War XIII - Destroying the Works of the Devil Part 1 - War: Satan, Demons & the Fourth Dimension

It's time now for the rope with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.

The practice of the spirit is how you destroy the works of the devil.

Not wishing it, not just thinking about it, not just dwelling on it, but you actually practice it.

You actually start practicing the works of the spirit, and that destroys the works of the devil.

Welcome to another edition of The Road with Pastor Teacher Steve Holt.

Steve is the head pastor of the road in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

It's our vision to make whole-hearted disciples of Jesus Christ and to see you grow in the grace and knowledge of his love.

If you're in the area, we welcome you to come out and join us for our Saturday night service beginning at 6 p.m.

We meet at Chapel Hills Church, located at 2025 Harleman Drive, Colorado Springs, Colorado, 80920.

On this edition of the road, Pastor Steve will be continuing his series on spiritual warfare.

This is a powerful and insightful message that we're sure you'll be blessed by.

Here now is Pastor Teacher Steve Holt with today's message.

Look at 1 John chapter 3.

1 John 3 · chapter mention

I want to start there tonight.

And then we're going to go to Romans 8.

So let's just start with 1 John 3.

He who sins is of the devil, for the devil has sinned from the beginning.

For this purpose, the Son of God was manifested that he might destroy the works of the devil.

I want you to understand something that the MO of Jesus is not just to love us and to cherish us, though he does, but to actually set us free.

To set us free from the power and the clutches of demonic spirits and the devil.

About 85% of Jesus' ministry was a truth encounter.

We talked about that.

The fact that 85% of what Jesus did is he taught, he taught, and he taught.

And that was a truth encounter with unbelief, falsehood, and the lies of the enemy.

But then the other 15% or so is he had power encounters.

In other words, he Jesus was interesting because he taught and then he had a clinic time.

And his clinic time was, you know, mute spirit come out in the name of Jesus.

And they did.

And so Jesus came to destroy, not accommodate, not sign a peace treaty with the devil.

He actually came to destroy the works of the devil.

So isn't that good news?

I mean, the good news is that the works of the devil are what has happened in our lives.

And we're going to talk about that in just a moment, because the condemnation and the shame of our lives, which all of us have it, is a result of the works of the devil.

Jesus came to destroy the works of the devil.

And then he says this, it's been a very disputed passage for 2,000 years.

Whoever has been born of God does not sin.

For his seed, the seed, the spermata of the Lord is the Spirit of God living within you, remains in him, remains in you, and he cannot sin because he's been born of God.

Now you can't separate verse 9 from verse 10.

Remember, verses came later.

This was a letter written to be read continually when you read it at the time it was written.

We later inserted chapters and verses to help people know where to look for stuff.

But just remember, this is one train of thought.

In this, the children of God and the children of the devil are manifest.

Whoever does not practice, that's the key word, that's the operable word here, does not practice righteousness, is not of God, nor is he who does not love his brother.

What he's saying is that when you truly are born again, when you truly come to know Christ, you don't practice sin anymore.

Now, do you sin?

Yes.

And the first part of John says, if you say that you have no sin, you're a liar.

If you take it at face value in verse 9, it seems confusing, but if you take it in the context of verse 8 before and verse 10 afterwards, which is why context is so important.

Nobody here is perfect, nobody here is not sinning.

He's talking about practicing sin.

So what happens, you guys, everybody in here that knows the Lord, truly knows the Lord, you know what I'm talking about.

You get convicted by the Spirit of God, which now lives in you by this sin.

Now you don't always listen to it, and you still do stupid stuff, right?

But the reality is that as you get what we call sanctified, in other words, as you're starting to grow, as you're starting to sharpen your blade following Christ, your senses get sharpened.

And so you start to hear God's voice more clearly.

You start to know God's word more deeply.

You know that's not of the will of God, and that is.

And so as you practice righteousness, and that's gonna be our key point really tonight, you destroy the works of the devil.

Do you hear what I'm saying?

You when you practice righteousness, you destroy the works of the devil.

In other words, you you've got to counter the practice of sin with the practice of righteousness.

The practice of the spirit is how you destroy the works of the devil.

Not wishing it, not just thinking about it, not just dwelling on it, but you actually practice it.

