A Kingdom of God Revolution in Colorado Springs Part 2 - A Kingdom of God Revolution in Colorado Springs

You're listening to the road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.

Men and women, that we might be a church that carries the keys of the kingdom with such prayer power that the assembled leaders in our community would fear our prayers.

Let us believe God for that in the days ahead that as we carry the kingdom, that we'd be known as men and women of prayer who know how to bind and lose.

We have power over the enemy when we pray.

At The Road, our mission is to empower people to change the world.

For more information on The Road, visit theroad.org.

We hope you are encouraged by today's message from Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.

Well, men and women, we are in exciting and dangerous times.

Right before our eyes, we are watching the most profound moves toward communism we've ever seen in the history of our nation.

The deep state, in the highest echelons of our government, our intelligence networks, big tech, and the mainstream media, all in tandem, are already opening up a floodgate of new censorship on free speech.

This coming week is momentous.

But these are the most exciting times in our lifetime.

God is moving powerfully across America.

Revival and revolution is in the air.

God always uses the most difficult times to unleash his true church.

These are the days of Elijah.

God has spoken to me several times this week through talking to people in the church who shared things with me, all of them talking about.

Remember that song, The Days of Elijah?

Do you guys remember that?

These are the days of Elijah.

So, again, I'm going to tell you, I'm changing gears for next week.

And I want to do a message called living in the times of the days of Elijah.

Living in the days of I haven't really worked on it yet.

Because I believe God's doing something that's not unlike the days of Elijah.

And I believe it's prophetic.

I believe 1 Kings 17, 18, 19 about Elijah are prophetic for 2021 for us.

So I want to talk about that next week and discuss that.

But here's what I want to do today.

I want to talk about the church.

So if you're taking notes, write down the church, the Kingdom of God Revolution, this is part two, but about the church, that God is in the work of building his church.

Now listen, folks, that's the great drama of the ages.

The drama of the ages is not who's president.

The drama of the ages is not who's ruling in England, in Parliament.

The drama of the ages is not what's happening in Europe.

What's happening in the church is what God has his eye on.

Matter of fact, we wouldn't even know about Herod and Tippetus.

We wouldn't even know about Pontius Pilate if it wasn't for the fact that they were just footnotes in the work of God in the coming of the Messiah Jesus.

And so God loves a church and he's always looking for churches that want to be built by him.

Churches that want to be empowered by him.

And last week I talked about the king.

I talked about the king of the kingdom, which is Jesus, and he came proclaiming and demonstrating the kingdom of God.

That's the central message of Christ.

It's very interesting to me that when we look at Paul, let me just say this.

And then at the very end, in Acts 28, Paul is in prison in Rome.

If you can go back and find this, the last chapter of the whole chronicle of the first, say, 50 years of the church, for the chronicle in the book of Acts, it says he was there, he was freely moving about within the prison confines that he was in, because what you did, can you believe it?

How do you like this?

Prison in Rome, you paid rent.

So they imprisoned you, but you had to pay the rent to be imprisoned by them.

I've always wondered, what if you didn't want to pay?

I mean, that's when you want to get evicted, right?

But he was in the prison, but it says he was teaching on the kingdom of God.

And so this kingdom ministry, which has largely been lost in the church over the centuries, and a misunderstanding really in the Roman Catholic Church in the medieval times was that the kingdom of God was the church.

We're not saying that.

When I speak of a kingdom of God revolution, I'm going to give you some definitions of what I mean so there's no misunderstanding about the coming of the kingdom.

So here's a summation from last week, and you should go back and listen to the sermon or watch the sermon on the kingdom of God revolution.

Definition of the kingdom of God.

The kingdom of God is the reign and rule of Christ over his domain.

He is the king over his kingdom.

His kingdom begins with and ends with himself.

So the kingdom of God is ruled by the king over his domain.

And so I want to tell you about the power of God in the church.

And when I say the church, the tendency can be to hear me say that and think capital C sort of Catholic or universal church.

I'm not speaking of that necessarily.

I'm speaking more in line with the local church.

What God wants the local church to look like.

What we're trying to do at the road in building a kingdom of God revolution in Colorado Springs, right here.

So I love when we pray for our nation and we have noonday prayer, and you guys have been coming out for something like 118 days.

So noonday prayer is continuing this week.

It's going to continue unstoppable in prayer as we continue to believe God for a move of his spirit.

And we pray for America.

But guys, America is here.

America is what you do when you go out to eat.

America is how you treat your neighbor.

America is what we did for this beautiful woman and her children, and giving them some money and blessing them with food.

