All right.
Welcome fellas.
The first podcast I've done with four people.
So what an honor to have you guys.
And we're out here at Cedar Glen near Cedar Canyon, south of Canyon, Texas, having a retreat.
We've had a great time, had some great conversations, and we just wanted to finish our little retreat
off.
Just talking about some of the things we've discussed.
So now the only person we don't know is this guy right here, Steve Pogue.
Am I saying your name right?
That's it.
All right.
So why don't you tell us a little bit about who you are, where you're from, all that kind
of stuff.
My name is Steve.
I currently live in Tulsa with my wife and children.
And yeah, I'm involved in ministry, just serving the Lord and purposing to be diligent in the
things he's put in front of us.
And that looks like a lot of different things, but currently the moment we serve in our church
and yeah, it's good times.
All right.
Praise God.
Well we've been all over the map with our conversations.
We've wrestled the whole retreat with what are we going to talk about?
What do we want to kind of put on record as something important that we've discussed?
So let me start off by asking you guys, what is one of the things that we've talked about
that has stuck out to you as something we really need to continue a conversation about?
I think that's one of the most important things we can do.
We haven't solved any problems, right?
Since we've been here, but we've started conversations about things that need to be solved or that
need to be teased out or worked out.
And so anything in particular, we'll start with you Ross, that we've discussed that you
feel like we need to work on more.
Well I think that we've talked about the big picture, which piggybacks on a message that
you preached at First Methodist, and understanding that it's time for us to be adults, to feed
on strong meat and no longer milk, and understand that Jesus is returning.
We'll have a part to do with Him, for Him, during the thousand year millennial reign.
And all of it is for one purpose, so that God can walk in the garden with us again,
like He did in the Garden of Eden.
So a couple of things from there, and this is something that Steve and I have kind of,
it's been reawakened.
It's been in our repertoire of ideas for decades, but something that's been reawakened is the
ministry of preparation.
So the body of Christ isn't where she needs to be, and in order for that to happen, God
always raises up people with a ministry of preparation.
And so God does want the body of Christ to move into a new place, because He says that's
going to have to happen before the return of Jesus Christ.
At the return of Jesus Christ there will be a bride who has made herself ready.
And the ministry of Elijah, the forerunner, the preparer, is raised up to make straight
paths for God's agenda to come on the scene.
And so I think that's a vital ministry that you need to identify and embrace so that the
agenda can move forward on straight paths.
So yeah, that's a good one.
What about you Troy?
What stands out to you?
I have really enjoyed our discussions about how important sanctification is in our walk
of faith.
You know, the Bible talks about we were predestined to be conformed into the image of His Son.
If you are called by His name, then we are called to be more and more like Jesus.
And what that takes is a sanctification process that is not always fun.
It's not always comfortable.
It's not always something we're going to choose.
But the outcome of it, if it means being more like Him and more equipped to do the work
that we're called to do, then we need to stop rebelling against it.
We need to accept it.
But tying into what you were saying, leaders need to teach the body that this is a part
of life now.
Us becoming more like Christ and less like us is what we are called to do.
It's not just a free ticket out of hell when we say the sinner's prayer and get baptized.
Now we're placed in the body as He has chosen us to be for a work He has prepared beforehand
that we should walk in them.
And sometimes that's going to take you being different than what you came.
It's going to be you being more like Him and less like you.
And I think the importance of that is something that a lot of places are missing.
And I think you mentioned it earlier, because it's not taught enough that we are going to
go through these trials and tribulations and these times of testing to improve our faith
and improve ourselves and to make us more sanctified and separated to God.
Because it's not preached, when it happens, the body's not ready.
They're not prepared.
And who does that fall on?
That's right.
Who does that fall on?
Yeah.
Well, and so that is vital.
What happens, I think, where we're at, because we don't know what direction to go as the
church and we're trying to find our way, a lot of times we get stuck.
We get stuck as individuals in our sanctification.
And I think what's lacking in our circles is a lack of awareness of and openness to
the ministry of the Holy Spirit.
When we get stuck, it's the power of the Holy Spirit that comes to get us unstuck.
And we really need to lean in to impress into and take ownership of, again, the ministry
and the activity of the Holy Spirit.
You and I had several conversations about this on our drive down about how important
the gifts and the ministry and the functions of the Holy Spirit are in the body of Christ
to keep her moving forward.
And I talked about we're not just being sanctified as individuals.
We're being sanctified as a church.
And God is interested in both of those things.
If the church isn't sanctified, the individuals are going to get stuck.
If the individuals are stuck, so is the church.
And so it's really an important topic.
And it goes with what Ross was saying, that people have to be prepared, educated, and
equipped to identify, to be open to, to have confidence in the reality of the Holy Spirit
and His work among us, what He wants to do.
So what about you, Steve?
Well, just to continue that theme, I was thinking about the scripture in Ephesians chapter 5
where Paul's admonition starts off to the family, but it shifts very quickly.
He says, husbands love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave Himself up for her,
that He, now He shifted her, He's not talking about husbands.
He's talking about Christ, that He might sanctify her, the her being the church, having cleansed
her by the washing of the water with the word so that He might present the church to Himself
in splendor without spot or wrinkle or any such thing that she might be holy and without
blemish.
And the singular message of sanctification, of course, has a corporate application.
And I think that's really where this ministry, this forerunning ministry is, I believe that's
where if we could take a step back and look at the macro application, that's where we're
really seeing the Holy Spirit moving.
It always comes down to our individual address, but too often times we've tried to figure
out the things of God by looking at my individual self and my world and then trying to work
it up to the big picture.
And that's where a lot of skew comes in.
We get lost in that transition.
But if we start off what we know the Lord is doing at a macro level, at the high level
with what is Jesus doing in the church?
Well, He's always been doing this, but if there was ever a time that we see, man, this
is the work that is at hand, it's certainly the work that's needed.
It is now.
And I found it interesting where it says, having cleansed her by the washing of the
water with the Word so that He might present the church to Himself.
So He's personally vested in this process of macro sanctification, if we could call
it that, where the church is being woken up, awakened to her purpose and what that really
is.
And I wouldn't even say this, the church, I believe, is being awakened into this hour
kind of like Esther in the sense that Esther, once she became queen, she still wasn't aware
there was a reason why the Lord had allowed her to become queen.
And the church hasn't really understood why the Lord has chosen her as His bride, and
we've kind of made it about us.
But just like Esther found out, Esther, it really wasn't for you, it was for a deliverance
that heaven had at hand.
And I believe the church is waking up to the fact that there's a bigger picture than just
the princess at the ball called the church.
Because actually the bride accompanies a groom, and a bride without a groom isn't married,
right?
And so the church is waking up to get her focus off of herself and onto the groom, because
that's where the eyes of the bride need to be in this hour.
And I believe that's part of what the sanctification process is working, that waking up, that shifting
of the gaze off of ourself, off of the significance of what we think of ourself.
We could go down a micro rabbit trail of, we have way too many, in my opinion, we have
way too many superstars in the church today, specifically in the Church of America.
It's hard to recognize the ministry of Jesus Christ in a lot of superstar-type structures
of churches where people know the names of the leader or the worship team or things that
are all good, but they're not the groom.
And they're not the point.
Anyway, before I start preaching.
Well, okay, so one of the conversations that we had, I've been explaining what being filled
with the Holy Spirit looks like from a Wesleyan perspective.
And so one of the things the holiness tradition will point out is how the disciples acted
before they were filled with the Holy Spirit, how they acted after they were filled with
the Holy Spirit.
Before they were filled with the Holy Spirit, they were bickering over who was greatest.
Right?
Father, grant me and my brother to sit at your right hand and your left hand.
Right?
