Man, I'm so excited for the message today. The 230 was incredible. We've got Rihanna Arson in the house and it's going to be so good to have her bring the truth and cannot wait. You know, Justin Rihanna, our leaders in our community and have been going to every day for a while and we are so grateful for their servant leadership.
They are leaders that really wash the feet of the bride. They really care deeply for God's people and they care deeply for God's people and they want to just cut lies off of his people and bring them his people into wholeness and restoration and Rihanna has that as part of her story and she does it beautifully where she just multiplies her story over and over and over again and so just get your faith, your anticipation and hope, your expectation of good. It just needs to get like leveled up, you know, and really you weren't even aware of it but you are declaring triumph in a way that's actually just you interceding for yourself through the message that she's going to bring. So would you stand to your feet?
I want to pray real quickly before we have her take it away. Lord, we thank you. We just if you want to put your hands out in front of you, you can. Lord, we say that we want good soil today and we want our soil as it receives the truth of your word to actually multiply 30, 60 hundred fold through us.
And so Father, I thank you that we are your children and we are your little sheep that know your voice and God, we ask that you as a shepherd would just lead us as a people. We want to walk in freedom and so Lord, we receive everything that Rihanna has for us in Jesus name. Amen. Let's honor Rihanna.
Okay, let's do it again. I love it. I love Raz and my pastor. Good stuff.
All right. So good to be in the house with you all. I'm hoping I didn't scream too loud during the Jericho. Yell.
I realize that halfway through I was like, oh, maybe I shouldn't be doing this. Water to the rescue. All right. Man, I'm so grateful for you guys.
Can you pull out your Bibles for me? Not for me, for you, right? You're not pulling out your Bibles for me? As a matter of fact, I just want to, while you're pulling those out, I just want to set some expectation.
I want you to know that I'm coming tonight, expecting the Holy Spirit to move in this room because if he doesn't move, nothing changes. We listen to another message, another articulation of the gospel, and we leave the same because the message doesn't change you. The power of God changes you. So if you came in here tonight thinking, okay, I'm really like, I'm expecting to what she's going to say or what the message is going to be about or maybe you fall asleep during the message because it bores you to death because your expectation is it better be good, it better entertain me or but the power of God changes us even if I were up here preaching about purples, poke it out at zebras.
The Lord could change you. Right? So our expectation, can you expect with me tonight that the power of God, the Holy Spirit would be moving in this room so that this time together is fruitful. Amen?
So I want you to turn to Luke 4. I'm going to have you kind of Luke's like, yes. Luke 4 and see somebody's already getting free. I just have to say, Luke 4, how old freedom?
Acts 10, we're going to hit those two places. So Luke 4 and Acts 10, I just want you to kind of mark those two spots. We've been in a series called The Good News and Pastor Josh has done a great job kicking us off with the good news and today we are talking about the good news for the oppressed. There is good news for the oppressed.
I turned 44 this last spring. I know I don't know why I'm getting a cheer for that but I did it. I made it 44. And I did what apparently every middle-aged woman is supposed to do when she gets 40 is by a weighted vest.
So I did that. I like to walk. I like to be outside. I like to be in nature.
And I thought, heck, I don't have enough problems when I strap on an extra 20 pounds while I'm doing it. So I get this weighted vest in the in the mail. And even just trying to put it on, I'm pretty sure I threw my shoulder out while I was doing it because you'd note to self you don't put a weighted vest on like you would put a regular coat on. But I learned that the hard way.
So I'm putting this vest on and I'm already regretting it because I'm thinking, what is the point of this? I don't know. But I'm going to get a shot. So I zip it up.
There's like clips and all this kind of stuff. And I start walking in about mile two, I'm going, I can't breathe. It's restricting my airways. It's heavy.
My shoulders hurt. My neck hurts. So I'm like trying to like, you know, walk and run like this with my shoulders back. I know I looked probably really great to my neighbors.
And I felt like I was getting nowhere. I'm my feet are like in mud, you know? I was thinking, what is the big thing with this thing? But then I got to thinking, can you imagine wearing one of those things just everywhere?
Just wearing an extra, however many pounds, 20 pounds, 50 pounds, 100 pounds, doing everyday things? Because this vest was making it difficult for me to walk and enjoy being outside. So I thought, what if I were wearing this like just trying to clean my house or go to sleep at night or come in and worship? I was just carrying all this weight.
This is what oppression feels like. Is when the simple things of life feel really hard because there's weight on you. There's heavy weight. There's a crushing.
