New Beginnings

Hello everyone, I'm Dr.

Steve Holt.

I want to welcome you to the Road Church Podcast.

Each week we go into God's Word.

We teach chapter by chapter and verse by verse.

And we are here to build the Kingdom of God revolution through empowering people to change the world.

So we pray this will minister to you at your heart level and change your life.

Today I want to talk about the mission of the road, the mission of the road church.

And then next week I want to talk about baptism.

And I want to, I think it's just perfect this morning that as I talk about the mission of why we're here, that we stand and I want to do our whole heart declaration.

And we do this about every third week for you guys that don't know.

So one week we're going to do Apostles' Creed.

One week you're going to have the Lord's Prayer, and then you're going to have a whole heart declaration.

And in the midst of all that the enemy's been doing, and God has been, how many know that you're in a battle?

Anyone aware of that?

Okay.

For the rest of you that didn't raise your hand, you should get out more often because we're really in a battle.

And so, you know, one way we know that is a lot of times in our marriages and stuff.

And so when we when I mentioned uh the idea of Lon and Chrissy doing the whole the Whole Heart Marriage Workshop, that was their title.

I thought it was so good.

Um, you guys rushed back there, and we had a hundred people in like 90 minutes, and then about a hundred on the waiting list.

So we're gonna do it again probably in January.

The same, we'll go, we'll go through Whole Heart Workshop One again in January for the rest of the church.

And for anybody else, I don't know how many times we're gonna do it.

But anyway, it's really cool.

The the point being that we felt like as a team that it was important that we maybe need to redefine the road moving forward.

So this is I'm gonna be talking about that.

But this statement is a part of that.

I call it the whole heart declarations.

If you have your Bibles, um, let's hold those up.

I'm growing to love Jesus with all of my heart.

I'm building my life on the Word of God.

And I'm trusting in the power of the Holy Spirit.

And I'm learning to live courageously.

And I will shine the light of Christ in my family, in my community, in my job, in my marriage.

So, Jesus, that's our prayer.

And as we open up the word, as we look at who we are as a church and why you called us to be here.

Through all the highs and lows and the and the mountains and the valleys, we ask for your presence this morning.

Equip us, empower us, and strengthen us in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Amen.

All right, you guys can be seated.

So, back in the day when I had uh left Mountain Springs and started the road, God gave us Isaiah 43, 18.

Now you don't need to turn there.

You don't need to turn, I'm gonna have you turn to something else in a second.

There's gonna be a lot of page turning today.

So uh a little bit of Bible, maybe Bible roulette as we go through this.

But um, I wanted to start with Isaiah 43.

And some of you in this room were actually with us, about 50 of us, when we started the road.

And this was the verse God gave us that then began to give us a perspective of even the name that he wanted us to have, which was the road church.

Do not remember the former things, Isaiah 43, 18, you can just jot it down, you don't have to go there, nor consider the things of old.

And that's what you tend to do.

When you go through a transition, you tend to overfocus on the old and underfocus on the new.

So he was saying, Isaiah was saying to Israel, and he was saying to us, do not remember the former things, nor consider the things of old.

Behold, I will do a new thing.

How many know that the Lord is about new things?

No matter what your age or where you're at in your journey with him, he's got new things for you.

He's got new works.

Now it shall spring forth, shall you not know it?

And I think he asks the question, it's a rhetorical question, shall you not know it?

Because a lot of times you don't recognize that God's doing a new thing.

You're still caught up in the old, you're still caught up in the bitterness, you're still caught up in the sorrow and the grief of maybe the old.

It's been really hard.

And he says, I want you to notice that I'm doing a new thing.

And then he continues, I will even make a road.

I'll make a road in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.

And so during that time, that was 2014, between 2013 and 2014, I'm leaving Mountain Spring.

I'm starting the road.

Liz and I were starting the road.

And she co-founded it with me, and she went through all the hell that I went through.

