SPEAKER_00: You're listening to the road with Pastor Peter Steve Holt.
SPEAKER_01: So God's word, the scriptures say, is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword.
SPEAKER_01: It's able to pierce bone and marrow to show the thoughts and intentions of your heart.
SPEAKER_01: Nothing else like that, Church.
SPEAKER_01: You may be super close to your spouse, but she can't know the thoughts and intentions of your heart.
SPEAKER_01: God's word does, though.
SPEAKER_01: When you start to open up his word, it's gonna speak to you.
SPEAKER_01: It's gonna bring life to your bones and life to your spirit and life to your destiny.
SPEAKER_00: At The Road, our vision is to raise up wholehearted disciples of Jesus Christ.
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: All right, turn in your Bibles to Matthew chapter 5.
SPEAKER_01: We're in the Sermon on the Mount.
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 17.
SPEAKER_01: So we're in Matthew 5, 17.
SPEAKER_01: There's a huge shift going on here, church, in the Sermon on the Mount.
SPEAKER_01: We've been talking about the character and the values of the kingdom.
SPEAKER_01: If you're new to our church, your first time here, you've only come maybe two weeks or three weeks, you can go online, put in the road.org slash sermons, and you can pick up where we are in our journey through Matthew.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus says, let me just say this, nobody ever has so challenged the Pharisees, the Sadducees, and the scribes.
SPEAKER_01: These were the learned men in Israel at that time who were considered biblical experts, scholars.
SPEAKER_01: Nobody had ever challenged them and their thinking and their worldview like Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And here's where there's a fundamental shift in the Sermon on the Mount, verse 17.
SPEAKER_01: Do not think that I came to destroy the law and the prophets.
SPEAKER_01: I did not come to destroy, but to fulfill.
SPEAKER_01: Circle, fulfill.
SPEAKER_01: For assuredly I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot, that's the smallest letter, tenth letter, smallest letter of the Hebrew alphabet, or one tittle, which is a tiny little apostrophe, will by no means pass from the law till all is fulfilled.
SPEAKER_01: Uses that word again.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 19.
SPEAKER_01: Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches men, so shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven.
SPEAKER_01: But whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
SPEAKER_01: For I say to you that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.
SPEAKER_01: Men and women, young people.
SPEAKER_01: No passage in all of Scripture that so succinctly and powerfully describes the purpose of Scripture, the reason we have an Old and a New Testament.
SPEAKER_01: You know we have an Old and a New Testament coming together into 66 books.
SPEAKER_01: This bridge of the Scriptures, both those at the time of Jesus as well as what we have today in the completed canon, since we've had it from about the fourth century on, was fulfilled, Jesus came to fulfill in him everything that's in the scriptures.
SPEAKER_01: And this is fundamentally at juxtaposition to anything that our world believes in.
SPEAKER_01: So I like to fly fish.
SPEAKER_01: You guys know that.
SPEAKER_01: I like to go fly fishing.
SPEAKER_01: And this year in particular, it's been a really hard year for those who fly fish because the streams have been so high because of the snow melt.
SPEAKER_01: So it's really hard in 11 Mile Canyon and Cheesman Canyon and Tin Cup and all these different places around the state.
SPEAKER_01: You get in the water.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's like two feet higher than normal and it's dangerous.
SPEAKER_01: And so when you come into a stream and it's really flowing, you have to kind of go sideways, and you really have to be careful because if you turn full in, it'll knock you down.
SPEAKER_01: And to me, that's a great metaphor of what we're in right now in our world that hates the word of God.
SPEAKER_01: They hate the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: Our schools hate the Bible because of the truth that it treaches.
SPEAKER_01: And when you begin to stand on God's word, the law of God, it's like you're wading out into these heavy snowmelt streams of culture.
SPEAKER_01: And man, they want to knock you down, and you've got to take your stand.
SPEAKER_01: And you have to take a stand.
SPEAKER_01: It was true in the time of Jesus, it's really true in the 21st century that the culture hates God's word.
SPEAKER_01: Richard Dawkins, anybody know who Richard Dawkins is?
SPEAKER_01: Okay, Richard Dawkins, considered the, I would call him the Billy Graham of atheism, wrote a book, The God Delusion.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what he says about the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: To be fair, much of the Bible is not systematically evil, but just plain weird.
