It's Not a Tomb; It's a Womb - Leaders' Talks

Hey, I'm Steve Holt, the senior pastor of The Road at Chapel Hills.

This is the Road Podcast.

Thanks for joining us.

My heart is to empower you to change the world.

I hope this message impacts you.

Here now is our guest speaker.

My text this morning is John chapter 16, verse 21.

John 16:21

I encourage you to follow in your Bible.

They will help us on the screen.

You're welcome to go with both.

A woman, when she is in labor, has sorrow because her hour has come.

But as soon as she has given birth to the child, she no longer remembers the anguish for joy that a human being has been born into the world.

Jesus spoke these words only hours before the cross.

It's the night of his betrayal.

The cross is immediately in front of him and he knows what's coming.

But the disciples do not know what's coming.

And Jesus is trying to get them ready.

And he uses a metaphor because metaphors are so helpful.

They help us see and understand.

And he gives them the metaphor of childbirth.

And he's basically saying to his disciples in speaking of the cross, he says, I'm going into labor.

It's about to get messy.

You're going to be distracted with the sorrow, with the travail, with the birth pangs, with the contractions, with the pushing.

Jesus is saying to the disciples, I'm about to go into labor.

I'm about to go into hard labor.

And he's saying to them, I'm pregnant.

Jesus was pregnant with prophecy.

He was pregnant with purpose.

He was pregnant with possibility.

And when you look at the cross, you're looking at a pregnant God who is in childbirth to bring something into our planet.

And then when you look at the resurrection, the baby is born.

Here comes our salvation, here comes our redemption, here comes a new and a living way into the bosom of the Father.

The labor on the cross was so intense because it was a real big baby.

When the disciples looked at the cross, all they could see was everything shutting down.

When God looked at the cross, he saw everything opening up.

When the disciples looked at the cross, they saw the end of everything.

When God looked at the cross, he saw a new beginning to everything.

When the disciples looked at the cross, all they could see was a huge setback.

When God looked at the cross, he saw a setup.

When the disciples looked at the cross, all they could see was Jesus taking it in the heel.

This is Genesis 3.15.

When God looked at the cross, he saw Satan taking it in the head.

When the disciples looked at the cross, all they could see was a tomb.

When God looked at the cross, he saw a womb.

And the nails were his friends.

When a woman goes into labor, the contractions actually become her friends.

I am not speaking from experience.

When a woman goes into labor and those contractions come upon her, her eyes change.

Everybody in that birthing room becomes her enemy.

Get out of my way.

I've got some work to do here right now.

Something comes on a woman and the contractions, the pain of the contractions actually becomes her friend to help her to birth into the world a fresh, a new living soul.

And in the same way, the nails were his friends.

The searing agony of the nails, as the agony went all the way through his being, it became labor pains.

That I think his eyes changed.

I think something came over Jesus.

This is not gonna stay like this.

This has got to change.

And he began to push on the cross in order to birth the purposes of God for our planet.

And I hear Jesus saying to us from the cross, give me my nails.

I've got something to push out here.

Give me my nails so that I can stretch my hands even further and show you how much I love you.

Give me my nails so that I can earn my stripes as the captain of your salvation.

Give me my nails so that I can hammer out your redemption right here on this hill.

Because the carpenter knows what to do with his nails.

Give me my nails and I will nail to this cross every accusation that the accuser uses against you.

Give me my nails and I will nail to this cross the code of requirements that is against you.

This is Colossians two forty.

Having wiped out the handwriting of requirements that was against us, which was contrary to us, and he has taken it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross.

When you look at the cross, your first impression is that they're nailing him.

And he goes, actually, I'm nailing it.

And the cross was the great reversal.

They nailed him and he nailed it.

He took the law, the of Moses' law, which was a code of do do do do do, don't, don't, don't, don't, don't.

And it became a performance-based religion, and it was contrary to us because none of us were good enough to meet the standard.

He nailed performance-based religion to his cross.

Released us from the burden of that, and brought us into a kingdom of grace, mercy, and truth.

So that now, when you place your faith in the blood of Jesus Christ, you are no longer measured according to your performance.

You are now measured according to his performance on the cross.

