SPEAKER_00: You're listening to the rogue with Pastor Teacher Steve Holmes.
SPEAKER_01: You are the church.
SPEAKER_01: Listen, men and women.
SPEAKER_01: You are the rogue.
SPEAKER_01: That's what I don't say when I have appointments.
SPEAKER_01: Meet me at the church.
SPEAKER_01: I say meet me at the ministry center.
SPEAKER_01: This is a ministry center.
SPEAKER_01: This is not the church.
SPEAKER_01: You're the church.
SPEAKER_01: You guys are the church.
SPEAKER_01: You don't go to church.
SPEAKER_01: You is the church.
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: Turn to the last book of the Old Testament, Malachi.
SPEAKER_01: Malachi prophesied during the time of Nehemiah and Ezra.
SPEAKER_01: So we believe that he was prophesying at a time of resurgence of patriotism, resurgence of nationalism in Israel.
SPEAKER_01: But simultaneously, we're all slow to learn.
SPEAKER_01: Israel has a forehead like flint and a hardened heart most of the time as we read through the scriptures.
SPEAKER_01: Even though they had come from captivity back to Jerusalem, built the wall, they still slipped back into moral decay.
SPEAKER_01: And so Malachi is raised up by God to be a prophetic word to Israel of God being a refiner's fire, like launderer's soap, that he's coming to his people to bring forth a spotless people.
SPEAKER_01: And he was speaking to Israel at that time, but men and women, it's prophetic to us.
SPEAKER_01: How many of you know that it's Old Testament concealed, New Testament revealed?
SPEAKER_01: That God shows us in picture form, in actual story form, what he wants to do in his church today.
SPEAKER_01: And so I want you to look at Malachi chapter 3.
SPEAKER_01: Malachi 1 and 2, he covers some of the sins, their offerings, the infidelity of even the priest.
SPEAKER_01: But we come to chapter 3, and this is a word for us at the road, men and women.
SPEAKER_01: This is a word for you.
SPEAKER_01: This is a word for me.
SPEAKER_01: I've had a rough week.
SPEAKER_01: Really hard week with some stuff that have happened.
SPEAKER_01: A lot of stuff going on.
SPEAKER_01: I took two days to get away and spend with the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: And he met me in a powerful way and and he came upon me during this time with the Lord and told me some things that I needed to do that I don't want to do.
SPEAKER_01: And I said, that's a bad idea.
SPEAKER_01: Refiner's fire.
SPEAKER_01: The refiner's fire coming in my life and in my heart, and some things that I need to kind of clean up.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what he says.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 1, Behold, I send my messenger.
SPEAKER_01: We believe that's John, speaking of the first coming of the Messiah, and he will prepare the way before me, capital M, the Lord, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, Christ, in whom you delight.
SPEAKER_01: Behold, he is coming, says the Lord of hosts.
SPEAKER_01: So there's two-edged meaning to that.
SPEAKER_01: One is that he's speaking of Christ coming and literally coming to his temple after John prepared the way for him, the coming Messiah with the new covenant.
SPEAKER_01: But he's also speaking to us today through the words of Malachi.
SPEAKER_01: But who can endure the day of his coming?
SPEAKER_01: And who can stand when he appears?
SPEAKER_01: For he is like a refiner's fire.
SPEAKER_01: He is like a refiner's fire.
SPEAKER_01: You ought to underline that.
SPEAKER_01: Circle that, highlight it.
SPEAKER_01: Whatever you do with your phone.
SPEAKER_01: What do you do with your phone?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, can you underline it on some of those apps?
SPEAKER_01: Okay.
SPEAKER_01: And he's like launderer's soap.
SPEAKER_01: He will sit as a refiner and a purifier of silver.
SPEAKER_01: He will purify the sons of Levi and purge them as gold and silver that they may offer to the Lord an offering in righteousness.
SPEAKER_01: You know what I love about refiners fire is it doesn't say forest fire.
SPEAKER_01: We've had a lot of forest fires, haven't we?
SPEAKER_01: We've had a forest fire in Waldo Canyon.
SPEAKER_01: Before that, Hayden.
SPEAKER_01: We've had a forest fire in Black Forest.
SPEAKER_01: Forest fires indiscriminately destroy everything.
SPEAKER_01: Refiner's fire purifies.
SPEAKER_01: There's a purpose between a refiner's fire and a forest fire, and it's not indiscriminate.
SPEAKER_01: It is coming after a purification.
SPEAKER_01: A purification of gold and silver is what he says here.
