The Church's One Foundation, Jesus Christ - Leaders' Talks

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

We are no longer the road.

We are no longer Chapel Hill's church.

We are the road of Chapel Hill.

And we're going to keep the main thing, the main thing.

And the main thing is Jesus Christ.

And that, and that men and women comes from the inerrant, infallible Word of God.

At The Road, our vision is to raise up wholehearted disciples of Jesus Christ.

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

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

Well, we're going to leave Revelation for today.

We're going to go back into Revelation and the marks of the Antichrist next week.

I want to talk about this whole thing that we're doing called the merger and this idea of how God did it.

And I'm going to bring up Bobby in a few minutes.

He's going to share the history, a little bit of the history of Chapel Hills.

But I want to talk about the miraculous work of God that got us to this place.

Who would have dreamed three years ago that this group of about 40 of us that were kind of displaced wanted a place to pray for 40 nights, would have ended up here.

And Matt Heard, who had been the pastor at Woodman Valley, was a close friend of mine, and he said, Steve, I think that Chapel Hills is available during the week, Chapel Hills Church.

And I said, Okay.

So I called and I talked to Rob Lathan, and that's where it began.

And we've never left.

We've never left.

I mean, usually you just kind of go around like a like a uh you know on a pilgrimage or something when you're starting a church.

But even at that time, actually, gang, we weren't even sure we were a church.

All we were doing is seeking God about the next steps.

And we started over there at the chapel, and and then uh then Bobby came, because Bobby wasn't here when we first came.

And then Bobby, Ryan, and I became really good friends.

And we just started hanging out together, praying together, talking about how we formed our messages together, um, how different things were happening in the congregation, and never, never during those early days were we considering anything about a merger.

And it was more like we just felt so appreciative, Bobby, that you guys would let us be here.

I mean, we really did.

Because I because when I did Mountain Springs, I mean, it wasn't like that.

I didn't have any, there was no sense of camaraderie with anybody, and we were in a storefront and all that in a school before that.

So I know from personal experience, not having to buy chairs and not having to lay carpet and not having to remodel a place was huge.

So we really wanted to be good tenants with you guys and and everything.

And then it just kind of continued to grow and until the point where we were skiing and we began that discussion.

And I I I've never put it two and two together, but it was right after we started the discussion that I blew out my ACL.

So, really, we were on the lift together talking about it, and on the first run, I blew out my ACL.

And so, I don't know, man, let's not talk about it anymore.

I I need my other knee really, really bad.

Um, but here's the here's the passage that I think is something for all of us to remember in every endeavor of your life.

If you'll surrender everything to Christ, if you'll try not to clutch stuff, but you'll come with an open heart, an open hand, surrender to Him, here's what the scriptures say.

I has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love him.

He will shock you.

I don't know how many people I talk to over the years who say, Well, if I give myself totally to the Lord, he's gonna make me a missionary to Africa.

Or I'm gonna have to marry an ugly woman, or I'm gonna have to marry an ugly man.

God says, if you'll surrender all to him, your ears haven't even heard, and your eyes haven't even envisioned all the cool stuff that God has for you.

And that's what God has done in this church.

Both Bobby and I and Ryan and all the elders on both churches have continually fasted and prayed and given all this to the Lord.

Isn't that exciting?

Isn't it exciting what he's done?

It's so cool.

Well, I want you to turn in your Bibles to 1 Corinthians 3.

We're not going to be in Revelation today.

I want to, we'll pick up, for some reason I don't know why I thought this, but I thought the marks of the Antichrist might not be the best first message for all of us together.

But in a similar situation in 1 Corinthians, Paul is dealing with issues of a very multiracial, multi-religious church, the Corinthian church, and there were issues related to that, and there was a potentiality, there's potentiality in this merger for there to be strife, for there to be issues related to personality differences, and church.

The way we do church at the road is not exactly the way Chapel Hills did church.

