The Vision and Mission of The Road - The Road Less Traveled

Hey, I'm Pastor Steve Hole.

I want to empower you today to walk in your true identity as a worshiper and warrior.

Today, embrace the power of God's Word and the Holy Spirit.

Welcome to the Born for War podcast.

Well, today I want to talk about the vision and mission of the road and why we're here, where we're going, and what I think will be the best that's yet to come because you're here.

We didn't have you.

We have you now.

And because of all the gifts and all the talents and all the skills that are in this room that are going from being converted to Jesus to being disciples of Jesus, that's how you bring a kingdom of God revolution.

Imagine Colorado Springs in El Paso County is God meant it to be.

Imagine a city where the very feeling in the atmosphere when you enter our city is righteousness, peace, and joy.

Imagine a city where people celebrate life, think creatively, and dream imaginatively.

Imagine a place where you would feel safe on any street at night.

Imagine a city with doctors and nurses, hospitals and clinics that have a conviction that every life matters, whether born or unborn.

Imagine a city where there's hope in our schools because the kids are excited to be there because they're being challenged to dream great dreams.

Imagine a place where there's prosperity throughout every sphere of influence in our city, whether it be media or government or health care, education, business, the military, churches, and our families.

Imagine Colorado Springs being a model city to the rest of the nation.

Imagine Colorado Springs in El Paso County starting to look a lot like Zechariah's vision.

This is what the Lord Almighty says once again.

And the city streets will be filled with boys and girls playing there.

And Jeremiah's vision.

This is what the Lord Almighty, the God of Israel, says to all those I carried into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon.

Build houses and settle down, plant gardens and eat what they produce.

Marry and have sons and daughters.

Find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters.

Increase in number there, do not decrease.

Also seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile.

Pray to the Lord for it, because if it prospers, you will prosper.

What about God's blessing upon a nation?

Now it shall come to pass if you diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God to observe carefully all his commandments, which I command you today, that the Lord your God will set you high above all nations of the earth, and all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, because you obey the voice of the Lord your God.

Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the country.

Blessed shall be the fruit of your body, the produce of your ground, and the increase of your herds, the increase of your cattle and the offspring of your flocks.

Blessed shall you be when you come in, and blessed shall you be when you go out.

The Lord will open to you his good treasure, the heavens, to give the reign to your land in its season, and to bless all the work of your hand.

You shall lend to many nations, but you shall not borrow.

Men and women, God's desire and his passion is to bless our city and to bless our county and to bless our nation.

I can't do much, and you can't do much about what happens in Washington except vote.

But our nation is right at our doorstep and it's called Colorado Springs.

It's called El Paso County.

And God doesn't require of us to make an impact in Washington.

God requires of us to make an impact in our city.

That this is our call, this is our place.

Who knows how many of you will be here five years from now?

I don't know, but you're here now.

You're here now.

Why not make a great and powerful impact as God would want us to?

And I believe that's why God set us here.

And I mean, I don't know.

There's over 250 churches in Colorado Springs.

And why God, in his economy of the kingdom, wanted us to plant the road, I believe, the only thing I know is that I believe this vision is the vision he gave us, and this mission is the mission he gave us, and it hasn't changed.

Our vision is a kingdom of God revolution in the Rockies.

That God's kingdom would come and his will would be done as we're told to pray right here in our city.

And that that's only possible through the mission of empowering the people of God to change the world.

You're the people of God.

And that's why we have programs all over this church with empower you, classes, community groups, the youth group, the children's ministry, all these different ministries that are happening are about empowerment.

Equipping the saints is our goal and our objective.

Well, turn in your Bibles to Matthew 4, because when I look at the New Testament, Matthew 4 gives us a glimpse of the startup of the revolutionary Jesus in building a kingdom of God revolution.

Jesus came not to save us from our sins primarily, but to save us from our sins primarily to be carriers of the kingdom of God here on earth.

That our lives would not just be about being converted, but about being disciples.

So I was in a prayer meeting a number of years ago at Every Home for Christ with about 20 pastors, and we were praying for revival in our city, and I felt like God gave me a glimpse, maybe just a kind of vision, even though it wasn't like an open vision, but it was more like in my mind's eye, I had this blueprint that I felt was from him for what a kingdom of God revolution looked like, how it gets formed, the prospects of how Jesus laid it down for us in the Gospels.

I think many of you know, you come to the road, you hear me say this often, but Jesus spoke more about the kingdom of God than anything else.

He spoke over a hundred times about the kingdom of God.

His parables were about the kingdom of God.

The Sermon on the Mount, considered the greatest speech ever given, even by secular speech historians, is about the ethics of the kingdom of God.