And when you play, I'm preaching the gospel, when you place your faith in the cross of Jesus Christ, he accounts to you the performance of Jesus on the cross, and you become the very righteousness of God because of your faith in what he did on that cross.

I love our gospel.

And Jesus goes, give me my nails.

I've got something to push out here.

Pain can actually become your friend.

I'm speaking right now as someone who has been living with chronic pain for thirty years.

So I've got a little bit behind me when I say it.

Pain can become your friend.

Pain will take you on roads you would have never otherwise traveled.

Pain will take you to places in God that others would never voluntarily venture to.

Pain will change you.

Guess what, Mom?

Your kid is not yet in enough pain.

When they get in enough pain, they're gonna change because God will use suffering redemptively in our lives to bring us to our senses and bring us to change.

When you're in enough pain, you lose your fear of people.

Because when you're in enough pain, there's only one opinion in the universe that matters to you anymore.

You cannot fear God and fear man at the same time.

And thanks be to God when He washes off of your life the fear of man and immerses you in the fear of God, and pain can sometimes be a gift of God to cleanse us of stuff and change us so that we can move forward in the grace of God.

There are some things in the kingdom of God you will never birth until you're in enough pain.

Scripture calls Jesus Christ the firstborn from the dead.

What that means is he was born from the dead at his resurrection.

And the reason it calls him the firstborn is because he was the first one to do this.

He was the first one to resurrect from the dead and never return to death.

Lazarus resurrected, but then he went back.

Jesus resurrected, never to return, and he's the firstborn from the dead.

Firstborn means there's others to follow.

And I'm looking at them this morning.

There are millions of us that because of our faith in Christ, we also are going to be born from the dead.

We will suffer, we will die, but the sting of death has been removed, and we are going to be raised with Christ.

He went before us and we also will resurrect in him.

He's the firstborn of many.

Something I did not know about the firstborn until I had my own kids.

I'm a father of three, Joel Katie Michael.

I've got six grandchildren, the world's six cutest grandchildren.

And my oldest, his name is Joel, by the way, he's the one that has made my films on my YouTube channel.

So check out the baseball film, check out his the films he put on my channel.

When Joel was born, he was born in the 1900s.

And back then, you didn't know what gender you're having.

You didn't know what it was gonna be until I came out.

I wanted a boy so badly, I was like, if it's a girl, I don't know what I'm gonna do, Lord.

I just wanted a boy.

My wife goes into labor.

Her eyes changed.

She got so focused.

She starts to push.

She is trying to get a head this big out of a space this big.

And I'm watching this thing going, impossible.

This can never happen.

She is pushing hour after hour.

And as I'm watching her push like this, I literally thought to myself, I cannot believe that seven billion people have come into the world like this.

It was so intense.

And then when my second one came along, her name is Katie, when Katie came along, she just came out.

I was like, that's it.

I was expecting an encore.

And that's when I learned the first one is often the hardest.

Because a firstborn is opening that birth canal for the first time.

Jesus Christ is the firstborn from the dead.

He opened the birth canal of resurrection for the first time.

And now you and I, now I'm just gonna say it.

He did the heavy lifting.

He took on Satan, he took on death, he took on hell, he took on the grave, he took on the big boys.

That was the big one.

And I am so grateful that you and I never have to engage in the intensity of what Jesus took on because we could never take it on.

But we do get to participate in the same process.

He gives us the dignity as the firstborn.

He gives us the dignity to follow him through that same birth canal.

You and I are gonna, it's the same birth canal.

We die, they bury us, we're gonna rise through that same birth canal and live forever with Jesus Christ.

The good news is for you, it's gonna be a lot easier.

This is the hope of our gospel, and it's the dignifying part of our participation in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

When you look at the cross, on the surface, it appears that he's doing the cross from his hands and his feet.

But in our text, John 16, 21, Jesus is saying to the disciples, I'm doing the cross from here.

I find it helpful to identify the seat of the human spirit, the seat of the human mind is here, the seat of the human will is here.

The Bible talks about being stiff active, the seat of the human convictions and values here in your heart, the seat of your emotions, feelings, right down in your gut, right in your intestinal, somewhere between your intestinal and your convictions is the seat of the human spirit.

