SPEAKER_01: So, it's time to renegotiate the deal you've accepted.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: Here's the deal.
SPEAKER_01: We can't get a new start to our story, but we can't change the ending.
SPEAKER_01: A new narrative, God's narrative, and a kingdom narrative.
SPEAKER_01: So that's what I want to encourage today is that we're looking to finish one.
SPEAKER_01: The enemy wants to remind you how you started.
SPEAKER_01: Now you can't go over there and live in that complete space because, well, just remember over here, let's let's go uh take a look.
SPEAKER_01: I want to get you stuck in the rear view mirror.
SPEAKER_01: He'll always try to get you to live that way.
SPEAKER_01: So renegotiate a new deal.
SPEAKER_00: At The Road, our mission is to empower people to change the world.
SPEAKER_00: For more information on The Road, visit theroad.org.
SPEAKER_00: We hope you are encouraged by today's message.
SPEAKER_01: I want to talk today, guys, just about um something that's kind of been building in my heart, and I know that this has been an interesting 2020 to say the least.
SPEAKER_01: A lot could be said and a lot has been said about 2020 to date.
SPEAKER_01: And we think that we're getting out of the woods and then something else happens.
SPEAKER_01: I feel like this has been the year of being flexible.
SPEAKER_01: And here we find ourselves again, kind of having to, you know, be flexible and in kind of where we meet with spirit, where we meet with God.
SPEAKER_01: And so it's, I think it's kind of like a training ground for us.
SPEAKER_01: And so, what's happening in the background, what's happening in the landscape as all of us in our own energy and understanding are trying to negotiate these times.
SPEAKER_01: And what do we do with that?
SPEAKER_01: Where do we go with our hearts when we feel like we're discouraged, we're disappointed?
SPEAKER_01: I know this from my own perspective, that we've tried to plan things in our family, hoping that things will uh lift out there, we'll have some freedom, and we're gonna be able to go on this trip, or we're gonna be able to go to this place.
SPEAKER_01: Come to find out, you know, the rug gets pulled so quickly.
SPEAKER_01: And so what I've really started to understand and to find is that, like no other time in our culture or history, freedom is fragile, which is a weird concept for us as Americans.
SPEAKER_01: It's something that we've always fought for, it's something that maybe not that we've taken it for granted because our our young our men and women in the services and armed forces uh you know have done a valiant job and they go out there and they've earned our freedom in which we stand.
SPEAKER_01: And so for them I thank God, and I thank God for the founding fathers.
SPEAKER_01: But we find ourselves in a unique place today where our freedoms have never been more challenged, and it's so fragile about what is on the precipice, the horizon.
SPEAKER_01: And so our hearts, our souls and our minds, when we when we wrestle with this and we see the landscape, we see the news feeds, we get troubled.
SPEAKER_01: I get troubled.
SPEAKER_01: And so, what I want to talk today about is the title of this message is kind of when we trade the truth.
SPEAKER_01: When we trade the truth of the gospel, when we trade the truth of the word of God, what that means for us, what that looks like in our lives, and where can we go from there?
SPEAKER_01: What is God calling us to?
SPEAKER_01: What do the scriptures say and where we're at?
SPEAKER_01: And so this is gonna be a boiled-down meat and potatoes uh kind of message.
SPEAKER_01: And so the times are dark, right?
SPEAKER_01: The times are troubled.
SPEAKER_01: Um, future seems uncertain.
SPEAKER_01: How do we plan anything with the notion that the rug can be pulled from us anytime?
SPEAKER_01: The term flexible has taken a new meaning for us.
SPEAKER_01: We're all a little bit like gumby these days.
SPEAKER_01: My wife and I were trying to plan a trip, and we were waiting for this moment that we thought, uh, okay, we're gonna hit this window where it seemed like the curve of COVID had flattened, and maybe we would sneak through this window, this kind of black hole, and get to um a destination and we were trying to celebrate and kind of have a second honeymoon, and we were waiting and waiting and waiting to see if this other country was gonna open up, come to find out that we weren't blessed uh to be Canadians or Europeans.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore, as U.S.
SPEAKER_01: citizens, shut down.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, that's fine.
SPEAKER_01: Um, God's in control, so God had something better and a different plan.
SPEAKER_01: He already knew what was gonna be happening here.
SPEAKER_01: And so all you have to do, and many of us are doing this right now because we're searching, we're scanning the airwaves, we're reading the papers, we're looking at our social media feeds, and we're scanning, we're scanning the horizon, looking for hope, looking for encouragement.
SPEAKER_01: Where does our hope come from?
SPEAKER_01: You know, Psalm 121, and though, and when we're and we're anchored in.
SPEAKER_01: But sadly, the media, the tools of our culture, tools of the enemy, are there to rob and steal our hearts, our life, our faith, our hope, our joy, and pull us back down.
SPEAKER_01: And so we do this exchange, right?
SPEAKER_01: This is the premise today.
SPEAKER_01: When we trade the truth, we do this exchange, we sit down and we barter and we negotiate with him, and we trade away the truth of God, which is where our freedom is.
SPEAKER_01: It's the only place that we're gonna find freedom in today.
SPEAKER_01: And we're gonna barter that away, and we're gonna trade it for something far less valuable.
SPEAKER_01: I've been thinking about this as a kid that, you know, you remember like for guys, we would trade uh there there were always um uh modes of currency as a kid, the the valued baseball cards.
SPEAKER_01: And you know, sometimes if your buddy had the one that completed your deck, you'd have to trade two or three of your cards to get that one to complete the set that you wanted.
SPEAKER_01: And he'd, you know, there's always this bartering.
SPEAKER_01: And um go to any third world country, this isn't meant pejoratively, but you know, you do some bargaining and some negotiating for the value of the thing you want to buy, whether it's a rug, vase, whatever.
SPEAKER_01: My wife's excellent at this.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, she's highly skilled, and she does all my negotiations.
SPEAKER_01: I tried to do that once, and I think uh I actually the guy ended up keeping his valuables and I'm just donating to him some money, and I didn't get anything in the exchange.
SPEAKER_01: And she said, That's enough of that.