There's a pressing. And the definition of oppression is an outward attack or an outward press on you. And so if you're feeling bullied, if you're feeling exposed and exploited, if you're feeling accused or condemned or pressed down and it's like, man, I'm confused. It's hard to think.
It's hard to make decisions. I can't sleep at night. It's difficult to worship. I can't connect with the Lord because something is just weighing on me all the time.
Maybe it's self-hate in the narrative that you have about who you are not good enough. I'm not important. I don't belong here. People don't like me.
I'm rejected. You name it. And so I want to look at Luke four for the good news. Luke four.
So basically for context, real quick, Jesus is coming out of the wilderness, right? The Holy Spirit leads him into the wilderness. He's tempted and the devil is attempting to oppress him with temptations and accusations and all these things using the word of God even. And he overcomes the enemy.
And verse 14 says, Jesus returns to Galilee in the power. Somebody say power in the power of the Spirit. So he overcomes and now he returns in power. So he comes into the synagogue to teach the attendant hands him the book of Isaiah.
He opens it to Isaiah 61 and he begins to read. Verse 18, he says, the Spirit of the Lord God is upon me because he anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives or liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set free those who are oppressed, to proclaim the favorable year of the Lord. So then he closes the book.
He hands it back to the attendant and he has a seat. And he says, oh, and by the way, this scripture is fulfilled in your midst. Take it off. Essentially, what is he saying?
This is what I came to do. Just announcing to you through me, this is going to happen. So if you're in this room and you're feeling the weight of life right now, feeling the weight of inner dialogue, accusation, vexing thoughts, beliefs, things that are just constantly attacking you, sin that you feel like you're underneath, I want you to know that freedom is not just for a someday. Jesus came and said, this is actually why I came to set free the oppressed and to bring liberty to captives.
Do you know liberty is the legal right we have to be free and freedom is the walking out of that liberty. So he said twofold, you have the legal right to be free. And now I'm giving you the power to walk free. Jesus is the good news.
Amen. Let's look at X 10. X 10, Peter is preaching the gospel to the Gentiles. The good news.
Verse 38, he says, you know of Jesus of Nazareth, how God anointed him with the Holy Spirit and with power. Somebody say power. Oh, this is getting good. Somebody's gonna get free.
And how he went about doing good and healing all somebody say all. And that's you. He healed all who were oppressed by the devil. For God was with him.
You are all. So I want to just say this right now. Nobody in this room is disqualified from freedom. Nobody.
If you have a belly button, you can check you qualify for freedom because he did it. This is the good news. Wait, is something not have a belly button? Please let's not go down that rabbit hole.
Okay. So the good news is for all. Secondly, something we need to set straight right now. And I preached a message a couple of years ago about blessing your enemies.
And I think we always kind of come back to this place because it's important to remember that we experience oppression spiritually, emotionally, sometimes relationally. If you're an abusive relationship, somebody's manipulating you or controlling you, please, if that's you get sometimes we experience oppression in social and economic, political with poverty and the systems that are crushing us. But no matter the type of oppression that we experience, the devil is always the oppressor. So I want you to get free in this room tonight that that person is your enemy.
That person that's speaking those things to me, that political figure that's done this to me, that whatever the circumstance is, the devil is always the oppressor. Because if you ascribe oppression to anybody other than the devil, the power of God does not work. Because the power of God works on the devil. God does not destroy people.
So if we put them in a position of oppression and says, that's my oppressor, you will never be free. You will always be in bondage to bitterness, unforgiveness. I didn't go here in the 230. So somebody needs to hear this.
The devil is always the oppressor. Don't let him fool you. His name is Diabolos. And it means to be the false accuser.
He exploits, he presses, he crushes, he lies, he accuses, he shames. In the Latin, his name is their producer. And it means to basically shame you and exploit you and then carry you as a spectacle, a sworn disgrace. He does this by lying about God and lying about you.
And we're going to get to that in a second. So if he can get you to agree with his accusations and his lies, then he can get a stronghold in your life. If he can get you to commit the acts that are attached to the accusation in that lie, I'm lonely, nobody loves me there for I'll go ahead and watch some pornography, boom, stronghold. It's important to understand the tactic of the enemy.
The word says do not be ignorant to the devices of the devil. So oppression is always about dominance. Now there's good news because we know what happened on that cross and we're going to talk about it in just a second. But I want to take a pause real quick.
So if you're in this room, I just want you to take a pause and think about where you might be feeling pressed. Sometimes our weight, maybe we came into the 10 pound weight tonight. I'm not trying to ascribe weight to you that doesn't exist. That's not there.
But we're also not minimizing things and pretending like they don't exist, amen. So I want to pause for a minute and I want you to close your eyes and I just want you to ask the Lord where there's areas that you're being pressed right now. What's heavy? What's pressing?
