Breaking the Spirit of Fear - Leaders' Talks

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

And I believe there's a calling on this church.

And the reason got raised up the road is to go on a journey less trouble.

To build something that would have a kingdom impact.

And prayer's part of it.

And honestly, after only less than two years of doing this, I don't know all that it is, it's a mystery.

And I'm good with that.

I just know that you can't fan a flame in your life or a church's life if you're walking in fear.

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.

I came here tonight with one message, and then I'm getting up with a different message.

I was prepared to do revelation again tonight on the church at Smyrna.

And when I was praying today, I kept getting this feeling, this impression that I always know is from the Lord.

And then I came here and I went up behind the stage here to pray, and I felt like God gave me something for us as a church.

And I didn't have my journal.

I didn't have anything but my Bible.

And so I wrote it on a box.

So it's it's it's in a box back there somewhere.

I just I just need sometimes I need to just visualize something, you know, almost like I'm a painter.

You know, like you can see it, and it just helps to write it.

So I wrote it on a box.

It's just there's just junk back there, all this music stuff.

So there's that's what I did.

And then I went out here to pray with the team that comes to pray, and then uh Cher Hensley, who always messes my life up, um, who's been praying for me for 18 years, 19 years here, um, she's a personal intercessor, came up and told me about a dream she had, and then George Stankey, who's usually second in line for messing up my life, was over there and he he started praying, and I hadn't said anything.

All I'd done is go over and start praying with him.

And then George goes, he's praying.

I don't know what you said, George, but it's something like, if we're supposed to have an interruption tonight, Lord, or something like that, I'm like, oh no, this is like so weird.

So um I want to begin with prayer because I don't really know what I'm gonna say exactly, but I feel like I have a word that's not from Revelation tonight.

We'll get back to Revelation next week.

So would you pray with me?

So, Father, it's been a crazy couple hours here, and I feel like you have a word for our church that's not related to Revelation right now.

And Holy Spirit, you're welcome to come and speak and guide us tonight.

We want to hear from you.

I believe, Lord, you want me to address this issue of fear that pervades our lives.

All of us here, we struggle with fear.

And God, I pray that you would anoint these words in a mighty way.

Because it's it's not developed even in my mind, but may it be developed in your heart even as it's delivered, as for the power of your Holy Spirit in your name.

Amen.

Um, okay, so like I told you already, I was in prayer at home, and then I came, I went up here and I and I prayed about some stuff.

And I think I was inspired by the church at Smyrna.

I was driving to a ball game for my son today, and I was with the coach's wife, Josh, and her son, because she needed a ride.

So I was just explaining what I was going to be teaching tonight to her.

I don't know if she was interested at all, but I shared it.

And it's called the Church of Smyrna.

Smyrna, if you can imagine, the root word is myrrh.

And myrrh was used in burials.

Myrrh was a spice used in burials in which they would take myrrh and they would crush it.

It was crushed.

And when it was crushed, it gave forth a fragrant aroma.

And I was thinking about that because I was driving up and I was keeping the books for the team and everything, and I always keep the stats and everything when I'm there for the games.

And it's like I'm supposed to be focused on this game, but I'm thinking about Smyrna.

And I'm thinking about this crushing and the fragrant aroma.

And then praying on the way here, and then praying in there, I was reminded of how many of us here struggle with shame.

And how many times you've been crushed in your life with stuff that's happened, and the shame that comes with the crushing, but the potential fragrant aroma of the beauty of the Lord that can come through your crushing if we do a few things.

There's some things we have to do.

So then God gave me this when I went in to pray.

So turn in your Bibles to 2 Timothy.

2 Timothy, just to give you background, is the last will and testament of Paul.

And he knows he's gonna die.

He knows he's gonna be killed.

So he's writing to his beloved first disciple, the one who is now pastoring the church at Ephesus, which we studied last week.

And more than likely, Timothy is still preaching and teaching at Ephesus when John is writing the revelation, the apocalypse.

But here's what caught my eye and caught my heart earlier.

To put it in context, he's applauding the ministry of Timothy.

He's talking about how much he is a part of a genealogy of his grandmother being godly and his mother Eunice being godly.

And then he comes to verse 6, and this is what my heart landed on.

And I believe there's a word for the road tonight.

It's for you specifically for each of your situations, but it's for the road's heart.

Because when we look at the seven churches in Revelation, there's no place where Jesus says anything about their programs.

Jesus is commending and critiquing the heart of each church.

You see, what Jesus is interested in is the heart of the road.

And I believe this is a word tonight for the heart of the road.

He says this for this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands.

For God gave us a spirit, not of fear, but of power and love and self-control.

Therefore, do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me as prisoner, but share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God.

Fan into a flame the gift of God.

Two levels I want to talk about that.

One is that I believe there is a gift of a message, of a theme, that pervades a church.

Churches are given mandates.

Churches are given a destiny.