SPEAKER_01: Anytime we're doing this again, I've got this.
SPEAKER_01: And so now she does all my negotiations and she's she's awesome at it.
SPEAKER_01: I pray you all have a good negotiator in your life.
SPEAKER_01: But here's the deal we sit down at the table, we've been doing this, by the way, since since humanity began.
SPEAKER_01: We traded away and we bartered away our freedom, our eternity, when we when we bartered uh with the enemy over the tree and we ate the apple.
SPEAKER_01: And so, in that transaction, we've been bartering and negotiating ever since, and we've walked away from the true freedom that we have through Christ Jesus, our Lord, our Savior, our Creator.
SPEAKER_01: So I want to take us here to a verse in 2 Corinthians 4, 16 through 18.
SPEAKER_01: This will kind of be the theme verse for the message today, because I think it's where we need to kind of hang our hat in this process of scanning the horizon, looking for hope, looking for the door.
SPEAKER_01: Where are we going in this situation right now with COVID spiking in an election year?
SPEAKER_01: Election years are always weird, but this one is unprecedented in anything we've ever seen.
SPEAKER_01: So we turn to the good word and we stand on God's word, and that is the truth.
SPEAKER_01: That is why we never give up, though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day.
SPEAKER_01: For our present troubles are small and won't last very long.
SPEAKER_01: Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever.
SPEAKER_01: So we don't look at the troubles we can see now, rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen.
SPEAKER_01: For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.
SPEAKER_01: And so this verse has been kind of critical for me.
SPEAKER_01: I've referred back to this verse several times over this uh the season of COVID, um, the coronavirus, and all this, and kind of just renewing my heart, my mind, my soul, and my hope to remind myself that while this feels like a long process, we're bouncing back and forth, we're ping-ponging, our emotions are always on the rebound.
SPEAKER_01: You know, God is pulling me back to remind me to say, okay, this isn't gonna last forever.
SPEAKER_01: This is temporary.
SPEAKER_01: Keep my bearings.
SPEAKER_01: Remember, I have access to the freedom that is offered from the cross of Calvary in such a deep way.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm gonna share a little bit here in a minute about a journey that I've been on this last year in my own life, where true freedom, complete freedom, the likes of which I've never experienced in all my 40 years on this earth, God has walked closely with me, he's fathered me in it, and I think it's for such a time as this.
SPEAKER_01: He's brought me to a new place of understanding and freedom that to sit down and barter with the enemy, which he's always looking around our fortifications, looking around our foundations, he wants to come in and he wants to barter away some of our truth.
SPEAKER_01: Because he knows if he can get us to accept the lie, we're gonna trade our freedom, and he's gonna replace that.
SPEAKER_01: It's always a crappy deal, right?
SPEAKER_01: We never get a good deal on this situation.
SPEAKER_01: We get fear in replace for freedom.
SPEAKER_01: Instead of truth, we get some lies, and they always underdeliver, always underdeliver.
SPEAKER_01: You know, uh you you you go to a used car lot, you hope for the best, and generally speaking, by the time you're a month into the used car, if you didn't discover what you were buying at the car lot, you'll soon discover it a month or two into that used vehicle, you know, where it's been, what it's been through, and it's got some nicks, some wounds, and and it's got uh, you know, some tape on the radiator, and you're having to put oil in, you know, at every other fill-up just because it's got a leaky oil pan or whatever.
SPEAKER_01: So sometimes the car deal at the car dealership is very often like the deal that we get from the devil.
SPEAKER_01: Uh it looks shiny on the outside, but it never lives up to the promise, and certainly what he delivered, and that's always the case.
SPEAKER_01: And so what we see here, generally, everything is wrapped in this fear scenario.
SPEAKER_01: So when he can convince us and get us to take the apple, to take the trade, to take the deal, and we barter and we agree, he replaces the truth with a lie.
SPEAKER_01: We give him our freedom, and he replaces it with fear.
SPEAKER_01: And so from there uh begins the bondage, begins the slavery, and we start to settle and we gradually accept this existence of this is my reality, this is my narrative, this is where I have to live from.
SPEAKER_01: And anything outside of that, if we live there long enough, anything outside of that is foreign, uh, we can't accept it.
SPEAKER_01: It's too much of a concentration or it's too big of a jump or a leap to consider something else.
SPEAKER_01: To consider that maybe the work that Christ did on the cross was complete.
SPEAKER_01: It was meant to cover everything, and that we have full access when even reality we barter and trade away and we only take partial access.
SPEAKER_01: Now I'm speaking to the the crowd here because as a as a lifetime Christian, I grew up in the church.
SPEAKER_01: Uh we were always there.
SPEAKER_01: I think you guys have heard me say, uh, all my aunts or all my uncles and my grandfather, they were they were on the elders' team.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, mom was the bookkeeper, grandma was the receptionist.
SPEAKER_01: We were there three times a week.
SPEAKER_01: I went to the school there.
SPEAKER_01: I was there.
SPEAKER_01: I grew up in it, right?
SPEAKER_01: And for the most of it, um, there there, you know, it was here.
SPEAKER_01: I believed it in my head, and and I believed it enough in my heart, but there was always a little bit of this gap where this full transfer, this complete freedom, didn't exist.
SPEAKER_01: And I would walk through life and I would journey over the next several decades of my life from woundings and from brokenness, responding to that and trading away crucial freedom, my God-given right to his freedom through the cross of Calvary and what's available to the devil.
SPEAKER_01: And in that was only bondage, shame, rejection, fear, all of it was wrapped up, complete package.
SPEAKER_01: So I was reminded of when I was writing this, there's a commercial that came on a couple years ago, and um, I think it was through, it was one of the insurance companies.
SPEAKER_01: I think it was progressive, and it's about the settlers.
SPEAKER_01: You know, they're in this neighborhood, and you guys I know you I would show it, but I understand that anytime we show anything on YouTube, we lose our stream.
SPEAKER_01: So I'm not gonna show any videos today.
SPEAKER_01: I did have a few lined up, but um settlers commercial, right?