SPEAKER_01: As you could expect from a cobbled together anthology of disjointed documents, composed, revised, translated, distorted, and improved by hundreds of anonymous authors, editors, and copyists, unknown to us and unknown to others over nine centuries.
SPEAKER_01: So that's Richard Dawkins' perspective of God's word.
SPEAKER_01: It's cobbled together, it's disjointed, it's distorted.
SPEAKER_01: But is the Bible confusing, distorted, cobbled together mythological belief?
SPEAKER_01: Isn't it interesting?
SPEAKER_01: Why would Richard Dawkins even comment on the Bible?
SPEAKER_01: You ever thought about that?
SPEAKER_01: Why would Richard Dawkins, the lead atheist of our time, even make reference to the Bible?
SPEAKER_01: He has no reference in any of his writings to the Quran.
SPEAKER_01: He has no reference to the Pali Canon or the Vitas, only the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: Well, hands down, the Bible is the most influential book in all of history.
SPEAKER_01: Any scholar of any amount of education would tell you that.
SPEAKER_01: Sixty-six books given to us in the Old and New Testament, 39 in the old, 27 in the new, one book.
SPEAKER_01: Written over a period of over 1,500 years, over 40 different authors of all walks of life, shepherds, farmers, kings, prophets, physicians, priests, and philosophers.
SPEAKER_01: In spite of all these different authors, the Bible is amazingly cohesive and unified from beginning to end.
SPEAKER_01: Dr.
SPEAKER_01: William F.
SPEAKER_01: Albright, the famed American archaeologist and Bible scholar, has written, I quote, the Bible towers in content above all other religious literature, and it towers just as impressively over all subsequent literature, in a direct simplicity of message, in the Catholicity or the universal appeal to all humankind in all lands and times.
SPEAKER_01: Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic.
SPEAKER_01: There are 23,145 verses in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_01: There are 7,957 verses in the New Testament.
SPEAKER_01: And yet there is a perfect unity in all of these verses, proof alone that there was one author of them all.
SPEAKER_01: The author was God.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible was written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Inspiration means God breathed.
SPEAKER_01: Paul, writing to Timothy, said this: all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible has been translated into 2,018 languages with countless partial translations and audio works for unwritten languages.
SPEAKER_01: In comparison, Shakespeare, many consider the greatest English writer of all time, has only been translated into 50 languages.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible reveals the mystery of God's plan.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible reveals the plan of salvation.
SPEAKER_01: It is the revelation of Jesus Christ, and Jesus makes it clear that all of Scripture is fulfilled in Him.
SPEAKER_01: You guys, when I was a freshman at Georgia and I came to know the Lord, the first thing that the ministry that kind of led me to the Lord gave me was how to have a quiet time, how to spend time in the Word.
SPEAKER_01: And I had, I'm telling you, 24 hours before, this was the most boring book in the history of humankind.
SPEAKER_01: And then when I got the Holy Spirit, when the Holy Spirit came into my life, he began to put a desire and a passion in my life to read the word.
SPEAKER_01: And so I'd go to class, and you guys know I was an athlete, so I'd practice in the afternoon.
SPEAKER_01: I'd go to class early, I'd come back, I'd sit there, and I just thought, I'll do five minutes.
SPEAKER_01: I'll just read it for five minutes, and then I had a journal.
SPEAKER_01: I remember it was kind of like a, I brought this up here, kind of a spiral-bound thing like this.
SPEAKER_01: I still got it somewhere.
SPEAKER_01: And I started reading and I write stuff down.
SPEAKER_01: That's all they told me is read and write a few things down in a journal.
SPEAKER_01: And five minutes became ten minutes, and ten minutes became fifteen minutes, and fifteen minutes became 30 minutes.
SPEAKER_01: And over time I fell in love with this book because I fell in love with the author of this book.
SPEAKER_01: There are people who love God's word.
SPEAKER_01: And as they love God's word, they discover they love God.
SPEAKER_01: You see, the Bible, D.
SPEAKER_01: L.
SPEAKER_01: Moody said, is not about information, it's about transformation.
SPEAKER_01: And so what happens is you read God's word, and then what happens?
SPEAKER_01: God's word starts to read you.
SPEAKER_01: And you go, oh man, I can't believe that.
SPEAKER_01: And I remember getting so excited, I tell my mom and dad, man, look at this, this is Bible verse.