So Jesus was fascinated with bringing the kingdom of God.

And what we see in the book of Acts is that the early church captured that understanding and that vision and took it to the world.

So this was the, it's not a formula, so don't hear me say formula, but I feel like it's kind of a blueprint.

So up on the PowerPoint, I want you to see what I wrote down on a whiteboard there at Every Home for Christ a number of years ago.

Repentance plus revival plus reformation plus local church equals revelation.

I think this is so formed in the Gospels.

And I think Matthew 4 is the best example, the model of the startup of the revolutionary Jesus bringing a kingdom of God, revolution to the earth.

So if you have your Bibles, look at verse 17 of Matthew 4.

Now this is very interesting.

Because these are the first public ministry words of Jesus.

So if you go back in Matthew 4, he's been in the wilderness being tempted by the devil.

So you see some red.

If you have one of those red letter Bibles like I have, you're going to see some red in Matthew 4.

But his first public ministry, the launching of his work, begins in Matthew 4, 17.

From that time, Jesus began to preach and say, repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.

Now, how many of you regularly use the word repent?

I mean, that's like, that's like not the word we use.

Probably you haven't used the word repent in five years.

Maybe some of you have never said the word repent.

Let's all say it together and say, repent.

Jesus is not in this for a popularity contest.

He's in it to be the person of the king of a kingdom that's coming, and the first words, and the first word of the words, is this word repent.

So what is repent?

Repent means literally in the Greek a change of your thinking, a change of your mind, which then, church, leads to a change of direction.

So if you think, if you were ever on a skateboard, we used to call them a 180.

You do a 180, that's repent.

Repent is doing a weight, not a 360.

Now, there's believers out there that think that repent means a 360 because they they come at the altar, they give their life to the Lord, and they go right back to what they were doing before.

But repent means change, a change in direction.

And Jesus says here, repent, for the kingdom of God is come.

The kingdom of God is at hand, meaning that I'm the kingdom.

That's what Jesus said.

I'm the kingdom.

I am bringing the kingdom, and I am the kingdom.

And because of an encounter with me, you're going to repent.

You're going to have a change of direction.

It's like three of the ladies here at the road at a restaurant recently, and they were talking about word and spirit counseling.

And these are some of the counselors.

We have a lot of counselors in church, but they were talking about word and spirit counseling.

And this gal overheard them and kind of saddled up next to them and said, What are you guys talking about?

And one of them said, Well, we're talking about word and spirit counseling.

And she goes, Well, that's that's like about Jesus and stuff, right?

And we said, Yeah.

She said, Oh, my life has been changed by Jesus.

I mean, recently I was homeless.

Recently I was at Cedar Springs.

Recently, I was diagnosed, and I don't know what recently means, if it was a year or two or it was a month or two, as being bipolar.

And then I encountered Jesus.

And when I encountered Jesus, I repented.

I changed.

You ladies don't understand, but I was a liar.

I lied all the time.

I manipulated people.

I had to go back.

God told me to go back to all these people that I'd heard and tell them I'm sorry and to repent.

This lady got it, church.

She got it.

And she started learning to tell the truth, or her whole life had been around lying.

So look at the next verse.

Because it's in repentance that we actually become disciples.

So Jesus starts, you know, it seemed like his recruitment plan really isn't the best.

Why not say something like, prosperity, man?

Follow me and I will prosper you.

Now, by the way, is that true?

That's absolutely true.

He does.

But he doesn't until you repent.

Jesus, walking by the Sea of Galilee, saw two brothers, Simon called Peter, and Andrew, his brother, casting a net into the sea, and they were fishermen.

Then he said to them, Follow me and I'll make you fishers of men.

They immediately left their nets and followed him.

Going on from there, he saw two 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 the boat and their father, and they followed him.

So repentance leads to discipleship.

We become disciples through repentance.

I would argue that that's the difference between conversion and a discipleship in your life is what you do with Jesus in the kingdom when you come to know Christ.

And everybody's in a process.

For some of us, we grew up in a Christian home.

We grew up in an environment where we heard about Christ.

So when we really personally give our life to Christ, there may not be as much to repent of.

But it's still a change of mind.

It's a change of heart.

So Jesus says, repent for the kingdom of God is at hand.

And the very first thing he does, church, he starts building disciples.

Building disciples.

What an amazing thing that if the church in America was building disciples, the difference that we could make.

So we have so many young people here in the church that have been set free from porn and set free from alcohol and being set free from drug addictions.

Some of them are on staff with us now because of walking out that repentance in their life, giving that old lifestyle away, and coming to Jesus because of the 180 that he's done in their life.