And there's going to be the ability for us to fall into sin with struggles, or to trust that the foundation being laid is not Steve Holt, and it's not Bobby Sanders, and it's not the road, it's Jesus Christ.

And so, in the midst of this kind of potentiality, and in this case at Corinth, it was already happening, we get instructions from Paul in a very beautiful way.

So if we look at 1 Corinthians 3, he starts off this and I, brethren, cannot speak to you as to spiritual people, but as to carnal, as to babes in Christ, I fed you with milk and not with solid food, for until now you were not able to receive it, and even now you're still not able, for you're still carnal.

For where there is envy and strife and divisions among you, are you not carnal and behaving like mere men?

And this is where the issue was.

Listen up.

For when one says, I am of Paul, and another says, I am of Apollos, are you not being carnal?

So what he's saying, carnal in the Greek, really means being fleshly, or just being yourself.

This tendency is with every church, it's with all of us to kind of have our heroes of the faith, or that pastor that we follow, or that leader that we like, or that baseball team that we like.

Do you guys realize the Rockies won in the ninth inning with three rhymes and one seven to six?

I mean, that was unbelievable.

So whether you're a Rockies fan or a Cubs fan, which I was a Cubs fan last fall, I thought it was awesome.

That whole series, is that we tend that way, don't we?

And there can be that tendency.

What I've done with Jan and Gene and with so many at Chapel Hills, I've really wanted to understand the history of Chapel Hills Church because of my history.

I want people to know my history, so I'm sure that others want to know their history.

And in that, there's been a lot of pastors.

And you're going to hear in a minute from Bobby kind of the cool stuff that's happened over the years with how Chapel Hills grew and the churches they planted and the cool stuff that have happened.

But here in Corinth, what had happened was that Paul planted the church, but then Apollos, we know from Acts, was an excellent teacher of the word.

Some believe Hebrews was written by Apollos.

We don't know that for sure, but he might have.

And so there was competition now over who, kind of which faction that you were for, and so there was this strife and division because of an over-identification with pastors and leaders of the past.

And so I would call it kind of a church cult, personality cult issue.

And it happens all the time.

That's why mergers don't work.

That's one of the reasons why mergers do not work most of the time is because people are so wedded to the past or the way it used to be that they can't envision the future of what God wants to do in the days ahead.

Both sides of the church.

It can happen.

So then he says this, verse 5.

Well, then who is Paul?

And who is Apollos?

But ministers through whom you believed, as the Lord gave to each one.

So he's saying there's not really anything that special about Paul.

There's not really anything that special about Apollos.

They just were servants of the Lord.

I was asked my senior year in high school to go to a catfish all-you can eat place.

We do that in Georgia.

Catfish, all you can eat.

Hush puppies, grits, catfish.

Mmm.

And I don't, I still to this day don't know how this guy got my name, but the but the uh manager called and said, I need you and three of your friends to come and bus for us so we don't have our bus boys tonight.

I didn't, I never applied for a job there.

I don't know how he got my name.

Well, I got three of my buddies.

And we tore that place apart.

I mean, we had so much fun, and uh, and they never called us back.

They never called us back.

Um, but we got in there and and we learned in about five minutes what our job was, and we were chowing down on leftover catfish and hush puppies in the back.

It was a mess.

It was not good.

And I would just say to all of you that are juniors and seniors in high school, and don't follow Steve's example of what he did at the catfish all-you-can-eat place when he was a senior in high school.

But when you look at a you look at that, I mean, I could have I could have been judging, and I, and we did judge, we actually sent food back to the cooks, which we weren't supposed to do, and when people complained, they were complaining to us, and we go, we don't like it either.

And so it was no it was no rub off our face because we were never gonna see the place again anyway.

What happens in the church is not dissimilar in the sense that I didn't care about what they did in the kitchen.

I didn't care that much about the other bus boys.

Because what rose and fell and the decisions that were related to bus boys and the kitchen was the owner's problem, right?