When we were going through that, God spoke, I think Liz, maybe five out of seven times, seven times altogether, the road less travel.

The road less travel.

And you go, well, what does that mean?

Well, for us, I was thinking about this yesterday, and I can work for hours on a message, and then when I sit down, usually the night before, all this new stuff comes.

So it's all written over on the side of my notes.

But think about the road less travel as it's related to the road in the kind of church we are.

We're a weird church.

It's because I'm a weird pastor.

I mean, we're a weird church.

We're right in the middle.

You know, we're not Bible church enough for some people.

Because there's too many people raise their hands and stuff like that.

And we pray for a healing, and some people get healed.

You're not supposed to get healed this, you know, now.

Okay.

You know, you pray for somebody that got cancer, they get healed of cancer, and then you talk to your cessationist friend, they go, that didn't happen.

Oh, okay, I forgot.

Okay, yeah.

Here's what it says the doctor said they're healed.

It's like, well.

Because it doesn't fit their theology, right?

So, so we're we're not we're we're not that way.

But then we're also not charismatic, we're not Pentecostally enough.

Like we don't have any snakes in here that we handle, and um, nobody rolls on the floor usually, um, and stuff.

And so we're in this middle of the road church, where we're in the uncomfortable middle.

Sometimes politically, I'm in the uncomfortable middle on some things.

I'm not all right or all left, right?

Hello?

So you're you're always working that out.

So that's that's a road less traveled.

And then COVID came.

And Polis tells us to shut down our churches.

And I'm from Georgia, and and the word I would use is that dog doesn't hunt.

And so we didn't do it.

And so I had pastors in the city that were so mad at me.

They were turning me in to Polis' team, and they were calling me, and then they wanted me to turn in other pastors who weren't vaccinating their congregations.

You don't even know that story because I've never shared it.

But it's like, it really happened, you know, and I was like, that was so easy.

Jim, that was an easy one.

It's like, this is what we're gonna do, and this is what we're gonna stick to, and I don't care, come hell or high water, we're gonna stick to it.

It's the right thing to do.

People can make up their own minds.

I'm not gonna dictate your life.

I'm not gonna tell you what to do with your health and with your body.

I'm gonna tell you we're gonna study God's Word.

We're gonna show up each day, we're gonna do worship, and we're gonna pray, and then we're gonna be in a small group, and then we're gonna obey God better, and we're gonna keep growing.

And then people can decide what they want.

If they want to wear a mask, great.

If you want a social distance, that's great.

If you want to stay home and watch it and stream it, that's great.

And you can be mad at me the whole time.

I'm used to it.

I had seven kids.

At least five out of seven were mad at me half the time.

Okay?

And so, and so we did it.

We're just a weird church, you know, and and then we decided to do this crazy thing like a breakfast for men.

What are you gonna do?

You're gonna do donuts and coffee.

No, we're not doing donuts.

We're gonna do, we're gonna do bacon and eggs and grits with gravy on it.

Who's gonna do it?

We got this guy.

Remember Talladega Knights?

His name's Ricky Bobby.

And so we did it.

And it grew and it grew and it grew.

And it's probably, honestly, I don't want to brag too much, but I'm gonna brag a little bit, that it's probably the most ecumenical, unifying movement in the city of Colorado Springs in the last five years.

There's 180 churches represented and 450 guys, you know, and Al has done a splendid job in organizing and developing all the table leaders, 66 table leaders.

And all our table leaders aren't great, just like everything in life, you know, but most of them are really, really good and really committed.

And we have guys that come and they come every week and they haven't changed one bit.

They haven't.

They're still jerks to their wives.

But most have.

Most have been transformed.

Most are getting changed.

And if you're with your husband here now and you and you think, well, you you go to that, I think you just go for the food because you haven't changed one bit.

I give you permission to say that to them because it might be just the motivation that they need to hear.

