Plugging into God's Operating System - Ephesians: Born for War

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.

So I want you to look up.

You see, Born for War.

That's the title of Ephesians that we're going through.

But here's what I want you to write down.

Write this down right now.

By choosing to be a wholehearted disciple, I am plugging into God's operating system.

By choosing to be a wholehearted disciple, I'm plugging into God's operating system.

So men and women, you were, in times immemorial, Adam and Eve in creation were given God's operating system.

But because of sin, because they fell away, we've actually inherited from our birth our operating system, and it's a faulty system.

It's a toxic system.

God's operating system is pure and it's free and it's peaceful and it's joyful, and we've been given a new father, a new relationship, and a new family.

That's what we're going to talk about here.

But God's got an operating system that you have to plug in.

You have it, it's yours as a kingdom person, but you have to plug it in every day into God's operating system.

And that's why we talk more around here about being a wholehearted disciple than we talk about being a Christian.

We don't need more Christians.

We need more whole-hearted disciples.

Now here's what I mean.

Wholehearted discipleship means I'm loving God with all of my heart, soul, mind, and strength in my neighbor as ourselves.

Think of it, if we if we had, if we had just 10,000 really wholehearted disciples, we could rock this county and this city like it's never seen before.

And God's doing it.

God's doing it at this church, God's doing it in other places.

The reality is this that you are created to operate under God's system by being a wholehearted disciple.

But that's your choice.

And so what he does, he begins here.

Look at chapter 2.

We're in Ephesians chapter 2.

Ephesians 2 · chapter mention

And last week we talked about being God's poem, his work of art.

So I think let's start at verse 10.

That's the context.

And we really unpacked that last week.

So I'll just briefly cover verse 10.

We are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works.

So here's what's interesting.

Probably verses 8 and 9 is the most succinct, pointed passage in all of the New Testament about how you get saved, how you become a Christian.

For by grace you've been saved through faith, not of yourself, but as a gift of God, not as a result of works that no one should boast.

But then it concludes with we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works.

And workmanship in the Greek is poema.

You are his masterpiece.

You are his poem.

And I talked about that last week, and you can go back and listen to it.

But then he says this, and I think it's it's it's genius what he says next, because he says this.

Look at verse 11.

Therefore, remember that you once, as Gentiles in the flesh, that means you are you're not Jewish.

That's the context here in Ephesians.

You're not Jewish, you're Gentiles in the flesh, who were called the uncircumcision, which would be a derogatory term toward those that were non-Jews or Gentiles at that time, which by the way, Ephesus had both.

So there was a mixture of Jews who had gotten saved and non-Jews that had gotten saved by what is called the circumcision made in the flesh by hands.

So you're talking about the physical circumcision, that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world.

And the reality is in that first century that the scriptures, as we know it, the Torah, had been given to the Jews.

And so many in Ephesus that were Gentiles never had the Bible before.

And that's actually true of many of you.

Many of you in this room hardly ever saw a Bible when you were growing up.

Raise your hand if the Bible wasn't something that was read very often in your home.

That's a lot of you, of course.

And so a lot of us come out of backgrounds that would be like the Gentiles at that time where we didn't have the scriptures.

And how many of you familiar with the family Bible?

Remember the family Bible?

So in the 16th, 7th, 18th, 19th centuries, public publishing was very, very expensive.

So a Christian home had one Bible, and it was a family Bible.

And if you if you ever had a family, I've got a family Bible that was published in 1843 that's in my office, and it came from my great-great-grandmother.

And if you open it up, you can see where you can write down who's gotten married to who, family tree, all this stuff.

So that was kind of this, it was almost like a document of records that everybody kept.

But a family, there was a Jesus-following family, would open it up and they'd read it together because not everybody had a Bible.

Well, we can take for granted the fact that you have a Bible now.

I mean, you can even just go in in five minutes and you can download, you know, the Bible on your phone.

So the Bible is all around us, it's it's just in everything that we can see and do, but that wasn't true then.

So he's saying, you're a Gentile, and you've been separate from the hope of Israel, separate from the scriptures, you don't know anything.

And then for the Jews, they hated the Gentiles.

And so the Gentiles hated the Jews.

And so for a Jew at that time, he would wake up in the morning and say, Thank God I'm not a Gentile.

That's a good way to start your day, right?

You know, thank God I'm not like them, you know?