After they're filled with the Holy Spirit, they're not focused on themselves.
Their weaknesses are their strengths.
They forget about themselves and they're only focused on the mission.
And so what you said was important because I think this is probably one of the biggest
diseases plaguing the church is an excessive focus on me, my image, my audience, my platform.
And we're talking about leaders now.
Yeah.
But I would, I would argue church members do the same thing.
Oh, well, as the leader goes, so go the followers.
That's right.
And I honestly think if the church is going to be filled with the Holy Spirit and prepared
for, she's going to have to get to a place where she forgets about herself.
What's in it for me, protecting my market share, growing my audience and really focus
on how do we please Jesus in every way that we're organizing ourselves, spending our money,
you know, organizing volunteers for ministry, that type of thing.
So which is a lead-in to another topic that I felt like, and we just kind of scratched
the surface, but what is real biblical discipleship that has the maturing of the bride as an end
result in mind or in view, in plain view?
And so I think that's an area that church leaders haven't wrestled with to the degree
because what we've done, unfortunately, in much of at least Western church world is we've
made, and I don't think this has always been the intention, but we've too often made followers
of personalities or church members and not followers and disciples of Christ.
And that is a big challenge.
Typically people want to follow the crowd.
They want to be a part of the action.
And discipleship, it's been my experience, what we're short on is time.
So we think about making disciples, think about how Jesus made disciples.
They went with him every, they were always with Jesus.
And there's just no substitute for spending significant amounts of time around people.
Proximity.
Yeah, who can shape us and mold us.
And going back to making the church a higher priority, it's a two-way street.
The church needs to get focused on the right things so people will be willing to commit
time and invest the time and the energy and the effort into what the church is doing.
And people will do that if the church is focusing on the right things.
Can I simplify it a little bit?
Yeah.
Because I think this will help a lot.
If nobody, as a leader, if nobody in your church can do what you do, you're not discipling.
It's about you.
That's the way I see it.
We are supposed to be training people up to do the work of ministry.
Not just feeding.
And don't get me wrong, feeding is important.
And feeding the body, the scriptures, and the knowledge of moving in the Holy Spirit
and understanding righteousness and holiness, these are very important topics.
But that's not what we're all called to do.
We're supposed to be discipling.
And so we should be training people up to do the very thing we're doing because we can
only reach so many people.
But if I bring up three or four guys and they're doing the exact same thing I'm doing, we're
now reaching four or five times more people than what I would do on my own.
Let me say that in another way.
If all you're doing is feeding the sheep, your ministry already has an expiration date
on it.
See, if Jesus functioned like that when He walked the earth, His ministry would not have
extended past His death.
In other words, there wouldn't have been a quote unquote disciple to carry on.
There wouldn't be a New Testament Church of Jesus Christ because He was reproducing in
them who He was.
You know, as you're sitting here listening, I just, I just, I couldn't help but think,
maybe the Lord is challenging us in this hour because of what it is.
And you know, we have to, we have to find the way this works at ground zero where we
live, but maybe greater proximity in the discipleship process is something the Lord wants to bring
back in vogue, so to speak.
Yeah, and that's challenged by the hustle and bustle of modern life, right?
Absolutely.
But God is, He promises us He's going to send us Elijah before the great and awesome day
of the Lord to turn the hearts of fathers back to the children and the hearts of children
back to the fathers.
Now, I believe that has an application to the literal family unit.
I do with the breakdown in the family that we have, but ultimately it's about people
having their hearts turned back towards their brothers and sisters.
The family of God in Christ and really caring about community and not just national politics
or what's going on with the economy, you know, just really caring about deeply about the
people around them.
And it's not that those places don't have or those things don't have some place or some
significance, but they're not the compass that we're setting the ship to.
That's not the, that's not the direction that we're pointing because ultimately the kingdom
of God or the kingdoms of men will become the kingdoms of our God and His Christ.
So it's not going to be the other way around.
We're not going to morph the kingdom into the politics of men.
But if we do this right, at some point, the kingdom of men become the kingdoms of God
and Christ.
Right on.
One thing in 2024, as we sit here, the church as we know it is dying.
The parking lots are not full.
The pews aren't full and people aren't coming.
But people are still going places, going to the nightclubs, the sporting events, the shopping
malls, the grocery stores.
But the church is the training up room, if you will.
And we've got to get to the business of training up so that ministry can happen.
And really, the ministry is not Sunday morning.
I think Steve kind of been talking about that.
It's what you do when you leave the church.
And you've been talking about that as you minister to people where they are.
And as you do that, then people become curious.
Where did you learn that?
Where did you get that from?
How did you get that?
How do you do that?
And so then they want what you have, but it's time that the adult daycares are no longer
adult daycares.
And it's time that the church is not synonymous with an adult daycare, but yet it's a place
of filling up to go out to work.
Traditionally, we meet to eat and eat to meet and then we go and we come back to meet, eat
again.
And we're interested.
What are we doing outside of pacifying ourselves and entertaining ourselves?
The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.
And I've been so blessed under your ministry to realize and understand that if there are
only five people in the church that are being discipled so that they can go out and make
more disciples.
Because as you said, after Jesus died, then what happened?
Well, we got the apostles, the disciples, we got Paul.
And what did Paul do?
Paul's sitting, he's sitting in jail and in jail, he's writing letters to the different
churches and different geographical areas.
And we've got to get back to that to where we are going out to do ministry.
Ministry is not Sunday morning as we worship God and as we hear God.
That's the supper, if you will.
The equipping phase.
Say again?
The equipping phase.
The equipping phase so that we can go out and do the work.
And the reality is that America is hurting, the world is hurting, America is confused,
the world is confused, the church is confused.
Nobody's doing anything other than hurting.
I want to tell you a story, okay, about how my experience speaks to, you know, we talk
about ministering to people in the quay.
What does that look like?
You know, people wonder, what am I supposed to be doing?
So I was a student at the University of Oklahoma.
I was living a fun life, but there was these guys from Campus Crusade for Christ that would
come knocking on my door time to time, trying to get me to come to Bible studies.
And which I appreciated, I would go to their Bible studies and I would attend and I was
not a socially dynamic personality, you know.
I was not socially well connected.
And so I think after a certain point, these guys kind of got frustrated because the group
wasn't growing.
You know, I wasn't trying to reach anybody because I didn't know anybody.
And so eventually I got a phone call one day from one of these guys.
You know, Kendall, we just want to say we thank you for, you know, attending our groups,
but we think we're going to move on.
We're going to shift our focus to the fraternities and go try and reach out to the fraternities.
And that's where we feel like the Lord wants us to focus our ministry, you know.
And so what you see there is mixed motives.
And I think this is the thing that turns people off with churches, are the mixed motives.
They're doing ministry based upon the perspective of what's in it for me.
How can I build my ministry, build a big group, you know.
I function from those motives myself.
We all function with mixed motives.
But there's a way of going about our life where I'm relating to people not based on
a posture of what's in it for me.
I am perfectly content to give and pour into you and there are no strings attached.
And that is what changes people's lives, you know.
And so that's where the five people comes in.
You've got to learn to find, you know, what pleases the Lord.
That's my source of reward and I will pour into these people even if there's absolutely
nothing in it for me.
And ultimately it's relating to people with those motives that really causes them to say
that thing that Christians always say, well, I just, I was around that person and there's
just something different about them.
It's not because you don't smoke or you don't drink or you don't watch R rated movies.
People don't care about that.
It's this person was willing to invest in me with no strings attached.
And that's what will get people's attention, you know.
And I think another really important aspect of this because you're going to have people
in the body, you know, like you said, what am I supposed to do?
You know, where is my place?
And so we were talking about preparing sermons, you know, just coming to God and, you know,
me and you talked about it too, is, you know, I come to the point where I realize I don't
know what these people need, but you do, right?