Anybody here been in the church a while and followed Christ for a while and you haven't changed in some areas?

None of us have it all together.

We're all growing.

That's why it's called the road.

It's it's a it's it's a process, it's not always a destination.

And as soon as we think we've arrived, we get full of pride and we're in worse shape.

So it's good to know that we haven't all got it all together.

So, in the midst of all of that, that's just an introduction to say that Jerry Forte, who was formerly the CEO of Colorado Springs Utilities, always sits right over here, second service, close friend, great mentor in leadership, came alongside.

I said, Bro, I need you to lead us in a new mission statement.

I want to develop a new mission statement, a new purpose statement.

And so we got the pastors together, we started working on it, and we have a new mission statement, and I wanted to show you that today for the first time, and um we'll put it up there.

Cultivating, there it is, cultivating wholehearted disciples of Jesus who bring the kingdom of God everywhere.

Isn't that a great statement?

Doesn't that epitomize who we are?

I just think it really does.

It's got someone recently said to me, I like empowering better, like empowering, but I like cultivating better.

I'm gonna explain it in a minute.

But we wanted something that was memorable that we felt like described us, which I believe the road 2.0 is the next 20 years.

So to 2046, this is who we are.

So let's say it together.

Cultivating wholehearted disciples of Jesus who bring the kingdom of God everywhere.

I love that.

So cultivating.

Let's start with cultivating.

I want to start with the word cultivating.

So Liz is the cultivator of plants in our family.

She's got plants everywhere.

Okay, and she has a greenhouse, and that was too small after a while, and now we got a hoop house, and maybe we'll have a planetarium at some point.

But she really, she really has the plants, and and the favorite plant that she has is not roses, is not all these orchids and beautiful things like that.

The most beautiful plant is collard greens.

To me.

Who likes collard greens?

Anybody here like collard greens?

Yes, I love it.

This is my kind of church.

I knew you guys were smart.

Um, but she's got collard greens, she's got all kinds of veggies and stuff like that.

But here's what here's what Liz will tell you.

And anybody who's in the agrarian world knows the soil is everything.

So it's not this, the seed is important, but the seed in bad soil can't grow.

And even crummy seeds in good soil will grow.

So would you turn with me?

I want to I want to open with this word cultivating from Mark chapter 4, because Jesus really got it.

Mark 4 · chapter mention

Jesus is speaking to an agrarian culture, and this is the most important thing that I do as a senior pastor is equipping the saints through cultivating your heart.

My job, if everything could be down to an irreducible minimum, I believe at the road, it would be cultivating hearts.

I would say to Joey, I would say to Al, I would say to Marcus and to our team, and whoever's going to become our new director over children's ministry, you're cultivating hearts.

So look at Mark 4, 3 through 8.

Listen, behold, a sower went out to sow.

And it happened as he sowed that some seed fell on the wayside, and the birds of the air came and devoured it.

Some fell on stony ground where it did not have much earth, and immediately it sprang up because it had no depth of earth.

But when the sun was up, it was scorched because it had no root.

In other words, it didn't have good soil, and it withered away.

Verse 7.

And some seed fell among the thorns, thorns grew up, choked it, and it yielded no crop.

But the other seed fell, what does it say?

Good ground.

And in the Greek that would mean good soil, and yielded a crop that sprang up, increased, and produced, some thirtyfold, some sixtyfold, and some a hundred.

So, a few things we could say about this is that in each case the seed was the seed.

And he's going to tell us in the second half when he's explaining the sower parable that the seed's the word of God.

So the word of God is still living and active and powerful and has the ability to multiply in anyone's heart.

It's the soil of the person's heart that makes the difference.

The seed is still pure.

The seed is still good.

So when you hear me say, spend time in God's Word every day, and I say it ad nauseum, you probably get sick of hearing me say it, having a quiet time, having a devotional life, start your day, PB and J, prayer, Bible, and journal, being in there, you go, well, Steve, that's all Steve ever talks about.

