The Road to Interdependence - Leaders' Talks

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

This is the Rev 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.

Pastor Steve sent me a text this morning.

He says, uh, would you just share this with the congregation?

And so I will.

This is from him.

Fourth of July, I'm reminded today that the blood of the patriots founded a nation, the blood of patriots built a nation, and the blood of patriots forged and revived a nation in the years to come.

The work is not finished, and God's people, the church, have a mandate to partner with Christ in his work to transform America.

And that goes so great and so timely with my message today.

You have your Bibles handy.

Let's turn to Ephesians chapter 4.

Ephesians 4 · chapter mention

We're going to be going over verses 11 through 16.

We're going to unpack the Word of God.

You know, I believe that God's going to take many of you here through a paradigm shift, and many of you that are watching today.

I think you're going to begin to see things a little bit differently.

And you're going to cross over a threshold on your way to interdependence to help usher in this great awakening.

And so if we can, we can look at verse 11.

We can start.

And you can follow along with me on the screen or just follow from your Bibles, but let's read.

And he gave some apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors, and some teachers.

Those five things right there, five gifts, are called the five-fold ministry.

Some people that feel they're not for the day.

I've got a cute little study that explains how God restored each of those gifts over a 50-year period from 1948 to 1998.

1948, Israel became a nation.

And it started the clock of a 50-year countdown for a 50-year jubilee.

I believe God stored each one of those gifts one per decade.

And with that became corresponding gifts, but that's uh for another day that I would love to teach.

So verse 12.

For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for edifying of the body of Christ.

Verse 13, till we all come in the unity of the faith, that's real key, because we're going to go back on that and unpack that.

Of the knowledge of the Son of God and to a perfect man, and to the measure of stature or the fullness of Christ.

Verse 14, that we hencef henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the slight of man, cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive.

Verse 15, by speaking the truth in love, may grow up in him all things which is head, even Christ.

And finally, verse 16, from whom the whole body, fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplies, according to the effectual working and the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love.

So let's break down these verses and start unpacking them.

Talked about verse 11, was the five-fold ministry, the apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers.

But verse 12, for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.

So why did God give the five-fold ministry?

For these three reasons.

For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, and to edify the body of Christ.

So who's supposed to do the work of the ministry?

The saints.

Who are the saints?

That's everybody that calls on the name of Jesus.

Everyone that's gotten saved.

It's not just the pastors, not just the church leadership.

It's everybody.

Okay?

Who's supposed to edify the body of Christ?

We all are.

It's not a sometime thing, and it's stuff that we should be doing on a daily basis.

So I think God is really tired of casual Christianity.

He's tired of weekend visitation and he wants full custody.

He wants us to be wholehearted.

You know, I went through a divorce years ago, and at first I had weekend visitation.

I couldn't wait until the weekend to see my kids.

I would plan their favorite meals, their favorite movies.

I'd invite their friends over.

From the minute I picked them up until the minute I dropped them off, I wanted them to have a great time.

And then we did, I picked them up, and I was just grimming, you know.

And we had a blast on Friday, a blast on Saturday, Sunday was great.

And Sunday evening, my guites started to ache because I knew I had to drop them off again.

Although I loved weekend visitation, I longed for full custody.

How do you think God feels?

Sunday morning?

He hasn't seen some of you all week long.

You haven't gotten into the world, some people all week long.

And people pull in the parking lot, God starts just grinning like a butcher's dog.

You know, people start praying and worshiping him.

He's in seventh heaven, literally.

You know, he's he's he's just having the time of his life.

And then the service ends, people start dwindling, and they start leaving, and they're pulling out of the parking lot, and God's heart aches.

Although he loves weekend visitation, God wants full custody of his children.

Would you agree?

He wants us to be whole-hearted.

I love how Pastor Pastor Steve, one of the roadmaps, said, you know, look, we're looking for whole-hearted people here.

If you're half-hearted, eat your meal and don't come back.

Do you know what I mean?

But but bottom line is we want whole-hearted people.

We want 100%.

God wants 100% of us.

If I give you a bottle that said 99% pure spring water, 1% sewage, would you drink it?

Probably not.

I mean, if you're hard up and desperate, you probably would.

But God doesn't want 80% of us, 90% of us, 95%, 99.

He wants 100% of us.

He purchased, he paid the ultimate price, purchased us back to himself.

And so I think I am not my own anymore.

My reasonable service is just to give God everything I have.

And so this next verse, verse 13, tell we all come to the unity of faith.

I believe that faith in this instance means more than belief.