I don't know what this congregation needs to hear in this moment, in this season, because
I might preach some real good truth, but if it's not the right time for it, it doesn't
matter how much knowledge we have or how much understanding we have.
Right.
So we come to God and we say, Lord, I don't know what they need, but you do.
So help me get out of the way.
Show me what you want spoken to your people.
Right.
Because they're not my people, they're His.
Right.
And He knows exactly what they need.
And so the reason I'm bringing this up is because it's not just about sermons.
It's about serving in the body.
Lord, you know what you've placed in me.
You know my skills.
You know my ability.
You know my knowledge.
Instead of me trying to figure out where I need to be, show me Father, if anyone lacks
wisdom, let them ask of God who gives freely.
Right.
But let him ask in faith.
That's the key is that when we bring this petition to God, we trust that he's going
to answer it because it falls within his will.
It's exactly what, what, uh, John was talking about.
Right.
And this is the assurance we have.
This is the confidence that we have that if we ask anything according to his will, we
know we have the petitions of what we ask for.
Well, it says we have good works prepared.
God has good works prepared for us before the foundations of the world that we should
walk in them, that we should learn what is that good and perfect will of God.
All of these things are within God's will.
So if we ask God for help in those areas, he's more than willing to give you that help
and to show you where belong.
And then it's not just us thinking where we best fit in our, you know, limited understanding,
but allowing God to use us, not just as a pastor, not just in giving a sermon, but in
every aspect of ministry.
And let me say this about that.
You know, as people do that and they find joy, you know, there's no greater pleasure
than serving God and feeling his pleasure that you're being obedient and it's pleased
with what you're doing.
And then let's go to the discipleship question.
I found something I really love doing.
You know, one of the things Steve suggested we come to this retreat and I thought, man,
I'd like to spend more time with Ross.
I'd like to spend more time with Troy.
So I invited you guys to come because I enjoy hanging out with Steve.
I know he's got some good things to impart and I wanted some other people to share it
with me.
But the discipleship just looks about inviting people to do something with you that you love,
you know?
And so whatever God gives you that you love that's benefiting or enhancing the body of
Christ or the people around you, invite someone else to do it with you.
And that's what making disciples looks like.
I want to read a scripture real quick because you just, you're, and this was not in the
notes, notes.
It wasn't in the thoughts at all, but as you're saying this, I preached a message years ago
and it was titled something like, take somebody with you.
And I'm trying to remember it's in Ecclesiastes.
I'll just pull the verse up.
All right.
It's Ecclesiastes chapter four, verse seven.
And I just felt like the Holy Spirit just prompted me to read this because this describes
a lot of ministry efforts that we currently see.
And he writes, again, I saw vanity under the sun, one person who has no other, neither
son or brother.
And yet there's no end to all of his toil and his eyes are never satisfied with riches
so that he never asks for whom am I toiling and depriving myself of pleasure?
This also is vanity.
In other words, I like how the new King James says is one without air.
And so many God called and anointed leaders, they don't have a revelation that the plan
and purpose of God is that you actually raise up sons and daughters.
Sons and daughters are not followers.
Sons and daughters are air.
So he has, you know, as we just read, he has all this money and are all these riches and
resources, but he's completely alone.
He doesn't have a brother, a son, an heir.
He has no one for a succession within his life, and that alone within itself is a form
of great vanity.
In other words, it's futility because even no matter how effective you are as an individual,
that cycle ends with you.
And I just believe that the Lord is calling us to invest ourselves.
And so I love what you're saying as far as, you know, just creating space for time.
I believe this is going to become more and more commonplace and not necessarily us being
at a camp per se or on a retreat, but just the Lord bringing people along that need whatever
stage of finishing or training or discipling at a time where it fits heaven's purpose in
both sides, if that makes sense.
You know, you're in a brand new position yourself in this church and you're a reformer that
the reformation DNA is who you are is what you carry.
And you know, it's not a one man show.
That's what we inherited from the generation before us.
And we saw too many who were great visionaries and great men of God, but their ministry died
with them.
So the Lord is establishing a reformation that will actually go to the next generation.
And so he's bringing people into these places of influence that actually have a vision for
imparting it into guys like this and guys like myself.
I mean, I'm getting as much as I'm giving.
In fact, I'm probably getting more than I'm giving.
But I really come with a purpose to like, oh, I'm going to go out there and we're going
to do this thing or that.
We're just going to show up and see what the Lord does.
And I believe it's requiring, especially for leaders, a level of humility that we feel
like it may stretch us.
It may even challenge us.
But humility is the order of the day.
You know, one thing I've learned in the time that I've been on the planet and walking with
the Lord, I don't always hear the Lord directly, but I have had to learn to hear the Lord indirectly
through every person that I'm around.
And the more sensitive I am to hear the Lord through the people around me, the more I hear
him directly.
That's interesting because humility is the ingredient at the center of that.
Oh, I'm sorry.
The Holy Spirit hadn't spoke that to me.
Well, maybe he's trying right now.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, I've always said, I believe God speaks to people.
I just don't trust myself to hear him right.
And it's usually the excessive self-focus that causes me to not hear what God is actually
doing and saying because I want to hear what I want to hear, not what God is actually saying.
And it's difficult to get past that.
And when you're not alone, love covers a multitude of transgressions.
And I love that.
You know, I have adult children that are around me, and they like to tease Dad right in front
of them.
But at the end of the day, man, they're Dad's fiercest supporters.
And I so appreciate that because Dad needs it.
Dad is completely vulnerable, and he's not an island unto himself.
He doesn't stand on his own two feet.
And if there's anything I want my kids to see, it's that Dad's still moving in the purposes
of heaven, but he's doing it with others.
Because I think that's maybe the greatest gift that we pass on to the next generation.
And that is how to have a kingdom assignment and bring others along with you.
Because that wasn't something we inherited.
You know, that wasn't modeled out by many who we came up under.
You know, the one-man, one-person, top-down model of ministry, unfortunately, has been
the order of the day, and too often still is.
And I'm not saying there's no assignments where that may not be the application.
I just feel like we're talking about in this Reformation phase, Elijah at the end of the
age is turning fathers to sons.
And he's uniting families, and specifically the family of God.
And I believe sons of God within the house of God is the goal of God, if I could say
it that way.
Amen.
Yeah.
Well, that's always been God's goal from the Garden of Eden to the end is to create a family
that he is living intimately with in an intimate relationship on the earth.
And that's what's so sad about the great man model, the great leader model.
Those guys wind up lonely and empty as much as they might have accumulated and broken.
And you know, when people die, it's always said, people look back on their life and it's
not the thing that they regret the most is not spending more time with their family.
They don't regret spending more time at work.
You know, they don't regret the children that they had.
The thing that they value the most is the children that they had.
And so the priority of learning to love one another well, and really enjoy good friends
and good relationships is really where the good stuff is in the church.
That's what the church ought to be the best at.
Ought to be the best at.
They will know you.
They will how does the verse go in John 13?
By this they will know that how does it go?
Ross, you got it over there?
I'm trying to get to it.
Steve, maybe to get to it quicker by Google.
What book?
John chapter 13.
I always just say they'll know you by your love for one another.
But I think you're right.
I think there's more to it than that.
By this they will know that Jesus is real.
By your love for one another.
So and really when we say that, we use that word so much in the church.
We're talking about people who really have cultivated such good relationships that they're
like family.
You know, these are the people that I want to be around.
And that really glorifies and reveals the truth and the reality of the risen Jesus Christ.
You know?
By this the world will know that you are my disciples.
By your love for one another.
There you go.
Boom.
There you go.
That's it.