It's because I know there's good seed.

But if you don't, if you don't plant it daily, you miss out.

And by the way, I don't lose any sleep over that.

Because everybody in this room, almost everybody in this room is an adult.

And so my job is to present it, to preach it, to share it, to encourage it, it's your job to receive it and decide what you're going to do with it.

I don't see Jesus getting too upset over about where the soil, where the seed lands.

He's just saying, if you want the seed to grow, by which you're effective, you're prosperous, you're successful in areas of your life.

And he says, what does he say?

30fold, 60fold, and 100fold.

In other words, there's different, I think there's different levels of anointing.

Okay, but it but you won't know your anointing, and you won't know the 30, the 60, or the 100 if the seed never gets a chance to grow.

So we're cultivating hearts.

Now look at verse 20.

So I'll skip all the references and examples and illustrations that he talks about.

But look at verse 20.

He says, but these are the ones sown on good ground.

And then he explains what that is.

Here's what he means.

Those who hear the word, but don't just hear it, they actually accept it, and then they bear fruit, and he repeats himself again 30-fold, sixty-fold, and a hundredfold.

That's the road.

First of all, we're cultivating wholehearted disciples.

We're not making anybody become a disciple of Jesus.

We're encouraging, we're cultivating, we're kind of plowing the ground, and that's where small groups come in.

How important small groups are, because the reality is that it's in the context of relationships that we become wholehearted disciples.

So let me give you three thoughts, three quick thoughts on what I mean.

Okay, I want to stop for a second.

Look, how many are familiar with regenerative farming?

Anybody familiar with that?

Okay.

I think it's uh Joe Saladin in Virginia.

Liz has been out to his farm that's done this the best, in which he uses different aspects of different animal products and stuff to continually fertilize the ground.

Here's a definition of regenerative systems of development.

Having the ability to regrow, restore, or actively improve a system rather than just maintaining it.

So it's the idea of, you know, you're taking manure, let's say, from chickens and it's dried, and you're using it in a garden over here, and so it's regenerative.

So let me give you what I think regenerative learning and cultivation should be like at the road.

Regenerative learning of equipping and empowerment.

Regrow, restore, and rebuild hearts through God's word and the power of the Holy Spirit.

Isn't that exciting?

So here's what I love about that is that none of us in our journey doesn't need to keep regrowing, re-improving, and redeveloping in our heart.

Some of us have been through miserable divorces, some of us have been through addictive behavior, some of us have been through just hell and back.

And yet we have the word of God and we have the power of the Holy Spirit to change us.

And every study shows, every study shows that when men and women are meditating on truth, slowing down, and allowing the Holy Spirit to work, they get healthier.

They get restored.

That's regenerative discipleship.

That's cultivating.

Don't give up.

Men and women don't give up.

There's always another way in which the Holy Spirit wants to work in your life.

Alright.

So, cultivating.

Now, look at the next word.

It's wholehearted.

Cultivating wholehearted.

Okay, Matthew 12, 29 through 31.

Why don't you turn to that?

Mark, not Matthew, Mark 12, 29 through 31.

And many of us know this because we reference it so many times at the road.

It's the Great Commandment.

So today I'm going to be talking about the Great Commandment and the Great Commission.

The Great Commandment is love the Lord your God with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and your neighbor as yourself.

Alright, so I want to show you a Venn diagram, and I'm gonna put it up here.

This, in my opinion, is what a wholehearted disciple is.

Look at my little pointer.

Isn't that cool?

Right?

Isn't that cool?

I like my little pointer.

I get it on you, honey, right there.

Alright.

So a wholehearted disciple in a Venn diagram is the fact that we live in a world and God made our bodies and our minds and our spirits.

To overlap.

And so he says, love the Lord your God with all of your heart, all of your mind, all of your spirit, and your strength, and your neighbor is yourself.