You actually start practicing the works of the spirit, and that destroys the works of the devil.

That's why, in some cases, you guys that went to the whole heart advance is a little bit of a repeat of what you heard at the retreat.

And you guys listen, next time we have an advance, you men that didn't go, you need to go.

Because we spend three and a half days on this kind of stuff.

But the reality is this is that if you don't learn to practice righteousness, you will continue to practice sin.

That is the bottom line.

That is true.

Saved or unsaved, if you if you we call it quenching the Holy Spirit.

So if you quench the Holy Spirit, in other words, if you pour water on the fire of the Spirit by continuing to practice unrighteousness, then you will end up having all these dead things in your life, and it'll be a burden to you.

Actually, the last state will be worse than the first date.

Because at least when you were unsaved, you didn't have any conviction about the sin because you didn't have the spirit of God living within you.

And so you could just be happy, go lucky, and go and get drunk as a skunk and do whatever you want, and everything's fine.

It didn't even bother you that much.

I mean, I hope I didn't, I don't want to get a DUI or something like that.

But the reality is that when you get saved, you now have the Spirit of God living within you.

And that's why we talk about being whole-hearted disciples, because when you're wholehearted, you're the most happy.

I want to be happy.

I want to be joyful.

In other words, when I'm whole-hearted, I'm all in with my creator, and I'm I'm in sync with the Spirit of God.

That's when that's life.

That's how we get life, you guys.

So, so just like you had to learn how to sin, you learn how to lie, you learn how to manipulate.

You need to pick all that up in high school.

You pick up that, you know, what is it?

There was a book out, like everything I needed to know in life, I learned in kindergarten.

Well, I mean, you're learning how to steal stuff in kindergarten.

You're learning how to tell the teacher one thing, and you know, kind of, and some of you are better at it than others, but we're all manipulators.

I mean, let's just face it, you know, we're all up to no good.

And so then we get saved, and guess what we have to do now?

We start learning to unlearn all the things we learned in kindergarten.

And it's just like being an Air Force Academy graduate.

You graduate, you go four years to Air Force Academy, and you graduate, and you're now a lieutenant, and everything, and the president of the United States might have given the address at your graduation, and you throw your hat in the air and you got the uniform, you got the bars.

I mean, you're really cool and all that.

But the bottom line is you just signed up for the rest of your life getting trained, right?

The Air Force Academy graduates, many of them are gonna be pilots.

They now, now they go to pilot school.

Okay?

So it's the same way.

You get saved, you come to Christ.

It's like you graduated into the army.

You're in now.

So get equipped.

So that's what the book of Romans is all about.

That's what the entire Bible is all about.

So turn to Romans chapter 8, because Romans 8 is about how to get equipped and how to destroy the works of the devil.

Romans 8 · chapter mention

Because uh these Roman believers, they weren't Jews, they didn't have any biblical background, they didn't know anything.

And I go through Romans 6, 7, and 8 pretty quickly, but we do go through it in the whole heart advance.

But I'm just gonna camp on Romans 8 here with us.

And this is part one of part two.

So I went through the, oh man, there's so much here.

I mean, obviously, we could spend the entire sermon just on verse 1, but we're gonna move through about half of Romans 8 this week, and then we're gonna do the second part next week.

But here's the deal.

Here's what I'm trying to say.

This is our theme tonight.

The best defense is a bold offense.

The best defense against the enemy is a bold offense.

Either we can keep, and many of us have done this our whole life, we've been reacting to our anger, we've been reacting to our shame, we've been reacting to our jealousy, we've been reacting to our envy.

How about if we as men and women started proactively in our minds going after the things of the Spirit, not just in quality time, but in quantity time.

I mean, here's the deal, you guys.

You know, Pilate can take all the tests he wants, he can go through the simulator, all that, but he's gotta have hours in the air.

And so it's the same in the Christian life.

This thing that we call theologically sanctification is different than justification.

Justification means you are justified before the Lord by virtue of what Christ did at Calvary.

But then we we put on in our lives and into our lives what Christ did at Calvary, and it's called sanctification, and it's daily, and guys, there's no substitute for quantity time in God's word.

And so we're gonna see that.

That this is this is kind of a manual.