And so coming out of a post COVID era, right?
And don't get me wrong.
It's such a blessing to just be able to pick up your phone and be able to listen to someone
teach you the ways of God.
That is such a huge gift that other generations didn't get to experience.
Right?
And you know, if you want to hear somebody preach, you know, unless it was on the radio
or is on TV, you would have to go see them personally.
All right?
And now we can just turn on our phones and listen to that.
The problem is, is that some people are trying to sustain their walk of faith on just YouTube
videos and online church.
And that will never sustain because it was never intended to.
And that's what you're getting at here is the importance of the collective body.
You know, I am the I'm a living testimony of that.
And I still to this day, some of my greatest teachers are people that I've never met before.
Right.
But you know, I got saved watching television and I would come home and watch television
every night, learned a lot about Christianity, but was never able to become established as
a follower of Jesus Christ until I got connected to an actual church.
When I get connected to an actual church is whenever I started making progress beyond
my baby diapers that I didn't have anyone to take care of for me.
You know, I couldn't you can't do it without the actual physical body of Christ.
I'm a firm believer also that the and I believe the Bible bears this out, that at the end
of the age at the Lord's return, what we will have is this communal connection.
It won't be platforms built on technology, ministry of all types of varieties outwardly,
but it will be believers living in community.
Define that a variety of different ways.
I'm not talking about sectarian communes are off living in the hills, although undoubtedly
there will be some of that.
But I believe you will see as in the beginning, you will have the Church of Jesus Christ having
all things in common in one way or another with real kingdom relational equity at the
core.
And like you said, like family and that's going to be, I believe the greatest thing
will possess at the return of the Lord.
Speaking of that acts chapter two, they held all things in common, right?
You know what was motivated?
It's important to realize what was motivated them.
They weren't being coerced by a socialist agenda.
The reason they were sharing and holding all things in common was because your presence
is so important to me, I'm willing to sacrifice so that you can be here because I love you.
And this just isn't the same if you're not here.
You know, that's love that motivated them.
And why should you suffer when I have something that would fill that need?
Yeah.
And let me give you this scripture.
It's John 13.
35 is the actual scripture, but 34 kind of sets it up.
Okay.
It says, cause it's in red, a new commandment I give to you that you love one another as
I have loved you, that you also love one another.
By this all will know that you are my disciples.
If you have love for one another.
Amen.
And it's important to understand there's a place to love the lost, but the sign to the
lost or the unbeliever is the love for one another within God's people.
I mean, that's really what he's pointing out.
Yes.
And that's so powerful.
You know, it's not, there's nothing that can trump that.
There's nothing more winsome than seeing a circle of friends that you would just die
to be a part of.
You know, uh, so.
I love that idea of, you know, how can you say that you love God whom you cannot see
when you don't even love those whom you do see, you know, that is such a strong scripture
and it really makes you evaluate your genuine love for one another, which over and over
again in first John, if you have hate for your brother, the love of God is not true.
Love is not in you.
Right.
Over and over again, he testifies of how important this love is for one another.
And how can you exercise that love outside of the church, you know, which don't get me
wrong.
I understand, you know, there's home churches, but that's, that's the church too, you know,
where there is a gathering of Jesus's disciples.
That is the church.
And if you are not participating in that, how are you loving one another?
You can get all the knowledge, all the information, do all your Bible study, doing all your prayer.
But if you're not practicing love with one another, are you truly following Jesus Christ?
The evidence of your love for your brother is your participation in the life of the church.
So there, you know, there are actually three things in first John.
They're like a litmus test for whether or not you are a child of God.
And Wesley, John Wesley would highlight these three things in many different places.
And it touches on everything we've talked about here.
We'll know that you've passed from death to life because you obey his commandments.
Okay.
So first litmus test.
Do you have a desire to know his commandments?
How can you obey his commandments if you don't know his commandments?
Our desire to grow in the knowledge of God is our desire to know how to be more fully
obedient to God and related to God.
Number two, you said it.
We'll know that we pass from death to life because of our love for the brothers.
And then the third litmus test.
We know that we are children of God because God's spirit bears witness with our spirit
that we are his children.
It is an awareness lines of communication established with the inner indwelling person
of the Holy Spirit.
I am familiar with the Holy Spirit.
I know his voice and he gives me a real assurance that I belong to God.
So the work and ministry of the Holy Spirit is active in a person's life.
Those are three clear things we're given to know whether or not we really belong to God,
the family of God, and we're making progress towards our ultimate sanctification.
I would even add to that.
I believe one of the most foundational fundamental ways to learn to hear the voice and the direction
of the Holy Spirit is in that communal setting.
Because I remember when I was very young in that, which is it's a paradox thinking about
it now, because I have a tendency to function in a prophetic type of a ministry at times,
people assume, oh, you must be really good at hearing the Lord.
No, I was the last person to hear the Lord.
I mean, that was when I was coming up, I was the, in fact, I had to have people around me
who could hear the Lord tell me you're hearing the Lord for me to recognize what I was hearing
was the Lord.
Now you would think that would be obvious, but here was why it wasn't.
I was hearing the Lord in a such a fundamental way that there's you could misunderstand what
I'm about to say that it felt oftentimes like my own thoughts.
That's important because it was coming to me at a level like my thoughts might like
ideas.
And I would just think that's a good idea.
But then when I would verbalize it or act on it, people would say, that's the Lord.
That's you didn't come up with that on your own.
And so I appreciate that.
I learned to recognize the voice of the Lord, not in some mystical, you know, self isolated
YouTube training video type of a way, but actually in the mix with other believers that
I was in community with who were way down the road in hearing the Lord from where I
was because, you know, that's why the scripture says, you know, when the prophets, when there's
prophecy going forth, let one or two, three at the most prophesy and then the others judge
the other what the other prophets because there's an element of judgment that prophets
can recognize prophecy based on the maturing of the gift in their own selves.
Now, that's an example that may not seem to happen application, but it applies in this
way.
People who are mature in hearing the Lord will help you in your growth pattern of hearing
the Lord far greater and at a far accelerated rate than you can ever learn on your own because
they'll help you just bypass so much of the mistakes that you have that they made on their
own and that you don't have to make because let's face it, we've all had ideas that we
thought were God and it turns out that wasn't the Lord at all.
Well, there's an accountability to hearing the Lord that can take place in community
that I just believe, especially with people you trust, man, I don't know.
I just keep having this thought.
I really feel likes the Lord because it's so much easier.
Like I don't it's not going to be skin off my teeth if somebody else shares something
that I feel like the Lord.
And I say, you know, that witnesses with me.
In other words, I'm adding my agreement or, you know, I'm not going to say it's not the
Lord.
I'm just going to say, I don't know about that.
You know, you know, I'll pray with you about it that you hear the Lord.
But I would I'm looking for does this witness with you or do you does this register with
you at all?
Yeah, because that's going to help me grow in my own discernment.
Yeah.
And that's that's something that the Holy Spirit you said earlier.
You learn to hear the Lord through the reactions of other people.
Can you tell me how you said that again?
Because that was an important thing that you said.
Probably not.
But based upon the reactions and the responses and you can see it in their face whether or
not God is speaking and working through.
Well, what I just what I said was I was hearing the Lord in things that I didn't recognize
was the Lord, but they recognized it was the Lord.
Yeah.
And that's a challenge, hey, you're really hearing the Lord in this.
You need to pay attention to what you're getting in that.
This was back earlier in the conversation.
But I think the important point is whenever the body of Christ is together, the Holy Spirit
is working in a dynamic way and he's witnessing his will and confirming it through the relationships
that are built.
And so when I say something that's from the Lord, it energizes you.
And that gives you a witness.
The Holy Spirit is bearing witness that, hey, let's do this.