That's what the kingdom of God is.

That's America.

And so sometimes we can get overly fixated without there and somehow neglect in here.

And let us not at the road export anything we haven't imported.

So let's live it in our own lives.

And quite frankly, it begins in our own family.

So turn in your Bibles to Matthew 16, one of the greatest passages in Scripture, one of the great declarations that Jesus ever made.

Matthew 16, 18.

Matthew 16, 18.

And this is men and women, where Peter makes his confession that Jesus is the Son of God.

And then we pick it up in verse 18.

Jesus says, and I say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church.

And the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.

And I'll give you the keys, the kingdom of heaven.

Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven.

Whatever you loose on earth will be loose in heaven.

To me, this is the beginning of a kingdom of God revolution.

He is prophesying something that Peter can't even understand yet because he doesn't know that there's already a church.

It's a little church, it's called the Twelve Disciples.

And that's the beginning of the New Testament church that's going to be birthed in Acts chapters 1 and 2, with the coming of the kingdom of God through the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.

Acts 1 · chapter mention

He doesn't understand that yet.

But he he hears what he's saying.

And what Jesus is speaking of is there's a revolution coming that's going to be something that I am going to empower, and I'm going to be the rock that it's going to be built upon.

You don't understand what it means, but I'm giving you spiritual authority.

I'm giving you spiritual power.

So let me give you a definition as I see it of the kingdom of God revolution.

A kingdom of God revolution is the ongoing ministry of Jesus in love and redemption.

Matthew 22, 35 through 40, Luke 4, 18 and 19, through the citizens of the kingdom, emanating from local churches that permeate all of society.

So in other words, the church, empowered by the Holy Spirit, we are citizens of a kingdom.

We move out, basically loving God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and our neighbor is ourselves, following the ministry of Jesus wherever we go.

Wherever you go, you're a missionary.

Whatever you do, you're a missionary.

We were in Nashville this week, and we took, we took Anna to, she's going to Atlanta, but we went all the way to Nashville, saw Bobby Lingo and their family.

Many of you know them.

He was the former pastor of Chapel Hills Church, and when we merged our churches, he wanted to go to Nashville and work as a speaker, and so he is on the circuit with all the Christian bands, and he's a speaker for their concerts and stuff.

So that was an interesting conversation about his perspective of Christian music.

But we went down into Nashville, and we were down in this one strip area where all the kind of honky tonks are.

So as you're walking along there, you're hearing live music out of all of them, and we're walking along and hanging out, and my wife is witnessing to everybody.

I mean, it was an evangelistic tour in Nashville with Liz Holt.

And she's praying for people, and she's witnessing she was bringing the kingdom wherever she went.

And I and I followed her.

Okay?

For she is my leader.

But but but that's a kingdom of God revolution.

This is another way to look at it, and that would be Matthew 28, 18 through 20, what we classically call the Great Commission.

Jesus spoke to them saying, All authority has been given to me in heaven and on earth.

Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe things that I have commanded you, and lo, I'm with you always, even to the end of the day.

The drama of the ages is the church doing that which it was commanded to do.

And so that's discipling a nation.

We have not discipled America.

We would not be in the place we are morally and ethically, if it wasn't for the fact that largely the church has not discipled our nation.

We've been conversion-driven.

We're very much a conversion-driven church, not a disciple-making church.

So you go to almost anywhere and say, if you receive Christ, and almost, what, eight out of ten in America say, oh yeah, I received Christ.

Their lifestyle is no different than anybody else.

The kind of stuff they do is no different than a pagan next door.

No discipleship has happened in their life.

They're not being discipled.

And Jesus, the command was go and make disciples, not converts.

And so that's why at the road, most of the time, I don't do raise your hand, pray to receive Christ so much.

I challenge you to become wholehearted what?

Wholehearted disciples.

Because it's the same, to me, that is conversion.

Conversion is saying I want to be a wholehearted disciple.

Because if you don't want to sign up to be wholehearted, then what are you signing up for?

So the kingdom of God invading our lives, even though, now listen to this, even though as we come into discipleship and our walk with God, it doesn't mean that we have our act together and everything.

None of us in this room have that.

It doesn't mean that we're perfect, it doesn't mean that we don't still have some issues in our life.

But it but what we're saying is, man, I want to love God with all of my heart.

I don't know how to do it yet.

I don't know much about this book that they carry around at the road, you know.

They carry this book around, and I I don't understand it, but but they keep talking about me opening it, and then one day you do.

You know, you start opening it.