SPEAKER_01: They said this to me, and it's like, I was doing this thing, and then I read this, and it's exactly the same, and I'm sure they're like, uh-huh.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: And they were kind enough to acquiesce to me and act like it was the greatest thing, you know, that had ever happened, was what God had said to me.
SPEAKER_01: Because God was giving revelation.
SPEAKER_01: How many of you know there's a difference between logos?
SPEAKER_01: This is, these are two Hebrew, two Greek words, logos and rehama.
SPEAKER_01: Logos and rhema.
SPEAKER_01: So the logos is the written word of God.
SPEAKER_01: Rhema is the writing word of God.
SPEAKER_01: So, in other words, when you approach God's word and you begin to read it, you're reading the logos, the word.
SPEAKER_01: But then as you read it, God gets your heart and he speaks something to you, specifically to you, for your life, that's rhema.
SPEAKER_01: That's rhema.
SPEAKER_01: And so what happens is something that gets birthed in you and it comes alive, and it's like a revival in your heart because of God's word.
SPEAKER_01: And so God's word, the scriptures say, is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword.
SPEAKER_01: It's able to pierce bone and marrow to show the thoughts and intentions of your heart.
SPEAKER_01: Nothing else like that, church.
SPEAKER_01: You may be super close to your spouse, but she can't know the thoughts and intentions of your heart.
SPEAKER_01: God's word does, though.
SPEAKER_01: Because God's alive, it's living and active, it's alive, it's alive for you, and it's alive for me.
SPEAKER_01: God so knows you that when you start to open up his word, it's gonna speak to you.
SPEAKER_01: It's gonna bring life to your bones and life to your spirit and life to your destiny that God has for you.
SPEAKER_01: So look at verse 17 here in our passage.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus says two things about why he came.
SPEAKER_01: He says two things about why he came.
SPEAKER_01: He says, first of all, do not think, so first is why he did not come.
SPEAKER_01: Do not think that I came to destroy the law or the prophets.
SPEAKER_01: You see, the Pharisees were saying, Jesus has come to destroy the law.
SPEAKER_01: He's come to destroy the law of Moses.
SPEAKER_01: He heals on the Sabbath.
SPEAKER_01: He claims to be God.
SPEAKER_01: He's always talking about himself.
SPEAKER_01: Can you think of any?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I know a little bit about world religions.
SPEAKER_01: I'm no expert in it, but I've studied most of the world religions.
SPEAKER_01: I don't think there's any world religion where the founder talks so much about himself but Jesus and Christianity.
SPEAKER_01: He's always talking about himself.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you would think anybody else would say, that guy's kind of a narcissist.
SPEAKER_01: He's always talking about himself.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus, all through the New Testament, is always talking about himself.
SPEAKER_01: That's weird.
SPEAKER_01: If I talked about myself as much as Jesus talks about himself, you say he's a conceited weirdo.
SPEAKER_01: But here's what's amazing: every critic, every critic of Jesus, I have never seen in any of the critiques of Christianity or Jesus anybody critiquing the fact that Jesus talks so much about himself.
SPEAKER_01: You know why?
SPEAKER_01: Because down deep inside, every human knows the key to everything in life, in the kingdom, and whether you believe in the kingdom of God or not, really centers on Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And in their heart they know he's right to talk about himself.
SPEAKER_01: And so Jesus is talking about himself, and the Pharisees are getting upset because he doesn't do things the way they do things.
SPEAKER_01: And this is really important.
SPEAKER_01: Everybody listen now.
SPEAKER_01: Because you're not going to understand the rest of the Sermon on the Mount if you don't get this.
SPEAKER_01: And this is really key.
SPEAKER_01: What had happened was it the and it was meant, I think it was meant in a really holy way, but the scribes and the Pharisees of that time were trying to figure out, as well as the scholars that had gone before them, what does it mean, for example, to keep the Sabbath holy?
SPEAKER_01: What constitutes unholiness?
SPEAKER_01: What means you're not supposed to work on the Sabbath?
SPEAKER_01: And so they created the, through the oral tradition of the time, they created a set of writings, Pharisaic writings, that Jesus later will call the traditions of men.
SPEAKER_01: The traditions of men that were 613 extra laws that they added to the Old Testament scriptures.
SPEAKER_01: Now, there's nothing wrong with having commentaries and interpretation of scripture.
SPEAKER_01: I use commentaries all the time when I'm studying a passage that I'm going to teach here.