I think Romans 8 is a manual of destroy the works of the devil by building up the works of God.

That's why it's important that you have notes.

That's why it's important you get equipped.

It's amazing to me how serious we are about college football, and yet people don't know squats about how to walk in the spirit, and they say they're Christians.

I mean, seriously, that's that's a sad commentary on American Christianity, but it's true, you know?

And so then they're they're going through a divorce or they're losing everything and they don't know what to do.

So, guys, let's don't be like that.

Let's let's be proactive.

Let's dig in, because here is a proactive, very clear war manual called Romans 8 and how to destroy the works of hell.

So look at verse 1.

I love Romans 8.

Oh, this is this is gonna be so hard because I gotta cherry pick some stuff here.

All right.

There is no now condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.

That's how he starts.

You kidding me?

Who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the spirit?

How many of us, including me, live in condemnation?

He's saying we can break the power of shame.

We can break this hiddenness.

You know what shame is?

Shame is that fear in all of us of disconnection, that fear that if people knew this about us, they wouldn't want to know us, they wouldn't want to have a relationship with us, so we walk in shame.

Guy's biggest fear among men is weakness, being seen as weak.

So we bluster and we pose and we pretend like we're the coolest guy around when in reality we're broken and we're hurting and we need each other.

We need blood-stained allies.

I mean, some of you guys are gonna go through hell and back in the next few years.

And you're gonna need some guys in your life.

Man, I'm talking to you.

Women already get this.

I mean, seriously, you you drop a coin and say, But all the women who have anything to do with God, please come.

You drop a coin and they just flock.

You say that to guys and they book it.

They run.

You know, so men, you need men in your life.

You're gonna need them someday because you're not called by God to be a maverick, you're called by God to be in fellowship.

And we know that in battle, and this is a battle that we're in.

And he says, there's no condemnation.

God came, Jesus came to break off shame and to set us free to walk in a newness of life.

And so instead of playing hide and seek with God and his people, the Lord wants us to be wholehearted.

And that's and it's hard.

Man, if this was easy, I wouldn't have a job, you know.

It's like this is hard stuff because it means a vulnerable heart.

Be open about it.

I got drunk last week, you know.

I went to a porn website last week, you know.

We've we've got to learn in some in these places where there's some trusted God.

I'm not saying we say it to everybody.

By the way, I did not.

I just wanted to know.

I can see the shocked look across.

I didn't, you know, okay.

I did not go to, okay.

Okay, I did not.

Everything got really quiet there for a while, you know.

Great, great uh communication style.

Kind of get your attention.

Everybody was sleeping, woke up.

Okay.

But you know, in our lives, we slip up, we have struggles, and let's just be honest about it and say we do.

And let's be a church where we can say that kind of stuff, and in a trusted group of blood-stained allies in a D group, we can share that so we can get prayer and uh and grow.

So he's saying right here, there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, who are in Christ Jesus.

Because if you're not in Christ Jesus, there is condemnation.

If you're not in Christ Jesus, because look at the whole context.

Therefore, now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, comma, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the spirit.

Everybody get this.

If you are a Christian, if you are a Jesus follower, but you are not in Christ Jesus and you're not walking according to the Spirit, yes, you can still be in condemnation.

He's saying, look, I'm after, I'm after men and women who want to walk in the Spirit so we can destroy the works of the devil.

For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death.

Now, this is the same guy, look at chapter 7, verse 23, who just said this.

But I see a law in my member warring against the law of my mind and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.

So Paul is robustly realistic here that there is a war going on, but that we can, and the key word, I think, in verse one and two is walk.

Don't miss this.

Please don't miss this.

Walk in the spirit of life.

It's daily.

It's so daily, it's not weekly, it's not Saturday night service.

It's daily walking.

Really important, gang, that we we learn that getting, you know, being in the word daily really matters.

If you are not feeding, don't miss this, if you're not feeding on the word, then you're feeding on something else.

Because you're always feeding on something.

You are.

And so Paul's saying, look, feed on the word, the spirit of life, and you can walk with no condemnation.

For what the law could not do, and I and I would say this, you might just try this.

This always helped me.

Whenever I read law, I insert religion.

I just kind of insert religion here.

Because you're like, it can be so confusing.