What's crushing? Maybe it's shame. Maybe it's fear. Maybe it's self-acculation and self-hate.
I'm not enough. Nobody likes me. I'm unimportant. Maybe it's rejection.
Maybe there's sin that you're under the weight of. Maybe there's unforgiveness and bitterness that you're under the weight of. As you reflect on that weight, I want you to think about that weight as that weight invests. You can take that off.
It's not permanent. You're not stuck. You are able to be transformed. Things do come all the way through.
You will overcome. Okay, so we're going to think about that weight and we're going to talk about the good news. First of all, the blood of Jesus. We've been singing about it all night.
The blood of Jesus is triumphant. It ratified a covenant for us that set us free. And that hasn't changed. Hebrew says, the blood speaks a better word.
It still speaks today. It speaks redemption. And oppression is just under it. So if we look at Galatians 3.13, if you want to flip there with me, Jesus came anointed in power.
Remember we read and he came to set the captives free because the blood redeems us from the curse. And the curse is what the devil had power with. The curse is where his foothold was. We had a curse on us of sin and separation from God.
And that's where his power was. But look at Galatians 3.13. It says, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become that curse for us. For it is written, cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree.
And in other words, for tree is cross. So that's what we call the cross. In verse 14, it says, in order that in Christ Jesus, the blessing of Abraham might come to the Gentiles so that we would receive the promise of the Spirit through faith. Now listen, I want you to look at this cross right here because this is really significant.
Jesus came and died. First of all, he was not just a sinless God, but Jesus was a sinless man. So he was not subject to the penalty of death the way we are. The cross was not a premature death for Jesus.
He said, no man takes my life. I lay it down and I pick it up again. So that's the first thing. The second thing is that cross was not necessary in the realm of punishment and death.
The rulers and authorities could have easily assassinated him quietly. They could have arrested him, gotten rid of him, and nobody would have known. But they wanted to hang him on this cross. Why?
Galatians 3.13. It says, he became the curse for us, how? For it says, cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree. In Deuteronomy 21, it says that anyone they hung on the cross was declared cursed by God.
So that's why they hung people on the cross. It was not just to kill them and give them punishment, but then to declare them cursed by God. Oh, but the wisdom of God is so good. Jesus climbed up on that cross.
And you know what? Because he was not just a sinless God, he was a sinless man, not subject to the penalty of death or curse. What ended up happening was they put him on that cross and the curse of the lawbreakers, you and I, transferred to him. Oh, they didn't know it.
And in addition to that, the promise of God, oh, the spirit and the blessing of Abraham came to us twofold. Done. That's what the cross. Every time you look at that cross, Paul said in verse Corinthians 2, he said, man, I tell you what, if the rulers and authorities of this world knew they would never have hung on that cross.
They didn't understand the wisdom of God because it's spiritual wisdom. You understand something that your enemies do not. What this did was completely broke you out of the power of the enemy and transferred everything you need pertaining to life and godliness. There's not one thing that you lack because of him.
So he gets up on that cross and finishes it. What does he say? It is finished. Tetilah's style, it is finished.
And then he gave up his spirit. This phrase, it is finished, is used in Roman warfare. So what they would do is they would position the general from the army up on a higher place. And he would watch the battle going on below as the foot soldiers were in battle.
As soon as the general would see that the enemy had been defeated, he would shout this phrase, it is finished. Tetilah's style. And that would quicken the foot soldiers because see they're deep in battle. They have no ideal what's going on.
And as they're fighting, it's all of a sudden they're positioning changes. The enemy has been routed. The enemy's panicked. He's on his heels.
He's fight or flight. He has no power. So now I'm fighting from a place of victory because I know I've already won. So when you look at this cross and you hear the Lord saying it is finished, this is not a cry of a defeated man.
This is a cry of a triumphant king who came and finished what he came to accomplish on your behalf. This is good news. Somebody's getting free in this room and if ain't you, it's going to be me. Jesus.
The blood breaks the legal hold of the devil. We need to know this. We have to have a revelation of this because if we don't, we cannot overcome. And the blood causes us to overcome.
Let's roll over to Revelations 12. Revelations 12. We overcome by the blood. Isn't that beautiful?
Do we know what it means to overcome? The significance of mastering and transforming and being built and strength and stability. This is what it means to overcome. And I fear in the Western church today, we don't really understand the significance of overcoming.
We oftentimes really want to escape our pain. We hit opposition and we begin to pray, God, please get rid of this. When is this over? When will it be done?