Jesus said, out of your belly will flow rivers of living water.

Our spirit functions from this vicinity.

You might even want to put your hand there right now just to get in touch.

We don't mind, we're gonna go there today.

Let's just go with it.

Let's get in touch right now, okay?

This is where my spirit functions from.

And the reason this is helpful to me is because when I want to connect with the Holy Spirit, I don't go here.

I don't go here, I go right here.

He did the cross from here with the Spirit.

Do your trial from here.

When Jesus was on the cross, he entered into childbirth, into travail, took birth something.

And then when he ascended to heaven and sent the Holy Spirit, he passed that baton to the Holy Spirit.

And now today, this is Romans 8, now today the Holy Spirit is doing today exactly what Jesus did on the cross.

It's the exact same function.

He is pushing and travailing to bring to birth the purposes of God in our planet.

And then Paul goes on to say in Romans 8 that we do the same thing.

Paul says that we groan and travail.

And if I'm reading Romans 8 correctly, here's what I read in the chapter.

The Holy Spirit does not engage in his ministry of intercession until we trigger it.

In other words, the Holy Spirit isn't off somewhere in intercession for you right now.

The Holy Spirit is waiting for you to initiate something with your spirit when you engage with your spirit and with his spirit.

And it all happens right here.

My spirit engaging with his spirit.

And now I begin to travail and push in the Holy Spirit to birth his purposes in my life, in my family, in my children, in my community, in my generation.

And we do it from here.

You're pregnant with promise.

That's why here.

Eating so much right now.

That's why you can't get enough word right now.

You're eating double because you've got a promise from God.

And when you get a promise, you've got to hear this.

When you get a promise from God, you must grow your promise.

Some people get a promise from God and they go chill.

They relax.

And they starve out their promise.

You got a promise in your spirit, bro.

Feed that baby.

Let that baby grow inside of your spirit.

Your promise needs a high calorie intake right now.

You need lots of calories in the word of God to feed that promise, grow that promise, bring it to full term.

Push and give us God's purposes in the journey that He has established for your life.

When you get a promise from God, you don't relax your prayer life.

You ramp up your prayer life.

When you get a promise from God, you're like, you will never hear the end of this now.

Now that you have given me this promise, I am gonna badger you morning, noon, night.

You've given me a promise about my son.

You're never gonna hear the end of it now until you fulfill this promise in my son's life.

Because when you get a promise from God, you ramp up your prayer life.

Grow the promise, bring it to full term, push, and would you please give your generation the purposes of God?

Your fiery trial is actually, He has inseminated something into your life.

He has given you the pain as a gift for you to let the contractions of your sufferings and of your fiery trial put you in a posture of pushing so that you give us what God is producing in your life.

Somebody goes, This fiery trial is killing me.

And God goes, I don't see a tomb.

I see a womb.

I talked about Anna in first service.

I enjoyed it enough.

I'm gonna talk about Anna in second service.

Anna is this mom in the faith who actually didn't have any natural children, and that's because when she was married after seven years, God took the life of her husband.

Never had any kids, but so as far as we can tell from the scripture.

Childless widow.

When Anna buried her husband, all she could see was a tomb.

The whole thing.

The death of every aspiration, every hope, it's over.

I see a one.

And Anna has a choice.

Either she becomes bitter and a casualty, or she decides to come after God like never before.

Are the sufferings of this thing gonna become contractions that will help you to come after God?

And she decides to harness the sufferings of her situation to come after God with a desperation like never before.

I believe you're faithful, I just don't see it.

I believe you're loving, I just don't see it.

I believe you're merciful, I just don't see it.

But I'm gonna come after you until I see your faithfulness, until I see your love, until I see your mercy.

And Anna starts to come after God with a desperation and a passion because she's like, I don't get you.

I've been loving you, I've been serving you, I've been faithful to you.

There's only one thing I have ever asked of you.

All I've ever asked is, let me be a mom and a wife.

And you have taken away from me the only thing I have ever asked of you.

Who are you, anyway?

And she starts to come after God.

She's in the temple praying.

Somebody goes, Who's the lady in the corner in the temple?

And they go, Oh, you must be new to town.