But I'm going to say religion.

For what the re what religion could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending his own son in the likeness of sinful flesh on account of sin, he condemns sin in the flesh.

That the righteous requirement of the of the of religion might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the spirit.

So, in other words, religion in and of itself is limited in what it can do because religion tends to focus on the exterior, right?

It tends to focus on the outside.

And, you know, we just had the Pope here, and he spoke to the joint session of Congress, and then he did a mass, and it was a really beautiful mass.

Liz watched it, I didn't, but she said it was really beautiful, and and the symbols are really cool and everything.

And um, and I and there's aspects of Catholicism that's very, very beautiful, it really is.

But it can tend, it can tend at the road too, that we start looking way too much to like our rituals or to what we do to somehow make us righteous before God.

And I like what Richard Rohr says.

He says that he's found, he's a Catholic priest out of Albuquerque, has a training center down in Albuquerque.

He said this very, very interesting.

He said, I found, and he's speaking of Catholicism, that to the degree that people associate with the ritual, there's a direct correlation to their lack of intimacy with God.

Huge statement.

I read that to Liz the other night.

I said, Oh, you gotta hear this.

This is great, truly true.

That to the extent that you marry yourself to ritual, and why don't we, and in the context of our passage, your temple ritual, Jewish temple ritual, is there's a direct correlation for your lack of intimacy with Christ.

And so what happens though, here's what's he goes on to say this is great.

He says, but I he says we find that when when our heart becomes intimate with Christ, the ritual takes care of itself.

Because here's what happens is that when we're gonna we're gonna take communion tonight, we're gonna go into worship, that's that's external, but it's heart.

And that's meaningful to us that have an intimate relationship with the Lord because we're not taking communion because it's earning anything, we're taking communion because we get to express our love to the Lord through communion because we know him in an intimate way.

Does that make sense?

And so and so it changes everything.

So Paul's kind of saying that.

He's saying, look, you guys, religion, the Jewish religion, could only take you this far, but now the spirit has come.

And the spirit, if you allow him to work in your life, if you will walk in the spirit, is the very thing that you've been looking for, and that's a wholehearted love relationship with God.

For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh.

Verse 5.

But those who live according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit.

For to be carnally minded is death, but to be spiritually minded is life and peace.

Because the carnal mind is enmity against God, for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can be.

So then those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

So there's a crossroad decision, gang, for us here in your life.

There's these you come to these crossroads.

Am I gonna go the way of the flesh or am I gonna go the way of the spirit?

If I go the way of the flesh, it's death.

If I go the way of the spirit, it's life.

I mean, it really harkens us back, does it not, to the Garden of Eden.

Okay, there's two trees.

There's a tree of life.

Freely eat from that.

It will bring you life.

There's a tree of the knowledge of good and evil.

Don't eat from that.

You see, see, the not what the knowledge of good and evil is religion.

That's what religion does.

It gives you a knowledge of good and evil.

That's the old dispensation.

Now, what's what's its value?

Its value is Paul says it was a tutor.

It's a tutorial.

It's a tutorial to show us what God loves and what God loves.

God hates.

But you don't just sit there and live your life with what God loves and what you want to know God.

It's not just what he loves and what he hates, it is it is the writer of the scriptures.

It's the God of the Bible.

We don't worship the Bible, we worship the God of the Bible.

Does that make sense?

So then when we worship the God of the Bible, the Bible comes alive.

So he's saying, look, you've got a crossroads here.

You want life or you want death?

But you, verse 9, are not in the flesh, but in the spirit.

So this is a work of the spirit, church.

If indeed the spirit of God dwells in you, now if anyone does not have the spirit of Christ, he is not his.

Now, so church, if if you haven't given your heart to Christ, you don't have the spirit of God.

So this makes no sense to you.

Okay?

And you're like, what is he talking about?

But if you have the Spirit of God, you know because you've had this conviction in your heart that you're to go after Jesus in a deeper way.

That's the Spirit of God calling you.

And we're going to look at that in just a second.

And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin, but the spirit is life because of righteousness.

But if the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead, I mean that's the same spirit.

That's pretty cool.

The same spirit that rose Jesus from the dead lives within us, dwells in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his spirit who dwells in you.