Just get it done. I'm tired of this. And if he's not going to give us an escape hatch, then we begin to avoid and numb and hide and we numb the pain with whatever, fill in the blank. I mean, we numb the pain with things that are obvious, right?
Drugs, alcohol, TV, screens, pornography, whatever, but also things that are less assuming like gossip. We want to tell people about other people's problems because it helps us evade the pain of our own problems. Well, at least I'm not as bad as she is. You better pray for her.
Right? Prayer request. Right? Because it helps us avoid our own pain.
But overcoming is extremely significant to a mature, transformed life. Overcoming is confronting and dealing with something. Escaping is to evade the pain of it. And eventually what happens is you don't take care of it so you come right back around to it.
And so then what do you do? You just do cycles. Revelations 12. Verse 10, John says, then I heard a loud voice in heaven saying, and this is the Tetalesi of God.
Now the salvation and the power, somebody say power, and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have come for the accuser of our brethren has been thrown down. He who accuses them before our God day and night. Verse 11, and they overcame him because of the blood of the lamb and the word of their testimony. And they loved their life not unto death.
Jesus overcame the world. Right? This cross did not kill Jesus. He was a sinless man, not subject to the penalty of death.
He said, no man takes my life. And what did he do after he said it is finished? The Bible says he gave up his spirit. He gave it up.
Just let it sink for a minute. This was not a premature death. And he's going to die anyway. He might as well just go quick.
He said, I could have a million angels on my ready and just take me away right now. He endured the cross. So his blood causes us to overcome. He overcame.
He did not escape. And this is how we follow in his steps. This is, he said, go as I go. He said, follow me.
Take up that cross. Because in the suffering, you glory. This is how you are triumphant. We sing the songs.
This is how you're triumphant. You overcome. You confront and you deal by the power of God. You overcome.
And I think it's really important for us. It's important for us to name in our culture the reasons why we have this mentality. We live in a cultural narrative that says we pursue pleasure and we avoid pain. We pursue pleasure and we avoid pain.
This message is everywhere. Everywhere you go, this is the message we're given. Pain is bad. Avoid pain, pursue pleasure.
Even unto not even 30 years ago, the American Pain Society instituted what they call the pain scale as a fifth vital sign. Anybody ever been in the hospital and they give you the little smiley face chart? Or are you a level one or a level 10 in all the little smiley faces? Yeah.
So not even 30 years ago, the American Pain Society decided this needs to be a vital sign. This needs to be one of our signs that were healthy or not as if we're in pain. And up till then, it was like heart rate, blood pressure, body temperature, the things that would tell you if there's something really wrong. So then in the early 2000s, a few years later, they started requiring healthcare organizations to aggressively and systematically assess and treat pain.
So if you are in pain, pain medication, we don't want you in pain because pain is bad. Now, I will agree that some levels of pain are bad. I'm not saying it's not. But the messages of our culture are any type of pain you run.
It means you're not healthy. But how many of you know when you confront an issue? Sometimes it's painful. If you confront self-hate, if you confront rejection, if you confront that sin that's been in your life, it is painful sometimes, most often.
And so sometimes you have to lean into a time of pain and suffering in order to come into freedom and glory. And so what happens is they now require people, the healthcare organizations, to assess and treat pain. Now comes the overprescribing. They're overprescribing medications.
Pain clinics are popping up, over-medicating, over-treating patients. And what do we have on the heels of that? The opioid crisis. And in 2023, not two years ago, the opioid crisis peaks and we have 81,000 people that would die of overdose.
Regular people, shoulder injury from softball, back injury from car accident. We're not talking people who are like, oh yeah, I've been on drugs my whole life. People who took medication because they were overprescribed, over-treated. And this isn't including the people who would commit suicide because of such a thing.
My family is part of that statistic, unfortunately. But 6 million people live with what they call opioid dysfunction, meaning they're addicted and they can't get off. They don't know how. 6 million.
That's insane. And this is 2023. We're not talking like, oh, you know, 100 years ago. This is two years ago.
But what I'm getting at here is our culture is very steeped in this idea that pain is bad. So I want to break this lie off because anytime we come up against something uncomfortable or painful, we're like, oh, yeah, I don't, I think I'm going to leave that one, avoid it, escape it. But when we numb our pain, we can't feel anything. And when you can't feel, you can't heal.
This is what the Lord brought me through in deliverance. I was a master at numbing my pain. And really, I would just disassociate for my emotions altogether if I felt triggered in my rejection or whatever it was. It was like, I would pretend like I didn't even care.
And he would tell me, Rihanna, you can't feel anything. I can't heal you. You just numb to the pain. You're not learning anything.