And Liz can explain to you.

She felt this anointing.

We went into this this um ice cream shop in Nashville, and God spoke to her that the guy behind the counter's name was John.

She knew that she had heard from the Holy Spirit, his name was John, but she chickened out.

And she said, and she was already starting to share with him.

He said, What's your name?

He says, Johnny.

She's like, Oh man, I should have just gone for it, you know.

But she said, you know what?

God wants you to know him, and your name is John, and he wants you to read a book with your name on it.

John.

And it was a powerful time.

And then I saw her lay her hands on his head and pray for him there in the store.

And I got to pray for some people too.

We met this beautiful couple from Australia, who they had just prayed that morning that they would have some divine appointments.

And we had prayed while we were down at the bomb site.

Remember the bomb that went off in Nashville?

We went to the bomb site, took some pictures there, and we prayed there that God would give us some divine appointments.

So we told them, and then they told us, and we had a delightful time.

We got to pray with them.

They might come and visit us and color our springs.

But but the reality, men and women, is that when we sign up to be a whole-hearted disciple, it doesn't mean that we're, you know, down the road suddenly.

It means that as we start to get into God's Word, as we get filled with the Holy Spirit, like so many of you guys did on uh Monday night at We Will Abide.

This place was packed with people wanting to be filled with the Holy Spirit.

It was a powerful, powerful time that we had together.

Then you start to understand how to walk in the power of the Holy Spirit.

And with that walk in the power of the Holy Spirit, we are building the church.

So let's look at this passage kind of verse by verse a little bit.

So look at back at 18 again, and Jesus said, You're Peter, and on this rock I will build my church.

So write this in big letters, you know, in your notes.

Christ builds the church.

Jesus Christ builds the church.

Jesus Christ is the senior pastor of the road.

I am senior pastor of the road, small s, small P.

He's capital S, capital P.

And if I'm not staying, and my staff team and our pastors, all of us together, if we're not staying in an intimate relationship with God, this church is in trouble.

Because when I was pastor at Mountain Springs Church, I saw what happened over time.

It is easy to start using the systems of this world to build a church.

And I'm going to tell you, men and women, that I want the systems of the kingdom where he builds his church.

And so, as the pastor and the leader of the road, it's his church.

It's not my church.

And if he calls me to move or go somewhere else or go overseas, I'm ready to go.

I am so available.

And man, I loved it overseas.

It'd be easier to be overseas.

Let me just tell you right now.

It's so much easier to be a missionary in some ways.

Because people, when you go to a countryman, they all an American's here.

You know, and they flock to you, you know, when you're in this country, they don't say there's an American here, you know.

So sometimes they say, he's from Georgia, you know.

But the reality is, is that he's the one who's building this church.

It's his church.

And if we build it his way, he protects it and he watches over it.

But I want you to circle church in your Bible or underline it, circle it, highlight it, whatever you like to do.

And I want you to write over to the side the word ecclesia.

Ecclesia, that's the Greek word for church.

And that is E, well, I think you got it up there.

E-K-K-L-E-S-I-A.

So ekklesia.

Let me give you the definition of ecclesia.

Liddell and Scott define ecclesia as, quote, an assembly of citizens summoned by the crier, the legislative assembly.

Trench gives the meaning as the lawful assembly in a free Greek city of those possessed of the rights of citizenship for the transaction of public affairs.

So the church is not a building.

That's why sometimes people get confused when they're getting an appointment with me, because I do my own appointments, and I say, let's meet at the ministry center, and they go, Where's the ministry center?

Because they're thinking I should be saying, I'll meet you at the church.

I never use that unless it's some kind of a fraudian slip.

This is not the church.

This is our ministry center.

You're the church.

The assembly coming together of you men and women is the church.

So we are assembled together as a church.

Now listen, there's so many words, and I could go through the list, but we don't have time right now, of words that Jesus could have chosen for church.

But he chose ecclesia, you are the assembly of citizens.

Men and women, we are citizens of the kingdom.

Now, you are ambassadors of the kingdom.

So let me give you my definition of the church.

The church is a kingdom of God embassy made up of citizens and ambassadors who represent the king and reflect and witness to the values of the king on earth as it is in heaven.

So this is what 2 Corinthians 5.20 says.

Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ as though God were pleading through us.

We implore you on Christ's behalf to be reconciled to God.

So men and women, you all, in the name of Jesus, are ambassadors of the kingdom.

You represent the kingdom of God wherever you go.

You see the conflict?

If at church you're this way, but at home you're that way?

Do you see the conflict?