That's the owner's bus boys, and that's the owner's chef and kitchen crew.

And what happens in the church is we start to look left and right and start thinking that somehow they're serving us.

Right?

When they're serving Christ.

And so what Paul is saying is we're just servants, we're just busboys of the king.

He's the owner of the ship, he's the owner of the of the building, he's the owner, and he's the cornerstone of the church.

And so we rise and fall on him.

And so I said to the well uh on Friday night, our college ministry, I said, one of the problems that we have in the church is we spend so much time looking left and looking right instead of looking up.

And so, men and women, he's saying here, quit looking left and look right, look up.

Look at me.

These men are just servants of the Lord.

I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase.

So then neither he who plants is anything, nor he who waters is anything, but God who gives the increase.

Now he who plants and he who waters are one, and each one will receive his own reward according to his own labor.

So God doesn't call the qualified, but he qualifies the called.

And so each one of us have a role to play.

And I want to challenge you at the road.

I want to challenge you at Chapel Hills as we're coming together.

I, now this is really dangerous for me to say this, but I really mean it.

I like chaos.

I really do.

I like life.

I have seven kids.

I signed up for it.

Now I will say making kids is a whole lot more fun than parenting them.

And sometimes planting a church is a whole lot easier than building it.

But what I mean by I like chaos is this that God has gifted each one of you in this room in a particular way.

And I hope and pray that you, as you grow in maturity and as you're walking with the Lord, you'll start to have a vision for your life to make a difference using the gifts that God's given you.

And we will, we are a permission-giving church, not a permission-withholding church.

And so you're gonna get a yes a lot of times from me, much to the chagrin of some of my staff that have to manage it.

But as we think in terms of a training center, I mean, I look at these classrooms back here and I go, I hate that they're empty.

It goads me to see, you know, tables in them.

Wouldn't it be exciting in the days ahead if on Sunday mornings we filled that place with classrooms for our training center?

If maybe certain nights of the week we have a training center back there, we're having classes back there, and we're using the chapel.

Let's use this building to the max.

And some of you are anointed and you're gifted in some supernatural, powerful ways, and I want you to seek the Lord.

I want you to seek the Lord and talk to us about how we can use your gifts and talents in a mighty way in the days ahead.

So, Bobby, would you come up and share and kind of give the road a glimpse of the journey that Chapel Hills has been on?

And Bobby's been the pastor, I think everybody knows this, of Chapel Hills, and now he's gonna be our youth pastor, and also we'll be working together on outreach and training center.

Come on up, bro.

Good morning.

This is weird.

It's a totally good weird, but it's still weird.

I told my wife when I was getting dressed this morning, I said, uh, this is weird.

I said, I'm going to church and I'm not the guy.

And she had a good comeback.

She said, Yeah, but you're still the man.

So, all right.

I'll take it.

I will take it.

Well, uh, Pastor Steve, when he started asking about actually, it was moving from the chapel to here, was when you and I met at uh Montana Grill or wherever.

And that's where I asked you to mentor me because I had never been a lead pastor before, and it's super intimidating.

I didn't expect that God was doing this much mentoring.

So I'm I'm excited about it.

I'm pumped about it.

Listen, um, I want to talk to you for a minute as we stick with First Corinthians about our heart and our history at Chapel Hills.

So it's one thing to understand the history of Chapel Hills, it's another thing to understand the heart of where we are, how we got here, why this was a uh decision that took a lot of prayer and a lot of fasting, but it's also in the nature of our church at Chapel Hills to say, Lord, what are you doing?

So we have said consistently at Chapel Hills that we want to help you climb three specific fourteeners.

One is being a life-on-life disciple of Christ, so discipleship.

Two is helping you be as healthy as you can be in your relationships.

So being a man of God, being a woman of God, being a husband that leads his family, being a child that follows the family well, being a friend, relationships.

And then that third fourteener that we want everyone to climb is the ability to live out the mission that God has for you.