SPEAKER_01: And he's speaking here of this refiner's fire that God wants to bring into our hearts and into our lives and the work of his spirit within us.
SPEAKER_01: And so you know that silver in particular is heated up to 1,764 degrees.
SPEAKER_01: That's pretty hot.
SPEAKER_01: And if I was the piece of silver, that would not be a good day.
SPEAKER_01: But he takes that silver and he puts that silver into that bat and he heats it up.
SPEAKER_01: And you know, if you go past that temperature, you can destroy the silver.
SPEAKER_01: Or you can destroy the gold.
SPEAKER_01: So it's really important to the silversmith that he reaches the 1,764 degrees, pulling out of that iron ore or whatever the substance is that was mixed with the silver, as it begins to be burned out of the silver and it flows to the top, and he begins to sweep that away, he begins to clean that up, but he's not going to go past 1,764 degrees Fahrenheit.
SPEAKER_01: Because then he ruins the silver.
SPEAKER_01: So he's beautifying that silver, and you may have heard, you know, it's I think it's a well-known story, that he sees himself in the silver.
SPEAKER_01: So God puts us into heat.
SPEAKER_01: God puts us into fires in our life.
SPEAKER_01: Anybody going through any fires right now in your life?
SPEAKER_01: Wow.
SPEAKER_01: Anybody going through any fires in your life?
SPEAKER_01: Say, I'm going through a fire right now, Pastor Steve.
SPEAKER_01: I'm going through a fire right now, Pastor Steve.
SPEAKER_01: And your pastor's going through a few.
SPEAKER_01: Because God's heating things up.
SPEAKER_01: Listen now closely to this.
SPEAKER_01: Because he wants to see his character, his heart, his gentleness, his kindness, his love, his mercy in you.
SPEAKER_01: He wants to see a reflection of himself in you, and he's heating things up, and it is painful because he loves you.
SPEAKER_01: And next week I want to talk more about how he works all things together for good.
SPEAKER_01: Not today.
SPEAKER_01: We're going to do Refiner's Fire Part two next week.
SPEAKER_01: And hopefully by the end of this, you're not going, man, I'm not coming back because I didn't like that part one.
SPEAKER_01: But let's just start with this idea that God is doing something in our lives, church, that is testing us and building us for something he has for us to do.
SPEAKER_01: Look at James 1.
SPEAKER_01: If you have your Bible, turn to James 1.
SPEAKER_01: Just turn to the right of Malachi.
SPEAKER_01: James 1, we see this work of God in verse 2 that James describes as the testing of our faith.
SPEAKER_01: The testing of our faith.
SPEAKER_01: He says, My brethren, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience.
SPEAKER_01: But let patience, I hate patience.
SPEAKER_01: I just want to say that.
SPEAKER_01: I hate it.
SPEAKER_01: I like things to happen now.
SPEAKER_01: I like things to happen quickly.
SPEAKER_01: I like to see things happen successfully and effectively, and everybody's happy.
SPEAKER_01: Do you realize that today there's so little things that you have to be patient for compared to in yesteryear and in the past?
SPEAKER_01: I'm old enough to know that there was a time when phones had little cords to them and they were hung on the wall.
SPEAKER_01: And that you watch the nightly news.
SPEAKER_01: Walter Cronkite.
SPEAKER_01: Or Peter Jennings.
SPEAKER_01: Or Jessica Sawyer.
SPEAKER_01: And there was like three choices.
SPEAKER_01: And they all said the same thing.
SPEAKER_01: So usually you just stuck to one, and one maybe a little more good looking than the other.
SPEAKER_01: But now it's instant gratification, isn't it?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, you can just have anything you want anytime.
SPEAKER_01: Like I was in my time with the Lord this morning, and I was actually thinking about next week's message while I was working on this.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know what to do in the mornings on Sunday, by the way.
SPEAKER_01: I'm used to three or four services.
SPEAKER_01: I haven't gotten used to this.
SPEAKER_01: One service, it doesn't even start till 10 something.
SPEAKER_01: What do you do?
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I've prayed up, I'm ready, I'm studied up.
SPEAKER_01: It's like, let's get the show on the road, man.
SPEAKER_01: So I was working on next week's message.
SPEAKER_01: So I just looked up chastening.
SPEAKER_01: In Hebrews 12, chastening.
SPEAKER_01: Like eight times chastening.
SPEAKER_01: And I had pretty much I had the Greek, I had the Hebrew, I had four or five dictionary versions.