That's the wholehearted disciple of Jesus, is one who's growing in all these areas.

Don't you want to be healthy in all those areas?

So as a church, I feel this inherent responsibility, and our team does too, that we build whole-hearted disciples in every area of the church.

Why not from cradle to grave, we get really good as a church at building whole-hearted disciples by looking at the whole person.

And I think COVID really awakened us to the fact that if you have a weak immune system, I don't care how many times you read the Bible or how much you studied God's Word or how long you pray, if you have a weak immune system, you're gonna get sick.

And if you get sick, it affects you spiritually, and it affects you mentally, it affects you emotionally.

And so a well-orbed discipleship process is us all growing in all these areas of our life.

And so from time to time, you're gonna hear me talk about the physical and encourage you to eat well, take care of yourself and work out like this morning.

Every morning, every morning I don't want to work out.

100%.

Not even 95%.

I don't wake up and I can't wait to go and sweat and work out, you know, for the 150th day in a row.

No.

And I and I don't go to a club, I don't go to any, I don't go to lifetime fitness or any of that, because I know it would never happen if I did that.

So I've actually got it set up in a room at my house, and I still don't want to do it.

But you know what motivates me?

What motivates me the most in the physical is this right here.

Is that I know I'm gonna be mentally sharper if I'll do the 50, and I just do 15 minutes.

Do a 15-minute workout is gonna affect me mentally, which then affects all these other areas.

So you do it.

Okay?

So all of that's a part of discipleship.

And some of you are getting older, and some of you are gaining weight right now, and I just challenge you to ask God to give you wisdom, and I can help too if you need my help in coaching you, but it's not a lot, it's a little done a lot, not a lot done a little, that we grow in these areas.

And so I think a biblical worldview for us in all these areas part of being a whole-hearted disciple.

Why not build whole-hearted children?

Wholehearted youth, whole-hearted young adults, whole-hearted men, whole-hearted women.

And now we've got whole-hearted marriage.

How many were a part of the marriage class?

Yeah, wasn't it great?

It was an awesome time.

And we're just getting started.

And Lon and Chrissy, this is so funny, I gotta tell the story.

So, Lon and Chrissy, I was with Lon.

We were walking, and Liz and I were in the depths and the valleys of a bunch of stuff, and we were really struggling with things.

And I said, Lon, the stuff you've been saying has been so good.

So, where have you taught this stuff?

And he goes, We've never taught it.

Well, where did you get this stuff?

We're just giving it to you.

I said, You're kidding, this is revolutionary stuff.

And then that began the discussion of where we are today.

Isn't that exciting?

So sometimes, men and women, this is a great example of this, embedded in you is something that's never been discovered yet.

And it's part of your life experience.

It's a part of the word.

I feel that, Jim, when I think about when we've talked about the kingdom of God.

You know, you share stuff and it's like unique to you that I get fired up about.

Right?

Joy, right?

You know, and so with many of you, we're in discussions and we're talking about something, it might even be something physiologically.

And then you share stuff, you know?

Derek, with, you know, when we talk about finances and stuff.

I didn't know that was in you.

So there's stuff, men and women, in all of us, and as we grow in the Lord, I think he starts to accentuate this gifting, this calling, this anointing in your life that's there to be a blessing to others.

So cultivating wholehearted disciples of Jesus.

Now turn to Matthew 28.

You turn to Matthew 28.

This is called the Great Commission.

The Great Commission.

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

Go therefore and make disciples.

Go and make disciples of all the nations, ethnos, all ethnic groupings, baptizing them.

That's what we're doing next week.

Baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, teaching them, so baptizing and teaching are a part of discipleship, to observe all things that I've commanded you, and lo, I'm with you always, even at the end of the age.

Now, in America, we are fascinated with evangelism, which is great.

You got to get saved before you can become a disciple.

So I get that.

But it's interesting to me that Jesus constantly talks about making and exhibited and modeled at making disciples.