In other words, you're a citizen of the kingdom.

And by the way, you don't get a citizenship card.

You're born into the kingdom of God.

You have to be born again.

You have to receive Christ.

You have to surrender to Christ.

You become a part of the kingdom, you become a citizen.

You get to be ambassadors of the kingdom.

And I used to know the ambassador for the United States of America while I was in Okinawa.

So when I was in Okinawa, I was in the ambassador's home.

And there was always a big picture of the president of the United States there because he represented the president.

He represented the United States of America.

And if I had any issues with my missionary status or anything like that, I could call him.

I had his personal number.

He liked me.

I liked him.

And he would intervene if I needed him.

I never did need that, but it was kind of nice to know somebody who's the ambassador of our great country of the United States of America.

Well, you represent the kingdom of God, men and women.

The king's behind you.

You got power and authority from the king.

You're a kingdom ambassador.

Hold your head up.

Puff out your test in a humble way.

But you should be confident that you're an ambassador.

For Christ, and so every time you open your mouth and talk about Jesus, there's anointing on it.

Remember, I talked about anointing, what the anointing was on Tuesday night.

That anointing of the Holy Spirit is with you because you're a citizen.

Nobody can take that away.

You'll always be a citizen of the kingdom of God if you've received him, if he's in your heart.

He's with you.

And so he's building a church of citizens who are ambassadors.

This is why we love every child.

Unborn or born.

That's why we cherish children around here.

Because Jesus does.

We represent him.

This is why we love our neighbors.

Christian or non-Christian.

Nice or mean.

Because Jesus does.

This is why we share our faith with others and we invite them to be reconciled to God because that's what Jesus would be doing.

He comes to set the captives free.

This is why I'm so excited about Empower You.

And doing our training center online.

Because we're called to equip the saints in this church first, but I believe God's going to use it maybe worldwide to empower people, to empower believers, to become disciples.

This is why we have our 242 community groups, because Jesus chose to start doing things with a small group of men, and then it grew to 120, and then when the church was birthed, it was house to house.

So it's so important.

And I don't know what's going to happen this week.

There's a lot of theories out there about what's going to happen this week.

You may have noticed that there's changes of government suddenly happening in Italy, in Estonia, in Netherlands, in Germany, in France.

That's from the New York Times.

What's going on?

Something is up.

There's 20,000 troops in Washington, D.C.

right now.

I know people who work in the Air Force and the bases across the country on Bravo.

Red alert.

This could be the most momentous week in American history.

We are preparing as a leadership team.

They may shut us down.

Can you shut down God's church?

Can you shut down a kingdom embassy?

We may not be meeting here, we may be meeting in houses.

It could be that we're gonna have to move to house churches.

I don't know.

But that's why we started 242 community groups as well as you to be ready.

So we're ready.

Let's go.

I'm pumped.

Alright.

So keep your eyes and ears open and be prepared.

Wouldn't probably be a bad idea to have a week's worth of food and water and stuff at your home, too.

So I will build this church, I will build my church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.

That's pretty good news, folks.

There's demons in the land.

They cannot destroy the church.

They can persecute the church.

They can do some pretty mean things, but I'll tell you this: the gates of hell cannot prevail against it.

And the gates, what he's talking about with the gates is the same thing.

So we're talking about building the ecclesia, which was an assembly of the governing power of the kingdom of God through the local church for a city, but then gates were considered governing places where governing decisions were made.

You especially see it in the book of Ruth.

Okay, when you look at the book of Ruth, you see how the gates are used in that story of Ruth.

What he's saying is the move of God through the church should be attacking the gates of hell.

It should be pushing back the administrative works of the devil back because the Spirit of God is upon the local church in a mighty and powerful way.

Now here's the part.

Verse 19.

I give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven.

Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven.

Whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.

So he talks now about a key that he's giving us, the keys of the kingdom.

And keys represent not power, they represent authority.

When you have the key, you can open a door.

When you have a key, you can lock the door.

There's power in having the keys, and he says, I'm giving you.

I'm giving you the keys of the kingdom.

So here's another definition for you.

Kingdom of God, authority.

Given to the church through the keys.

Kingdom of authority is a divinely delegated right, power, and responsibility for believers in Christ to proclaim, demonstrate, and pray for the kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven.

So last week I talked about proclamation and demonstration.

Today I want to talk about a little bit about prayer as it relates to the work of God through Kingdom Church.

John Knox was one of the Reformation's greatest leaders and prayer warriors out of Scotland.