SPEAKER_01: So so they're hanging out, uh, they're in their living room, and they look like they're um like in a carriage going across the the plains and they're trying to settle, and they're looking across the neighbors, and they're all modern day.
SPEAKER_01: They have their full-blown, I think it's actually, no, I think it's a cable ad or whatever.
SPEAKER_01: And they said, no, son, we just only got three channels.
SPEAKER_01: We're settlers, and it's like, you know, they don't have a microphone, they got a dirt floor, and they got a carriage outside and their horses, and then the neighbors are living it up, right?
SPEAKER_01: Because they they have moved beyond settling for things, um, settling for less is the idea.
SPEAKER_01: But we settle for less.
SPEAKER_01: And so the core truth and where we have to wrap our heads around it today is that God always offers this exit to our negotiations, to the contract of the deal that we do with the enemy.
SPEAKER_01: It's always able to be undone, it's always able to be burned up, thrown away, write the new deal.
SPEAKER_01: If we're able to take the courage, conviction, risk it all, to go full in, all in, recover our whole hearts, the Father is faithful to do that.
SPEAKER_01: Luke 14, or sorry, Luke 4, 18, right?
SPEAKER_01: The Spirit, this is Jesus now, red letter.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus, the Spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.
SPEAKER_01: He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see, and that the oppressed will be set free.
SPEAKER_01: That's the whole purpose of what he came down to.
SPEAKER_01: And sometimes we do ourselves such a disservice and we live in a half-hearted state.
SPEAKER_01: We do a lot of work in our men's events about being half-hearted, living from this place of we've only accepted so much of the gospel, so much of God's grace, his truth in our lives, but we don't ever, sometimes, so many of us for too long don't go in and accept the full gift of being whole-hearted and accepting the complete freedom that Jesus is offering.
SPEAKER_01: The work that he did at Calvary for us is limited.
SPEAKER_01: We mute it and we take a partial, a portion.
SPEAKER_01: Well, we only take a half portion.
SPEAKER_01: Like we go to the restaurant, we sit down, and they say, Oh, would you like uh, you know, I want the fish and chips, but I don't want the whole fish and chips.
SPEAKER_01: I just want one fish and three chips.
SPEAKER_01: Well, you know what?
SPEAKER_01: He's saying, What?
SPEAKER_01: Take the full meal, take the full offering.
SPEAKER_01: I didn't come to the cross, I didn't take on flesh, I didn't offer my blood, only part of my blood for you.
SPEAKER_01: I offered all of it.
SPEAKER_01: And so this is discouraging because, as brothers and sisters, even in the body, even in conversations that I'm having today with other pastors and people in my community, I'm I'm hearing sometimes in their voice, um, they're discouraged.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm thinking, well, okay, to be fair, I get that way too.
SPEAKER_01: But then let's encourage one another that there's a full meal out there.
SPEAKER_01: And oh, by the way, I think that gone are the days uh when we could just come and eat, and this was never the intent, by the way.
SPEAKER_01: We come and we get one meal uh a week.
SPEAKER_01: We come in our Sunday, we get that one meal, and it's supposed to sustain us, and then what happens is by the time next Sunday comes around, the tank's empty, we're coasting in on fumes for the next fill-up.
SPEAKER_01: So that probably gives, that analogy probably gives my wife PTSD because when we're on vacation and we're in between and we're doing these long stretches and we're only stopping for the bathroom breaks at every fill-up, I'm coasting sometimes beyond her comfort level to get to the next fuel station.
SPEAKER_01: And the lights on, and she's like, How long has that light been on?
SPEAKER_01: Has that been on for a while?
SPEAKER_01: When is that?
SPEAKER_01: How many?
SPEAKER_01: How long?
SPEAKER_01: A couple miles?
SPEAKER_01: Okay, well, we should be looking for some gas station.
SPEAKER_01: And uh, and I'm like, babe, we got this.
SPEAKER_01: Trust the car, we're good.
SPEAKER_01: We're fuming, we're coming in, and and so too many times, even in our own Christian walk, guys, that's how we're living.
SPEAKER_01: We're coasting in on the next Sunday on fumes.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: So, rewind the clock.
SPEAKER_01: COVID hits, we go into quarantine, we feel this, we feel this call.
SPEAKER_01: We feel this call from God.
SPEAKER_01: What's this about?
SPEAKER_01: There's there's an invitation here.
SPEAKER_01: He's inviting us to do something deeper.
SPEAKER_01: We have this margin now that's created, this space.
SPEAKER_01: Spend time with me.
SPEAKER_01: And so fine, okay, great.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not gonna eat just on Sunday.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna check in and I'm gonna have breakfast too.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, breakfast is great, okay.
SPEAKER_01: Well, what I'm finding right now, church, is to keep my head in the game, to keep focused with where the enemy wants to take all of our hearts and minds right now in this year and where we're going.
SPEAKER_01: It's a minimum three meals a day.
SPEAKER_01: I'm having breakfast, lunch, and dinner with Jesus, and sometimes some snacks in between, depending on what's happening in the day, because you never know.
SPEAKER_01: It seems like we'll have a couple good days, and then there's like another, uh, then there's something else that hits and it transfers, and then and then we have another bad news situation, or there's something we have to respond to or react where all of a sudden we've slipped and we've lost this sense of freedom.
SPEAKER_01: And so our freedom is fragile right now, and whatever we think it is, it's not reality.
SPEAKER_01: And I want to give you a quote here, and this is from Viktor Frankel, Austrian professor, neurology, and psychiatrist, Holocaust survivor.
SPEAKER_01: When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.
SPEAKER_01: Everything can be taken from a person but one thing.
SPEAKER_01: The last of the human freedoms, to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.
SPEAKER_01: That's all we have left.
SPEAKER_01: Our decision to think and respond to a situation in our minds and heart.
SPEAKER_01: The battleground for freedom is between the ears, and it connects with a with a lifeline to our hearts.
SPEAKER_01: And so we are to not live in a spirit of fear, but we are to live in a spirit of power and love and a sound mind by the blood of the cross in Calvary.
SPEAKER_01: And that's what we are called to have.