So the question is: do we need 200 more people saved, or do we need 50 people who are actually disciples?

Well, we need both.

The answer is we need both.

But at the road, you're gonna hear me emphasize getting saved, of course, but the but the product of quality is what Jesus was concerned about.

And so he says, go and, he didn't say go and evangelize, he said go and make disciples.

Hear what I'm saying.

Evangelism's important, hugely important.

I was 18 at University of Georgia, got saved, then I started getting disciples.

Same with all of us in this room.

But making disciples, listen, was the focus of Jesus' ministry.

So let me give you three aspects of being a whole-hearted Jesus disciple.

Number one, this is what the word means.

Disciple means learner.

Become a learner.

Become a learner.

Not just a listener, but learner.

The evangelical church in America has got lots of listeners.

And what we do is we have a we have a crowd, by and large, that comes to listen.

Again, that's great.

Step one, listen, getting saved.

That's all important.

But a disciple is a learner.

So we're learning from what we're listening to and letting it saturate and cultivate our hearts.

Number two, becoming a whole-hearted follower of Jesus.

So it's not just getting cognitive information, but it's the cultivation of our heart, and we start becoming followers of Jesus.

And then thirdly, we're transformed.

Thirdly, we're transformed.

So jot this down.

This is this little diagram that I've used over the years.

Information plus formation equals transformation.

Information, in other words, if you don't have the information, you can't be formed.

So you're informed, you're formed, and you're transformed.

So it's in information that then guess where the formation happens with people?

Small groups.

The give and take.

Like have you been in any relationships recently that are counter to the way you think?

Have you had anybody kind of say, well, I disagree with that?

That's how we get formed.

We get formed by contrast.

So when I'm fly fishing and I'm at 11 Mile Canyon, let's say, and I'm fly fishing and I catch a rainbow trout and it has very little color, I know it's a stalker.

That's when they stalked probably a few months ago when they stalked streams.

It's not pretty because that rainbow trout's never had to struggle.

They take little pellets and throw it out there and they all come up and eat it, and then I'm throwing a fly, and it goes, that sort of looks like a pellet.

And so they grab it and I hook it.

But then if you're on a stream, let's say like in Estes Park or you're in Rocky Mountain, you're up at one of those high lakes, and I fished those before, and you catch a rainbow trout, it's got beautiful, it's got beautiful color.

You know why?

It's had to struggle.

They say that with a trout that struggles, that's wild, the colors are more beautiful.

And so, men and women, if you're going through struggles, that's how you form as a disciple.

You form as a disciple through struggle, not through ease.

Some of us in this room are really struggling.

Embrace it.

Can I encourage you?

Embrace it and grow.

Embrace it and grow.

That's how we're transformed.

But don't do it alone.

The biggest struggle for all of us is isolation.

Doing it alone.

Gather others around you to help you grow.

So disciples of Jesus are learners, followers, and they're being transformed in, I believe, home groups.

I think home groups are the key.

And um, Shanna's gonna come up at the end of the sermon here, and she's gonna introduce three new home groups.

So I said here, cultivating wholehearted disciples of Jesus who bring, who bring the kingdom of God.

So what is the kingdom of God?

King dome.

Best way to remember it.

King dome.

King over a domain.

That's what it means.

The kingdom of God is God Jesus as king over something, beginning with our hearts.

So when you've given your hearts to Christ and you're following him with all your heart, as best you know how, that's the kingdom of God coming.

When you go into work and you're living Christ and you're and you're walking you're doing your work with integrity, you maybe sometimes even have a chance to pray with someone, that's bringing the kingdom of God.

That's what it is, you know?

And so the kingdom of God was the main message of Jesus.

It's amazing to me after being in the ministry for 40 years, how few people talk about the kingdom of God.

There's such a misunderstanding of the kingdom of God.