And so the Jews at that time, they would they would come through a Gentile village or they'd maybe go around a Gentile village.

That's what they did with the Samaritans.

The Samaritans were considered half-breeds or half-Jews.

So if you're coming from the north and you're headed down to Jerusalem, many Jews would actually cross back over to the eastern side of the Jordan River to go around the Samaritans so they didn't have to be there.

And they still come.

As they came to the holy city of Jerusalem, they would dust their sandals off any dust that Gentiles had touched.

And they would, if they have you ever sucked, has anybody ever sucked in a mosquito or a gnat?

Okay?

We all have, right?

And uh, if you're from the South, we do it every day.

Okay?

But you they they would take that gnat and that mosquito and just spit it out because it might have sucked blood from a Gentile.

So we're talking about a lot of hatred at that time.

And Christ comes and he starts to tell these weird stories called parables.

And he talks about a Samaritan and he starts to give credence to the fact that we're all created in the image of God.

Because that is our natural way, church, is to think that people not like us are less than us.

And it's been an issue of civil rights with blacks and whites and Hispanics for my whole life.

And it's it's getting it's actually getting better in some ways and worse in other ways.

Do you realize, listen, this is not really, this is I'm moving into my opinion.

Okay?

If we could cut off Facebook for one year, if we could cut off the mainstream media for one year, I mean, this the revival would break loose.

People would actually start loving each other and caring for each other, and actually, people would actually start believing real science and actually start really believing stuff that's true that we all know in our heart is true.

But we're we're we've got this world that's that they they traffic in fear, they traffic in animosity between blacks and whites, between Catholics and Protestants, between denominations.

Well, we're really the Bible-believing.

Well, we're not, we, you know, they believe that about their eschatology, and it's like, ah, you know, and so it's like we traffic, even in the Christian church, we traffic in trashing each other.

I mean, you got tree huggers and chainsawers.

You know?

I mean, it's like whatever you can think of to be against, there's somebody that's against it.

Because that's our nature.

Our nature is actually an operating system that is built on animosity.

And so he says, therefore remember, you once were Gentiles in the flesh, you were aliens, you're strangers.

We still have that tendency, don't we, you guys?

And God wants to come and change that.

He wants to transform that.

Look at verse 13.

I love verse 13.

This is where everything changed.

He hinges back, I believe, to verse 10 about us being his workmanship.

But now in Christ Jesus, you who once were far off have brought been brought near by the blood of Christ.

So God's operating system, so so jot this down.

As a wholehearted disciple, you're plugging into God's operating system of love through the blood of Christ.

You guys, love courses through the spiritual veins of the whole-hearted disciple.

If you're not walking in love, you're not experiencing all of God's operating system.

God's operating system is built on love, and it's through the blood of Jesus.

You've had a blood transfusion.

When you got saved, you got a blood transfusion.

So, so to plug in to his system is a system of love.

And Jesus said that's how they know you're my disciples, is because of their love for one another.

And sometimes, isn't it true that sometimes people know us as disciples because of how much we fight over dumb things?

Now, I'm not, you guys know me.

You that come to the road regularly, you know my stance on things.

But that doesn't mean I have to say it in a mean way.

I can still love those people, but I am gonna say it in a firm way.

Right?

And none of us are perfect in this, but he's saying there's this separation even then that was happening.

But now God's love through the blood of Christ has brought us near.

With a new kind of, we're a new kind of disciple with a new level of intimacy.

God's operating system gives you a new intimacy.

That new intimacy is through a new identity.

That you're a child of God.

And others are children of God.

Isn't that exciting?

When we start thinking in terms of we're all children of God, some, and when I say that, I don't mean children of God in the saved sense, but I say children of God in the imagio dehi.

If you've never heard that phrase, imagio dei, it means the image of God.

You're all created.

We're all created in the image of God.

And some are working with an operating system of Christ and his love in their life because they know Jesus.

Others are working under an operating system that's faulty and it's false firing on a regular basis because they don't know Jesus yet.

But they still have the image of God.

They still deserve our dignity, they still deserve our love and our respect, right?

So we love them into the kingdom.

We care about them into the kingdom.

We have huge differences, beliefs, politically, maybe, economically, uh, religiously, but we can still love in a way that draws people toward the love that you're connected to, and that's Jesus Christ, because we're a reflection of him.

Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, oh, excuse me, for he himself is our peace, verse 14, who has made both one and has broken down this middle wall of separation.