Unbelievable.

He's saying here that as you start to feed on the spirit, as you start to feed on God's word, it actually energizes your mortal body.

As we grow in this, we're gonna be healthier people.

You're gonna be healthier because you're gonna have the energy of the spirit actually affecting your physiological body.

And so someone was like, we're all sitting on the porch the other night, and I was just making jokes about myself, and I just said, this is what I was like in high school.

And I kept saying it.

Okay, we get it, Dad.

You know.

I had no, I mean, I had energy for a lot of bad things when I was in high school, but one thing I didn't have energy for was anything that was good and righteous and uplifting.

But demons come to steal, kill, and destroy.

Christ came that you might have life and might have it abundantly.

Jesus, the word for the Spirit of God filling us in the Greek is energy.

God gives you energy through the power of the Spirit.

He gives you mental energy, he gives you emotional energy.

He gives, I mean, it took some mental and emotional and physical energy for you to come here on a Saturday night.

When we were having our men's prayer over here tonight, I was saying, Lord, I just pray against the spirit of the spirit of college football that just hovers over our men, you know.

Break that spirit, bind it in the name of Jesus.

So some of you heard the call and you're here, you know.

I don't know if there's a spirit of college football.

I'm just saying it, okay?

Like, it might be.

Not for Georgia football, all the other teams.

No, but the reality is the energy of the spirit infuses into your nature.

And so God's spirit gives you energy to love your wife.

And for some of you, that's really hard.

You know, elbows in the rib cages right now, all over the church, you know.

That's not me.

I'm easy to live with.

And for some of you women, it gives you energy to love that guy that you're sitting next to.

So the energy of the spirit to, I mean, you just take tithing.

I mean, seriously.

I've never mentioned money hardly at all now in a 15 months we've been in church, and the giving's been great.

It's been phenomenal.

Because you I want you to give because you want to give.

But when people give 10% of their income, I mean that's supernatural.

Of the spirit.

I signed up a long time ago.

I signed up when I was 22.

I realized because nobody ever taught, I got saved at 18, I'm 22, I'm becoming a missionary, I'm getting ready to go to Japan, I'm raising support, and I was having struggles.

And I remember the lady, I was staying at this couple's house, a really good friend of my parents, and she was always like counseling me about all my problems and everything.

And I had a lot.

And um, so I was there one time and I said, Man, money's like, she said, Well, are you giving?

And I said, What?

I'm a missionary.

And she goes, No, you're not.

You're a Christian first.

She said, Are you giving?

And I and I said, No.

And she goes, Well, let me tell you.

And I didn't know it.

I didn't know about tithing.

So I I she she went through the scripture on tithing and stuff.

And so then I just thought, okay, I got saved at 18.

So everything from 18 forward, I should be giving to the Lord.

So I went back and I owed God like$4,800 or something like that over this, and I figured out a way to give it.

I don't know how I did it, but I did.

I gave it all to the Lord.

I gave it out to all these different things.

And uh money started pouring in, and it's been, I've been on a run ever since.

You want to get set free financially?

Do it God's way.

It really works.

It's life, gang.

But you know, how in the world could you get someone to do that?

Well, you can't.

It's gotta be the Spirit of God.

So I'm not gonna be, I'm not your spirit.

Holy Spirit.

It's gotta be the Holy Spirit doing it.

So you're not gonna hear any more about it.

Okay, end of the discussion on money.

But you hear what I'm saying?

You young people, you're in high school and you're getting invited to go, you know, drink with the guys and everything, and they got some cheap beer.

And by the way, the beer at all the parties in high school sucks.

So you don't even want to do that, okay?

Um, but you're at these temptations.

Where do you find the energy to say no?

It comes from feeding on God's word.

Because if you'll build up your inner man, if you'll build up your inner woman, you'll have energy not only to say no, but to actually be a clear leader in a different direction.

That's what he's saying here.

Not just existing in your job, but actually thriving, thriving there as a Jesus follower.

That's what God does, he gives you energy.

Verse 12.

Therefore, brethren, we are debtors.

This is great right here, by the way.

Therefore, we are debtors not to the flesh to live according to the flesh, for if you live according to the flesh, you will die.

But if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.