So we say discipleship, relationship, and missions.

And when we looked across the hall, we saw different vernacular, same goals, same things we're striving for.

And there is scripture in Isaiah chapter 43.

Isaiah 43 · chapter mention

I'm not going to really preach on it, so you don't have to turn there, but you can write it down and go there later.

It's inspirational.

Isaiah 43, starting in verse 18, he says, Behold, I am doing a new thing.

And then he asked a question.

Do you not perceive it?

A lot of us want to do a new thing of our own passion, and the Lord wasn't doing that.

It's not for us to just go out and do something, it is for us to perceive what God is doing and join him in it.

And as we went through this whole process, we just felt like the Lord is doing it.

We can't deny it, so we have to join him in it.

So he said, I am doing a new thing.

It is not unfamiliar to Chapel Hills to kind of claim that verse.

You know, we started at, I think it's called the Dublin House Restaurant.

That's where this church started, was in the Dublin House restaurants.

I'm gonna give you a little history of your now 50, almost 50-year church.

We started in a Dublin House restaurant.

It was so small that the children's section was actually in the bar.

Serious, it was in the bar because that's what the only space they had for children's church.

So that's kind of strange.

But that's the heart of whatever we got to do to grow this thing, and then it did grow.

It's my understanding that this church was where the USAA building was, and then there was kind of a uh land swap.

So we swapped land with them, and and so now we're here.

In our history, we at one point we had to tell our church, because you get used to where you are now, but we had to tell our church and remind our church that our church at one point was a thousand people.

And so we this should be not unfamiliar to us.

Our this church has seen over a thousand people come to the Lord, too.

Over a thousand people have been baptized into the faith in this church.

Now, I don't get to brag about any of that.

I was still in diapers uh when this church started.

So this is not me at all.

This church, under a pastor his name is Bill Lighty, had an incredible visionary skill and talent and gift set from the Lord, and he really did a great job of pastoring this church as well as some other pastors who had come along the way.

But saw over a thousand people be baptized in this church.

There's probably somewhere around eight churches in this city that got their start under this roof in this church.

So Chapel Hills Church has planted somewhere between eight and maybe even as much as a dozen churches, probably about seven or eight of them still exist and are going super strong in our city.

So it's not new for our church to have it in our DNA to be hungry to see God move, and that's why the road is super compatible, in my opinion.

For us, it's almost getting back to what we're about.

And so we have been so excited to be a part of just seeing life in some of your eyes, seeing discipleship in some of your eyes.

Some of you have told me, hey, I'm praying for you and I believe it.

You know, some people say I'm praying for you, it's kind of like saying good morning.

But some of you have said, I'm praying for you, and I can see it.

I can see that you actually are praying consistently for us.

This church has also been responsible for three, maybe four international churches being established.

So God has continued.

To do great things.

And this is not just something that's happened 20 years ago in our history.

I mean, within the last two years, we've built a home in Mexico for a family that didn't have it.

Helping a missionary family continue their vision, taking a crew of people and building a house in Mexico so that that ministry can continue.

That is the heartbeat for our church.

That is also why, as a church, we're hungry to be a part of what the Lord is doing.

It's important to us.

I'm excited about you guys being family.

I walked into the church and I saw people that I've come to love from the road hugging and having coffee with people that I've loved and invested in and has been family since I've been here.

So this is a super exciting time.

Look, God says in Mark chapter 2, verse 22 that no one pours old wine into new wineskins.

Mark 2:22

But guess what?

New wine has to continually be made.

We will look one day and we'll be looking at what's the next new wine.

If you sit on it too long, it's old wine.

So this is a new day for today.

But as we go through this process as a church, as the Lord continues to grow, as there is a training center, as some of you young people become strong in the Lord and go out in ministry, we're going to have to constantly have a heart for God, what are you doing today?

And here's the secret: you have to perceive it.

So you have to be a disciple of Christ.