And there's been this true repentance that then men and women leads to revival.

Let me give you a definition of a revival.

Revivals are visitations of God wherein the Holy Spirit quickens and accelerates his work in a particular locale.

Let me read it again.

Revivals are visitations of God wherein the Holy Spirit quickens or accelerates his work in a particular locale.

So there's never a national revival.

There's always a local revival that grows and accelerates.

And so many of you know of different revivals you may have been a part of in different churches.

I was on the phone a few days ago with a pastor here in town that many of you know.

And his Todd Hudnell, Todd and Kelly Hudnell at Radiant, and love Todd.

Todd's actually an overseer of the road for me.

And we were talking about different things, and we we got pretty animated talking about the difference between a revival and revolution.

We're probably gonna do a podcast and empower you on that together.

But he was a part of, he was a part of leading a move of God or a revival in this town.

I can't remember the name of it, uh, in Texas, where he saw this thing happen, and he remembers the feeling, the sense for like two years of God moving in a mighty way.

That's a revival.

Revival comes through disciples that cry out for revival.

Because Jesus wants to bring revival, his Holy Spirit wants to bring revival, and by the way, today is Pentecost Sunday.

So wouldn't that be cool if it started right now?

A great move of God, the wind of the Spirit.

The wind of the Spirit.

And so God, in his economy of the kingdom of God, brings revivals at times.

He brings moves of God.

And many of you have been a part of churches where we cry out for revival.

And I think that's that's wonderful, those visitations.

But it's not enough.

Because church, revivals come and go.

Even in Acts chapter 2, Pentecost was a one-time incident that occurred.

Acts 2 · chapter mention

But without Acts 2, without that move at Pentecost where the Holy Spirit came down upon the disciples, they never would have become apostles.

That move of God on that 120 believers that then quickly grew to 3,000 could not have changed the world.

That by Acts 17, 6, it says, those who have turned the world upside down have come here also.

That was because of the revival work that was the spark of the engine that brought forth the Christian church, which is now over two and a half billion people around the world, the largest religion in the world because of those men and women.

So revivals come and go, but revivals lead to reformation.

Let me give you a definition of reformation.

Reformation happens when enough people in leadership positions desire to be Jesus' disciples and lead reforms that impact every facet of a society.

So reformation happens when enough people in leadership positions desire to be Jesus' disciples and lead reforms that impact every facet of a society.

It always starts with one man or one woman.

So Martin Luther in the 16th century is an Augustinian monk, and he's doing everything.

He says, I was the monk of all monks.

And so he he crawled the steps of the Vatican in Rome.

1,275 steps.

He crawled for remission of his sins.

He self-flagellated his body.

And then one day, while studying Romans chapter 1, he read, The just shall live by faith, and revival came into the heart of Martin Luther.

Romans 1 · chapter mention

Martin Luther then went and nailed the theses to the Wittenberg door in Germany, and the Protestant Reformation took off.

It was a revival in the heart of Martin Luther that led to a reformation that impacted first Germany and then all of Europe.

In the 17th century, in Scrooge, England, there were a group of separatists from the Church of England that had a revival in their hearts.

And they decided there was no hope for this revival and this work of God in England.

And so they got on three ships and they came to America.

And they settled America.

And before there was a declaration of independence, there was the Mayflower Compact.

And this group, this struggling group of pilgrims who saw themselves as pilgrims on the earth, who saw themselves as sojourners on the earth, believed that they were building a new nation, a new Jerusalem, a new Israel, that it would be a light on a hill.

That's where that term comes from scripturally, but that's where we use it when we talk about America.

It came from the pilgrim.

There would be a light on a hill to all the nations of the world.

That was a reformation that was going to lead to then in the 18th century, the founding fathers of America who wrote down the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, brought forth the American Revolution.

Then in England, there was a man named William Wilberforce who was primely set up by his lineage and by his incredible oratorical skills to become the next prime minister of England.

He had an encounter with Jesus.

He had an encounter with the King.

He had an encounter with the kingdom of God, and it changed the entire trajectory.

Of his life.

And as a result, he gave himself to two great passions.

Two great passions.

The first was the abolition of the slave trade.

And the second was what he called the reformation of manners, which means revival.

That there would be a reformation of Christianity in England and the abolition of the slave trade.

And he accomplished, I believe, both in his time.

In the 20th century, many of you are aware of Billy Graham.

Billy Graham really became known in 1949 through the Hollywood Crusade.

And it was there that many movie stars and many very well-known rich people got saved.

And that was the launching of Billy Graham.