When Bloody Mary came into power in Great Britain, in England, in London in particular, she took it out on all the Protestant pastors.

She was a very strong Roman Catholic.

And as she did, she began to kill and martyr many of the pastors.

John Knox left Scotland.

He fled for his life.

He went to Geneva and he was discipled by a man named John Calvin.

John Calvin worked with John Knox, and then when Bloody Mary died, he went back to Scotland and he began this great reformation called the Scottish Reformation, which was the embryonic stages of the beginning of what we call the Presbyterian Church today.

But he was known for this great phrase, give me Scotland or I die.

Give me Scotland or I die.

Might it be said that we as church reformers, as men and women of the kingdom of God, might have that perspective, give me Colorado Springs or I die.

A passion for that.

Now listen to this.

So Queen Mary of the Scots once said this.

I fear John Knox's prayers more than all the assembled armies of Europe.

Men and women, that we might be a church that carries the keys of the kingdom with such prayer power that the assembled leaders in our community would fear our prayers.

Let us believe God for that in the days ahead that as we carry the kingdom, that we be known as men and women of prayer who know how to bind and loose.

We have power over the enemy.

Let me say that again.

We have power over the enemy when we pray.

So what we're seeing right now, I can't, I think no one in this room could say that we've ever seen so much darkness being revealed from the deep state as we're seeing in America today.

Ever.

I mean, if you had told me, I was telling Al the other day, Pastor Al saying, because Al used to say, there's a deep state, man.

Yeah, I said, Oh, come on, Al, you know, you're just a conspiracy theorist and stuff.

And he goes, No, I'm telling you, man.

And as we are seeing stuff rise up now, I believe it.

Well, it's because of prayer.

It's because all the prayer that's been going on.

Every time we pray around and we're spraying, God reveal the darkness.

God, reveal the darkness.

And we have prayer meetings, reveal the darkness.

And he is.

He is.

It's incredible what's going on.

So Jesus sends out the 70.

Remember the story?

Jesus sends out the 70.

They come back, they're proclaiming that even demonic powers were subject to them.

And then Jesus says this statement.

It's very interesting.

I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.

Behold, I give you authority to trample on serpents and scorpions and over all the power of the enemy.

So here in our verse, he says, I give you keys that whatever you bind on earth.

Here's what the word bind means.

Bind means to restrict, restrain, tie down, hold back something.

That's what bind means.

Loosen, to loosen.

He gives us the power to loose on earth, and then it will be loosed in heaven.

Loose means to unlock, release, permit, and free something up.

So here's what he's saying, I believe.

I believe he's saying that the most powerful way we bind and loose is with our tongue.

So there's life and death and the power of the tongue.

So when you're talking to your kids and you scold them and you rip into them, you bind something in their heart.

You bind something in their heart.

I'm not talking about where you're having to discipline and it's godly.

I'm talking about where it's ungodly and it's out of anger.

You bind something in that kid's heart.

And if you don't come back and ask for forgiveness, if you don't come back and begin to disciple that kid so that you can lose something, the binding will hold.

So when we pray, we bind and loose.

When we share our faith, we bind and loose.

The context in which he's saying all this is them being sent out.

And so men and women, when we come in in prayer, and when we're asking God for it, and we're binding stuff, there's power in the tongue, and God's given us that kind of authority.

That's been given to us by Christ.

So Liz and I are always binding and loosening, always binding and loosening.

Here's what Paul says in 2 Corinthians 10.

For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh.

For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for the pulling down of strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ.

So he's saying two things.

One thing he's saying here is that there are high things in the heavenly realm, arguments against the kingdom.

Abortions like that.

Okay?

And when we begin to call out for the binding of those powers and the loosening of righteousness in our country, God hears that, and we've been given and we've been commissioned as ambassadors of the kingdom.

Listen, you guys, citizens of the kingdom, ambassadors of the kingdom, to push back darkness, to push back the gates of hell, and primarily it's in our witness through prayer.

So I want to challenge you to develop a war room in your house.

Develop a war room.

When we have noonday prayer, come if you can.

We go for one hour.

Noon to one.

We come here and we pray.

But even in your home, to maybe set up a place where you go and start making a list in your journal and start asking God for a move of His Holy Spirit in your marriage, in your family, in your neighborhood, in your 242 community group, in Colorado Springs.

Because God wants to move in this city.

And it's through the local church.

And I believe that's what we're called to do.

You've been listening to The Road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.

We hope you have been blessed by today's message.

To connect with us further, visit theroad.org.

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Thanks again for tuning in today, and be sure to listen to the next edition of The Road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.