You're not growing. You're not transforming. You're not overcoming anything. And so I want to encourage you, if that's you in this room, and you're like, yeah, and I've spent my entire life just kind of being numb to pain, God has better for you.
And it's okay if it hurts, he's going to bring you all the way through. He's a thorough God all the way through. He's not going to get you stuck in the middle. Sometimes it's that fear and I hear the Lord saying this right now, sometimes it's the fear I'm going to get stuck.
If I let go of my devices that are keeping me square, I might get stuck somewhere in the middle. God will not let you get stuck. He might let you fight a little, but he will not let you lose. So Jesus said, if you are my disciples, you will know truth, and truth will set you free.
The truth is that the blood causes you to overcome. That cross finished it. The devil does not have power over you. Plain and simple.
The truth is that you are establishing righteousness and oppression is far from you. That's what Isaiah 54 says. That's the truth. The truth is that you overcome by the blood.
And the truth sets you free. That is good news. The truth sets you free is very good news for you because it helps us understand that God wants to deal with something deeper in us in our belief systems. Your belief systems are extremely important to freedom.
And here's why. Because your belief systems will inform and reinforce either bondage or freedom. One of the two. Your belief systems, what you believe about God and what you believe about yourself will reinforce either freedom or bondage.
And oppression thrives on lies. Because remember, if the enemy, if the oppressor can get you to agree, if you can find that lie that you believe and just tap on it, get you to agree and commit, now you have a stronghold. So your belief systems are imperative to be checked. I want to try something real quick.
I want you to look around the room. And I want you to look at the walls, the equipment, people's clothing, the items around you. And I want you to find everything that's black. Everything.
Try to memorize it now. Everything. Okay, now I want you to close your eyes. And I want you to do your best to name everything that's red.
Can you do it? And now I want you to open your eyes again. And I want you to look around the room and find everything red. Clothes, people are wearing bags, hats, red things.
Can you do a better job of naming things that are red? What do you think? Yeah. Yeah.
The only difference is what you're looking for. This is how belief systems work. Your belief systems will always look for what you believe. So if I believe that I am rejected, I believe that I am unworthy.
I will go into every room, every conversation, and I will listen for the word, the tone, the action, the omission. Yep, there it is confirmed. I'm rejected. I'm unworthy.
Nobody cares. So you get in this cycle where your belief systems look for confirmation and the confirmation builds your belief systems. And now you've got this big old tower of ick. And the oppressor's like great.
This is what I work with. So it is imperative that we look at belief systems and go, God, search my heart. Find any way within me, Lord, any belief system that is not you. And this is a difficult thing for us to do.
This is a really difficult thing for us to do. My father, when I was 14 years old, my father introduced me to methamphetamine. In the basement of our house, he taught me how to use it. He taught me how to get it.
And he did it with me. Now, I don't know if you're a father in this room and if you have a 14-year-old daughter, but that's not a very protective thing to do with your child. This is one of many things in my life that would feed this idea. You're not valuable.
Your own parents don't protect your life. Your life is not, it's worthless. What is it worth? And so my entire life as a teenager was very dysfunctional, constantly confirmation, betrayals, and letdowns and disappointments and abuse and all of these things will continue to remind me.
Oh, yeah, that's right. I'm not worthy. And so when I came into the kingdom, praise God, you get saved and deliverance comes like this, but the belief systems are still there. And now you're like, man, I thought I got delivered to this.
There it is again. There it is again. And God said, listen, deliverance is a reset. We can pluck those things up.
The devil doesn't have power anymore. But if your belief system keeps something there, it's just going to keep coming back for you. Like, oh, yeah, you remember? You're worthless.
Oh, yeah, I am. You're right. Agreement. There we go.
So it is really important that you let truth set you free. His truth has to set you free. And listen, truth hurts sometimes. Can I just tell you that?
Sometimes we hear things, and we're like, I don't want to hear that. You are going to make it all the way through. I'm offended you said that. My reality is that I will not.
We're very emotionally attached to what we believe, because we've built safety around it. We've built familiarity around it. It keeps us self-sufficiency, right? But Isaiah 61, when Jesus was reading that in Luke, it says, I came to bind up the brokenhearted.
And that phrase in the Hebrew means to apply a compress of truth on a heart shattered by lies. Now, if you can think of a time, maybe when you fell off your bike and your mom had to put a compress on that wound and you're like, ah, don't touch that. That hurts, because that medication or that anti-back is at war with the bacteria and the dirt in the wound and it hurts for a time, but you have to have truth. You have to let his truth set you free.