That's Anna.

Everybody knows Anna.

She's just in the temple.

When did that happen?

That's the sad part.

She has become a captive to grief.

It's a waste of life.

It's tragic.

Nobody understood Anna.

But she's a gal in the corner with a fire in her spirit.

She's coming after God.

She's doing something in her spirit.

And I think the Lord spoke to her and goes like this in the temple night and day in fasting and prayer.

She's like, ooh.

Okay.

She starts coming after God in the temple, ministering to him, fasting and prayer night and day.

And I think as the months turn to years, I think the voice came a second time.

Messiah.

Something came over Anna.

She's like, I've never given birth to a child, but this feels like labor.

And she starts to enter into the travail of intercession.

And as she is laboring in prayer, decade after decade, I don't think that I am stretching the story to suggest Anna prayed in the Messiah.

And a woman that thought her motherhood was taken from her became a mother to millions because she did it from here.

And she birthed through intercession, the Messiah, so that now every one of us in the room today call her Mama Anna.

It wasn't a tomb, it was a womb.

Here's another one.

John is on his way to Patmos.

Caesar has banished him to the island of Patmos.

It's a prison island in the middle of the Mediterranean where they just drop you off.

There's no dormitory, there's no cafeteria.

They just take you in a boat and drop you off.

And Caesar's like, let the old man die on Patmos.

John is in his 90s.

And I can imagine as they're bringing him on the boat to the shore.

I can imagine John thinking, well, I guess this is my tomb.

And God's going, I don't see a tomb.

John is writing and he goes like this.

I was in the spirit on the Lord's day.

He did his prison from here.

What are you gonna do to a man who does his prison from here?

You cannot stop this because now he is connecting with unstoppable Holy Spirit, irrepressible Holy Spirit, unlimited Holy Spirit, unchained Holy Spirit.

There is no limitation in the Holy Spirit on time.

There is no limitation on the Holy Spirit on space.

There is no limitation in the Holy Spirit in resource or in money.

There is no limitation in the Holy Spirit on power.

And when you do your prison from here, you are connecting with unlimited, unfettered, unrestricted Holy Spirit.

He did it from here.

I'm saying to you today, do your prison from here.

Unstoppable.

And because he did his prison from here, we get from the island of Patmos a book, the book of Revelation, that has rumbled through church history, has shaken our planet, and is still shaking the planet today because he turned his tomb into a womb.

Let's just pause right now.

Because there's a lot of people in the room having a conversation with the Lord right now.

You're talking to the Lord about this thing that's killing you.

And the Holy Spirit is confirming the truth of this word to your heart.

You see a tomb, but it's not a tomb.

It's a woe.

And here's what the Lord is doing with this metaphor in your life right now.

He is actually giving your suffering dignity.

The suffering becomes something to harness and use so you can push.

And he's saying to you, I'm birthing something through this thing.

You are not in this trial forever.

The cross is never the end of the story.

He did not just do the cross and it's over.

He birthed something on the cross and it is never over until the purpose of God is birthed in your life.

And I'm talking this morning as somebody who has not yet connected with that resurrection, Bob, because I'm not healed yet, but I'm preaching to myself.

Grow your promise, Bob.

Bring it to full term.

Push in the Holy Spirit and give to your family and give to your generation the purposes of God in this fiery trial.

As I was pondering and praying yesterday, I felt like the Lord was putting some emphasis on Galatians 4.19.

In Galatians 4.19, Paul goes, My little children for whom I labor in birth again until Christ is formed in you.

Paul had the privilege of birthing the church in Galatia as a father.

But now he's writing to them some years later.

And he's like, Why have you so soon departed from the grace of Jesus Christ?

Why are you going to another gospel?

He says, is he says a father in pain because his spiritual children have abandoned the heritage he gave them.

And he says to them, I'm in labor for y'all all over again.

I did it once, and now I find myself having to do this all over again.

And there are some mothers in the room, there are some fathers in the room that you're like, that's exactly where you're at right now.

Because you have given you travailing and giving birth.

For some of you, this is your third go-around.

You birthed your children, pushed them into the world, then you travail to bring them into the kingdom and to raise them up.