Let's think this way about this.
And there's life to it.
Let me give you the scripture that we're talking about.
It's Hebrews chapter 10 verse 25.
Let me go to 24 just to add a little context.
And let us consider one another to provoke unto love and to good works, colon.
25, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together as the manner of some is, but exhorting
one another and so much the more as you see the day approaching.
That's exactly right.
That's exactly it.
Now, we say that last phrase as if it was just a customary greeting, but now let's really
look at what the last phrase of that was.
So much more as you see the day approaching.
Now, prophetically, I can hear in that that what we're experiencing in a microcosm or
let's say it like this.
What we're experiencing here as a first fruit, I believe the Lord is giving you and giving
all of us a strategy for discipleship.
That's yeah, it's maybe going to require a little more of us, but it's because the time
requires more from us.
It's because we're in that as you see the day approaching, do it all the more.
And we're in that all the more space right now.
I mean, far more than the writer of Hebrews was at that particular time.
We're coming right down to the end for sure.
Yeah, this weekend we've kind of talked about this.
We've talked about this this weekend.
There are farmers who say, I don't need to go to church.
There are people who just stopped going to church.
Church attendance is down all over this nation.
I don't know if the same is in Europe and in Africa, et cetera, et cetera, but in America,
church attendance is down.
And this is clear, forsake not.
And Steve shared this with us even earlier about his ministry, how it really, the prophetic
ministry is a corporate ministry and how God speaks to him in that corporate body.
And it's important because as you're saying, there's so much that we need from one another
that we don't even know that we need.
That's exactly right.
But once we come together, then it quickens in us.
Yeah, we're not even aware of our need.
Right.
That's right.
I mean, the Holy Spirit, that's why the that's why the Bible says, you know, talking about
praying with the Spirit because the Spirit is praying in a way that we don't even know.
You know, our understanding isn't always fruitful.
Well, that same application is touching all these things we're talking about.
And it's only when we get together like this that we realize, OK, something's being met
at a need level that I wouldn't have recognized had I stayed isolated.
You know, and there's a lot of different ways that can happen.
You know, and I'm not somebody who believes that the institution of the church is the
only representation, the macro institution of the church.
Yes, but any one individual church isn't the only representation of the church and the
earth.
I believe the church of the earth is wherever you find God's people and the government of
God functioning.
And there's a critical second component.
And there's probably a few other things we could say with that.
Well, because we have the government, you have the order and where you have the order,
you have the message, you have the ministry, you have the application.
You have the, you know, the kingdom, really.
So there's components that we're getting just by coming together that we don't get on our
own.
But yet it's like food.
The longer you starve yourself, the less hungry you become to the point where you start deteriorating
and you're not even aware of it.
It's so true.
And I think that's been happening in churches because the churches aren't aligned properly.
They're not focused on the right things.
People are facing malnutrition, spiritual malnutrition and people wither away.
But I think Ross, that decline, if the church realigns, gets focused on the right things,
the nutrients start flowing.
You know, that's when the conditions for revival can happen.
You know, our particular church, we're going through a reformation.
And there will be prophetic types, when I say that, more academic prophetic types,
who would say there will be no revival without reformation.
There's no point in praying for revival if you're not going to reform.
Well, we've been going through a reform, I think the more we really dial into aligning
ourselves properly, focused on the right things, preaching the right message, that puts us
in a position to receive revival.
And when revival comes, you don't have to beg people to come to church.
I love who is it, Leonard Ravenhill, famous quote from him was, you don't have to advertise
a fire.
Yeah.
And he said that in view of John Wesley's ministry as well.
He was a great Methodist.
Wesley, I've heard that.
Or Leonard Ravenhill.
Leonard Ravenhill.
Yeah.
You know, something else that just keeps coming up in our conversations here, this time we've
had together, is the overcorrection that you've talked about seeing throughout your whole
church life.
And what we're seeing now in the church is, and what I mean by overcorrection is, take
for instance, people in the charismatic circles, right?
They see abuses of it.
They see things that they just know aren't genuine.
And so because of that, they, instead of correcting it, they overcorrect it.
And they go so far on the other side of it that they just don't believe the Holy Spirit
moves anymore.
And you know, the scripture's clear.
Jesus told them, do not even go out and minister until you have received power from on high.
Now that power is to be an efficient witness of Jesus Christ, right?
That looks different for everybody.
Wherever God has placed you, he's going to empower you by the Holy Spirit.
But you can't let what other people have done change the fact of what the scripture's
clearly teach, right?
We were talking the same thing about with this huge movement to the Eastern Orthodox
Church, right?
People are getting tired of worship being a rock concert.
People are getting tired of sermons being a TED Talk, right?
They realize, is this really worshiping Jesus?
Is this really how we worship Jesus?
And they want something more stable.
And we talked about something more ancient, right?
And so instead of correcting these things, they over-correct and jump to the Eastern
Orthodox Church, right?
And so we see it in so many different ways.
And so I think instead of jumping all the way back, is we just be honest with ourselves
and say, what does the scripture say, right?
We don't have to ignore a piece of scripture because other people are preaching it wrong.
Yeah, and you talk about the kind of the shallow entertainment-driven church landscape that's
catering to people's need or desire to stay anonymous and to come and experience a good
show and have some good feelings and then go back focused on me, myself, and I.
And add to that the cultural chaos that has been unleashed on our culture, where all of
that instability and division is just driving people to seek something that has not changed.
It's an anchor for my soul.
This is something that has stayed the same for 2,000 years.
And it's an over-correction because it's stuck in the past.
Let me say this also.
This is my favorite definition of error, is taking any singular truth to the exclusion
of other truths.
You follow me?
Yep.
And we can't even say any one truth, and really because we understand truth is fully manifest
in the person of Jesus Christ.
We can't even say any one truth.
We have to say any singular facet of truth because truth is total or whole in him.
There's not a concept that's the totality of truth.
So it's any one particular facet of truth to the exclusion of other truths, kind of
like these disciplines that people focus on from a denominational reference to the exclusion
of other things that have similar or same or some importance, but just completely relegating
them to irrelevance.
And so the pendulum swing is just that.
But basically what we're doing is we're saying, I don't want, you know, it's like the proverbial,
there's a ditch on either side.
And just going from one side of the road to the other side, you're still in a ditch.
And so, what's that?
That's good.
Oh, yeah, you're still in a ditch.
It may be a different ditch, but you've just gone from one ditch to another ditch.
And I agree with what you said.
No, let's bring correction.
What is correction?
It's got to come back into a kingdom perspective where Jesus gets everything he paid for.
You know, one of the prophecies we're still waiting to be fulfilled is where the Lord
said to my Lord, sit here until your enemies are made your footstool.
So that means at some point, all the enemies of Christ are going to be ultimately put under
his feet.
That's the goal.
That's the present day ministry of Jesus Christ in the earth.
You want to say something?
Well, I was just reading this morning in my theology of John Wesley book, getting clarity,
you know, Wesley applied that book.
Wesley applied that book, what you said is absolutely true.
But the real work he's doing is putting all of his enemies under his feet in my mind and
heart.
You know, now that's that verse, I believe is talking about a corporate thing, but I
need to be mindful.
He's got a lot of work left to do in my mind and heart in regards to that verse.
Yeah.
And usually the truth I love is the one I'm most grounded in.
Right.
In other words, or the facet of truth.
I love the facets of truth that I'm solid in.
Yeah.
It's the other facets or it's the other facets of Christ's person that the Holy Spirit is
committed to working in me that I don't want to commit myself to.
Right.
Yeah.
And that's the staying in the middle of the road requires, I don't know why it's so hard.
Why is that so hard to do?
You know, there's a book called Failure of Nerve.