SPEAKER_01: Man, I can tell you about chastening right now.
SPEAKER_01: Five minutes.
SPEAKER_01: Before, you had to have a, I still got this massive concordance, and you'd look up the word, and then you'd look up the number, and then you'd go to the number and you'd look it up, and then you'd write it down in your journal, and then you'd put it into your notes and all that.
SPEAKER_01: So we have an instant gratification society, and guess what, men and women?
SPEAKER_01: God's character does not come instantly.
SPEAKER_01: He's forging, he's chiseling with his refiner's fire in our lives.
SPEAKER_01: And it takes time and it hurts.
SPEAKER_01: Guess what he's making?
SPEAKER_01: He's making you a witness.
SPEAKER_01: Did you know it doesn't make any sense to say I'm going witnessing?
SPEAKER_01: Like we're going to pick up our four spiritual laws, or we're going to go out to the mall, and we're going to pray for people, they get healed.
SPEAKER_01: That's not witnessing.
SPEAKER_01: Witnessing scripturally is not what you do, it's who you are.
SPEAKER_01: You are the witness.
SPEAKER_01: Now I believe in witnessing, in the sense of going out and sharing our faith, but men and women, the most powerful thing we do is become what Christ is chiseling away with his refining fire in us so that people see Christ through us.
SPEAKER_01: That's the witness.
SPEAKER_01: They see you.
SPEAKER_01: And I've said this before, I'll say it again, that I don't think in America we need more Christians of the version that we currently have.
SPEAKER_01: Because our values are not changing the culture hardly at all.
SPEAKER_01: Because our values are the culture's values.
SPEAKER_01: And I guess the only thing really different in most Christians' lives is they go to church on Sunday.
SPEAKER_01: We have more people going to church on Sunday ever in the history of America right now.
SPEAKER_01: And we have the least amount of cultural impact ever in the history of our country.
SPEAKER_01: That's a problem within our churches, in my opinion.
SPEAKER_01: We're not equipping the saints, we're not building disciples.
SPEAKER_01: At the road, building wholehearted disciples is the vision of our church.
SPEAKER_01: And here's what I know.
SPEAKER_01: If you choose to be a disciple, you'll go through refiners fire.
SPEAKER_01: And what James is saying is it's joyful.
SPEAKER_01: Now that's weird.
SPEAKER_01: Folks, that is strange, but he's saying, count it all joy.
SPEAKER_01: And the only reason he can say that is because he knows what God is doing through the trials.
SPEAKER_01: Don't miss this, men and women.
SPEAKER_01: This is really important.
SPEAKER_01: He says, count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing.
SPEAKER_01: Know this.
SPEAKER_01: He's saying, remember this.
SPEAKER_01: Don't miss this point when you're going through your trials, is that the testing of your faith produces patience.
SPEAKER_01: But he doesn't end there.
SPEAKER_01: He says, but let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.
SPEAKER_01: He's completing us, he's perfecting us.
SPEAKER_01: He really is making us into a beautiful piece of gold or silver for his work.
SPEAKER_01: And then he says this, and I think verse 5 is there, because this is what you need when you're going through it.
SPEAKER_01: If any of you lacks wisdom.
SPEAKER_01: Hello?
SPEAKER_01: I don't know about you, but I don't know what to do when I'm going through trials.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know how to respond.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know how to handle what that person said.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know about, I mean, I came into work and next thing I know, I'm fired.
SPEAKER_01: Or I'm at work and I get the note, she's divorcing me.
SPEAKER_01: Or your message, you know, you're on your phone and you see a text message and you realize it was meant for somebody else, and it's your spouse sexting someone.
SPEAKER_01: I know every one of those things have happened to people in this room.
SPEAKER_01: I've counseled some of you.
SPEAKER_01: What do you do?
SPEAKER_01: He says, if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God who gives to all liberally without reproach, and it will be given to him.
SPEAKER_01: That's how we grow in wisdom, church, is through the refiners fire.
SPEAKER_01: Until you come to those events, those relationships, and those struggles in your life where you don't know what to do, you don't get more wisdom.
SPEAKER_01: So I want to grow in wisdom.
SPEAKER_01: How about you?
SPEAKER_01: I want to grow in wisdom.
SPEAKER_01: I want to go through the refiner's fire with joy, and I'm experiencing that right now.
SPEAKER_01: And next week I'll share more about what God said to me a few days ago in my time with the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: By the way, God is in your ray.
SPEAKER_01: God is in your ray.