So in the temple, there was this three-foot middle wall of the of the court of the Gentiles and the court of the women, and that was broke, that was right there to separate the two.

And if a you know, if a if a gentile crossed over, the the sentence was death.

That's been knocked out of the way.

That's the image he's giving us.

He's breaking through.

And I say that to women in this church.

God has so much for you that's a part of you, and maybe some of you felt put down in your life.

If you're African Americans in this church, you felt the animosity.

If you're Native Americans, you felt the animosity, even as any of us.

Because you're all too short, or you're too tall, or you got too long of a nose, or you're too fat, or you're too skinny.

It's always too much of something, right?

So we've all felt that, or we've put it on ourselves, and I think what God wants to do is give us a new identity.

And that new identity in Christ is peace.

That's the new operating system is to give peace, but also to walk in peace.

God's peace in our lives.

And we can't experience, we're never gonna experience world peace until we have God's peace.

We don't have God's peace until we meet the Prince of Peace.

Right?

And so world peace is individual peace through people meeting the Prince of Peace, and that's what we're here for.

We're here that the Prince of Peace would be exhibited through us, albeit poorly sometimes.

Especially when you guys are driving.

You're never gonna see a little fishy of my truck.

No, I'm actually a pretty good driver.

I'm not in a big a hurry as I used to be.

Verse 15.

Having abolished in his flesh the enmity, that is the law of commandments, contained in ordinances so as to create in himself one new man from the two, thus making peace.

So we're not saved by commandments.

But it's smart to follow God's commandments.

It's kind of smart.

Many of the dietary laws found in Leviticus are smart to do.

You know?

You know, if you if you eat tons of sugar, if you're consuming tons of refined sugar, you're gonna get sick.

Okay?

If you're putting toxins into your body, there's a high probability you could get cancer.

So God's commands are good.

They're wholesome, they're pure, they're right.

They don't save you, but they keep you healthy.

I wanna be healthy emotionally, physically, spiritually, financially.

How about you?

Well, God's got his whole scriptures, Old and New Testament, have so many guidelines.

And if you're not in God's word and you don't know those guidelines, you're dumb.

I mean, that's just dumb.

That's like, you know, going out for football and you don't know the rules.

You're you can put on the uniform and the pads, and they now call you a football player, but you look like an idiot out there sometimes because you don't know the rules.

And you're always jumping off sides, and that's the way a lot of Christians are, because they don't know the book.

So know the book.

Get to know the book, get to know the author of the book and the book.

Because the more you get to know this, the better you'll be.

It's just really smart.

You know, if if you want to get out of debt, then there's things you can do.

It's actually outlined in scripture, and there's a lot of great books to help you guide be guided.

I had a young man at my house putting in a new windshield, which I've had this cracked windshield.

Everybody knows about my cracked windshield.

Don't say anything.

Okay, I've had a crack windshield.

I think it's a good image.

He drives a 2006 tundra and he has a crack windshield, and he's my pastor.

I don't mind that.

That's okay.

But anyway, I had a young man, Tyson, out.

Is Tyson in here?

Tyson in here?

Was he first service?

Where are you, Tyson?

I'm gonna embarrass you.

Anyway, Tyson's been coming for about a month.

He used to be with me at Mountain Springs, but I while he's doing the windshield, because I was just kind of enjoying what he was doing, so we talked for like an hour.

But he he listens to podcasts all the time.

He's always learning.

He's always the guy's getting a PhD in finance.

He tells me stuff.

I'm like, dude, I'm so proud of you.

Awesome.

I don't know if Tyson's been to college or not, but I tell you what, he knows more than 50% of the people I know because he's just a he's a he's a self-learner.

He's he's he's on the road a lot, but he goes, he does glass, you know, and so he's on a uh in his in his van, but he's learning, he's learning, he's learning.

Guys, keep learning.

Use your brain.

Hardest part about my job is getting people to think.

It's the hardest part of my job.

When I see what people are doing out there, and I'm going, you kidding me?

The information is out there.

You don't have to believe that dribble coming out of CNN.

You just don't.

Be smart.

And you know who's the smartest in this room?

The young people.

I'm I'm noticing that more and more of the young people, they're in that that's so dumb.

People do that?

You kidding me?

But we're the ones that are a little older.

We've trusted in authority figures.

We've tended to trust in the systems.

Folks, the systems are out to kill you.