For as many as are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.

Here's what he's saying: he's saying, Look, you don't owe the devil anything.

You already paid up.

Look at your life.

Look what he did.

I mean, seriously, the devil is an evil, tough taskmaster.

You're some of some of us are here tonight are saying, Well, I don't know if I can do that, I don't know if I can do that, I don't know if that.

Well, okay, and what are your options?

What are your options?

You want to keep being under that taskmaster, or do you want to be under the taskmaster of Jesus?

He gives you life, the other guy gives you death.

And so I just get, I got tired of it at 18.

I just got tired of it.

I got tired of hanging out with the wrong women.

I got tired of puking in the toilet on a Sunday morning.

I got tired of not figuring out who the last person I lied to that I could deceive to get what I wanted to manipulate.

I just got tired of it.

And there's like a part of me that I want life.

Abundant life.

I remember when the first time a guy shared with me the gospel with the four spiritual laws, it was uh it was it was John 10, 10 that just got me, man.

Just that he that Christ came to give me abundant life.

Nobody told me that.

And so I got it and I dig it.

And so, and so I want to owe a debt to the Lord for what he did at Calvary.

I don't want to owe the devil anything anymore.

I don't know, I'm not gonna play his game anymore.

I I I paid at the office, man.

I did that.

It's a new day.

And I so and so I want to pay him back for what he's done for me.

So then he says in verse 14, as many as are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God.

So I want you to just get this.

You're sons and daughters of the Father.

Your sons and daughters, your beloved sons and daughters.

You may have had a lousy dad.

You may have had a lousy mom, but you got a new dad.

You got a new mom, if you want to look at him from that perspective, in the sense that God's not gender specific.

I think God is there's a feminine and a masculine side to him.

But I wonder why the writer of the Hebrew scriptures made him father.

You know why?

Because many of us, our biggest wounds, are father wounds.

They really are.

And you've been deeply, deeply impacted by your dad's pro and con.

And God's now your father.

And he loves you.

And and and he can heal that wound.

That's why there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ.

Church, he can heal that wound.

He can heal that father wound.

And that's how you know you're sons of God is because we can now hear his voice.

We can be led by the Spirit of God.

That's why we took 40 nights to pray about the road before we started, was we wanted to hear from God because we were confident that we were sons and daughters of God.

We were gonna hear from God.

You can hear from God about stuff in your marriage.

You can hear from God about your job.

You can hear from God about your finances.

You can hear from God and be led by God about your parenting.

God can lead you mainly from this word.

And so, but again, that's why we feed on God's word.

That's why it's a dialogue.

It's not just studying the word, it's reading it and then saying it back to the Lord.

Daily doing that.

You're strengthening your inner man, you're strengthening your inner woman.

As you're strengthening your heart, you're becoming mighty in God.

You're becoming mighty in God.

You're destroying the works of the devil.

Where we where we spent so much time living our life, building up the works of the devil.

Right?

We read the magazines, we read the books, we went that way.

We were building up the works of the devil.

Now we have to counter that, but building up the works of God.

That's why you're here on Saturday night.

That's why you go to the whole heart advance.

That's why you avail yourself to training and equipping.

That's why you read those books.

That's why you listen to my sometimes convoluted sermons online or whatever, you know.

But that's how we build up our spirits, guys.

Reading good books.

Not that trash that's out there, but reading good books and and building up your inner person.

And so that's and you can hear from God.

For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again.

This is really important, that word again, because you can go back to the spirit of bondage to fear.

Bondage always leads to fear, but you receive a spirit of adoption, whom we cry out, Abba, Father.

That's the Aramaic for daddy, that we can have such an intimacy with the Lord that we can say, Dad, I need help.

Dad, come.

Dad, I need your spirit today.

Dad, I need to be filled with your spirit today.

Holy Spirit, come and fill me.

Father, Abba, Lord, come.

I need you.

That's what we're gonna do in worship in a few minutes.

We're gonna worship the Lord.

I want it to be to Abba Father, because I love what he says here.

We cry out, Abba Father.

So you cry out to God.

Do you understand what I'm saying?

This is a dialogue.

It's not a monologue.

It's not just telling God what you need, but it's it's communing and intimacy with him, wherein we cry out, Daddy, I need you.