SPEAKER_01: So I believe in that.
SPEAKER_01: So look, look at your look at your passage, look at verse 21 of Matthew 5.
SPEAKER_01: And this is where Jesus is going to take on the Pharisees.
SPEAKER_01: And like I said, nobody's ever done this before.
SPEAKER_01: This is like got them so angry at Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: He says, You have heard that it was said to those of old.
SPEAKER_01: He's talking about this extra interpretation.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 27, you have heard that it was said to those of old.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 33, again, you have heard that it was said to those of old.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 38, you have heard that it was said.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 43, you have heard that it was said.
SPEAKER_01: So what we're going to be looking at in the weeks ahead is we're going to look at each one of these pericopes, each one of these passages, and he's saying to them, look, you've been taught this by the Pharisees and the scribes.
SPEAKER_01: Let me tell you, and listen, this is important.
SPEAKER_01: This is really important.
SPEAKER_01: Let me tell you what the heart of the Bible is.
SPEAKER_01: Let me tell you what the real purpose of Scripture is all about.
SPEAKER_01: And Jesus is going to show us in the Sermon on the Mount that it's not what's outside a man that matters, it's what's inside a man that matters.
SPEAKER_01: It's the motivations of your heart.
SPEAKER_01: It's a transformed heart.
SPEAKER_01: And he's going to show us that from the Old Testament, how many of you have heard that the God of the Old Testament's an angry God?
SPEAKER_01: And the God of the New Testament's a loving God.
SPEAKER_01: I've heard that ever since I got saved.
SPEAKER_01: So unwilling, many, to look at the heart of Scripture from Genesis to Revelation, that the heart of a man is what matters to God.
SPEAKER_01: That's why he raised up David.
SPEAKER_01: He was a man after God's own heart.
SPEAKER_01: Were there smarter people in Israel at the time?
SPEAKER_01: Of course there were.
SPEAKER_01: Were there wealthier people at the time?
SPEAKER_01: Of course there were.
SPEAKER_01: Were there taller, more handsome people like Saul in the time of the?
SPEAKER_01: Yes, but he saw David's heart.
SPEAKER_01: This, he says, in Psalm 78, is a man that I took from being a shepherd of the ewes and the lambs, and I made him a shepherd over Israel because he shepherd out of the integrity of his heart and the skillfulness of his hands.
SPEAKER_01: That's a man who is wholehearted.
SPEAKER_01: That really is what wholehearted dance is about.
SPEAKER_01: It's about the spirit of David, placing that into the men of the road and others that are coming from other churches, that we might be men of God who are wholehearted, who love God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength.
SPEAKER_01: So he said, I didn't come to break the laws or destroy the laws.
SPEAKER_01: He secondly says this, I did not come to destroy, but to fulfill.
SPEAKER_01: When they threw their nets out, fill with fish.
SPEAKER_01: I came to fill the scriptures with meaning.
SPEAKER_01: I love what the great ancient writer and Christian Seophilic wrote.
SPEAKER_01: The Lord Jesus, man, you guys are dead today.
SPEAKER_01: Come on, isn't that great?
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: All right.
SPEAKER_01: The Lord Jesus filled up Moses and the prophets as a painter fills the sketch of a picture he has made.
SPEAKER_01: I almost got lists to draw it, but we were so busy this week.
SPEAKER_01: But if I could, it would be a picture up here, and it would be a sketch of one picture, and then right here would be a portrait of the picture we sketched.
SPEAKER_01: And this is the sketch.
SPEAKER_01: This is the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_01: This is the Mosaic Lost, just a sketch.
SPEAKER_01: We say Old Testament concealed, New Testament revealed.
SPEAKER_01: Old Testament concealed, New Testament revealed.
SPEAKER_01: And then when Jesus came, he filled up the portrait with color and with beauty and with the heart of God.
SPEAKER_01: Like we can't have just with the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_01: We have the Old Testament to be a bridge into the new.
SPEAKER_01: He filled it up.
SPEAKER_01: The word here is fulfilled.
SPEAKER_01: So you read about, let's just start in Eden, and you have Adam and Eve.
SPEAKER_01: And it says that it says that Adam walked with God in the garden.
SPEAKER_01: You can't know what that means without Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: You can't understand the intimacy of that without a personal relationship.
SPEAKER_01: With Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: See, it's filling in the first story.