And the book is describing why organizations that could be a family, it could be a church,
it could be a business, it could be any type of social system.
Why did they get bogged down into mediocrity?
It's usually because they're allowing the weakest person in the group to dictate the
agenda.
They refuse to exercise the courage to hurt somebody's feeling and do what they know what
is right for the group rather than for the individual.
Yeah, and functionally it looks like even as leaders we're preaching to the weakest
element of the group that we're overseeing.
So we always have the consideration of how this particular individual or this particular
segment of people are going to respond instead of holding the standard, the biblical standard,
you know, or shifting the focus back.
You know, think about this on a micro level.
Anytime the, we'll come back to sanctification, anytime sanctification is working out in our
individual lives, let's take just a particular area of behavior that the Holy Spirit is dealing
with in us and you know, it would be real easy for us to then shift our focus on that.
And I've learned that's almost never the approach or the solution.
There's no solution in navel gazing where I am shifting my focus onto what the Lord
is doing.
And part of knowing the Lord is doing it, there's a timing to that too and trying to
do that outside of time is always disaster.
Like you're not going to perform your own sanctification process.
You're going to cooperate with the Lord at the timing that He chooses, you know, wherever
you're at in that as it is anyway.
Hopefully.
Well, even if you're not cooperating with it, He still chose the timing you didn't.
But if I focus on doing it, I'm going to make a mess of it because I don't have the ability
just because I, really the first step of this is awareness.
I mean, awareness, awareness just means the invitation has hit the inbox and I've suddenly
read the email and it's like, Oh Lord, you're identifying this thing you want to do in me.
You know, really my only posture at that point, at least initially is I, I'm, I'm incapable.
I have a need.
This is it.
And I give it to you.
I mean, it doesn't mean I ignore it, but it doesn't mean I said about trying to fix it
either because that's always a recipe for it.
I've never seen anybody be successful trying to fix themselves.
But it doesn't mean that I'm exempt from the sanctification process.
There's a cooperation and you know, that's where the Holy Spirit is masterful at working
things indirectly versus me trying to fix it directly.
If that makes sense.
One way you said is important.
Getting the process means being available and being willing to be made aware.
You know, I can't, I can't partner with the Holy Spirit and fixing a problem I'm not aware
of and the Holy Spirit can't fix the problem in me if I'm not available.
A good friend of mine who were, she's a counselor and she does a lot in deliverance type ministries.
One of her best quotes and I quote her on this all the time is she said, you got to
say hello to a thing before you can say goodbye to it.
Yeah.
Amen.
Even if it's a little more than that, right?
You know, that's at least the starting point and, and often just becoming aware of something
is already moving you in the direction of freedom.
Yeah.
And so I just want to get into that a little bit more deeper because that is vital to understand.
God sees us through and through.
He knows things about us.
We don't even know about ourselves, right?
And I love how the Bible puts it, you know, talks about us not hardening our hearts, but
having a soft heart, right?
And then it talks about our faith being tested by fire, right?
As silver and gold is purified, right?
And so when, when gold has the impurities in it, it's hard, right?
The more pure gold is, the more dense it is, the more softer it is, right?
Just like a heart.
The less impurities there are in our hearts, the softer it's going to be, right?
But it takes putting the gold in the fire, heating it up, and then putting a dross on
it to draw those imperfections to the surface.
And so when we talk about the sanctification process, it's when we go through these times
of uncomfortable, right?
Hardships things start to come out, right?
Things that we didn't even realize were still in there, but they come to the surface.
And the truth is, we don't want them to come to the surface.
I don't want to appear to be the sinful man that I am in front of my brothers and sisters
in Christ, right?
I don't want these imperfections coming out when others are around, right?
But if they do not come to the surface, they will remain hidden.
And so these trials and these times of sanctification that we're supposed to cooperate in, right?
It takes going through some heated moments, going through some times of uncomfortability
that brings these things to the surface.
And then we see them.
And that's what you're talking about.
And don't run, don't run from it, which I've done.
Stay put.
Yes.
And so he's bringing that out so we can address it.
You can't say goodbye to something until you say hello to it.
Allow it to come out so that you can recognize it for what it is.
And now you can come to God and say, okay, Lord, it's here.
I see it.
You've been seeing it.
What do we do about it?
You know, you're hitting on something that I think is so vital to realize.
And again, it comes back to this posture of humility.
Humility recognizes an individual's need, an awareness of need.
Humility, in my opinion, is, summarize, awareness of need.
And people who don't function from a position of, I'm only here by the grace of God, it's
not false humility.
It's just agreeing with what he's saying.
You know, if he says you're this, then agreeing with him is not false humility.
It's agreeing, yeah, you're right.
It is this because we're not standing on our own merits anyways.
And in ministry too often, we feel like we have to stand on our own merits.
It's like I have to put my best foot forward.
I have to put my best ministry face on, my best outfit.
And you know, I do that.
I don't like to show up preaching somewhere looking like a slob.
I mean, there's an element of that that is expected.
But when it comes to humility, humility is agreeing with the Lord on the level of, you're
right, I have a need that you've made me aware of, but it's not.
So you know, and this is part of that whole ministry tension.
It's not so I can grovel or be weak.
It's so that I can be more aware of your power in this moment.
Because I'm not standing here because, and that's how you know you're called.
I'm not here because I'm perfect, because I'm more qualified, more capable, a greater
speaker.
I'm not standing.
It's like David.
David didn't struggle with his son's insurrection and rebellion.
He simply said, the Lord put me in this position, and if the Lord's done with me, He will take
me out.
But if not, I'll be back.
You know, I'm not standing because of anything that I'm putting on myself in any type of,
in any posture really.
We only stand in the places that God's given us and the authority that He's given us.
So I mean, you know, Kendall's in this leadership role at the church you all attend.
It's not because he's the most qualified, capable, you know, and I think he's very qualified,
very capable, and that's not even the point.
But it's really not because of all that.
It's because he's stayed put through enough process to where the promotion of the Lord
came for this season.
And that's a word for all of us.
We step into promotion not because we're the better choice, but because we stayed in process
to the point where the Lord says, now I can use you.
The sanctification meets the glorification for acceleration.
Now, come on, that's a good word right there, right?
Let's go.
Come on.
I'm just ready to like get up and run lapsed now.
Where, what was that?
Uh, hike that we were going to do that.
Lighthouse.
Here we go.
Parks closed.
No, seriously.
We're all moving in a promotion cycle and I love it.
You know, people always talk about, you know, you know, one thing in the prophetic world,
prophetic promises to people about promotion always get a bad rap because they come singularly.
But if you're talking about prophetic or promotion that comes because you've been faithful to
a process that is kingdom.
And if we will embrace the process that the Lord has, he knows what he's preparing us
for.
You know, I may feel like I'm in the weakest state of my life, but I also have this other
gear that I realize I'm in the most powerful state of my life because even in my weakened
state the Lord can move me into places that he was never ready to move me into before.
Does that make sense?
Absolutely.
Yeah.
And so I think sanctification, which really in my language, in the perspective I like
to present it as is God is preparing you for good works.
You already know the call, you know, and we want to rat it out in our youthful zeal and
do the call yesterday.
And we want to do it in the strength of our flesh, in zealousness, in all the emotion
and energy, but the Lord can't partner with that, but he's not, you know, he's for us
and he loves that we want to do it.
I mean, he's like, we're going to work some of those things out.
I want, you're going to love it and you're also going to like it more if we do it my
way, because you're going to have fruit that remains.
You may not like the process it's going to take to get to the place where you have fruit
that remains, but it's actually going to be that refining process where the gold comes
out and it's not going to be fool's gold because I believe fool's gold is people who have a
legitimate call, but yet they would not submit to process.