You've got to start being a self-learner, self-taught.

So when he talks about this new man, this is the new man.

The new man is plugging in to God's operating system because we're learning so much, men and women, about the medical world.

We're learning so much about economics.

There's just so much.

And the colleges don't have a clue.

Most of the colleges do not have a clue about the kind of stuff that will keep you healthy.

Keep hanging out with this church.

We're going to train you and equip you in those things and empower you in it.

And that's what he's talking about.

He's saying that this law of commandments was kind of meant to hold you down.

It's now to set you free in Christ.

Verse 16.

That he might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross.

Jews and Gentiles.

The law and grace.

Thereby putting to death the enmity.

And he came and he preached peace to you who are far off and to those who are near.

For through him we both have access by one spirit to the Father.

Men and women, God's operating system says to you, you have a new dad.

He comes to all your games.

He really likes you.

He actually knows you better than your earthly dad.

Now drop this down, drop down ADP.

Write down ADP in your notes.

All of you are ADP.

All of this room are adults of dysfunctional parents.

You're all adults of dysfunctional parents.

So quit blaming mom and dad.

They're not perfect.

You've got a new dad.

You've got a new father, and he loves you.

He thinks he's he's he just he blesses you.

He wants to be a part of you, but you gotta get to know him.

And so, church, spend time with your new dad.

Spend time with your father.

How can we know how much he loves us if we never spend time with him?

So, so get up early in the morning or when you come home at night and just you know, before everything just gets all confusing, spend time in God's Word.

And not just to study it, but to have a relationship with God the Father Abba.

Abba wants a relationship with you.

And so to spend time with him, and today I was in my bedroom, you know, before the servant said, God, bring your fire today.

God, bring your fire today.

Start with me.

It's been my prayer all week.

God, start the fire in me.

The love that you have for me, may I express it to the people that you love so much and that I love so much.

These are your people.

And so God wants to do that for each one of you.

Spend time with Him.

Don't see it as a religious exercise, see it as a father to son, a father to son.

To daughter relationship, he cares about you.

But you have to come to him.

You have to plug in to the operating system.

He's already said, if you'll draw near to me, I'll draw near to you.

If you will draw near to me, I will draw near to you.

Because he gives it, we're free beings.

He gives us that freedom.

So I see it all the time, right?

We see it all the time where we talk about this stuff and everything, but then when actual real life struggles come, we get into this mode of where's God?

Where's God?

Well, guess what?

God might have actually orchestrated all the problems you have.

Because He wants you to draw near to Him.

So sometimes problems are, I like what Jay Hudson Taylor, the great Chinese missionary, said.

He said, problems I've grown to believe are about either pressing one away from God or pressing them into God.

So let problems in your life press you into the Father.

That he might know you.

Because here's what's so exciting.

This is what he's saying.

Look at this.

This is so great.

He says, verse 19, now therefore, you're no longer strangers and foreigners, but you're fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.

Church, men and women, you have through this new operating system a new family.

I'm closer to many of you in this room than I am my extended family in Georgia.

Because, I mean, I spend more time with you guys.

You're my new family.

And I know more about what's happening in many of your lives than I do even my family.

And uh I can make phone calls and know things, but but we've got a new family.

Guess what?

We've got an international family.

If I fly to Okinawa, I've got friends there.

If I fly to Hong Kong, I've got family there.

If I fly to Singapore, I've got family there.

If I fly into the Middle East, I've got family there.

Isn't that exciting?

Who can say that?

The church can.

We can say that.

There's family that just if you walk into an African village, anywhere in Africa almost, and said, I'm a Christian, you've got a family.

They'll feed you, they'll take care of you, they'll love you, they'll roll out the red carpet for you just because you are a Christian, because you're a Jesus follower.

That's the new family we have.

You have a new family here at the road.

And invest in it.

It's a great family.

We have a really cool family here.

Get in a small group, serve, hang out, come to the worship conference for, and you spend three days hanging out with everybody, you're gonna have three or four really close friends as a result with you guys just meeting up, having coffee together, and doing stuff at the worship conference.

Come to the National Day of Prayer.

We we don't kick you out, you know.

You can stay here until 11 o'clock at night.

Well, maybe not that late, but you can, some of you do.

You have to say, get out of here, man.

You know?

And it's great, though.

I love that problem.

And I love all the kids running around.

That's the best.

I think most pastors they hear kids scream and everything, and they go, oh, where's our children's director?