Because let's face it, we're never gonna come to a unity of belief.

I mean, there's all these different denominations.

We're not gonna agree on everything.

Would you agree with that?

I mean, there's so many things we can agree to agree on the major things, and we should, you know, Jesus is the Son of God, he died for our sins, all the major things, but we're not gonna agree with everything.

Ed Cole was a guy who had a men's ministry years ago, national men's ministry.

He had so many great quotes.

One is truth is absolute, but our perception of it is fragmentary, meaning we only see part of the puzzle.

That's why we desperately need others.

So, you know, if we if we believe that truth is, or faith is more than just a belief, well, what is it?

I believe faith is an action.

Just as sin is an action.

You know, Romans 14, 23 says that whatever is not of faith is sin.

So I believe both faith and sin are actions.

But one is rooted out of love, one is rooted out of lust.

You see, the love of God puts hope in our heart, and that hope acted upon is faith.

Lust puts evil imaginations in our heart, those evil imaginations acted upon is sin.

James 2, 26 tells us, you know, faiths without works are dead.

I like to say love without action carries no traction.

I think it's an action.

Okay.

So look at verse 13 again.

If if we believe that it's more than just belief until we all come to the union of faith, what if we replace that word faith with actions?

Until we all come to the union of the actions.

What does that mean?

That means, people, that we don't have to agree on every single little detail for us to start working with the rest of the body of Christ.

Would you agree?

We can start working with each other today, okay?

You know, I love our pastors.

I think they believe in the unity of the faith, the unity of the actions.

How do I know this?

Well, because they love working with other churches.

You know, Pastor Steve, you know, when we first shut down because of COVID, he had a coalition, a group of pastors from all over State in a chapel.

There's 88 or 89 pastors.

We all you know aired our you know our thoughts and everything.

Out of that, many of those churches agreed to open up.

Um, the Sean Foyd event.

We brought Sean Foyd in here, I think it was last September, and uh uh amazing event.

But Steve's got an anointing for this region, he's got an anointing to unite pastors, he's got an anointing to unite churches.

So 20 churches came together to help put on the Sean Foyd again.

So not only that, but Pastor Brian united all these worship, uh worship teams that come together to help Sean put that on.

Pastor Ryan did the baptisms.

You know, there's five or six thousand people that came together, 20 churches.

Uh I think 200 got saved, 100 and some baptized, and and I held up, I held up the prayer.

And so I united 20 churches in prayer.

We had 650 intercessors praying for that event.

That's huge to me.

Over 20 different churches.

650 people, 50 people praying on their faces from beginning to end.

And and uh, and that's why there wasn't one single protester during that event in all over the country.

Sean was going around these worship events.

There's protesters everywhere.

Do you mean not one single protester?

The guy that was in charge of the police that that day came up to you know to to us and they said, you know, that was the most organized professional event they've ever had in Colorado Springs, bar none.

So that was Steve, a lot of that, his the anointing just bringing people together and God drawing people together.

And then Steve orchestrated, we had a National Day of Prayer event right here, and we were praying over the seven mountains.

If you don't know what the seven mountains are, there are seven areas of influence that impact our society.

But we threw in an eighth mountain in there.

We threw in healthcare and first responders because it was so prevalent.

But we had two pastors praying over each mountain, so 16 different pastors across the city.

Even Andrew Womack came down.

Andrew Womack said that was the biggest National Day of prayer event Colorado's Friends Day has seen in 40 years.

Like 550 people attended, which is pretty amazing, you know.

So that's Pastor C Pastor Ryan.

You know, he organized, he's got an anointing to bring youth groups together from all these different churches.

And so he anointed uh he had the anointing, four or five different youth groups came together and he put on a conference or our concert.

Pretty amazing.

He just got back from a you know, taking the youth on a missions trip to Nashville.

They were working with another church out there.

They believe in the unity of action, unity of faith, coming together and working with other people.

Uh, Pastor Brian, man, you just had the Unveiled Worship Conference.

It was an amazing event.

How many were there?

You know?

It was, but you know, there's eight major worship leaders across the nation.

Eight major speakers, national speakers across the nation were here.

People from 28 different states.

That just doesn't happen, especially during a time when people just coming out of COVID.

You know, there's you know, uh God TV called us up and said, look, because of COVID, we don't have anything alive to broadcast.

Can we come and or can we can we broadcast your your conference?

And so we sent them the tapes and they're supposed to broadcast that and we'll let you know when that's gonna happen.

But um, and then myself, we have our men's breakfast.