Cities are given a mandate.

I was reminded when I was over here with the guys when we were praying that the admonition of Jesus in Revelation is to Ephesus.

That's the whole city.

It's to the church at Smyrna.

It's going to be to the church of Laodicea.

It's going to be to the church of Pergamum.

There is a church of Colorado Springs.

And what I'm about to tell you, some of you are going to remember this and understand what I'm saying.

Some of this will be new to you.

I've lived in this city for 21 years.

And before I came here, I was in graduate school in Southern California.

And so part of my studies in one of my classes was to study the city where I was going to go to plant a church.

So I got stuff from the Chamber of Commerce.

I got stuff from all the churches in town.

I had everybody's bulletin of the major churches in town.

I really knew this city when I came here.

And that was in 1994.

And I believe from about 1990 up until end of the third millennium that there was an anointing over this city through Ted Haggard and through New Life Church and through the World Prayer Center.

And it was a spirit of prayer.

There was powerful prayer going up that was affecting everything in the city.

It was affecting focus on the family.

It was affecting navigators.

It was affecting missions.

It was affecting other churches.

And I remember pastors were coming from all over the world to come to the World Prayer Center and to see what was happening there.

And God was moving.

And I felt like I always felt like I was sort of surfing a wave that had been created by the blood, sweat, and tears that Ted and New Life Church had put into this city in prayer.

And see Peter Wagner.

C.

Peter Wagner was the professor at Fuller who gave me the assignment to do the studies on Colorado Springs, and then he had moved here and he headed up the World Pair Center.

We know what happened.

The enemy got in and he came in and he stole and he killed and he destroyed.

A great work of God.

And I wept when that happened.

I still get all choked up.

Because the enemy won that day.

He won and it affected our city.

And there's been one disaster after another in our city since then.

Stuff at focus with Dr.

Dobson.

Other churches I could mention that you wouldn't know about, so it's not important.

And so I really believed that a spirit of fear came over our city.

And a spirit that's not of the Lord.

With that, we lost maybe, and I'm saying maybe because I don't know, and I'm not trying to be a prophet.

I'm just saying what I felt, what I sensed, and what I studied, and what I experienced.

And that is that I believe there was a calling on our city and of our churches of our city to be a city of prayer for the nations, to be used mightily as a beacon light, a city on a hill that would touch nations of the world, would make a difference.

And that God had called this to be a model city.

And he had, it was no mistake that these great ministries, these worldwide international inspiring and influencing ministries had come to this city.

There were over a hundred at that time that were here, parachurch organizations, not in notwithstanding the churches that were great churches that were here too.

And the enemy came in and he he took out some of the leadership of that.

So when I read this, you guys, tonight, that's just that's what I thought about.

I thought about that what Paul is saying to Timothy, who we believe that he wouldn't have said this if it wasn't true, that Timothy struggled with timidity.

He must have struggled with fear, or he wouldn't have said, fan into a flame.

The gift within you, because he wasn't doing it.

And I believe there's a calling on this church.

And the reason God raised up the road is to go on a journey less traveled, to build something that would have a kingdom impact.

And prayer's part of it.

And honestly, after only less than two years of doing this, I don't know all that it is.

I mean, it's a mystery, and I'm good with that.

I just know that you can't fan a flame in your life or in a church's life if you're walking in fear.

And that begins with me.

That begins with me.

Because God called me to lead this church.

So then He seems to say here, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, this is what are the steps to breaking out of fear.

For this reason, I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God which is in you.

So that's an awesome passage.

It's already in you.

Every one of you in this room are gifted.

Don't you hate that term?

I don't know if they even use it anymore.

I hope they don't.

But back when I was in school, you had gifted students.

And they and there were those who were, you know, struggle with deficiencies mentally and emotionally and stuff.

Everybody's a gifted student.

And probably the most troubling students in your school are the most gifted.

Give me the kids who talk in class and cause all the problems.

Give me the kids that are always starting the fights.

Those are the leaders of tomorrow.

So he says this to remind them of this flame, this gift of God that's within every one of them.

For God gave us a spirit not of fear, which would seem to indicate that what extinguishes your flame and what extinguishes the flame over a church and what extinguishes a flame over a city is fear.

How many decisions do we make based in fear?

Many of you can't give financially because you live in fear.

Many of you can't step out in the gifting and the calling on your life because you're fearful.

Many of us are struggling in errors of our life because we still hear those voices that created fear from our childhood.

So he says there's a way to break that spirit of fear, and it is another spirit.

Church, listen to what I'm gonna say.

It's gonna sound heretical at first, but if there's not a little bit of heresy in this, then it's not gonna be of much interest.

But that's a small S in my Bible, and I don't have my Greek Bible with me.

That's a small S, that's not a capital S.

So he's not talking about the Holy Spirit, he's talking about your spirit.

He's talking about the spirit that was breathed into Adam.