SPEAKER_01: God is an aspen.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes I need to just get away at a beautiful spot, be in the mountains, and spend time with the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: So I was outside Uray in a little town called Ridgeway, where I have a friend who let me use his house, and so I was there in a beautiful view, and got busted by God.
SPEAKER_01: Turn to 2 Corinthians 3.
SPEAKER_01: Turn to 2 Corinthians 3 because this is what God's doing.
SPEAKER_01: This is what God's doing in your pastor's life.
SPEAKER_01: This is what God's doing in your life.
SPEAKER_01: 2 Corinthians 3.
SPEAKER_01: So go left from James.
SPEAKER_01: Just if you're unfamiliar with your Bible, just look at the table of contents.
SPEAKER_01: That's how I learn.
SPEAKER_01: So 2 Corinthians 3 says this, verse 2.
SPEAKER_01: An epistle means letter.
SPEAKER_01: You are, he's speaking to the Corinthians.
SPEAKER_01: He said, You are our epistle, or we might say, you are our letter, speaking of the Corinthian church, written on our hearts, known and read by all men.
SPEAKER_01: Clearly, you are an epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink, but by the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone, but on tablets of flesh, that is of the heart.
SPEAKER_01: See what he's saying, church?
SPEAKER_01: He's saying that I'm taking you through these things.
SPEAKER_01: That sickness that didn't get healed, the divorce, the affair, failing the test, broken leg when you're trying to make the team, whatever it might be.
SPEAKER_01: Because I'm writing on your heart a letter that everybody can read.
SPEAKER_01: Because I'm transforming you, I'm making you into a wholehearted disciple that will love me with all of your heart, all of your soul, all of your mind, and all of your strength, so that people can read that letter.
SPEAKER_01: People can read that letter.
SPEAKER_01: You are the church.
SPEAKER_01: Listen, men and women, you are the road.
SPEAKER_01: That's why I don't say when I have appointments, meet me at the church.
SPEAKER_01: I say, meet me at the ministry center.
SPEAKER_01: This is a ministry center.
SPEAKER_01: This is not the church.
SPEAKER_01: You're the church.
SPEAKER_01: You guys are the church.
SPEAKER_01: You don't go to church.
SPEAKER_01: You is the church.
SPEAKER_01: And so as you become more and more the type of church that people are attracted to because they see Jesus in you, you become a letter written on a heart that everybody needs.
SPEAKER_01: This country needs epistles.
SPEAKER_01: This church needs little churches running around.
SPEAKER_01: That means little Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Church didn't mean a building.
SPEAKER_01: It's never meant a building.
SPEAKER_01: We've made it into a building.
SPEAKER_01: But the church is us.
SPEAKER_01: The church is us becoming Christ so that people can read us and go, I want that.
SPEAKER_01: I see what that person's going through.
SPEAKER_01: I see what John's going through.
SPEAKER_01: I see what Mary's going through.
SPEAKER_01: And I just can't believe how they're handling that.
SPEAKER_01: I can't, that I want that Jesus that's giving them that strength that makes them a living letter, a living epistle.
SPEAKER_01: You say, well, Steve, I'm pretty convicted because the last thing I went through, man, I was horrible.
SPEAKER_01: You should have seen how I acted.
SPEAKER_01: Well, welcome to the party.
SPEAKER_01: You're not all perfectly formed yet.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm glad you're not.
SPEAKER_01: First of all, it's job security for me.
SPEAKER_01: But second of all, because you're my kind of family.
SPEAKER_01: You're my kind of family.
SPEAKER_01: Because I blow it all the time, too.
SPEAKER_01: And if we can't be honest and vulnerable and transparent about that, we become faky hypocrites.
SPEAKER_01: Turn to 1 Peter.
SPEAKER_01: Peter knew a little bit about trials.
SPEAKER_01: And he wrote about it.
SPEAKER_01: So 1 Peter, now you go back to the right.
SPEAKER_01: 1 Peter 1 6.
SPEAKER_01: Look at this.
SPEAKER_01: In this you greatly rejoice.
SPEAKER_01: Though now for a little while, if need be, you've been grieved by various trials, that the genuineness of your faith, being much more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to praise, honor, and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ, whom having not seen you love.
SPEAKER_01: Though now you do not see him, yet believing you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory, receiving the end of your faith, the salvation of your soul.
SPEAKER_01: You see what he's saying?
SPEAKER_01: We get back to this thing of rejoicing and inexpressible joy, full of glory, because as we are tested as by fire, that we might be found, what does he say here, to praise and honor and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ?