So even if you're going, this is not my reality, God, but I am receiving the truth by faith that your power is going to change my belief system and be at work and need to set me free. Does that make sense? Deception is an incredible stronghold. Deception is a very dangerous stronghold.
If anybody's ever been to our house, you've probably met our dog Frank. Franky! Frank's the man. He is the chilliness dog you'll ever meet.
Well, I guess he's not really chill because he's kind of hyper, but he's friendly. He loves everybody. His most aggressive stance is rolling on his back and spreading his legs so you can scratch his belly. And we have neighbors who all have dogs.
We live in a neighborhood where everybody has a dog, and most of the dogs are alpha. I would say, they're kind of in charge. They're dominant. Frank is not.
He is just way too submissive sometimes. I don't think he would protect us if the robber came to the door. I'm pretty sure. But we have this neighbor in particular who has a rescue dog.
She's had her for a couple of years and her rescue dog is a bit more on the alpha-aggressive side, I would say. And she's like, oh, you know, none of the other neighbor dogs like my dog. My dog just wants to play. She's so nice, but she just plays kind of rough, you know, but she just loves Frank.
Frank really just tolerates her well. So every time we're on a walk, she will be lying over and be like, can my dog talk to your dog? I wasn't talking about what was walking our dog. And she was on her mower.
She jumps off her mower and runs in the house and brings her dog out to the street. I was like, can we play with Frank? I was like, wow, that is really aggressive. You know, they interact and I'm always like, this doesn't look like friendly behavior, but Frank doesn't seem to mind it.
So whatever. I'm on a walk just this fall with my oldest daughter and my grandbaby. And she has worked with animals for multiple years, loves animals, knows behaviors and breeds, and she's well-versed in this stuff. So we're on a walk and here comes my neighbor.
I was like, okay, I'm going to go across the street and let Frank tolerate whatever her dog would like to whatever. And she's over there. And I usually let Frank off the leash so he has a little bit of agency because he doesn't like to be leashed up around her because she's got a tooth, you know. And so she's doing her thing and then I'm like, okay, well, bye.
We continue on the walk and Maya looks at me and she goes, Mom, that dog does not like Frank. That is a dangerous dog. She goes, the way that she was like confronting him, posturing over and putting her chin on his head and like dominating and then she would lunge and growl at him. She was, that's not playing.
She if she snapped off that leash, she would attack Frank. And I was like, oh, she was in furthermore, your neighbor is so convinced this dog is friendly that she's got her on a gentle harness around the belly with one of those, you know, slack leashes with the little the little retractables. She goes, that is a recipe for disaster. And I was like, oh my gosh.
And I was thinking, you know, this is oftentimes how we treat our strongholds. You know, the word says not to call evil good and good evil, but I remember a time when, oh, my little, my rejection stronghold was just like on this little gentle harness, you know, I was like, well, as long as we don't get in the wrong room, people don't, you know, assert dominance over me. If they don't say the wrong thing, I'll be okay. If they don't trigger me, I'll be okay.
So we, we just keep it on a leash. Like, shh, shh. Now I need to get in the right frame of mind before I go into this family household ordeal. I need to pray up before I come into the worship room because I know somebody's going to be trying me.
So we put these things on a little gentle harness and we have deceived, we have been deceived that these things are good and they're okay. And we're like, you know what, we just have figured out how to nurse it and play with the right people or be in the right situations. But God says, I want to set that thing free. I want to confront the lies and the deception and how that is destroying your life.
It's destroying your marriage. It's destroying your relationships. It's destroying your finances, your health and wellness. It's all being destroyed because we're carrying around things that are opposing the will of God.
We have to hate what is evil and cling to what is good because the opposition against the will of God for your life is always going to keep you limited. If you keep calling it good and keep putting a little leash on it and making sure you're just in the right environments, let God's truth confront and set that thing free. This is the good news. Voltaire once said, it is impossible to free fools from the chains that they revere.
And I fear that we oftentimes have chains and we're like, no, not that bad. I mean, if I have a good cup of coffee, I'll get over it. You know what I'm saying? Why are we settling for that garbage?
The cross is the wisdom of God that destroyed. 1 John 3 8 says that this is for this reason the son of God was made manifest, that he would destroy the work of the enemy, both legal and physical. So why are we revereing chains? They're not, they don't fit you.
They don't look good on you. God's got an upgrade for somebody in this room. And if they, you, it's going to be me. Hallelujah.
Listen, truth burns. Okay. We don't like truth because it hurts a little, then it. But I think that if we're really honest with ourselves, do we want freedom or do we just want validation?
Do I want to be free? Or am I just looking for some validation so that I can get by? Tell me I'm worthy. Tell me I'm enough.