SPEAKER_01: The first story of the scriptures.
SPEAKER_01: That makes sense.
SPEAKER_01: And then we have a serpent that comes, and there's a serpent, and there's a demonic encounter.
SPEAKER_01: In this case, a satanic encounter, and Eve and Adam fall.
SPEAKER_01: You can't understand that without Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: We can't understand the meaning.
SPEAKER_01: We can't fill that out without the cross at Calvary.
SPEAKER_01: Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_01: So that filling, that fulfilling is what Jesus came to do.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 18.
SPEAKER_01: For surely I say to you, till heaven and earth pass away, one jot.
SPEAKER_01: So like I said, that's the tenth and smallest letter of the Hebrew alphabet.
SPEAKER_01: The tiniest little.
SPEAKER_01: If you have, um I kept, have you ever, if any of you are public speakers, and I've got a chance to pull this back, but I'm not going to, you say to yourself, don't say this.
SPEAKER_01: Like, don't say this when you speak.
SPEAKER_01: And then you say it, you just gotta say it, and then you say it and you go, why did I say it?
SPEAKER_01: So just a little, a little bit of a um, anyway.
SPEAKER_01: So a jot is the tenth letter in the smallest letter of the alphabet.
SPEAKER_01: If you have a New King James Version, most of your New King James Versions in the Psalms, Psalm 119 in particular, which is an acrostic there of the Hebrew language starting with the same letter, has actually the Hebrew alphabet in it.
SPEAKER_01: It's actually in your Bible.
SPEAKER_01: Now, if you have an NIV or something like that, you don't have that.
SPEAKER_01: But mine has that.
SPEAKER_01: So, for example, as the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet in Psalm 119 is Aleph.
SPEAKER_01: And then on mine, it shows to, and this is not even a study Bible, okay?
SPEAKER_01: Who has that?
SPEAKER_01: Where you can see that.
SPEAKER_01: Alright.
SPEAKER_01: So, I said I wasn't gonna do this, but I'm gonna do it anyway.
SPEAKER_01: So look at verse 73.
SPEAKER_01: If you have verse 73, you see yod.
SPEAKER_01: That is the smallest letter.
SPEAKER_01: See how small that is?
SPEAKER_01: That little tiny little, almost like an apostrophe.
SPEAKER_01: So he's saying, not even that.
SPEAKER_01: Not even the yod.
SPEAKER_01: Not even the title, which is a little tiny comma raised up almost like an apostrophe in the Hebrew language.
SPEAKER_01: By the way, if any of you are gonna do any postgraduate work or go to seminary, um, avoid Hebrew as much as possible.
SPEAKER_01: It's really hard.
SPEAKER_01: It will not pass away.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, God's gonna fulfill what's in his scripture.
SPEAKER_01: So, on the one hand, let me tell you, I'm I'm schizophrenic in this way when I think about the end times.
SPEAKER_01: I've taken us through Revelation.
SPEAKER_01: If you count my time at Mountain Springs and then my time here, we we I've gone through verse by verse of every verse in the book of Revelation twice.
SPEAKER_01: And when I hear about pastors falling away, when I hear about the hillsong leader falling away, when I hear about other people falling away, it's actually talked about in Scripture that in the last days many will fall away.
SPEAKER_01: And let me just tell you guys this.
SPEAKER_01: If you're not in the Word on a regular basis, you won't be here next year.
SPEAKER_01: I'm sorry, I'm confident in you because of the crisis in you, but if you're not nurturing the Christ in you, you won't be here.
SPEAKER_01: The current and the streams of this culture are so strong.
SPEAKER_01: Another one I wasn't gonna tell.
SPEAKER_01: About a month ago, I'm out on a stream, and I'm out there and I turn to go back to where I came from on the side, and bam, I go down.
SPEAKER_01: Liz doesn't even know this.
SPEAKER_01: I go down and I'm swept down the stream about 15 or 20 yards, and water is pouring into my waders.
SPEAKER_01: Fortunately, I had a belt, so not much got in.
SPEAKER_01: Here's the funny thing is I always knew I'm gonna kick this river's butt.
SPEAKER_01: There is no way I'm not gonna find a place to land my foot and get up.
SPEAKER_01: So, how many of you feel like you've been kicked around a little bit and taken down the stream a little more than you like in this culture?
SPEAKER_01: Raise your hand.