Final thought on that, Saul and David, you have two kings both appointed by God, but
one of them, the Lord has a decade or more to work with process and the other one, he's
got to put in the job tomorrow.
I mean, on paper, David's grievances were as bad and, you know, murder, idolatry, in
my mind, they're at least on equal footing, but the Lord had enough time to work a process
in David to where his heart was always after him.
Saul had no time to have process worked in him and he never got over the smallness, which
means the insecurities that he brought into the equation.
That you know, the insecurity while you're talking earlier about, you know, things come
into the surface.
For me, that's usually my anxieties.
It's the fear and the anxieties that cause us to get out of alignment with God's will,
the avoiding those things that scare us, that intimidate us, that make us feel insignificant.
And you know, with David and Absalom, the example, David was not going to allow those
things to dominate his mind and heart and that kept him out of the way so that God could
work and do what he wanted to do.
But learning to not be controlled by our fear, our anxieties and our insecurities, there's
no shortcut to that.
And if you had promoted yourself, then you have no resistance to those things.
Those things are going to control you the whole way.
And unfortunately, we see too many leaders who the Lord actually has something for, but
they've gotten out ahead of the timing of the Lord and insecurity destroys them and
those who are closest around them because they didn't wait for the process and the timing
to converge like in the life of David, like in the life of Joseph.
You know, there's so many biblical leaders that you see the backstory for a reason.
Paul's another one that I love.
You know, Paul has this incredible encounter with Christ.
He's debating and witnessing and preaching in the synagogues immediately, but then he
goes away into the wilderness of Arabia for 13, 14 years and has no communication with
the apostolic council other than here or there.
And it's only when the Lord reveals that it's time to go up that he steps out.
So he's in this delay cycle waiting for the fullness of the assignment.
And when the fullness of assignment comes, he hits the ground running like a shot.
You know what I'm saying?
It's like the timing of heaven, the purpose of heaven, the giftings and the maturing sanctification
process has completed enough to where the Lord's inviting you into the fullness of what
he's called you to because his timing is right.
Hallelujah.
They sounded different, didn't it?
That kind of had a little more energy to it.
Come on.
And you know, you were talking about a lot of times it's the enemy within, right?
The betrayal that we see in ministry and how many churches we've seen split because somebody
felt like they've been slighted in life.
Somebody, like you said, they feel the calling.
They know God's calling them and they want it quicker than it's happening.
My thing is this is what if our mind shift was, Lord, I do not want to step into that
until you know that I'm prepared and that I'm ready because no authority is given except
such by God.
Right.
If God wants you in that position, guess what?
You're going to be in that position.
So if you're not in that position, then obviously there's still a process that we need to go
to.
Let's say it like this.
I believe the Lord is not setting any of us up for failure.
And it doesn't mean we won't experience setbacks.
And we can't, you know, Paul didn't voice his setbacks as a negative.
He used them as qualification for the apostolic call on his life.
But I've learned that even betrayal is an indicator that I'm on the right track.
But it's also a testing process.
If I'll even let the betrayals, let the Lord deal with those, but not, you know, just not
let them suck me because those things come to suck you in and take you off course.
But the only way they get me is if I'm trying to promote myself faster because the Lord's
not going to set us up for failure.
If I'm speaking in football terms, there are too many times we see people out punting their
coverage.
You know what I'm saying?
They're trying to get into a space that God probably legitimately has for them, which
is why it's in their heart.
They're just trying to get into it ahead of time.
And sometimes the Lord in his wisdom will let us, okay, go ahead, go ahead and run over
there.
You know, if we're sticking with the football analogy outside of your coverage and see what
it feels like because there's an attack of the enemy that comes within the realm of grace.
Come on, I'm preaching real good right here.
There's attack of the enemy that comes when I'm in the realm of my assignment.
And even though it's warfare, I'm equipped to withstand it.
But then there's an attack of the enemy that comes when I'm exposed.
And when I'm exposed, it's because I've put myself in a place that God has not yet authorized
me to step into.
And the enemy has an access to me that does not have a grace bubble around it.
See, Paul had this, this contention with heaven and that was, Lord, I am tired of the persecution
everywhere I go, the Judaizers are stirred up against me.
And three times he took it to the Lord because the persecution was so intense.
But three times the Lord said, no, I'm not going to take that away because you're carrying
revelation that I have to give to somebody.
And the only thing that's going to keep you in check in this moment is the persecution
that I put you around.
But it's not persecution outside of the grace that's on your life.
It's not persecution that can take you out.
It's actually persecution that's going to propel you forward in the things I've called
you to because your call to those arenas.
Now if the persecution could take him out, that would be a clear indicator that Paul
was outside of the grace.
But God said, no, I'm not going to take out the hardships.
Instead, I'm going to give you a greater revelation of the empowerment that's on you.
And I love this.
If you look to Acts chapter 27, the most profound thing happens because Paul's coming
into this culmination of his ministry cycle.
And Paul himself, who is a prophet, he says to, and Acts 27 is where they're pressing
out into the storm.
And Paul tells the ship owner and the Roman centurion, look, if you all do this, it's
not only going to end with great destruction to the ship, but it's also going to include
a lot of life.
Now, come on, hang on right here because this is a really good part.
But the overriding plans of heaven are in this moment as well.
So Paul, even though he has an unction, if we do this, it's going to be at great destruction.
We see as they press into the storm, there is great destruction, but there's no loss
of life.
Finally, Paul tells him, go ahead and eat because I've had a vision from an angel.
And the angel said this.
Don't fear, Paul.
The higher call on your life is superseding this moment and the ship may be destroyed,
but you're going to stand before Caesar because that was the high place that God was taking
Paul to in the moment.
Right?
And oh, as a bonus, there'll be no loss of life.
So the fullness of the calling with persecution landed in a moment where heaven, and this
is where I love, I'm learning to love.
You got to be careful when you say this because it's scary when you look back and say, man,
did I let that come out of my mouth?
I'm learning to love the moments of persecution I experienced in the bubble of grace within
the realms of authority that I know I've been given permission to go into because I know
heaven's got me covered in those.
The ones that should scare us all is when we step into arenas that God hasn't authorized
us to.
We know he has them, but he hasn't authorized us yet because those things will take me out
and I will have stepped into a place that the coverage of heaven is not going to intervene.
But even when the idiocy and the ignorance of other people press Paul into a situation
where everyone should be lost, come on, I feel the Holy Ghost on this.
Yes, sir.
The overriding purposes of heaven stepped in and said, no, this is where grace is far
greater than anything the enemy can throw at you because you're going to stand before
Caesar.
And standing before Caesar, it wasn't about Caesar's salvation.
It was that heaven was getting ready to announce a greater kingdom at the highest authority
in the land.
There was a confrontation.
Come on, we're talking about, you know, we love how we keep going to the end of the world
and the Antichrist.
There's a confrontation at the highest level of human governance where the kingdom of God
is getting ready to be announced at the highest level.
And watch what happens.
Then the clock is ticking on Rome.
The kingdom's been announced and now the clock is ticking.
And it's not about Caesar accepting Christ or not, it's that the kingdoms of God have
become, or the kingdoms of men have become the kingdoms of our God, his Christ.
So the long and the short of that is embrace the process.
You know, none of us want to sign up for the uncomfortable thing.
But I will sign up for standing before Caesar, which is the culmination of the fullness,
however many shipwrecks, come on Ross, you know this, no matter how many shipwrecks you
go through, how many people have betrayed you, sold you out.
There is a place where we're moving in the coverage of heaven that goes so far beyond
even the betrayal we experience at this level.
Look at where the Lord has placed you.
You're so far, I mean you're in a place that you could not have put yourself, you know,
even though it feels like at times you're holding on to the broken pieces of the ship,
right?