Please God. This was me. This was me. I'm just letting you in.
Please God, all my life. Please God. Just tell me I'm worthy. Tell me I'm enough.
And he said, listen to me, daughter. I will not validate the lie that your identity and worth begin and end with you. He said, I am else should I Lord God Almighty, the God of more than enough. And I created you in my image.
So end of story. I'm worthy. You're created in my image. What do you think that means?
See, we want God to pity us sometimes. And he said, no, I'm going to tell you truth. The truth will set you free. You are saved because I'm salvation.
You're delivered because I'm deliverance. You're redeemed because I'm redemption. You're free because I'm freedom. One of the things that I really have a challenge with in our identity culture in the church is this.
Please hear me in love. We have made our identity even in Christ about ourselves. Who am I? Well, who are you?
You're created in his image. And if you do not understand the truth about Christ, you will never believe who you are in him. It won't happen. You can know all the scriptures and all the things and you'll go, it doesn't change me though.
I still don't believe that I have worth. Because you have to believe the God that is worthy found worth in you. The truth sets us free. And when God's truth confronts the lies, then the chains fall.
And I believe that that's happening in this room. And I believe it's going to continue to happen in this room tonight. Whatever chains you came in with, I will tell you right now, if you're ready to let them go, God will immediately break those off immediately. Because it is by the power of God that we overcome.
The power of God causes us to triumph over our enemy. Somebody say power. Power is what makes us different. Oh, we're a different breed.
Not because we're great. Not because we're all figured out. Not because we're the best and greatest and most talented and most gifted. We are a different breed because we have something called power.
It's called the power of the Holy Spirit. And he lives inside of you. Acts 1038, you remember it says, God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. Now Jesus' life was just a preview for eternity.
He lived the blessing and he said, look at this. This is the language I speak. This is the life that I live and this is what I'm handing over to you. He throws you the keys to the brand new car.
Here's the keys to the kingdom. But the thing is, is that eternity began the moment he finished the work. It's not a someday freedom. The power of God lives inside of you right now.
And the power of God causes you to overcome. First Corinthians 2, 4 through 5, Paul said, I don't want to come to you with craftiness of speech because I want your faith to rest on the power of God. Is anybody tired of more words? I'm tired of saying more words.
I'm like God, demonstrate your power in this room right now. Please, please, God, all of Acts is the power of God manifesting evidence of the grace in the gospel of God. Romans 1, 16, Paul said, I am not ashamed of the gospel because it is the power of God unto salvation for everyone who believes. You were saved by the power of God.
Did you know that? It wasn't your prayers that saved you. I was just pretty hard enough. I just read enough.
I just do enough. I get into prayer room enough. I love prayer room now. Your works aren't saving you.
Your works aren't transforming you. Get be free. Your works are not transforming you. 2 Thessalonians 1, 11, it says, may the power of God fulfill every good purpose of yours and every act prompted by your faith.
So acts and works are important for faith. They need to be prompted by faith, but not faith in the works, not faith in yourself and self-sufficiency. Faith in the power of God to perform and fulfill it. And this happens through a sincerity of waiting on him.
Oh, man, we are a hurried people, aren't we? We are an impatient people. Well, if you ain't going to do it, God, then I'm going to go ahead and take care of this. Waiting, the upper room waiting.
If you're going to preach, if you're going to teach, if you're going to minister, if you're going to go to work, if you're going to eat your breakfast, wait on God. Just pause. God, fill me with your power. Don't let me go in there, Lord, I might own account.
Because performance and striving are the enemy of a powerful life. And we perform. We have this desire to perform because we want people to validate us. This is where we ask, do we want to be free or do we want validation?
Because when we walk into a place and use our gifts, we're like, okay, if I just get this right, if I just succeed, if I sing the best key, if I'm the best player on the team, if I have the best speech or sermon in the room, whatever it is, then people will know that I am worthy. And there's our belief system again. So power comes from surrender. It comes through a yielding to the one who lives inside of you, greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world.
His power is what's at work. And it is available at all times always. It lives in you, but it increases through dependency, utter and total dependency on him. That whatever you do, his power is going to perform and fulfill those acts prompted by your faith.
So when you do whatever you do, when you extend faith, when you pray, when you give generously, when you forgive somebody, I want you to remember that it's the power of God that fulfills those acts and set yourself free from performance. Amen? Okay, we're going to respond to the word here. I just want us to sort of sit in a minute and reflect here.
If you came in here thinking, man, I just have this weight, this fear, this shame, this bondage, sin, rejection, self-hate, accusation, whatever it is. I want you to know and remember that greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world. You may have come in one way and you're going to leave another way. All I know is I was one way and now I'm not.