SPEAKER_01: The rest of you guys are liars.
SPEAKER_01: You know it's true, but you have Christ and you've got his word, and you've got to put that foot back and you've got to stand back up.
SPEAKER_01: That's the reason you're here, I hope.
SPEAKER_01: And fight.
SPEAKER_01: You gotta fight by the renewing of your mind.
SPEAKER_01: Do you think it was it was fun for Joshua and Caleb with the other 10 spies to say, we can take that land?
SPEAKER_01: And 10 out of 12 said, no, we can't.
SPEAKER_01: The giants of Anak are there.
SPEAKER_01: That's 83% against you.
SPEAKER_01: I'm from Georgia, I'm not real smart, but I can do a little bit of math.
SPEAKER_01: Isaiah 40, Isaiah says, the grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of God stands forever.
SPEAKER_01: Forever, O Lord, your word is settled in heaven.
SPEAKER_01: God's bringing about, he's setting up things in our culture.
SPEAKER_01: We get to be a part of the growing triumphant church, even as demonic powers increase across the land.
SPEAKER_01: Galatians 3.24, Paul says it well.
SPEAKER_01: He says, Therefore the law was our tutor, our coach, our life coach, to bring us to Christ that we might be justified by faith.
SPEAKER_01: But after faith has come, we're no longer under a tutor.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, that the law, the Ten Commandments, the law of the Mosaic Law was there to tutor us, to show us what the law was to show us, to protect us.
SPEAKER_01: How many of you parents have said to your kids, when you come to a stop, look both ways, listen, cross when the light tells you to, right?
SPEAKER_01: It's to protect your kid.
SPEAKER_01: And so the law was given so that we don't fall into sin that will hurt us.
SPEAKER_01: Fire burns you.
SPEAKER_01: Adultery is a bad idea.
SPEAKER_01: If you're in an affair right now, repent today, get right with God, because you are gonna destroy your life.
SPEAKER_01: Coveting other people's stuff, jealousy.
SPEAKER_01: It's bad.
SPEAKER_01: The law is there to reveal to us sin, but also to show us this is where happiness is.
SPEAKER_01: This is where blessing is found.
SPEAKER_01: Follow me.
SPEAKER_01: Read Deuteronomy 28 this week.
SPEAKER_01: Basically, the great blessing and cursing chapter of the Bible.
SPEAKER_01: I if you'll follow this, he says, if you'll wholeheartedly do what I tell you to do, and then he gives you these blessings that are unreal.
SPEAKER_01: He'll bless you in your job, he'll bless you in your finances, he'll bless you in your marriage, he'll bless you in your relationships.
SPEAKER_01: And it's like 12 verses, and then there's like 40 verses.
SPEAKER_01: Because what Israel needed.
SPEAKER_01: You don't follow me, here's the cursings.
SPEAKER_01: And when you read it, it sounds like America today.
SPEAKER_01: Sounds like America.
SPEAKER_01: You'll be in debt, you'll be dis you'll be despairing, you'll struggle with depression, you'll be on drugs.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's like, he doesn't say that, but I mean it's like that.
SPEAKER_01: And it's all right there, you know.
SPEAKER_01: So it's right there, and he he wants to bless us, church.
SPEAKER_01: He said, You gotta get the heart, and the heart's Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Because here's the reason it's a tutor.
SPEAKER_01: If the law's a tutor to Jesus, because you can't do it, you can't not covet, you can't not have lust in your heart for women and men.
SPEAKER_01: You can't not do that.
SPEAKER_01: It's impossible.
SPEAKER_01: You've got to have Jesus, you've got to have the power of his Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches men so shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven.
SPEAKER_01: But whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, the word break means to make void.
SPEAKER_01: There's a couple leading pastors the past two weeks that have fallen into apostasy.
SPEAKER_01: That means they've ditched the faith, they've ditched their marriages, they've ditched their faith, they have broken the word.
SPEAKER_01: Man, I shudder to think the kind of judgment they're under because of the tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands that follow their lead, that read their books, that sang their songs.
SPEAKER_01: Scary stuff.
SPEAKER_01: I feel that responsibility as a pastor.
SPEAKER_01: I hugely feel that burden as your shepherd and as your pastor, that I teach God's word right and that I live it.
SPEAKER_01: That I live it.
SPEAKER_01: My job is to build whole-hearted disciples of Jesus, not whole-hearted disciples of Steve.