SPEAKER_01: Here's why he's saying it this way.
SPEAKER_01: I really believe that anointing, and when I say anointing, I mean the empowering of the Spirit at a measure of the gifts and the talents and skills that you've been given is measurable most of the time by how many trials you've gone through and passed through the refiner's fire.
SPEAKER_01: So for God to use us and for God to anoint us and to take us to that next level of God's power flowing through our lives and his love flowing through our lives, that joy inexpressible wells up within.
SPEAKER_01: If we want more of Christ, we will be tested by fire.
SPEAKER_01: Because he's purifying you.
SPEAKER_01: And he's strengthening us.
SPEAKER_01: You ever get to that point where it's like, man, devil, just get out of this, get out of my house, man.
SPEAKER_01: I've had enough.
SPEAKER_01: Go haunt someone else.
SPEAKER_01: You see, we don't get to order our days.
SPEAKER_01: God orders our days.
SPEAKER_01: He is an ever-present help in trouble, scriptures say, not an ever-present help from trouble.
SPEAKER_01: Life is hard.
SPEAKER_01: If you haven't figured that out, get married.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: And if that's if that's a blessed honeymoon, have kids.
SPEAKER_01: All right.
SPEAKER_01: Get a job.
SPEAKER_01: Get a challenging job.
SPEAKER_01: Life is hard.
SPEAKER_01: You want to make a little bit of money?
SPEAKER_01: Life is hard.
SPEAKER_01: You want to have a peaceful home?
SPEAKER_01: Life is hard.
SPEAKER_01: You want to someday buy a house?
SPEAKER_01: Life is hard.
SPEAKER_01: Everything in life is hard.
SPEAKER_01: Everybody look at me.
SPEAKER_01: And let's all say, life is hard.
SPEAKER_01: Life is hard.
SPEAKER_01: And yet we just are shocked.
SPEAKER_01: When things don't go our way.
SPEAKER_01: I can't believe what she said.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, you can't believe what he said.
SPEAKER_01: Life is hard.
SPEAKER_01: But there's a paradigm shift that occurs at some point in our journey, I hope.
SPEAKER_01: And if you haven't had this paradigm shift, I'm going to help you next week.
SPEAKER_01: Because we'll talk about it again.
SPEAKER_01: There's a paradigm shift that has to happen in our heart where we say in a new way, wait, that's to make me more like Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm going to give you a passage to support it next week.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not going to, oh, I want to go there so bad right now.
SPEAKER_01: But I'm not going to go there.
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to wait till next week.
SPEAKER_01: Because I already formed.
SPEAKER_01: By the way, I got so bored in my study this morning.
SPEAKER_01: I'd prayed, I'd worshiped, I'd sought God, and it's like, I'm starting to work on next week's sermon.
SPEAKER_01: But listen to me.
SPEAKER_01: There's a paradigm shift that has to occur in our life where we begin to say, bring it on.
SPEAKER_01: Because God is making me like his son.
SPEAKER_01: And I want to be more like his son than I want to be like me.
SPEAKER_01: I want that, I want the sonship of Abba Father to be formed in me.
SPEAKER_01: That I would be a living epistle.
SPEAKER_01: That people would look at me and say, that is a reflection of Christ in that man's life, in that woman's life.
SPEAKER_01: Because when that happens, when we have that paradigm shift, then we can say to trials, I don't know what to do, I need tons of wisdom, I need counseling.
SPEAKER_01: Counseling is good.
SPEAKER_01: Counseling can be really good.
SPEAKER_01: You guys know I went through a year of counseling after the stuff that happened with me at my last church and all that stuff.
SPEAKER_01: I went through that and I got a new way of thinking through that.
SPEAKER_01: It was really helpful.
SPEAKER_01: It was beautiful.
SPEAKER_01: It was awesome.
SPEAKER_01: Counseling's good.
SPEAKER_01: My wife likes to say, when you come to a place where you absolutely don't know what to do, that's a good time to start getting some wisdom from somebody who's wiser than you and get counsel.
SPEAKER_01: But when we can start looking at this and saying, you know, God is taking me through the refiner's fire because I can take it.
SPEAKER_01: It is right now 1,747 degrees.
SPEAKER_01: That means there's about 20 more degrees.
SPEAKER_01: It's going to get hotter.
SPEAKER_01: Bring it on.
SPEAKER_01: Because that's what he needs to do to burn out the dross and to burn out the selfishness and to burn out the anger 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.
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.