SPEAKER_01: And that's all we have as we start to look around and the perceived freedoms that we had that we thought, oh, we can go in and have dinner at a restaurant and sit down.
SPEAKER_01: Well, no, that can be removed.
SPEAKER_01: I can travel to these other countries.
SPEAKER_01: Well, no, you can't.
SPEAKER_01: You've got too many outbreaks.
SPEAKER_01: The U.S.
SPEAKER_01: is uh full of outbreaks, and you can't do that anymore either.
SPEAKER_01: Um, well, maybe I'm gonna go across the state line, visit my cousin or my aunt over in Ohio.
SPEAKER_01: Um that day may be coming where they're shutting that down too, and interstate travel could be uh closed too as they try to get this thing under wraps, and they're doing it under this premise of restripping our freedoms away to see how we respond.
SPEAKER_01: And some of us are getting angry, some of us are getting frustrated, and the cracks are starting to show, and and all the stats are showing, and you've got to go look for them, but they're out there.
SPEAKER_01: Self-harm is on the rise, drinking is on the rise, drug abuse is on the rise, domestic violence, all of these things.
SPEAKER_01: Humanity is cracking at its core right now because our perceived freedoms are being stripped from us, and how do we respond?
SPEAKER_01: Well, we respond with a couple truths that we all need to embrace.
SPEAKER_01: And I want to give them to you right now.
SPEAKER_01: Here are three basic truths that if you haven't got yet, write them down and start reading them because this will impact you greatly and you will start to have some freedom today.
SPEAKER_01: One, we are not God.
SPEAKER_01: There's only one God, God of creation.
SPEAKER_01: We are not Him.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, we are also not in control.
SPEAKER_01: If you think you're in control, well, that's the first lie.
SPEAKER_01: You need to go rebarter that deal and take that back.
SPEAKER_01: Because once you realize that you're not in control and you're not God, then that leads you to the third phase, and that is you are only human.
SPEAKER_01: We're only human.
SPEAKER_01: We were only ever created to be human.
SPEAKER_01: Now, inside of that humanity are a lot of beautiful things that God gave us in creation: his belovedness, his affection, his desires, his sacrifice, his invitation to something far greater than what we trade away.
SPEAKER_01: But when we can put those three things together, well then now we're stepping into some freedom now.
SPEAKER_01: We're stepping back into his truth, we're stepping back into some free places.
SPEAKER_01: And that's where we want to live from.
SPEAKER_01: See, we have a far greater access to the Father through Christ, his power, presence, love, and mercy than most of us ever fully realize.
SPEAKER_01: Somehow we've accepted the lie that God is a million miles away and he's not all that interested in us.
SPEAKER_01: He'll pick up the phone once in a while.
SPEAKER_01: If he's not too busy, somehow we get this in our mind, in our scripting, and we get stuck there.
SPEAKER_01: But that's not the reality.
SPEAKER_01: That's a lie that we've bartered away because he looks at us, he delights in us, he desires to meet with us in the cool of the day.
SPEAKER_01: He wants to come and refresh our souls.
SPEAKER_01: And so much of that is happening in our church.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, I'm so encouraged by the things that have been happening in the last couple weeks.
SPEAKER_01: Our Wednesday night prayer meetings have been fantastic.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, there's a new level of faith.
SPEAKER_01: We're hitting a new gear, we're praying, we're praying about the situation, right?
SPEAKER_01: We're not in control, but we can pray to the God who is in control and he can deliver us from that place.
SPEAKER_01: And so, our battle tool, this is how we fought our battles, is in prayer and in worship.
SPEAKER_01: And you guys are responding in such a beautiful way.
SPEAKER_01: We are so encouraged as the leadership team.
SPEAKER_01: The 10 days that we went through prayer and fasting, 35, 40 people here every morning.
SPEAKER_01: That was fantastic, blown away by that.
SPEAKER_01: Um, and so that is how we're fighting.
SPEAKER_01: That is the way God is calling us to do that.
SPEAKER_01: And so, to experience more of Him, church, this is the call today is that we go in and we say, Okay, I've lived with this construct.
SPEAKER_01: God wants to offer more because God needs more of us right now to be a light in this dark place.
SPEAKER_01: And he wants us to empty ourselves, fully accept complete freedom that he's offering, not this partial construct that we've negotiated maybe this year, maybe yesterday.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe decades ago, that we bartered away our freedom or a portion of it, and we've lived in bondage and a lie for far too long.
SPEAKER_01: So it's time to renegotiate the deal you've accepted.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: Here's the deal: you can't get a new start to your story.
SPEAKER_01: We can't get a new start to our story, but we can change the ending.
SPEAKER_01: A new narrative, God's narrative, and a kingdom narrative.
SPEAKER_01: And so that's what I want to encourage today is that we're looking to finish well.
SPEAKER_01: The enemy wants to remind you how you started.
SPEAKER_01: He's going to remind you of the deal.
SPEAKER_01: He's going to put the contract back in front of your face and say, ah, wait a minute.
SPEAKER_01: No, no.
SPEAKER_01: We've already made this deal.
SPEAKER_01: We've already talked about this.
SPEAKER_01: You traded that away, remember?
SPEAKER_01: There's some sin and some shame around that.
SPEAKER_01: No, you can't go over there and live in that complete space because, well, just remember over here, let's go uh take a look.
SPEAKER_01: I want to get you stuck in the rear view mirror.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: I want to distract your face from the front wind shield, which is always bigger, by the way.
SPEAKER_01: I don't think that's a mistake.
SPEAKER_01: We need to see where we're headed.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: That other rear view mirror is a lot smaller.
SPEAKER_01: We don't drive forward always looking backwards.
SPEAKER_01: But he'll always try to get you to live that way.
SPEAKER_01: So renegotiate a new deal.
SPEAKER_01: Access.
SPEAKER_01: The only way to sustain and maintain right now in this world is coming together, encouraging each other as believers, as blood washed saints, brothers and sisters, sons and daughters of the King.
SPEAKER_01: And we also have to be meeting regularly.
SPEAKER_01: I think it's a call to spend more time with the Father.
SPEAKER_01: He's asking for more time.
SPEAKER_01: He's like, listen, I'll eat with you all day long.