SPEAKER_01: Steve didn't go to the cross.
SPEAKER_01: The road didn't go to the cross, Jesus did.
SPEAKER_01: So we point everything to Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: The whole purpose of Sunday morning is Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: The whole point of worship is Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: The whole point of studying God's word is Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: The whole point of greeting people and loving people that come in that door and even having donuts and coffee.
SPEAKER_01: It's about Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Now don't have donuts and coffee every day.
SPEAKER_01: Just save up for one day a week.
SPEAKER_01: It's all right.
SPEAKER_01: You guys know I'm into hell.
SPEAKER_01: It's like big time.
SPEAKER_01: And I have my two donut holes.
SPEAKER_01: I had them this morning.
SPEAKER_01: So turning your Bibles to Psalm 119 real quick.
SPEAKER_01: And I just was deeply moved by this week as far as my responsibility to you as your pastor.
SPEAKER_01: Psalm 119, verse 1.
SPEAKER_01: Aleph.
SPEAKER_01: You'll see Aleph there, the Hebrew first letter there.
SPEAKER_01: Blessed means happy are the undefiled in the way, who walk in the law of the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Blessed or happy are those who keep his testimonies.
SPEAKER_01: Who seek him with their whole heart.
SPEAKER_01: Number one, that's it, right there.
SPEAKER_01: My job is, first of all, that you would seek God with your whole heart.
SPEAKER_01: That I would motivate, encourage, strengthen, empower, and get you fired up to seek God with your whole heart.
SPEAKER_01: I can seek God with my whole heart, but I can tell you, if I look behind me and nobody's following, that's not leadership.
SPEAKER_01: We've got to go together, church.
SPEAKER_01: We have got to seek God from his word with a whole heart together.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 3.
SPEAKER_01: They also do no iniquity, for they walk in his ways.
SPEAKER_01: Secondly, my job is that you would walk in his ways, not just have an ooey-goooey, wonderful, extremely exciting Sunday morning service.
SPEAKER_01: Who cares about that?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I care about it a little bit, but the reality is we're here to equip the saints, worship God.
SPEAKER_01: We love that, but it's gotta happen the other six days in the week.
SPEAKER_01: There's 168 hours in a week, and if we're godly for two hours, I figured that one out too.
SPEAKER_01: We are not doing our job.
SPEAKER_01: And that's what most of the church is doing today.
SPEAKER_01: We're entertaining people on Sunday, and they're just like everybody else in the culture the rest of the week.
SPEAKER_01: And we're not changing the culture, the culture's changing us.
SPEAKER_01: And so this scripture says, and we, I believe David wrote this, I want my people to walk in my ways.
SPEAKER_01: Not just experience me, but walk in me.
SPEAKER_01: Then look at verse 9.
SPEAKER_01: How can a young man cleanse his way by taking heed according to your word?
SPEAKER_01: Verse 10, with all my whole heart I've sought you.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, let me not wonder from your commandments.
SPEAKER_01: Your word I have hidden in my heart.
SPEAKER_01: Thirdly, my job, my responsibility is that you would hide God's word in your heart, that you would have a passion to have God's word in your heart, not traditions of men.
SPEAKER_01: Many of us grew up in the church, we know the traditions of men, and we don't have a personal, vital, dynamic, growing, passionate relationship with Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And we're messing around.
SPEAKER_01: Hello?
SPEAKER_01: Man, I am up to no good if I spend a week not being in God's word.
SPEAKER_01: I will be up to no good.
SPEAKER_01: And I'll start listening to certain stuff, I'll start reading stuff.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you need to take that flipping phone and either chuck it or get off the internet.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you you you cannot be trusted with it.
SPEAKER_01: It's a cocaine addiction because of the dopamine fix that you get in your frontal cortex every time you see what your friends are doing or your latest high school sweetheart that you wonder what they're doing these days, and do they look as good as they did when they were 18?
SPEAKER_01: By the way, they don't, and all the pictures that you see on there are from the neck up, and they've got a big old fat belly.
SPEAKER_01: I guarantee you that.
SPEAKER_01: And so I'm gonna tell you right now, you need to get, I want a full body scan, man, and that'll just take you out of your little idealistic heavenly world of oh, he'd be so much better than my husband or my wife.
SPEAKER_01: That's a bunch of crap.
SPEAKER_01: And it's demonic.