If you're not a disciple of Christ, you cannot perceive what God is doing.

You can only guess at it.

And we don't want to make good decisions in our church.

We want to discern God's decisions.

And that requires us to perceive on a regular basis.

So just like Pastor Steve was talking about, some of you have gifts and talents, and we want to fill these classrooms up and we want to see God work.

So some of you will also be prayer warriors and perceivers in what is coming in the road at Chapel Hills.

So we're super excited about it.

Thank you for inviting us into your family.

We're looking forward to being a part of that.

I'm looking forward to learning more under Pastor Steve and Liz as well.

I mean, Liz is a really key part for Heather because Heather is super excited.

By the way, my wife is not here this morning, but she's downstairs with the kiddos because she didn't want our kiddos to show up and see unfamiliar faces only, so she's down there.

But she'll be coming back up in the next couple of weeks once there's some familiarity.

But Liz has been, you've been like really strong for my wife, and for her to perceive what does it look like to walk beside my husband as he strives after the Lord, because she's not super passive, she's pretty strong.

And to see another person, another wife that is strong in the Lord, and saying, okay, how do you how do you learn from that?

So God has done some great things in our church, and we're excited to be able to tell Chapel Hills he's continuing to do great things in our church.

Our story is now growing, and now we're excited to be a part of the road at Chapel Hills.

So did you know that Isaiah 43, 18, and 19 was the key passage for the starting of the road?

No.

Wow, that's pretty cool.

So for you guys that were here when we first started, Isaiah 43, 18, and 19 is was the theme that God gave the road three years ago when we were getting started.

And I had no idea you were going to quote from that passage, but um, that's where we got the name.

That was part of it, because it says, I'll make a roadway, I'll make a road.

Some say, some of your versions say a highway in the desert.

And so um, isn't that exciting?

That's really cool.

Let's look at verse uh nine of 1 Corinthians 3.

And I think this fits so well with exactly what we're saying.

We are God's fellow workers, you are God's field, you are God's building.

This, we had this at Easter gang, and I just felt like this needed to stay up for today.

Jesus wins.

Jesus wins.

He's the one building the building.

And here's what's interesting: He's building the building, but we're building the building.

He says, We're his fellow workers, we're building the building, but here's what's the irony: you're the building.

You're building you.

You're the field, you're the harvest of what you're planting.

So every time we come together and we're and we're using our gifts and we're serving each other, we're actually building ourselves up as we build the church up.

And Jesus gets to win in the whole process.

And I just loved, I think I told you guys this before, but but Bill Lighty, who was a pastor in the 90s and up until about 2007, invited me here.

In 2000, when the building was being built, to see it.

I was one of the first pastors he invited, and I came and I walked through here.

I walked up here when all it was was two by fours and stuff, getting put in.

And I mean, that's so weird.

I mean, I has not seen and ear heard what God has planned for those who'll surrender to him and give it all to him.

It's really exciting.

So every time we we work and we minister, we're building up ourselves, and guess what?

You don't go to church.

As we say in the South, we is the church.

You are the church.

And so every time you're ministering to someone else, you're actually building up the church.

You're building up you.

And so you get to be the building, even as you're the construction worker on the building.

According to the grace of God, which was given to me as a wise master builder, I have laid the foundation and another builds on it, but let each one take heed how he builds.

So everything is about how we build.

For no other foundation can anyone lay than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ.

We like to say that we're a word and spirit church.

I don't use the word charismatic anymore, I don't use the word Pentecostal anymore, I don't use the word, I I'll still use the word evangelical as it relates to theology.

But sometimes people ask, so what kind of church are you?

And I go, I don't know, man.

I said, I'm I'm reformed in my satiriology, I'm dispensational in my eschatology, and I'm Baptist in my ecclesiology.

And see, if you don't know what I just said, then it doesn't matter anyway.

It didn't really matter.

I remember one time I was doing a I was doing a uh a new member's class, and someone came up and he said, Man, I am so glad that you're Methodist.