SPEAKER_01: I've got the buffet out.
SPEAKER_01: Come sit at my table.
SPEAKER_01: Whatever you're struggling with, let's talk about it.
SPEAKER_01: Let's spend time together.
SPEAKER_01: I love you, son.
SPEAKER_01: I love you, daughter.
SPEAKER_01: I want to eat with you.
SPEAKER_01: I want to meet with you.
SPEAKER_01: I want to encourage you.
SPEAKER_01: You're going to need it for the days ahead.
SPEAKER_01: You're going to need it to encourage your neighbor.
SPEAKER_01: You're going to need it to encourage your brother, your mother, your dad, your uncle, your grandmother.
SPEAKER_01: Like no time in other human history right now, our country is divided.
SPEAKER_01: Perhaps like it was during the Civil War.
SPEAKER_01: I wasn't alive, I've only read about it.
SPEAKER_01: But I remember but I've read that brother fought against brother in that war, and it was divided over social issues of the day.
SPEAKER_01: And deeper things too.
SPEAKER_01: In the humanity of our country.
SPEAKER_01: But today we're divided over some things about how we respond to the fear that's been placed in us by the media for an agenda that we respond to, and relationships are being divided on whether or not you'll wear a mask.
SPEAKER_01: And it's all over.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, we can read it.
SPEAKER_01: It's all over the media.
SPEAKER_01: I don't have to explain this.
SPEAKER_01: You guys have probably had discussions in your own homes and your own personal feeling on it one way or the other.
SPEAKER_01: I guess what I'm saying is, as Christians, let's not be divided over that.
SPEAKER_01: Let's not be divided over that.
SPEAKER_01: Let's respond in love.
SPEAKER_01: Let's counter with love.
SPEAKER_01: The world is going to give us its angry defense, its angry reasons why we need to do this or why not.
SPEAKER_01: And you're taking something, you know, you're being risky with my health, and they're framing it in all that way.
SPEAKER_01: And so I'm just going to couch it and say, take that all to the Lord, let him sort that out.
SPEAKER_01: He'll give you, he'll give you, he'll set your heart free.
SPEAKER_01: Because here's what he says, right?
SPEAKER_01: First of all, Jesus says, I'm the way, I'm the truth, I'm the life.
SPEAKER_01: There is no other way to the Father but through me.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus gives you, there's only one set of directions to God's house, and it's through Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: So we have the directions.
SPEAKER_01: So if you take a different route, it's not going to get you there, guys.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: There's only one set of directions.
SPEAKER_01: I don't care how many different ways GPS wants to be creative, Jesus Christ is that only way.
SPEAKER_01: And by the way, what else does he say?
SPEAKER_01: If you're spending time with him, because he's all those things, he's the truth, he's the life, he's the only way.
SPEAKER_01: He's also telling you that the truth, which is him, will set you free.
SPEAKER_01: The truth, you will hear the truth, and it will make you free.
SPEAKER_01: Ladies and gentlemen, we are not hearing the truth from our media, from our politicians.
SPEAKER_01: I wish we were.
SPEAKER_01: There's only one source that we're getting the truth from, and that's a direct connection, plugging in, direct dial, picking up the phone and talking with Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus, I need your truth today.
SPEAKER_01: I need your light.
SPEAKER_01: I need you to re recalibrate my mindset today before I get out of bed, before I look at my phone.
SPEAKER_01: Man, I just like when I wake up in the morning, I cringe because I'm like waiting.
SPEAKER_01: I know what's waiting for me on that little evil device of my phone.
SPEAKER_01: And what I try to do is I try and sift through it, get to the Bible app verse of the day, get into some scripture.
SPEAKER_01: I don't want to get into the news feeds first, man, because it's right there.
SPEAKER_01: It sucks you down.
SPEAKER_01: Your light goes out and it's an ember.
SPEAKER_01: You wake up and you're fighting.
SPEAKER_01: You're fighting from the beginning of the day right now to keep that light, to keep that passion, to keep that energy going.
SPEAKER_01: So, how do we do this?
SPEAKER_01: There's this invitation from the Father that we need to accept.
SPEAKER_01: I'm sorry, it's the repeater eater card.
SPEAKER_01: Uh used to be Jimmy John's.
SPEAKER_01: When you go in there, you get the you get a sub, they call it the repeater eater club.
SPEAKER_01: And every time you went in, they stamp your card and you got like a free sub when you got there.
SPEAKER_01: A lot of people do that.
SPEAKER_01: Uh Dutch Bros.
SPEAKER_01: Nobody's doing cards anymore.
SPEAKER_01: Everybody's doing apps.
SPEAKER_01: Fine, I don't care.
SPEAKER_01: I'll do an app.
SPEAKER_01: I am a repeater eater at several places.
SPEAKER_01: And I want to be a repeater eater with the father.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: I want that free sub.
SPEAKER_01: And every time I sit down with him, there's always this free gift, this offering that he's giving me to renew my heart, to renew my mind, to recalibrate, and say, oh, by the way, here, by the way, here's a bunch of armor that you get to put on a battle for the day.
SPEAKER_01: So don't forget to put that on.
SPEAKER_01: And that's a new discipline to do it every day.
SPEAKER_01: Hebrews 2 12, 2, uh very, very familiar passage, but this is the access, right, that we get.
SPEAKER_01: Um we do this.
SPEAKER_01: We renew our hearts, we renew our minds.
SPEAKER_01: We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith.
SPEAKER_01: Because the joy awaiting him, he endured the cross, disregarding its shame.
SPEAKER_01: Now he is seated in the place of honor beside God's throne.
SPEAKER_01: He's seated beside God in the heavenly places.
SPEAKER_01: He went to the cross.
SPEAKER_01: He looked beyond the cross, its shame, and he had joy.
SPEAKER_01: This verse has always inspired me because I'm going.
SPEAKER_01: He knew it was in front of him directly, but he could look beyond the cross and have joy about what he was about to endure.
SPEAKER_01: And he was gonna reject the shame.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, wait a minute.
SPEAKER_01: That's heresy.