That's the spirit breathed into you, first of all, when you were created in the image of God, when you're born, but secondly, when you were born again.

When you were born again, a second time, born into the Spirit, the Spirit of God came in, but you have a spirit.

And he seems to be saying that the only way to overpower fear is to start walking with a different spirit.

And he says, first of all, it's a spirit of power.

Again, I don't have my Bible, and anybody wants to look it up, just nod if you get it.

You could just put in your concordance if you have one on your app, or you can look up the passage in the blue letter Bible while I'm talking and see if the word for power is dunamis there.

It is?

Okay, so that's the that's the root word for dynamite, and that's also the word used in Acts 1.8.

You shall receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you.

So, men and women, there is a supernatural power that all of you have that are born again.

If you're not born again, you don't have it.

But if you're born again, you have it.

And I believe what he's saying is that Timothy, I want you to so embody the power of the Spirit that it becomes a part of your spirit.

It's like it's part of your personality.

So you walk regularly and daily in power.

And then he says, walk in love.

A spirit of love.

Love conquers fear.

Fear is cast out by love.

Love with our whole heart is the greatest commandment.

You know, you don't have anything to apologize for when you're motivated by love.

Right?

So one of the, at least for me, I'll just speak for me, that when I'm doing stuff out of love, there is a, I have a clear conscience.

I just have a clear conscience.

I mean, I've said some of the dumbest things humanly possible to be have said in front of thousands of people.

And it's really embarrassing because I'll wake up at 4 a.m.

on Monday morning thinking about what I said, I'm like, oh, I'm an idiot, you know.

But here's what I've learned is that to the best of my ability, when it's been expressed through an attitude and a heart of love, I can still have a clear conscience about it.

And so he says there's a spirit of power, there's a spirit of love, and then there's a spirit of self-control.

There's a spirit of the ability to have self-control.

I wish the spirit of self-control could fall upon all the candidates running for president right now.

I can't even follow it anymore.

I call it the sophomore bickering between all of them is unbelievable.

My kids could run for president of their class in middle school and have better self-control than the current candidates.

But listen, and don't miss this.

The picture God gave me recently was we have a house that was built in 1962.

And that house has a crawl space.

And if you crawl up under that crawl space, you can see cinder blocks that are the foundation that that thing is laid on.

And when we were adding to it, the the most significant was the going up, putting a story on it, a second story on it.

I had to have engineers come out and study that and look at that before we could do it.

If I had on the northwestern corner a crack running down the wall, and by virtue of where the floor was from one corner to the other, it had dropped six inches, what would I think?

Would I think I need to repair that wall?

I need to repair that floor.

No, I need to repair the foundation.

Something's wrong down below, and I believe I could go down there and I see cracks in the foundation on those cinder blocks.

Men and women, for 200 years, there have been enemies getting down in our house with a sledgehammer.

And they have been coming along and being and they're being invited in through our government system.

They're being invited in in our schools, they're being invited in all these different ways, in the churches, by the way.

And he's just been whacking one cinder block after another.

That's what happened in our city, too.

And the enemy is winning.

Because there's a spirit of fear.

There's fear in the pastors, there's fear in the churches, there's fear in our government.

We are a fearful country.

We are a fearful people.

The church is fearful.

And this is Paul's last will and testament.

And he's saying to Timothy, Timothy, I don't have anything else to tell you.

You know, I could, I guess he could have waxed eloquent about programs that he needed to have at the church at Ephesus.

But rather, he starts off, and his theme throughout is that Timothy, here's what I want you to know: don't walk in timidity.

Don't let fear grip you.

Walk with a spirit of power, dunamous power of the Holy Spirit.

Walk in the beauty of love and walk in self-control.

Control your tongue.

Control what you say and when you say it and how you say it.

There is a kairos moment for things to be said that are of the Lord.

And it takes self-control and wisdom.

Most people just want you to know their opinion.

Anyone get tired of opinions?

We want to hear from the Lord, don't we?

And so, men and women, look at the next verse because then he says, don't be ashamed.

Don't be ashamed.

Because shame is conquered in our lives when we learn to walk in power, love, and a sound mind.

And as Christine Hawke said to me earlier, she said, you know, Steve, people say that shame is the greatest emotion, the strongest emotion, but I believe it's love.

I think she's right on.

Because shame is such a powerful emotion, and for the secular scientists and the secular psychologist who's looking at shame, it appears to be, how in the world are we going to ever deal with this shame?

Because there's no power in their thinking.

There's no love in their thinking, there's no sound mind in their thinking from the Spirit of God.

We have that spirit.

So I believe God's saying tonight, number one, there is a spirit of power, love, and a sound mind that he wants over this city.

I believe there's a spirit of power, love, and a sound mind over this church.

And there's a spirit of power, love, and a sound mind over you.

Each one of you here.

And I believe it's going to drive out fear and intimidation and timidity in your life.

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.