And I said, What are you talking about?

He says, Well, I can just tell that you know your your pursuit of holiness and purity, that that's that's Wesley's heart.

I can tell you've got that Methodist spirit.

I said, All right, man, I'll take it, man.

I'm I'm Wesley's my man.

I dig Wesley.

He's cool.

And then about 15 minutes later, I kid you not, a guy came up and he said, I am so glad you're a Calvinist.

I can tell you're reformed through and through, and you're a Calvinist.

And I said, Thanks, man.

Because Calvin's cool too.

I'm actually Lutheran.

Nobody said that.

So we're kind of weird.

This is kind of a weird church.

We're really eclectic.

And um, and in the reality is, I think that the way to grow anything spiritually is to take the best of what each and others have done throughout the movements in history and run with it.

And let that become your DNA.

And I want Wesley all over this building.

I want Calvin all over this building.

I want Luther all over this building.

I want Jonathan Edwards all over this building.

I want Reese Howells all over this building.

I want Jay Hudson Taylor all over this building.

Don't you?

And if you don't know who they are, you know, get some biographies and start reading because we are stepping, that's what I got out of what you said, Bobby, is that we're stepping on the shoulders of men and women, thousands of men and women that were a part of building this facility, of reaching people in the Briargate area for Christ.

It's gone all the way over to Africa, and we're getting ready to go to Africa again.

You're going to eat your burger for Rwanda today?

Because this is what this church missionally is all about.

And so be aware that we're stepping on the shoulders of many that have sacrificed so very much.

Jesus said, Therefore, whoever hears these sayings of mine and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who builds his house on the rock.

And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock.

We are no longer the road, we are no longer Chapel Hills Church, we are the road at Chapel Hills, and we're going to keep the main thing, the main thing.

And the main thing is Jesus Christ.

And that, and that men and women, comes from the inerrant, infallible Word of God.

If you saw my post in Facebook this week, the article by that, the blog that I put I posted up there, the mainline church in general is really in trouble.

Really in trouble.

Lutheran churches, Methodist churches, Presbyterian churches, Baptist churches, all across the landscape are losing members by droves.

And this new kind of church, this word and spirit type of church, is really building a movement across the country.

Because people are looking for authenticity rather than organization.

They're looking for organism rather than organization.

And people are looking for, and they don't even know it.

And we know who it is.

It's Jesus Christ.

And we're going to make a lot of mistakes around here.

We're going to make a ton of mistakes.

We're going to start things that don't work and they're going to flop.

We're going to start classes that don't work and they're going to flop.

We got a covenant of harmony, and people will say, I'm not going to follow a covenant of harmony.

That person said this, because we're human, we make mistakes, we're sinners, we're being sanctified step by step.

But here's the thing that we've got to constantly remind ourselves of is that we're building on the foundation of the cornerstone of Jesus Christ.

And we win when we do that because we forgive, we go back, we say we're sorry, and we work it out.

So, Jesus is the cornerstone, Jesus is the foundation, Jesus is the senior pastor.

Because here's how he concludes what he's saying.

Now, if anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw, each one's work will become clear.

For the day will declare it, because it will be revealed by fire.

And the fire will test each other's work of what sort it is.

Church, listen up.

I believe we're in the last days.

We are seeing the rise of darkness, but we are also going to see the rise of light.

As we see more power from the demonic, we're going to see more power from the Holy Spirit.

As we see more crime occurring in our city, God's going to raise up crime fighters by us reaching this city for Christ.

You show me a young man that's in all kinds of issues in his life, and he gets saved through the power of the Holy Spirit and makes Jesus Christ Lord over his heart, and I'll show you someone who becomes a solution instead of a problem.

And I'll show you someone who'll start to make a difference among his friends, and he'll start a little movement in his high school and among those in his friends, because only Jesus can do that.

So it's an exciting time.

It's an exciting time.

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

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

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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.