We have it in this sanctuary, these chairs we moved to the side.

We have 39 tables of seven in this room every Tuesday morning.

You know, if there's seven feet of snow, Ricky Bobby's gonna be cooking, and I'm gonna be here.

You know, he's gonna be here at two, and I'm gonna get here about four or four thirty.

But um, but from six to seven fifteen, thirty-nine different tables of seven.

Each table has a table leader.

And the greatest thing about all that is we have 200 plus guys that come uh quite often, but there's 47 different churches that are involved.

And the number of guys is amazing, but 47 churches where there's unity, God commands a blessing.

Where there's unity, the place of unity is always the place of power.

1 Corinthians 13, 3 says, now these three remain faith, hope, and love, and the greatest of these is love.

And I said the love of God puts produces hope within us, and that hope acted on is faith.

Faith, hope, and love.

So it's amazing, and it's not without coincidence that love, hope, and faith correlate perfectly, and I think it's a God thing, with purpose, vision, and mission.

In fact, love, hope, and faith, and purpose, vision, and mission help answer three questions why, what, and how.

So in the business realm, companies will have a purpose, a vision, and a mission statement.

The purpose statement helps answer the question, why are you in business?

The vision helps that vision statement helps answer the question, what do you want to accomplish?

And the mission statement is how are you gonna do it?

Purpose, vision, and mission.

But in the kingdom realm, we have love, hope, and faith.

The love of God, you know, um helps answer the question, why are you created?

The hope of God helps answer the question, what is your calling?

And faith of God helps answer the question, how are you going to accomplish your calling?

Okay?

Faith, hope, and love, love, hope, and faith, and purpose, vision, mission.

So let's go back to Ephesians, and it talks about um but speaking the truth and love that we may grow up in all things, which is the head, even Christ.

So this verse says that Jesus is the head.

What's he the head of?

He's the head of the body.

Jesus Christ is.

And so he's the head.

I believe he's coming back for a body that's in correct proportion to the head.

That means we got a lot of growing up to do, people, do we?

In fact, he's coming back for a bride.

He's the bridegroom, we are the bride of Christ.

He's coming back for a bride that's without spot or wrinkle.

You know, uh, sadly, we're not there yet.

Would you agree?

You know, really, the church, sadly enough, isn't that much different from the world.

You know, the divorce rate in the church is about the same as it is in the world.

The sin is just as rampant in the church as it is in the world.

It's sad to hear that, you know?

Um, you know, we keep trying to fit in, but God keeps setting us apart.

The world is looking for a church.

And they're looking for a banner that's worth marching under.

They're tired of a church that's high on style and low on content.

But we have that banner.

His name is Jesus.

His banner over us is love.

We have that banner.

We can change that.

You know, I think the reason most people don't go to church, because they know someone that does go to church.

We want to change that around a little bit here.

We want to change that perception at the road.

But it's true.

The church has done a good job of throwing people off the roof instead of lowering them down through it.

Do you mean we've been good at shooting our own, you know?

It's time that changed.

Okay?

The church as we know it is broken.

How do we know this?

We know this because the world hasn't been won yet.

You know, we've had the resources in the body of Christ since 1994.

It's another study or speech I could talk about.

But we've had the resources to reach every tribe and tongue in the world.

It's over 8,000 people groups.

Why haven't we?

Well, the same reason for this next slide.

In America, there's 19 churches in America for everyone, McDonald's.

And yet, sadly enough, McDonald's has had a greater impact on our culture.

Why?

I'm glad you asked.

It's because we're not working together.

We believe in this, you know, unity of the belief instead of unity of their actions.

Churches think they can do it on their own.

In fact, I think churches suffer from the Frank Sinatra philosophy.

What is it?

I'm glad you asked.

I did it my way.

You know?

There's so many churches working independently out there.

You know, and that's why we have all these different body parts.

They're not fitly joined together as we know it right yet.

And that's why we have the church of the church of the leg, the church of the kneecap, the church of the ear, you name it, all these different churches out there working as long rangers, you know.

So if we know, if we know, we're supposed to come together and work together.

The most important question we need to ask is who are we supposed to be aligned with?

Okay?

Many of you in this room, many of you that are watching, you've either heard or have seen something here at the road that sparked something, ignited something in you.

That you thought, yes, I agree with that.

That's where I want to go.

Okay?

You know, after all, the Bible says, how can two walk together unless they agree?

Would you agree?

So there's something in here, you know.

Those of you that know me well would have probably heard this next thing a hundred times.