SPEAKER_01: I think everybody, you know, the needle goes off the record.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, so here's the deal, right?
SPEAKER_01: He was for a moment in our history.
SPEAKER_01: He took on the shame of our entire world, and he knew what it felt like to be a murderer, to be a robber, to be a thief, to be an adulterer.
SPEAKER_01: He knew all the sins of this world.
SPEAKER_01: He took them on and he felt that.
SPEAKER_01: And he endured it, and he rejected that shame.
SPEAKER_01: And he knows, I love this passage because he knows that the enemy attaches the shame to it.
SPEAKER_01: He's like, I'm gonna reject that.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna take it and I'm gonna reject it.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm gonna endure this because I'm gonna go beyond this, and I'm gonna make a transaction here that, by the way, will undo anything else you've negotiated with the devil along the way.
SPEAKER_01: Because this contract, this contract that I'm doing for you, the work on the cross that I'm doing for you, is gonna undo, rewrite anything else that you've signed in blood with the enemy.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna give you freedom here.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna endure this, and you're gonna get freedom from this sacrifice.
SPEAKER_01: And God's gonna give us his blood because it's the only blood that would be sustainable.
SPEAKER_01: We don't have to do any more sacrifices.
SPEAKER_01: It's one and done, it's all good.
SPEAKER_01: Can we step into it?
SPEAKER_01: Can we receive the complete freedom that we have at the cross of Calvary today?
SPEAKER_01: That's the challenge.
SPEAKER_01: What are some of you right now wrestling with that you've like accepted and you got this boulder on your back, and I'm thinking pilgrim's progress right now?
SPEAKER_01: This guy's like working through everything, he's walking through life, and he's like, I've just lived with this boulder forever.
SPEAKER_01: I just I know how to carry it.
SPEAKER_01: I can actually get really good with it.
SPEAKER_01: I can even negotiate obstacles, I can get through meetings, I can get through life.
SPEAKER_01: You're not meant to carry it.
SPEAKER_01: You never were.
SPEAKER_01: See, it's interesting is that everything that I saw growing up about Roman crucifixion, we see this picture of Jesus and the two um thieves with him on either side, and they're raised up, like they're up high above the ground, and you see them up.
SPEAKER_01: But historical accuracy and facts were Romans didn't do that.
SPEAKER_01: They didn't have the crucifixions way up in the air.
SPEAKER_01: They actually brought it down.
SPEAKER_01: See, the the term crucifixion in Roman culture back in the day, it was a very dirty word.
SPEAKER_01: It was not accepted, it was not polite to talk about in social settings, it was considered out of bounds and socially unacceptable, and it wasn't something that you talked about in kind or polite places.
SPEAKER_01: Because the nature of it was they wanted it in your face.
SPEAKER_01: It was an extreme Roman punishment, and it was generally eye level.
SPEAKER_01: They put the crosses at eye level so that the passers by would not be able to just, you know, if they're high, you can just kind of keep your head down and just maybe see some feet when you're walking by and you don't have to see anything.
SPEAKER_01: But they would post them up at eye level, naked and ashamed on the cross, doing a going to a slow death, and it was at eye level.
SPEAKER_01: And so you would see it as a passerby.
SPEAKER_01: As a citizen, you would walk by and see that.
SPEAKER_01: And so the shame and the vulnerability that our God took on for us to completely rewrite the script so that we would stop exchanging our truth for lies, that we would stop exchanging our freedoms for fear and bondage.
SPEAKER_01: He went there at eye level with all humanity, eye level with all humanity to take on the sin of the world and give us the rescue.
SPEAKER_01: And this is what he gave us in exchange.
SPEAKER_01: This is great.
SPEAKER_01: John 17, 2023, 22 through 23.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus talking to the Father.
SPEAKER_01: I have given them the glory you gave me.
SPEAKER_01: Father, you gave me glory.
SPEAKER_01: I've passed it on to them.
SPEAKER_01: There's been this transaction now that they may be one with me, Father, as we are one.
SPEAKER_01: And there's this connection made.
SPEAKER_01: No longer a long-distance phone call.
SPEAKER_01: Don't have to send the letter in the mail and wait for snail mail to get to the Father.
SPEAKER_01: No, it's a direct access.
SPEAKER_01: I in them and you in me.
SPEAKER_01: He's the conduit.
SPEAKER_01: It's this direct access point that we get.
SPEAKER_01: That's the truth.
SPEAKER_01: That's where the freedom comes from.
SPEAKER_01: Don't let the enemy keep stealing that from you today.
SPEAKER_01: There's this scene in Braveheart that I love.
SPEAKER_01: We use a lot of movie clips to illustrate in our men's events, but there's this one clip, and if I could, I'd play it for you.
SPEAKER_01: But William Wallace has just been in front of the Scottish nobles.
SPEAKER_01: He's just been knighted to become Sir William.
SPEAKER_01: He's won enough battles at this point.
SPEAKER_01: He's gotten the attention of the noblemen, and they're paying attention to him now.
SPEAKER_01: And he's got tremendous weight with the commoners.
SPEAKER_01: And he's just gotten up from his knighthood.
SPEAKER_01: Uh he gave some medallions to his uh his battle warriors and his captains.
SPEAKER_01: And he's sitting there and they're about ready to enter in.
SPEAKER_01: And it should be a time of celebration, but then the noblemen start arguing about who has right to what claim, and he's kind of like, I don't have time for this.
SPEAKER_01: And he starts to exit.
SPEAKER_01: And as he's leaving, one of the noblemen shouts up at him, Sir William, where are you gonna go next?
SPEAKER_01: And Sir William, William Wallace turns and addresses the crowd, and he goes, I'll invade England and defeat the English on their own ground.
SPEAKER_01: And then Craig the nobleman responds with like this snarky disbelief of invade?
SPEAKER_01: Huh! That's impossible.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, pause right there.
SPEAKER_01: That is the voice of the devil in all of our lives.
SPEAKER_01: He's now, William Wallace is looking through a clear lens of complete freedom.
SPEAKER_01: He's living in complete truth, and he's on a mission with his life.
SPEAKER_01: He's living from a complete free heart.