So whatever you came in with, please don't forget to grab your transformation on the way out the door. Because it's the whole reason why we came here, is it not? We didn't come here to listen to me say some fancy stuff. We all know that my teaching team is amazing.
They could teach circles around me. We came here to get what we came for and what he paid for. He will get the return on a vesmit, guaranteed. So as we respond, I want you to come expecting that whatever chain you came in with, even if it was just a little link that you're like, well, this is the last one of it and I'm just kind of having a hard time.
But if you're willing, he'll break it in a moment. So Joe, thank you for coming and I didn't give you any time. But I want us to reflect here and respond to this. The gospel does not demand anything of you except to believe, but it produces everything in you if you will let it because it is the power of God and salvation.
So we have to lay down performance. We have to lay down the self-sufficiency that we have to do it myself. I got this. I know what I'm doing.
I've been to the class, I've read the books, I've got the training, we need more training. Listen, you do not need more training. This train, you don't need any more training. We are educated beyond our ability to obey.
That's a problem. What we need to do is step into the yield, the surrender, the God, I come to you by faith. I receive your love by faith. I forgive by faith because it's not my forgiveness.
What do I got? I'm letting your forgiveness flow through me. I lay down the bitterness that's changed my ankles and trust you that you'll bring me all the way through because by your power, you raised Christ from the dead and that same spirit is living in me. That resurrection power is living in you.
So I would love for us to, as we move into this response time, I just want to start by laying down the performance, laying down the self-sufficiency. Can we do that? We're just going to do that first. So I want you to just close your eyes.
You can stay seated. And with your voice, whisper, whatever you want to do, I just want you to say, Lord, I lay down performance. Lord, I lay down striving and I lay down self-sufficiency. Lord, we believe that your grace is efficient.
And I want you to ask the Lord right now. Lord, what lie am I believing? It might surprise you. Sometimes we think we know what we need, but the Holy Spirit knows that.
So Lord, what lie am I believing? And now I want you to ask the Lord, are there any agreements or things that I am committing because of that lie? Is there anything in my life that I'm calling good and it is not good? It is evil.
It's against the will of God in my life. And now I want you to ask the Lord, what is the truth? You've identified a lie. What is the truth that you have that will set me free?
Even if it doesn't feel like your reality, it doesn't feel comfortable. It's not something you want to hear. What is the truth that will set you free? I'm loved because he is loved.
Maybe he wants to tell you he has good plans for you because you think your life is over. What is the truth that he wants to speak to you right now? And now we're going to act prompted by our faith. We're going to exercise 2 Thessalonians 1-11.
Paul said, may his power fulfill every good purpose of yours and every act prompted by your faith. Not your works, not your self-sufficiency, your faith. So I want you to think of the truth that he just told you and now you're going to verbalize it. I am loved because he's loved.
You do have great plans for me. I want you to speak that truth verbally over yourself right now. Even if it's hard, it's an act of faith and he will fulfill by his power every act prompted by your faith. So Lord, I just pray right now for a fresh and feeling of your Holy Spirit.
But we thank you for the Holy Spirit to fall in this place, to fill us fresh again. Your word and acts says that they were filled continually. So Lord, again, we reach and say thank you for a fresh feeling of your power. As we have laid down performance, we've laid down self-sufficiency.
We say yes to a feeling of your power in our lives. I want to invite anyone in this room. If anywhere throughout the message, you're just feeling that kind of pull of the spirit going, man, there is a wake here. There's a lie I'm believing.
There's no pressure in that I have a heavyweight of something that I'm carrying around. Whether it's anxiety or fear or shame or sin or condemnation, what have you. Maybe there's voices that have just been vexing you and you're like, I can't my thoughts are so blurry because I can't think straight. And you've been trying really hard to just think better thoughts and you're tired because your thoughts aren't going to change you.
Renewing your mind changes you when it's the power of God at work in you and your faith is in his power to do so. And so if you're feeling under that weight, you're feeling under a weight in your spirit's solar body. I want you to just stand to your feet and I want to pray with you. So again, we're exercising acts prompted by faith, believing that his power will fulfill every good purpose of yours.
And I believe that. I believe when you stand, when you open your mouth, faith pleases God because he goes, great, my power is at work. That's where those might be the little freedom is in this house tonight, y'all. Thank you, God.
Now we're going to do two things. I'm going to pray and then we're going to have soul care team, ultra-care team, and deacons. If you're available and you're not getting ministry, just one person per person is all we need. We don't need five people around one and we're going to minister to you.