You know, I like it.

I mean, I know it's weird.

I had seven kids.

I'm used to it.

So this is their house.

I want them to feel comfortable here and joyful.

And I'm not saying you guys just let your kids just that's not the problem.

The problem is when we don't value these little children that are so precious to Jesus.

We need to value them and love them.

And we should dirty up this carpet, you know, and and this should be stained up.

This is your church, this is your house.

Right?

Let's use it for God's glory.

And then he says this: he says, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building being fitted together grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.

So, guys, he's writing this to the church that had one of the six wonders of the world, the temple of Artemis.

So the temple of Artemis, anywhere you looked in Ephesus on that coastal village, you could see up on the hill, the Temple of Artemis.

And so he's using that as a metaphor that we're the temple now.

Now, 1 Peter talks about us being living stones being crafted together into a spiritual house.

And so the thing about stones is that they're really close together.

The thing about stones is it has a roof and there's pressure.

Pressure holds it together.

I don't know, and this is the thing that God can correct me on when I get to heaven, but I don't know if you can be a real wholehearted disciple without the family of God.

People say, Well, I don't go to church, I find God when I'm fishing, or I find God when I'm outside and all that, and I go, you know, you can find God there.

But I haven't seen any elk or any rainbow trout that say, You're sinning, brother.

So, as much as I love the outdoors, you need the body of Christ.

You need other people in your life.

You're you're a living stone, so you rub up against each other, and sometimes it's not comfortable.

But that's how you grow.

I want you to say it.

That's how I grow.

Say that.

That's how I grow.

It wasn't my idea.

It's his idea.

Book of Acts.

Acts 2.

He started the church.

So God wants this to be a family, He wants it to be the household of faith.

So we work stuff out, right?

We work it out.

It's not easy all the time.

But that's how we begin to really grow.

Let me give you what I think are five things that are benefits of the local church.

Five benefits of the local church.

Number one, we worship together.

There's something significant about worshiping together.

There is power on it.

You cannot worship just as a family and have the same impact as with the body of Christ.

Number two, we grow together.

We're growing together.

Number three, we do ministry together.

That's the part I love about this coming conference is every day I'm gonna be here at least, and my team's gonna be here, and we're gonna be praying for people.

I'm gonna be just, I'm gonna do, because except for the time when I'm talking, I'm on the lookout for people who need prayer.

And I'm just gonna grab them and say, give them a word from God, because God will give me words for them.

He'll do that with you.

That's what this should be.

It should be like a big, huge revival service, like for three days of God moving in people.

We're ministry together.

Number four, weeping together.

We weep together.

We we weep together, and then number five, we dream together.

So, so there's something about family.

There's something about living life with each other, where our family becomes a part of another family, and that family another family, and that we begin to know each other, we start to hang out together, that builds the household of God.

So, church, you got the operating system.

Plug it in.

Plug it in.

Get healthy, get healthier mentally, get healthy, err.

Physically, get healthy emotionally.

That's what we're supposed to do.

Call it being a healthy church.

You know what cancer is?

Cancer is the absence of health.

Cancer is everywhere, toxins are everywhere.

Healthy people don't get as sick as unhealthy people because they've got the immune system, the antibodies to fight it.

Same with the church.

We should have a spiritual immune system within our church.

That when someone starts to gossip, we notice it.

Someone brings toxins into the environment, we notice it.

And we move in on that.

Not to attack, but just say, you know, we don't do that here.

You know, we don't talk about people like that.

We have this thing called Covenant of Harmony, and we don't talk about other churches, we don't badmouth people, we don't think we're greater than anybody else.

Matter of fact, we know that we're not, and we want to be a humble church.

We want to be a church that loves people.

So you know, you know what I'm saying?

The more health you get, then when you see the toxins come, we surround the toxins and we and we knock it out quit.

We knock it out quit the spiritual immune system of the family of God.

And so, and so, but it, but if but if I'm creating a new chaos, if my staff is creating division, then that becomes the culture of this family, is we're a divisive church.

We speak ill of others, we point at others, and they don't believe like we do, so they're they're not gonna be in the rapture, you know, whatever.

And that's wrong.

And that's not what we do here.

So let's build a healthy family, right?

Everybody go like that.

Yeah, we uh that's what it's all about.

Hey, thanks for listening to the Road 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 equipping in different areas of your life, go to the road.org.

God bless you.