You know, I'm just floating on the broken pieces.
But the angel of the Lord appeared and said, but don't fear, you're going to stand before
Caesar.
This thing's going to go all the way to the end.
Come on, it's going to go all the way to the end.
It's going to go all the way to the end and nothing is going to keep that from happening,
not the trials, not the tests, not the persecution.
What was Jesus really saying to him?
Get your eyes off of that.
Get your eyes off of that because if you'll learn to lean into grace right here, it cannot,
that persecution, whatever the enemy's doing, we have to see persecution or we have to see
the thorn in the flesh as spiritual warfare.
It doesn't even matter what the manifestation, too many times we have wasted too much time
arguing over what it is and we missed the point of what it was for.
That's good.
It's spiritual warfare that's come to distract us and get us off course.
It can't stop us.
Why?
Because Paul came up the process the same way.
Why couldn't David be taken by Absalom?
Because he came up the process the same way.
Why couldn't Joseph?
Why didn't prison take him out?
Why didn't slavery take him out?
Why didn't betrayal take him out?
Why?
Because he stayed in process and he kept his heart right.
Because this is what I was saying earlier, it became very clear that heaven had an agenda.
What ultimately are we all going to stand on?
Heaven's got an agenda for you.
You don't fully realize it yet.
You know, I'm speaking to me.
I don't fully realize it, but I know heaven's got an agenda.
As long as I'll stay connected to that process and stay within the coverage of grace that
goes with that process and be content.
You know, that's where godliness with contentment is great gain.
That I'm not trying to be something like you said, you know, the vanity of bigger audience,
bigger this, bigger that.
You know, we were talking about discipleship earlier and it just occurred to me, man, if
you had five people sold out that you were discipling, I mean, could the town of Hobbes,
New Mexico withstand the backlash of what that would be?
I mean, give me five people that are just willing to just throw it all down and run
the gauntlet.
You don't even need five.
I mean, if you have three or four of those, you could just turn that whole thing upside
down because revival is coming.
I'm going to shut up with that.
Revival is coming, but the reformation had to come first.
Amen.
See, we just had to talk long enough until Steve got stirred up and started preaching.
And then that's where the real juice was going to start coming.
So one thing I would add to that about the process when you're carrying the burden of
a calling and a calling is accompanied by desires.
Some of the deepest desires are your desires to give expression to what Jesus Christ has
laid a hold of you for.
The biggest temptation in the process is to want to reach out and manipulate the process
to gratify that thing, that itch, that hunger that you have.
Which is why it was a real temptation when the enemy pulls Jesus up to the high place
and he shows him the kingdoms of men and their glory.
Because it was, which means he really had them.
It was something he could really give Jesus and it wasn't, Jesus didn't say, I'm not interested
in that.
He just wasn't going to get it in an illegitimate way because that is actually what he was coming
for.
Exactly.
And part of finishing the process is no longer being tempted by that itch to manipulate,
to distort, to put false acceleration on the things that God wants to do.
Just like with David, with Absalom, he just got up and left town.
Well think about it on the front side, how many opportunities David had to take Saul
out.
Yeah.
And to take what was rightly his.
But even the elders said, oh David, we always knew it was you.
We always knew it was you, right?
But we had to go along with Saul.
You know, Saul was a king.
It's like, wow, do you hear the words come out of your mouth right at this moment?
You know, I know we were trying to kill you, but we really wanted you dead.
And with the Absalom thing, not only am I not going to defend this, I'm not even going
to be present when it goes down.
I'll just leave you here for the Lord to just deal with you directly.
Yeah.
And that's what happened.
So you guys got anything else you want to say?
I mean that was very good.
That was very good.
You know, and as leaders step into this and as the body steps into this, I think what's
really important to understand is to be what God is calling you to be.
You know what I mean?
People might hear somebody.
Yes, people might hear somebody preach in the style that they preach in the style that
they do it.
And all of a sudden I want to be like him.
And it goes back to what you were talking about, you know, the atmosphere of that one
man show, you know, everyone's looking up to that one man and they want to be like that
one man and they're not walking in their anointing because they're trying to put on somebody else's
anointing.
Right.
And that's what I love about you, man, is you are you.
You're not trying to be anybody else.
Well, I've done some of that.
If I'm being 100 percent honest, we all have.
Yeah, we all we're all guilty.
Yeah, I'm guilty.
And I believe in training wheels.
I believe I think spiritual training wheels where we're emulating, you know, I believe
the Lord gives us mentors that move something in us legitimately.
And so emulating is where it started.
But if if that mentor, I believe, is a spiritual father, they will help us find our own in
that process.
So yeah, follow me for a minute.
But eventually your authentic voice is going to come out in that.
But it's not going to be illegitimate because you're a son.
Right.
And you don't have to leave and go find it somewhere else.
You can actually stay in the house and find the calling that God has for you, because
that's family.
I mean, that's kingdom is family.
And it's not, unfortunately, a lot of what this sanitized process that we've seen.
We've seen a lot of ways of how not to do it.
I think we're just at a moment where the Lord is saying and I'm giving you the tools and
the experience, you know, part of David, it's interesting.
It says David's throne, I think, was 40 years and Saul's was either 43 or 44.
And it was so funny, I was just meditating on that.
And I felt like the Lord was just saying, look, David had a long run under Saul to see
what not to do.
You know, and that certainly played into his ability to govern differently.
And I think the Lord's given us a long tenure of what not to do, not and I'm not saying
that arrogantly, I'm just saying there's a lot of things that heaven is not doing in
this next season.
And to not latch on to that and try to emulate something old.
I think that's important.
I think that's important because I believe that's true.
I will not latch on to something old that's fake, but something old that's real.
Something old that's real.
Right.
You know, Paul said everything, right?
You know, I count it all as loss, the good, the bad, that ugly, you know, because there's
a moment that you step into.
And when we say God's doing a new thing, we've so overused that we've lost the potency of
what it means.
It means we're talking about something that maybe hasn't been seen in this generation,
you know, something that doesn't have a new thing is not the next thing.
Right.
I mean, the next thing is predicated by the former thing, but a new thing means maybe
it's not an add on to what was right before.
Right on.
Amen.
Well, is this a good stop in place?
I think that's the show.
I think so, too.
I'm glad.
No, I.
I think when the Holy Spirit stops, you stop.
And you shared that with us earlier.
We said when the Holy Spirit stops, you just sit back.
You're done.
Yeah.
It's not you can add to it.
You can't help the Holy Ghost.
It's tempting.
Just being honest.
You just want to get in there and keep going, keep it going.
Well, listen, the conversation is going to continue going.
Just the recording is going to stop.
So let's keep that straight because this has been too good to not continue.
But listen, this is there isn't anything better than this.
There isn't anything better than feeling the Holy Spirit moving and working through each
other and just feeling encouraged by that.
You know, so let me close this in a word of prayer.
We'll close it.
Well, Father, just to kind of put a nice punctuation point on this, we just want to thank you for
ministering to us in this conversation in this moment.
Father, thank you for the things that you stirred up in our hearts that you spoke for.
They are profound.
They are powerful.
And so we just acknowledge you and thank you for ministering to us.
We pray that there would be people who watch this, who find great hope and encouragement
and direction from the things that were spoken.
Father, we pray that the things that we share will bear fruit in our homes, in our church,
in our communities.
We want the kingdom of God to be manifest on the earth as it is in heaven.
So thank you for breaking down strongholds of fear, doubt, insecurity and unbelief and
wedging yourself into the minds and hearts of your people to receive power from on high
to do things that will bear much fruit for you in their lives.
We thank you for this.
We love you.
It's in Jesus name we pray.
Amen.
Nice.