Well, the kingdom of God was mentioned and spoken of a hundred times by Jesus in the Gospels, 53 times, especially by Luke.

Jesus called the gospel the kingdom of God.

So the gospel is the kingdom of God.

He told us to seek first what?

Seek first the kingdom of God.

And so the kingdom of God is when Jesus is king over a domain.

And he proclaimed it and he demonstrated it.

So every time we preach the gospel, we're preaching the kingdom, and we pray for someone, that's a demonstration of the kingdom.

So all that all that disease is, is an invitation for us to bring Jesus into that disease and say, Jesus, we're asking for your kingdom to come.

We're asking for your king to invade the bloodstream of this person's life and heal them.

Now he's the healer, we're not.

We're just the conduit.

So does everybody get healed?

No.

Do I understand why?

I don't.

I wish you had a nice little concise answer is because of your lack of faith.

I don't agree with that.

So sometimes I've seen people come, they have no faith at all, they get healed.

I've seen other people come and they've got great faith, they don't get healed.

So it's a mystery to me.

All I know, listen, everybody, all I know is the more we pray for people to be healed, the more get healed.

I'm not real smart, I figured that out.

That the more we share our faith with people, the more people get saved.

That the more you say that you love your wife or you love your husband and you forgive them, the better it goes in your relationship.

So, so I don't feel I like what Mark Twain said.

Mark Twain once said, It's not the stuff in the Bible that I don't understand that bothers me, it's the stuff I do understand.

So, so we know that it's true that Jesus told us to pray for people, Jesus told us to share our faith, Jesus told us to be disciples.

So let's get better at it.

Hello?

Let's get better at it, you guys, together as a team, as a family, the oikos, the family of God.

They went from house to house in the book of Acts, Kingdom of God.

Now, this is the last one I'm gonna tell you to turn to.

Okay, there's a lot of turning.

So look at Acts 1.

Look at Acts 1, verse 3.

Acts 1:3

Acts 1, verse 3.

Acts 1:3

So we're in the book of Acts, and I felt like I needed to say this at the end because it's like book ends with the book of Acts when we get back to it.

Acts 1, 3, to whom he also presented himself, this is Jesus, alive after his sufferings by many infallible proofs, being seen by them during 40 days, and speaking of the things pertaining to the kingdom of God.

Now, if you read on, they thought it was a political solution.

Are you bringing, are you bringing a national movement to Israel?

That's what they're asking him.

And he's talking about the kingdom of God, that the he, Jesus, being king over the whole world.

Because Acts 1.8 is going to say, you should be a richness in Jerusalem, Samaria, remotest parts of the earth.

Now, turn to the last chapter of Acts.

Look at Acts 28.

Turn to Acts 28, the very last verse is 31.

The very last verse is 31.

So here at the beginning, talking about the kingdom.

Now look at the very last verse of Acts.

Paul was preaching the kingdom of God and teaching the things which concern the Lord Jesus Christ with all confidence and no one forbidding him.

So, like bookends, the book of Acts, the vintage church, starts with the kingdom, ends with the kingdom.

And guess who's Acts 29?

Look in your Bibles, go to Acts 29.

If you have a blank at the end of 28, 31, why don't you just write right now, put down Acts 29.

Write that.

If you're a writer in your Bible, write Acts 29.

And then put me.

Put the road.

You're Acts 29.

Guys, we're Acts 29.

We continue the ministry of Jesus.

We are the vintage church bringing the kingdom to Colorado Springs.

Bringing the kingdom.

And what's the last part of my little phrase here, our little phrase here?

Everywhere.

Everywhere.

We're saying everywhere we bring the kingdom.

So the kingdom of God is a continuation of the ministry of Jesus in our city, in our county, in our family, in our marriage, and each of us personally.

Thank you for listening to the Road Church Podcast.

We pray today's message has empowered you to make a difference in your world.

For more information about the Road Church and to find more content like this, go to theroad.org.

That's thheroad.org.