingdom of heaven is hand.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus, walking by the Sea of Galilee, saw two brothers, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea, for they were fishermen.
SPEAKER_00: He said to them, Follow me, and I'll make you fishers of men.
SPEAKER_00: They immediately left their nets and followed him.
SPEAKER_00: Going on from there, he saw two other brothers, James the son of Zebedee and John his brother, in the boat with Zebedee, their father mending their nets, he called them, and immediately they left their boat and their father and they followed him.
SPEAKER_00: So first it's the person of the kingdom, Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: But second, there's a pattern here, church.
SPEAKER_00: There's a pattern, and the pattern is discipleship.
SPEAKER_00: God wants us to become not Christians.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't want us to become Christians.
SPEAKER_00: He wants us to become disciples.
SPEAKER_00: So it's there's there's the man Christ Jesus that we begin a relationship of intimacy with that then through his righteousness, peace, and joy, the kingdom living in us, we begin to live the mission every day.
SPEAKER_00: We have a pattern, but we have to be disciples.
SPEAKER_00: We've had our grandchild in our home for the last four days.
SPEAKER_00: He's 18 months all, and he just kind of he looks drunk all the time, you know, and he staggers around and he falls all the time, and he's he's so he falls so much that he he just puts his, he's always got his hands here.
SPEAKER_00: He's like ready, man.
SPEAKER_00: Boom! You know, and he's got dents in his head and everything.
SPEAKER_00: The kid's being a typical 18-month-old, so somebody's got to train him, right?
SPEAKER_00: Somebody's gotta help him grow.
SPEAKER_00: That's the way life is.
SPEAKER_00: And so God also, that's what the church is about.
SPEAKER_00: The church is to disciple us, to help us as children in Christ learn how to become mature adults in Christ.
SPEAKER_00: And so some of you, you know, you kind of come to church like this, especially, you know, early service.
SPEAKER_00: You know, it's okay.
SPEAKER_00: It's good.
SPEAKER_00: I'd rather for you doing that here than out there, but just drive safely on here on the way, you know, especially on an icy day.
SPEAKER_00: But that's the purpose of the church.
SPEAKER_00: That's why God called us the road less traveled.
SPEAKER_00: We're here to equip you.
SPEAKER_00: That's why we're starting to empower you this year.
SPEAKER_00: If the finances are there, we want to start an online training center.
SPEAKER_00: How many of you are familiar with Prager U?
SPEAKER_00: How many of you are familiar with?
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: So, what I love about Prager U is these 15-minute vignettes on a particular topic.
SPEAKER_00: That's what it's gonna be.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna have these 15-minute vignettes.
SPEAKER_00: I'm working on church history right now.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna give you in 15 minutes the first 100 years of the church.
SPEAKER_00: And it will be better than 90% of the professors out there in graduate schools.
SPEAKER_00: It will be really, really good.
SPEAKER_00: It'll be from my perspective on the kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: But you'll get it.
SPEAKER_00: And so we'll have these vignettes.
SPEAKER_00: And so our desire and passion is wherever you are, we can get trained.
SPEAKER_00: That's why we talk about getting in a 242 community group.
SPEAKER_00: You gotta get in a small group.
SPEAKER_00: Because they may shut us down this year.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, they're gonna come after the church.
SPEAKER_00: I was talking to my son who works with um, he's a digital marketer and he works with God behind bars, and so he's in prisons all the time doing stuff.
SPEAKER_00: And I said, Where, you know, where are the best prisons?
SPEAKER_00: You know, what you know, and he said, Dad, you gotta get 20 years to life.
SPEAKER_00: Because if you get 20 years to life, man, it's cush.
SPEAKER_00: It's really nice out there.
SPEAKER_00: Good workout rooms, pretty good food.
SPEAKER_00: If you're anything below that, it's not as good.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: So I'm ready to go.
SPEAKER_00: How about you?
SPEAKER_00: Let's go.
SPEAKER_00: Let's go together.
SPEAKER_00: I I when I get there, I just want to see if they'll let me build a stream.
SPEAKER_00: Can we build a stream here and fly fish?
SPEAKER_00: You know, never, no, probably not, but here's what Ephesians 4 says.
SPEAKER_00: Here's what Ephesians 4 says.
SPEAKER_00: It says, and he himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers for the equipping of the saints, for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ, till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
SPEAKER_00: That's why our mission is empowering people to change the world.
SPEAKER_00: So the passion of all the pastors at the road is to empower you to change your world, to be missionary into your jobs and the different callings that God's put on you and the different gifts that God's called you to.
SPEAKER_00: So, in other words, if we could think of it in sort of modern terms, Jesus comes and he says to Peter and James and John, he says, Look, come follow me, I will make you fishers of men.
SPEAKER_00: If it was today and you're a computer programmer, he would come into your office and he would come in, he'd probably be wearing a suit, and he'd say, Come and follow me, and I will enable you to program people in the way of the kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: Or if you're a mechanic and you're underneath the car, you look up, and there's a guy with, you know, with uh with boots on, and you look out and he says, Come and follow me, and I'll show you how to change the engines of men's hearts.
SPEAKER_00: So God is changing us so that we can take that kingdom, that virus, that joy, that righteousness into wherever we live.
SPEAKER_00: That's a kingdom of God revolution.
SPEAKER_00: As we begin to infuse, influx, and take over through the love of God, the love of Christ, and wherever we are, whatever we do.
SPEAKER_00: That's a call of the church is to help you grow in that and be disciple in that.
SPEAKER_00: And that's through Shine on Thursdays.
SPEAKER_00: The women's groups.
SPEAKER_00: Those are some great groups that they've set up with Shine.