But, you know, just as metal shavings are attracted to a magnet, our vibe will always attract our tribe.

You can talk to someone, if they're a Christian, you might have meet them on the street, and within seconds, you know if they're flowing in the same stream.

You know if they're gonna click.

Something stirs in you, there's something inside.

And so many of you are here today, many of you are watching, are here and are watching because there's something at the road, something that Steve said or one of us said, or something that we did that ignited something in you.

And you said, Yes, that's what it's about.

I want to be aligned with that.

If that's the case, we need to understand five things if we know we're supposed to work together.

One is we're a team that's called and assigned to work together.

And if we are, if we're called to work together, what are our resources or assets that we have?

You know, 2 Peter 1:3 says God's given us all things according or pertaining to life and godliness.

2 Peter 1:3

What's he given us?

He's given us characteristics and traits and gifts and talents and assets.

All those things are what purpose flows out of.

They're always uh attached to our purpose.

Okay?

So if we explore our assets, out of that will rise a purpose.

And after all, God called us, if He called us together, He's assembled all these resources for a reason, for a purpose.

So, what's that purpose?

So, what's that purpose of our assignment together?

And then the next one, from a purpose, we'll see a vision.

God gave Pastor Steve a vision for the realm.

Our vision to have a kingdom of God revolution in the Rockies.

That's reason, probably number 337, why I love Steve so much.

What a great vision to have a kingdom of God revolution in the Rockies.

Why revolution instead of revival?

Well, revival is come and go.

I tell people, don't pray for revival.

Pray for the reviver.

Because when he comes, he'll bring revival with them.

But revivals come and go, but revolutions transform nations.

Okay?

We want a kingdom of God revolution.

We want to transform Colorado.

We want to transform America.

We want to transform this globe to flow again with righteousness like a never-ending stream.

So he gave God or God gave Pastor Steve the vision.

Okay.

Number four, out of that vision, okay, which is our dream of what we want to do, what's the mission or the plan to accomplish that vision?

God gave Pastor Steve a mission for the road.

It's to empower people to change the world.

That's amazing.

I love that.

Okay.

Empower people to change the world.

So if that's our vision, our purpose, our vision, or mission, the daily working out of that plan, the daily grind of working out that vision is called destiny.

Comes from the Greek word destinere or the Latin word destinere.

It means to establish.

What do you establish?

You establish a plan to accomplish the vision that's birthed from our purpose.

Isn't this simple stuff?

We try to make this so hard.

That's why God said, just be childlike.

You know, I believe the standard for maturity in the kingdom of God is childlikeness and to be overflowing with wonder and awe and hope and expectancy.

I've never lost.

Offset.

I wake up every morning.

I tell people, like a five-year-old on Christmas morning, you know, I have a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, and it's like, this could be the day, God.

Who am I supposed to talk to?

Give me a due word and due season for everyone to cross my path.

And he does.

So the daily working out of the plan, the daily grind is called destiny.

So that means that destiny is not this complex ethereal karma concept.

It's the daily grind of doing the plan.

That means it's not a it's not for long rangers, it's a team sport.

That means we have to work together.

Together, working out the plan and the unity of our faith or actions, which takes us back to Ephesians 14, being united in the unity of our faith.

So let's get back to our mission.

Empower people to change the world.

As we empower people, they go through this process, this growth process.

It's called a maturity continuum.

How many of you heard of a maturity continuum before?

Stephen Covey talks about in the seven habits of highly effective people, great book.

But he talks about this maturity continuum where people go through a journey from dependence to independence to interdependence.

Okay?

And uh one of the things that distinguishes people from animals almost more than any other thing is how animals respond to stimulus.

You know, the picture of Pavlov's dog.

They did what they did is they rang a bell and then they fed the dog.

Rang the bell and they fed the dog.

Every time after a little bit the dog heard the bell, it started salivating.

They'd ring the bell, the dog would salivate, they'd feed him, okay?

After a while, they took away the feeding.

They ring the bell and the dog would salivate.

You know why?

Because they don't have the ability, animals, to stop and think about their actions before they respond.

I mean, you can train animals like dolphins and dogs to do amazing things, but for the most part, okay?

The thing is, dependent people are pretty much the same way.

They're reactionary.

We all know people like that.

They're opinionated, they just fly off a handle.

They don't even think about their actions.

You know what I mean?

Stimulus response.

Stimulus response.

But as they stop and start thinking about their actions before they respond, they become more proactive, they become independent.

Okay?

And uh and God's never called us to interdependence, independence though.

That's the problem.

He's called us to interdependence.