Billy Graham was closely connected with a young businessman out of Hollywood, California, named Bill Bright.

And Bill Bright, Billy Graham launching his evangelistic ministry, Bill Bright launching his university ministry, which came Campus Crusade for Christ.

That's where Liz got saved through that ministry at UCLA, where I got saved at University of Georgia was through Campus Crusade for Christ, now called Crew.

And then there was this mighty move of God called the healing movement.

The healing movement.

In the 1940s, 1950s, into the early part of the 1960s, was a healing movement with great evangelists like Oral Roberts and others just flowing all over the country.

In 1962, through an Episcopal priest, began the charismatic movement.

And this was a move of the Holy Spirit that began to affect mainline denominations like the Episcopal Church and even the Roman Catholic Church and the Presbyterian Church and others.

In 1969, if you saw the movie, The Jesus Revolution, the Jesus Movement was started through, largely through Pastor Chuck Smith and a man named Lonnie Frisbee.

In 1980, through Lonnie Frisbee and a man named John Wimber, the Vineyard movement came forth.

All of these became reformational, revolutionary movements.

And even today, if you go to certain parts of Africa, parts of Asia, South America, Latin America, even China and India, there are moves of God through church planting and mighty spirit, Holy Spirit, word-rooted moves of God that are affecting the rest of the world in such a mighty and powerful way.

And in our church, we're so blessed with so many great leaders.

And I want to recognize, I've already recognized you, Doug, because of your work that you've done.

But Doug and Jeannie have been with the road since the very beginning.

Doug and Jeannie Lamborn, would you guys stand?

And we appreciate what you've done in Washington, and we're excited for whatever God's got for you in the future as you retire.

Bless you, brother.

Love you, Jeannie.

Thank you.

And then Diane Ferrero.

Is Diane in here?

She's usually third service.

She's the CEO for Save the Storks.

Is Aaron Salt in here?

Aaron is the president of District 20 School Board.

Okay, he's not in here right now.

Is he here?

People started to clap, but well, I'm glad you clapped.

How about Lori Thompson, who's president of D-49 School Board?

Is she in here?

Nope.

Okay.

I'm gonna get a lot of them on third service, okay?

Ryan Graham.

Ryan, I want you to stand.

He's the president of Monument Academy.

And I could go through more, but you could do a lot worse than to hear Ryan's message at the commencement yesterday.

I had the privilege of Kristen McWilliam sending me the video, and it lit the place on fire.

I don't know if it lit them on fire, but it lit me on fire.

I listened to it three times.

It was so, so good.

America needs you.

Whatever it is you do, whatever neighborhood you live in, whoever the connections are in your relationships, you bring a kingdom of God revelation.

You bring reformation.

He said, Well, Steve, if you only knew about my marriage, if you only knew about my life and my background, and I would say, guess what?

God does his best work.

God does his brightest work in the darkest of rooms.

He's in the business of transforming people into a 180 and changing their lives.

And so God's going to use any of you that want to be used by him.

And I think we're here today, after just these 10 years, because you believe that.

You follow that, you live that, you love that.

So let me give you a definition from Webster's for a revolution.

This is what Webster's says of a revolution: a sudden, extreme, or complete change in the way people live and work.

So when we talk about church, a kingdom of God revolution, we're talking about a king, kingdom.

The kingdom of Great Britain is a king over a dome or a domain.

So there's a king of England or there's a queen of England.

They rule over that dome.

So a kingdom of God revolution is this definition.

A kingdom of God revolution is an ongoing move of God through the people of God, the church, that revolutionizes all of society with the proclamation and demonstration of the kingdom of God and sets into place kingdom values that impact the culture.

And it always begins somewhere.

And guess where it doesn't begin?

It's not going to begin in Washington.

It begins somewhere, though.

And I had the honor and privilege of writing one of my master's thesis papers on revival.

So I studied all the revivals that I could get my hands on.

They always start on the outskirts of society.

So revivals always begin on the outskirts.

They do not begin in the halls of power.

They begin on the outskirts of culture.

They begin on the outskirts of society.

And you can see that with the Wesleyan revival.

You can see that with George Whitfield.

You can see that with virtually all the names that I mentioned here, with the exception probably of William Wilberforce.

But this was these were outskirts of society where it came forth.

Why can't it happen in Colorado Springs?

Why can't it happen here?

I think the only thing that hinders us is our own faith, to believe and to trust God.

Why can't it happen in your family?

It can.

It can begin.

The revolution of God can begin in your family.

It's the kingdom.

It's the reign of the king.

It's the reign of Jesus coming into a domain and ruling there.

So it begins in our heart.