And when they turned 18 or whatever, then they became adults, and in their adult years, they lost their bearings and lost their sense of faith.

And now you find yourself third time around in travail for your children.

You're doing it all over again.

And that's actually biblical.

Paul goes, that's what I'm doing.

I birthed you once, and now I feel like I'm in travail all over again.

And the Holy Spirit is highlighting this for us this morning.

There are some people in this room.

You are in travail all over again.

And we want to stand with you.

We want to join hands with you and agree with you.

We're asking for the Lord to put some fresh grace into your spirit today that you would have grace to again enter into childbirth and birth all over again.

The purposes of God in your family with your son, with your daughter, with your family.

Now, as I was looking at this yesterday, and I'm going to do this very quickly right now.

You want to get out your phone because I'm going to show some things on the screen that you do not want to decide after I read it.

Then you're going to decide, oh, I wish I had taken a pick.

Take the pick now, and then decide later if you're going to use it.

Okay, get your camera out.

Get ready to take a pick because I'm going to go through some frames and I'm just going to read them and it's going to go fast.

Are you ready?

Here's what I am suggesting.

I am suggesting that Galatians 4.19 can be a lens to interpret the book of Galatians, to see the book of Galatians as helping parents of adult children who have strayed.

How do I parent an adult child who has lost their way in the faith?

And I'm going to suggest that Galatians might be able to help us with this.

There's another passage that also helps us with this, and that's the parable of the prodigal.

So I'm going to do the prodigal first, then we're going to do Galatians, and we're going to do them real fast.

So I'm just going to read them.

From the parable of the prodigal, principles for parenting adult children who have gone astray.

The father absorbed his son's rejection.

The father's heart always ached for his wayward son.

The father freely let his son go his own way, even funding his departure.

The father stayed home and waited for the son to return.

In other words, the father didn't go after the son, he waited for the son to come home.

Next frame: God sent a famine that starved the son out and brought him to his senses because God is really good at famines.

The father who welcomed the son home, the father welcomed the son home with extravagant affection.

Even though the father endured accusation from both his sons, he loved them both unconditionally.

Principles for parenting adult children.

Now Galatians.

Paul wrote to them rather than speaking.

Maybe there's a time to write rather than talk so that our adult children can process what we're really saying.

He called judgment upon those who had drawn them away from the gospel of Christ.

He reminded them of his own journey of faith.

He laid out the pure truth of his gospel.

He asked, Who did this to you?

He expressed his fear for their welfare.

Next.

And he kept bringing it back to the cross.

Lord Jesus, I'm asking that there would be a release of grace in this room.

Because you're the God who rewrites stories.

It's not over.

You're going to write this thing your way.

And we are entering into travail all over again for your purposes in our children, in our families, and in our generation.

I'm asking for there to be a release of hope in this room for every person in a fiery trial.

That you can see this fiery trial not as a tomb to kill you, but as a womb for you to grow God's promises and give a generation something that you have grown in your spirit because you're gonna do your trial from here.

Pastor Steve, when we pray for people today, I see us actually praying over their spirit.

Women, if you're a sister, a woman will actually put her hand on your spirit and call forth what God is birthing in your life.

Guys, we'll get what I will do that with another brother as we pray here this morning for God to bring forth his purpose.

Your response to the word today is to love on him, to worship him, to give him everything.

You might even want to just open up your hands, expose your womb to God and say, here I am, Lord Jesus.

I am, I'm gonna lay hold of that promise again.

Lord, I'm gonna grow this thing inside of me.

What you have planted in me by the grace, and we need grace for this, Lord.

We need help for this.

I'm asking that there will be, through the laying on of hands today, that there will be a release of grace to grow this thing and bring it to full term and push the purposes of God.

He did it on the cross, and now we have the dignity of sharing in the very same journey together.

Jesus is rewriting the story of your family.

Amen.

And having this road podcast is to empower people to change.

Their world.

My passion and desire is that you would take God's word through the power of the Holy Spirit and make that relevant for your life.

You know, the reality is that God has placed your life here on this earth to make a difference.

And if you'd like more information about how to grow in Christ, if you need prayer, if you want more equipping in different areas of your life, go to theroad.org.

God bless you.