There's too many Lone Rangers out there.

Do you mean working independently?

And then once people start working independently, thinking about their actions, realizing that they can accomplish a lot and be successful independently, they'll never be as successful as they could being aligned to a team.

Okay?

And once they start realizing that they need to start working together, something happens.

They become interdependent.

They see the strengths in other people, and they rely on those strengths, they cover those other people's weaknesses.

And those people, you know, rely on our strengths and they cover our weaknesses.

They start working together.

And interdependence is where unity, where relationship, where community, or team building, and where synergy takes place.

Synergy is where the sum of the parts is greater than the sum of the whole.

I used to run restaurants.

Um, some of them were in cold weather states, Minnesota.

And um, by the way, my cousin Chuck and his wife Jean are here today from Minnesota.

So and my brother Mike and his wife, Chris, are sitting in the back here.

So great to have them here.

Um we had a lot of great time together.

Next couple days we're gonna have a good time together too.

But in the restaurant business, I mean you get a snow day and you got half of a crew, and they can't make it in the car, won't start, or you know, there's too much snow, they can't make it through it.

And so what I did is I cross-trained every employee to do every job in the restaurant.

And so if someone called off, they still had people to do it.

And working together, they could accomplish a lot more working together than they could on their own.

And that's synergy.

So um, I love the acronym for team.

Together, everyone achieves more.

So, so as we walk together in interdependence in the unity of the faith or our actions, we're fulfilling really Ephesians 4:16.

Ephesians 4:16

And that's scripture again, from whom the whole body, fitly joined together and compacted, from which every joint supplies, we start coming together, we start realizing we don't have to agree on everything to start working together.

We start being interdependent.

You know, we're we're covering each other's weaknesses and and we're relying on each other's strengths.

We're looking at the resources that we all have.

Okay?

As all this begins to happen, a stirring and awakening take place, ushering in this great awakening.

You know, there's been two great awakenings in the United States.

Amazing things, Jonathan Edwards and Charles Finney.

Finney went through Charles Finney went through New York.

90-some percent of New York got saved, you know.

But I believe what's beginning now is the Great Awakening.

The Great Awakening is not unbelievers coming to Christ.

I believe the Great Awakening is the body of Christ waking up for the first time in maybe our our country's history.

People say, what about the Jesus movement?

You know, millions got saved.

But in the midst of the Jesus movement, we passed Roe v.

Wade.

So how awake was the church?

Everything in the natural realm is patterned after something in the spiritual realm.

As the church goes, so goes the nation.

So I believe this awakening, guys like Sean Foyt going around the country, redigging these wells of revival, lighting these revival fires, and the church is starting to wake up.

They're starting to realize there's a great dichotomy in churches today.

You can see that some are bold, they're making a stand, they're going after the heart of God, and some are shrinking back in fear.

There's a big division.

You can see it.

You know what I mean?

But I think the true church is waking up, and it's a great thing.

And because of that, America is waking up.

So in review, God's given us a fivefold ministry.

Why?

For you know, for the perfecting of the saints, to do the works of ministry, to edify the body of Christ.

Um, until we can all come to the unity of faith or our actions.

We don't have to agree on everything for us to start working together.

And if we believe that, these five things will happen.

We're coming together as a team, we're a call together, signed or aligned together.

And if we believe that, what are our resources or assets?

What do we have?

Out of our resources, out of our assets, is our purpose, and it's aligned to that.

So we'll find out our purpose and our vision and our mission.

How do we accomplish that vision?

And out of that vision, that daily working out of that plan, the daily working out, what we do day by day, is destiny.

It's not unusual for Japanese companies to have hundred-year game plans.

Their goals for their hundred-year game plans are what they do on a decade basis.

Their goals for their decade game plans or goals are their action steps or what they do on a yearly basis.

Their action steps for their yearly goals or what they do on a monthly basis.

Action steps for their monthly goals, what they do on a weekly basis, action steps for their weekly goals or what they do on a daily basis.

There is a congruency between what they're doing on a daily basis and what they want to become a hundred years from now.

Can we do that as the body of Christ?

I think we can.

Can our daily actions, can there be a congruency between what we want to see the body of Christ like in a hundred years from now?

Do you mean?

And we want to usher that in and let the glory of God cover the earth as waters cover the seas.

I believe we can do that.

Hey, thanks for listening to the Rogue Podcast.

It's been my joy to be a part of your life today.

And you know, that's part of what we do here at The Road, and this is what I do in 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 equipment in different areas of your life, go to the reader.org.

God bless you.