SPEAKER_01: And this guy is shouting him down and saying, that's impossible.
SPEAKER_01: That's impossible.
SPEAKER_01: How does that happen?
SPEAKER_01: You can't do that.
SPEAKER_01: Nobody's ever invaded England.
SPEAKER_01: And you think you can do that?
SPEAKER_01: And he doesn't take it for a second.
SPEAKER_01: He volleys right back and he goes, Why?
SPEAKER_01: Why is that impossible?
SPEAKER_01: And then he calls him to he calls them, he calls him to task.
SPEAKER_01: He says, You're so concerned with squabbling for the scraps from Long Shank's tables that you've missed your God-given right to something better.
SPEAKER_01: Your own country, your freedom.
SPEAKER_01: He's essentially saying, You've missed your God-given right to something better, your freedom.
SPEAKER_01: And he rejects the voice of the enemy in his heart and his mind right there.
SPEAKER_01: It was a challenge.
SPEAKER_01: He tried to put doubt in him, he tried to put fear in him at that moment.
SPEAKER_01: He said, That's impossible.
SPEAKER_01: You can't do that.
SPEAKER_01: He says, No, if you would look beyond your set of circumstances, if you would take away the contract that you're so eager to sit down and take the scraps from the king's table of England, you might be able to see my perspective.
SPEAKER_01: You might be actually able to see what's possible for us.
SPEAKER_01: A free country, a country of our own, freedom.
SPEAKER_01: It's our God-given right.
SPEAKER_01: Ladies and gentlemen, it's our God-given right today to have a free mind and a free heart.
SPEAKER_01: We're not battling flesh and blood right now in our culture.
SPEAKER_01: We're battling spirits and dominions of power and influence.
SPEAKER_01: And we battle on the right side.
SPEAKER_01: We battle with God and we take back and we acknowledge the complete freedom that we have.
SPEAKER_01: What lie or agreement have you entertained from the enemy that's keeping you distracted or in bondage?
SPEAKER_01: What are you realizing right now?
SPEAKER_01: What's keeping you from your God-given right to have complete freedom in this life through Jesus?
SPEAKER_01: His mighty name, the complete work.
SPEAKER_01: He finished it all at Calvary.
SPEAKER_01: See, there's a huge gap in our faith between being informed and being transformed.
SPEAKER_01: Romans 12, 2.
SPEAKER_01: Don't copy the behavior and customs of this world.
SPEAKER_01: But let God transform you.
SPEAKER_01: Here's the new deal.
SPEAKER_01: Paul got it.
SPEAKER_01: Paul got the new contract.
SPEAKER_01: He went from Saul to Paul.
SPEAKER_01: He got a completely new contract and he got a redo.
SPEAKER_01: He couldn't change the start of his story.
SPEAKER_01: He couldn't change the fact that he was there at Stephen's death holding robes, watching him get stoned.
SPEAKER_01: He couldn't change the fact that he had sent persecution on Christians in his own life.
SPEAKER_01: But he could sure change how he ended his story.
SPEAKER_01: And he steps into it.
SPEAKER_01: On the road to Damascus, God does a work on him.
SPEAKER_01: And he transforms him.
SPEAKER_01: And he gets a new contract and a new deal.
SPEAKER_01: And he steps into complete freedom.
SPEAKER_01: But let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think.
SPEAKER_01: Then you will learn to know God's will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.
SPEAKER_01: That's what I want, church.
SPEAKER_01: I want that so badly for me.
SPEAKER_01: I pray for it every day.
SPEAKER_01: I pray for that for my family.
SPEAKER_01: I pray for that for this church.
SPEAKER_01: I pray for it for you.
SPEAKER_01: I want you to want it as badly as I want it.
SPEAKER_01: That we that we have, that we would know and learn God's will for us, which is good and pleasing and perfect.
SPEAKER_01: And live from that.
SPEAKER_01: He's saying, I'm going to give you a new set of standards.
SPEAKER_01: And you're going to live from that set of standards.
SPEAKER_01: And when you do, complete freedom, like you've never experienced before, washes over you.
SPEAKER_01: So I want to share this story with you.
SPEAKER_01: This is a personal story for me.
SPEAKER_01: I entered a season, I entered into a journey where God gave me the invitation.
SPEAKER_01: I didn't go blind and I wasn't on the road to Damascus, but there was a lot at risk, and he offered something to me to say, here's the deal.
SPEAKER_01: Here's a new contract.
SPEAKER_01: Here's a new deal.
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to barter a new deal with you, son.
SPEAKER_01: I love you.
SPEAKER_01: I run towards you as you're walking home limped and wounded and hurting, and you've carried all of it too long.
SPEAKER_01: You've got some contracts over here that I want to erase, that we need to restart, we need a fresh start, and we need to do a 180.
SPEAKER_01: And we want to do this.
SPEAKER_01: And there's this invitation that comes out, and he goes, Are you willing to do the work?
SPEAKER_01: Are you willing to do the work?
SPEAKER_01: And I was talking to a brother the other week, and we were talking about timelines.
SPEAKER_01: And we were talking about what's funny, you know, and this particular family had gone through one of the worst imaginable things any parent should have to go through.
SPEAKER_01: And he was sitting down, he's like, you know, it's gonna be like a year and a half for me, and I know you guys have been on a journey, and it's been a year for you guys too, and it's been a hard year, in addition to everything that we're experiencing this year.
SPEAKER_01: I'm like, yeah, it has.
SPEAKER_01: And he goes, he goes, but it's funny because at 18 months or something, people look at me, and I feel like there's this thing about, well, you know, you should look like this, or 18 months should look like that for you, and you should be this far along in your story or your journey.
SPEAKER_01: And I pause and I said, Well, that's not that that's not entirely accurate.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, and I know that's true, and I know that's not your heart, and that's not what God says, but God invented time.
SPEAKER_01: He gave us time in creation, right?
SPEAKER_01: He separated night from day, and he gave us the first week in human history.
SPEAKER_01: He set seven days on a calendar, and we live from that place.
SPEAKER_01: So time is important to God.
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't have to look in a certain specific way, and you don't have to fit in somebody's box.