SPEAKER_01: So it used to be, it used to be in the time of Jesus, you kind of messed around at the well.
SPEAKER_01: You went down to the well, right?
SPEAKER_01: And you got a little bit of well water and stuff, and you kind of had a little conversation, and woo! Well, now it's on your phone.
SPEAKER_01: Either way, it's sin and it's wrong.
SPEAKER_01: So here's what I say.
SPEAKER_01: If you want blessing, and you and you gotta read Deuteronomy 28, if you want blessing from the Lord, start looking and evaluating your life that way.
SPEAKER_01: If you want cursings from the Lord, don't worry about it.
SPEAKER_01: Don't worry about it, and don't bug me.
SPEAKER_01: Hey, I'm not gonna come visit you in the hospital because of your addiction and because you had an overdose, because you screwed up, because you are not disobeying God constantly.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I might, I'll send somebody.
SPEAKER_01: If you're about to die, we'll pray for healing.
SPEAKER_01: But I'm telling you, man, most of the stuff in our life you created.
SPEAKER_01: So my job is to train you to hide God's word in your heart.
SPEAKER_01: Blessed are you, O Lord, teach me your statutes.
SPEAKER_01: With my lips I have declared all the judgments of my mouth.
SPEAKER_01: I have rejoiced in the way of your testimonies.
SPEAKER_01: Now look at verse 15.
SPEAKER_01: I will meditate in your precepts.
SPEAKER_01: So, men and women, meditate, meditate, spend time in God's word.
SPEAKER_01: We think meditation is some like new age thing.
SPEAKER_01: We've developed this kind of new age thing about meditation.
SPEAKER_01: That is wrong, man.
SPEAKER_01: We had it in scripture thousands of years before the new agers started using it.
SPEAKER_01: It's just that they are better at publicizing it.
SPEAKER_01: But the reality is meditation means God.
SPEAKER_01: Like just, you know, Psalm 118.
SPEAKER_01: God, I just I just want to not sin against you, Lord.
SPEAKER_01: And I ask you, God, that your word would come alive in my heart.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, you're taking scripture and you turn it into a prayer.
SPEAKER_01: You read a verse, you turn it into prayer.
SPEAKER_01: That's part of meditation.
SPEAKER_01: And then lastly, Jesus says this.
SPEAKER_01: For I say to you, this really blows me away.
SPEAKER_01: And a worship team could come up.
SPEAKER_01: I know I went late today.
SPEAKER_01: We're supposed to be done soon.
SPEAKER_01: But I had to preach it.
SPEAKER_01: I had to preach it.
SPEAKER_01: I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_01: I thought about making this part one and part two, and I just said, nah, I'm going for it, man.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 20, for I say to you that unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven.
SPEAKER_01: Now, what's he talking about here?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, these guys were righteous.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, their capital are righteous.
SPEAKER_01: They just don't do anything wrong.
SPEAKER_01: And yet Jesus calls them whitewashed tombs.
SPEAKER_01: In other words, you look good on the outside, but the inside of you is dead man's bones.
SPEAKER_01: And that's why they came to him and they said to Jesus, what's the greatest commandment?
SPEAKER_01: They want to trick him.
SPEAKER_01: He says, Here's the greatest commandment.
SPEAKER_01: And then he says, All of the law and the prophets are summed up in this.
SPEAKER_01: And this is where I want you to leave this with you today.
SPEAKER_01: Love the Lord your God with all of your heart, with all of your soul, with all of your mind, with all of your strength.
SPEAKER_01: And then love your neighbor as yourself.
SPEAKER_01: And then he says, All of the law.
SPEAKER_01: All of the 39 books of the Old Testament are fulfilled in that.
SPEAKER_01: All the prophets are fulfilled in that.
SPEAKER_01: And you say, Well, how can I do that?
SPEAKER_01: You can't.
SPEAKER_01: Everybody say, You can't.
SPEAKER_01: Look at your personnection and say, you can't.
SPEAKER_01: Point at them and say, you can't do that.
SPEAKER_01: You can't.
SPEAKER_01: But the Holy Spirit can't.
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.
SPEAKER_00: To connect with us further, visit theroad.org.
SPEAKER_00: If you are walking through a difficult time, we want to pray for you.
SPEAKER_00: Go to theroad.org, click on the ministries tab, and go to our prayer page to send us your prayer request.
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.