That's what a disciple is, is the reign and the rule of Christ on the throne of our heart.

Then it flows out of us and it touches this person a little bit and that person a little bit and that person.

And then it begins to spread out.

One of the guys here in the church who was homeless started coming to the road.

And he grew up in a church.

He grew up in a Christian family and he had enough of that church stuff.

But then one day, the Spirit of God apprehended him on the streets.

The kingdom of God came.

Repent, for the kingdom of God has come.

And that's exactly what happened to him.

And God met him in a mighty and powerful way.

God can bring revolution to anyone if we're open to it.

And we'll let him work in our lives.

So repentance plus revival, plus reformation, plus church.

So when we look at the book of Acts, we see this church.

They began to take the gospel out.

But what does a kingdom of God revolution look like?

So look back now at our passage, back here again.

Look at verse 23.

Three thoughts.

Three thoughts as I wind this up.

23, verse 23.

Jesus went about all Galilee teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom.

So number one, a kingdom of God revolution begins with a proclamation of the kingdom.

It's Pastor Joey, our youth pastor, who gave the announcements today.

It's Pastor Marcus, our outreach pastor, going down to Doherty High School about a week and a half ago at a pizza parlor across the street, ordered, I don't know, hundreds of pizzas, and hundreds of kids came.

Pizza and kids is a great place to proclaim the kingdom.

And so they did that.

They did that last year and they did that this year, and it was awesome.

That's why we do Springs Initiative.

We go and we share the gospel with someone and we and we clean up their house.

We we in many ways we remodel their house from the outside through that.

It's why we did the Colorado mission last year, where the kids went downtown and they just ministered there for a week and ministered to mainly the homeless and had a powerful impact.

Secondly, Jesus not only proclaimed, but then it says healing, all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease among the people.

Then his fame went throughout all Syria, and they brought to him all sick people who were afflicted with various diseases and torments, and those who are demon-possessed, epileptics, paralytics, and he healed them.

Alright.

Healing the sick and casting out demons is a sign of the kingdom.

All of us in this room can heal the sick and cast out demons.

We just did a series on the cosmic war, so we talked about the aspects of the demonic, the satanic, fourth, and fifth dimensional world.

You can go back and listen to those sermons.

But everybody look at me.

The kingdom of God is not in the Republican Party.

I want everybody, everybody look at me.

I want you to say out loud, the kingdom of God is not in the Republican Party.

The Kingdom of God is not in the Democratic Party.

Say that.

The Kingdom of God revolution is not in Donald J.

Trump.

Say that.

Say that.

You know where the kingdom of God is?

The church.

We are the kingdom of God.

We bring the kingdom of God.

And whoever's in power in Washington, whoever's in office in Denver, doesn't change anything.

Now they tried to shut us down during COVID, and we said, no, we're not going to be shut down with COVID, right?

And I think there were three churches that agree with us.

And then there were five.

And then there were ten.

And then there were 25.

And then there were 30 because we didn't bend.

So, men and women, a kingdom of God revolution is made up of people who follow truth, not peer pressure.

Those who look to play and to live and to act upon an audience of one Jesus, not an audience of public opinion.

We do that, we can change the world.

We live that way with some spiritual backbone, but change culture and change society.

That's the kingdom of God revolution.

And then thirdly and lastly, verse 25, this is what'll happen.

Great multitudes followed him from Galilee and from Decapolis and Jerusalem, Judea, and beyond the Jordan.

You know why?

Because the kingdom of God works, men and women.

It's healthier to follow the kingdom of God.

It's actually healthier physically for you to follow the kingdom of God.

You realize that most people have migraines, most people are sick, most people go through hardship in their life because of fears that they're battling.

Because those fears release toxins and toxins make you sick.

Guess what?

When you walk by faith and not by fear, it strengthens your immune system.

Now everybody here's got fears.

I got fears.

I'm not standing here perfect by any means.

But I can tell you this: the more I debunk and repent of fear, and more I let the reformation of the spirit create faith, I get healthier.

So the kingdom of God works.

And when the kingdom of God works, people want that.

People desire that.

And so the kingdom of God, by its very nature, look at Matthew 13.

Study Matthew 13, the parables.

It's like yeast in the loaf.

It starts to take over, takes over everything.

It always starts a little bit.

Well, let's be the little bit.

And may God in his sovereignty take over this county and this city.

And may we be known someday as a model city and a model county because we stand for the kingdom of God.

Thank you for listening to the Corn for War podcast.

We hope today's message has empowered you to make a difference in your world.

To connect with Pastor Steve's sermons, books, and blog, visit Steve Holtonline.org.

God bless.