SPEAKER_00: And then AIM, all in men, which is Tuesday morning, 6 a.m.
SPEAKER_00: 116 men last week.
SPEAKER_00: We keep growing every week, bigger and bigger.
SPEAKER_00: We don't know where we're gonna stuff more tables into the chapel, but we're gonna do that.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't think it has anything to do with the breakfast, even though you have four meats, eggs, hash browns.
SPEAKER_00: The way, I think we should do a session during the marriage conference that the way to a man's heart is always through his stomach.
SPEAKER_00: Um Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, healing all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease among the people.
SPEAKER_00: Then his fame went throughout all Syria, and they brought him all the sick, people who were afflicted with various diseases and torments, and those who are demon-possessed, epileptics, paralytics, and he healed them.
SPEAKER_00: So we've talked about the person, and then there's the pattern, and then there's the power.
SPEAKER_00: The power of the kingdom is that it's not just word, but it's deed.
SPEAKER_00: It's word and deed.
SPEAKER_00: How many of you remember show and tell?
SPEAKER_00: Remember, I remember growing up with show and tell.
SPEAKER_00: I remember one time I brought Siamese kittens.
SPEAKER_00: Um, princess, which was our cat, coolest Siamese cat ever.
SPEAKER_00: That cat could battle, man.
SPEAKER_00: I remember one time two German shepherds jumped their fence, ran across the road in Huntsville, Alabama, came after my cat, which was lounging in the sun on the front porch.
SPEAKER_00: And she set up position and she just went woo-woo and bloodied their nose.
SPEAKER_00: They ran back across the street.
SPEAKER_00: Two German shepherds on a Siamese cat.
SPEAKER_00: That's a cool cat.
SPEAKER_00: Right there.
SPEAKER_00: That's a really cool cat.
SPEAKER_00: We were so proud of that cat.
SPEAKER_00: But we decided to engineer a thing called mating, and then she made it with another pure Siamese.
SPEAKER_00: So I had these old, so I brought them in a box, you know.
SPEAKER_00: I was the most popular kid in Davis Hills Elementary School for at least 24 hours because I had show and tell, and I brought these kittens.
SPEAKER_00: But our faith should be like show and tell.
SPEAKER_00: Not just tell, but show.
SPEAKER_00: That if you go out, and I think we can go out to some of the restaurants today, if you go out, tip well.
SPEAKER_00: Pray for that waiter.
SPEAKER_00: Do not do this.
SPEAKER_00: Do not pray for the waiter and then leave a cheesy tip.
SPEAKER_00: But pray for the waiter, pray for the waitress, and then leave a great tip.
SPEAKER_00: You know, be a kingdom person.
SPEAKER_00: I dare say that between now and tonight, if some of you took the challenge, and I said, wherever you go today, look for an opportunity to lay hands and pray for someone who's got an ailment, an issue, a struggle in their life, and see if God doesn't show up in some way.
SPEAKER_00: And I bet if we had 10 people that did that, there'd be two or three that would come back and say, I think God really did something.
SPEAKER_00: I think God moved.
SPEAKER_00: And I mean, they started crying, they felt the presence of God.
SPEAKER_00: Because that's what happens when the kingdom comes.
SPEAKER_00: It's it the kingdom comes through the presence of the person of Christ through you.
SPEAKER_00: No less than me.
SPEAKER_00: It's really an issue, whatever your vocation or your calling, God's kingdom flows through us.
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that exciting?
SPEAKER_00: That kingdom is within us because we have the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: It's the power of the Holy Spirit of word and deed in our lives.
SPEAKER_00: Show and tell.
SPEAKER_00: Charles Spurgeon gave a sermon on July 17, 1859.
SPEAKER_00: When people hear about what God used to do, one of the things they say is, oh, that was a very long time ago.
SPEAKER_00: But I thought it was God that did it.
SPEAKER_00: Has God changed?
SPEAKER_00: Is he not an immutable God, the same yesterday, today, and forever?
SPEAKER_00: Does not that furnish an argument to prove that what God has done at one time, he can do it any other?
SPEAKER_00: I think I may push it a little further and say, what he has done once is a prophecy of what he intends to do again.
SPEAKER_00: Whatever God has done is to be looked upon as a precedent of what he wants to do in the future.
SPEAKER_00: Let us with earnestness seek that God would restore to us the faith of the men of old, that we may richly enjoy the grace as in the days of old.
SPEAKER_00: And so I believe that.
SPEAKER_00: And you believe that.
SPEAKER_00: That's why you're here.
SPEAKER_00: We believe God can bring a kingdom of God revolution in this land.
SPEAKER_00: Whoever's president of the United States, whoever's our mayor, that does not in any way impede what God can do in this land.
SPEAKER_00: I remember smuggling Bibles into Hungary, smuggling Bibles into China, and being a part of a vibrant, dynamic church in the midst of that communist, those communist regimes.
SPEAKER_00: Look at verse 25.
SPEAKER_00: So when the kingdom comes, this is what happens.
SPEAKER_00: Great multitudes followed him from Galilee and from Decapolis, Jerusalem, Judea, and beyond the Jordan.
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus was inaugurating a kingdom of God revolution, and he still wants to do it today.
SPEAKER_00: And he's giving us an open heaven.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: You've been listening to The Road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.
SPEAKER_01: We hope you have been blessed by today's message.
SPEAKER_01: To connect with us further, visit theroad.org.
SPEAKER_01: If you are walking through a difficult time, we want to pray for you.
SPEAKER_01: Go to theroad.org, click on the ministries tab, and go to our prayer page to send us your prayer request.
SPEAKER_01: Thanks again for tuning in today, and be sure to listen to the next edition of The Road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.