No place in scripture, gang, does God ever turn his ear away from somebody who cries out to him.

Isn't that great news?

That's how we know we're sons of God.

That's how we know we're daughters of God, is that he leads us as we cry out to him as Abba Father.

Verse 16, the Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we're children of God.

So as we do that, there's a peace that comes.

There's an intimacy expressed, I believe, through a tranquility that comes as we are in worship and in the word and in prayer with the Lord.

If you're walking in a spirit of fear and bondage, you can turn that all around tonight.

If you came tonight and you got a spirit of bondage and condemnation over you, you can turn it around tonight, but you can't.

But you got to cry out to Abba Father.

Just cry out, God, God, would you begin?

And guess what?

It won't happen.

90% of the time, it won't happen like right then.

We like it this way, don't we?

It's the American way.

It's a Pentecostal way.

You slain in the spirit, and it all went away.

I was just free to never ever sinned again.

I never see that anywhere but a Benny Hen concert or whatever they call this.

You know, it's like it doesn't work that way, gang.

It does not.

Well, I wish it did.

I really do.

I wish Jesus would just show up a bam.

And I could wear white shoes and a white suit and then clerical collar and all that.

It doesn't work that way.

The way it works is you made a decision tonight.

God, I want to walk out my, I want to break the power of condemnation.

And you gotta feed.

You gotta feed on the Spirit of God tomorrow morning.

You gotta feed on the Spirit of God Monday morning.

You gotta feed on the Spirit of God on Tuesday.

You know, you gotta keep feeding it because as you feed it with the Spirit, guess what?

You're building up, you're building up, you're building up the works of the Spirit within you, and you're destroying the works of the devil.

Isn't that good news?

And if children, then you're heirs, heirs of God, joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with him that we may also be glorified together.

You are a joint heir, you're a co-regent over this earth.

That is a clear hearkening back to Genesis chapter 2, where he said in his first command, his first command to Adam and Eve was, be fruitful and multiply.

Genesis 2 · chapter mention

And then he says in Genesis 2, 28 and 29, right in there, 27 and 28, he's saying, Look, I give you all of the earth to rule over.

Church, we're supposed to be rule.

Listen, you can't rule over the earth if you can't rule over your own spirit.

The greatest struggle is ourselves.

Right?

I mean, you look at pastors that fall, you look at leaders that fall, you look at adultery that happens, you look at affairs and stuff.

It's that man or that woman unable to bridle their own spirit through the daily walk with the spirit of life by channeling their thoughts and hearts toward the things of God.

That's how we grow.

That's good news.

I mean, that's what the Lord is saying.

So Richard Rohr writes, let me read you this transformative faith is always much more about the now than the future.

How you do anything is how you do everything.

That kind of nailed me this week.

How you do anything is how you do everything.

How you do relationship is how you do relationship with your job, family, animals, nature, the present moment, and God.

As other teachers have said, if you are here now, you'll be there then.

If you're here now, you'll be there then.

If you can be present to love and live now, you'll be there then.

You're already in heaven.

Wow, that's great stuff.

He's saying, here's what he's saying.

He's saying that eternity begins now.

It's not something in the, yes, it is something.

It's out there, it's coming, we'll have a true, real presence, but we can experience that presence now because eternal life began the day you got saved.

So live it now.

Because if you're not living it now, why would you want to live it then?

If you treat people like trash now, why would you want to spend eternity with the Lord who loves people?

If you're lying constantly now, is this going to really be a good deal to be in the presence of one who's complete honesty?

In other words, start surrendering now.

And let's let the Spirit of God be transforming us and changing us.

So he ends with this if you do not know how to be present now, how would you possibly be ready for the real presence?

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

We pray that you've been blessed by the message today.

Our hope is to make wholehearted disciples of Jesus Christ.

And that's why we teach the Word of God verse by verse, scripture by scripture, and precept upon precept.

We're excited about all the things God is doing in the lives of our faithful listeners.

We understand that there are many trials and tribulations in this world, and we'd love to be able to pray for you as you encounter difficult times.

Please drop us a note and let us know how we can pray for you.

Write us at The Road, PL Box 88485, Colorado Springs, Colorado 80908.

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