SPEAKER_01: My wife and I agreed very early on in our journey that we're not gonna fit in somebody's box of time frames, and it's gonna do this, and it's supposed to take years, and this is what it's supposed to look like in our healing journey.
SPEAKER_01: We said, No, we're gonna trust God, we're gonna go at it like this, and we're gonna trust his time frames.
SPEAKER_01: Time is important to him.
SPEAKER_01: He created it, and he created it for a reason.
SPEAKER_01: The Bible is filled with numerical constructs of dates and times.
SPEAKER_01: So I looked at my buddy and I said, Here's the deal.
SPEAKER_01: I said, I don't know what my life's supposed to look like after a year walking with the Father, healing, journeying.
SPEAKER_01: But he gave me this vision at that moment when I was talking with him, and it was this vision of me, and I'm in this field, and my hands are on the plow.
SPEAKER_01: Like this is an old school plow, right?
SPEAKER_01: There's probably like a water buffalo attached to the front of this thing.
SPEAKER_01: It's not mechanized, it's not a John Deere suite setup or nothing like that.
SPEAKER_01: It's like manual labor, no air conditioning.
SPEAKER_01: I'm at this plow, hands on this wood, and I'm and and I'm and I'm tired, it's rugged, and I see what's in front of me.
SPEAKER_01: And I grew up in the Midwest, and so planting season was a very big deal.
SPEAKER_01: Um, I remember it every year.
SPEAKER_01: You'd come out of winter and you'd see this crusty, nasty field, and then the farmer would come do his thing, and the soil would be turned over, it'd be beautiful, and it was black, and it was ready for the seed, and it was amazing.
SPEAKER_01: And you're like, oh man, cool.
SPEAKER_01: And it was just always an amazing picture of the transition from the dead fallow field to now a field ready to receive life.
SPEAKER_01: And I'm looking in front and I'm at the plow, and this is real time, so this is like today, and I'm looking out, and there's still this kind of crusty field in front of me to plow.
SPEAKER_01: I stop for a minute because I've just been at the plow, man.
SPEAKER_01: I've just been doing the work, disciplining myself, training my mind, doing the work.
SPEAKER_01: I go, just stop, and I hear the father say, and I look behind you, and I look over my shoulder, and there's this vision of this field that's been plowed, which is my life, over this last year, and the work that's been done, and the soil is black, it's ready for seed, it's ready for the rain.
SPEAKER_01: And I don't know what the seed and the rain are supposed to do.
SPEAKER_01: That's not my job.
SPEAKER_01: My job with obedience was to prepare the field.
SPEAKER_01: God's job is his part, and he brings the seed and he brings the rain.
SPEAKER_01: But my job was to prepare the field.
SPEAKER_01: I'm called to obedience.
SPEAKER_01: We're called to obedience, we're called to prepare our fields for him.
SPEAKER_01: See, faith is doing our job, believing that God's gonna show up and do his job and his part.
SPEAKER_01: But if he doesn't, we're completely hosed, but we're gonna do it anyways.
SPEAKER_01: And so we step into that.
SPEAKER_01: And and and I was talking with a brother today, and we were talking about this analogy, and he gave me the faith thing, and I said, I love that, I'm gonna steal that today.
SPEAKER_01: Um and so that's it.
SPEAKER_01: That's for us.
SPEAKER_01: We're supposed to show up and do our part and be obedient and plow our field.
SPEAKER_01: And so I just look back and I saw a year's worth of work, a year's worth of field of rich soil that God can use.
SPEAKER_01: I'm still looking ahead.
SPEAKER_01: God, I'm ready to use that.
SPEAKER_01: I've worked that out.
SPEAKER_01: We're good.
SPEAKER_01: Use that however you want to use that field.
SPEAKER_01: It's yours.
SPEAKER_01: It was an honor, hardest work I've ever done.
SPEAKER_01: Wouldn't trade it for anything in the world.
SPEAKER_01: But I remember stepping into that field the first day, day one, and the the plow had just moved a few.
SPEAKER_01: Inches of soil over, and I looked down and I saw what was possible, what it could look like.
SPEAKER_01: And kind of gave me a vision and just said, if you'll trust me, if you'll work with me, I'm going to give you a new contract, a new script.
SPEAKER_01: We're going to erase this, we're going to deal with the shame, we're going to give you complete freedom, and you're going to operate with some truth and knowledge from Calvary that you've never had before.
SPEAKER_01: God is near to the brokenhearted and wants to comfort you.
SPEAKER_01: He wants to realign your thinking, recalibrate your brain, give you his direct line connection through his son, Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Here's my direct line.
SPEAKER_01: Call me anytime.
SPEAKER_01: Go through Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: He knows how to reach me.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, by the way, he's at my right hand.
SPEAKER_01: And if you're in him and he's in me, then we're sitting right next to each other, by the way.
SPEAKER_01: You don't need to be placed on hold or put on in queue for a callback.
SPEAKER_01: And I've had to do that several times this season, where you're waiting for some customer service and you get put in the queue, and your wait times uh between now and next month, and they'll call you back.
SPEAKER_01: Awesome.
SPEAKER_01: Raise your hand if you know what I'm talking about.
SPEAKER_01: And everybody out there gave me a virtual fist bump.
SPEAKER_01: He picks up every time on the first ring.
SPEAKER_01: He is near to us, and he's near right now to his church.
SPEAKER_01: We're repenting as a church.
SPEAKER_01: We're coming before him, we're cleaning our hearts, we're giving him sacrifice, and we're saying, We're coming before you humbly, God.
SPEAKER_01: Do your will, do your work, use us.
SPEAKER_01: I want to read a script here from Brendan Manning's book, Abba Child.
SPEAKER_01: And I think he writes very beautifully this piece about what we struggle with in our Christianity.
SPEAKER_01: In my experience, self-hatred is the dominant malaise crippling Christians and stifling their growth in the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: The melancholy spirit of Chekhov's play, You Live Badly, my friends, haunts the American Christian conscience.
SPEAKER_01: Negative voices from our family of origin.
SPEAKER_01: You will never amount to anything.
SPEAKER_01: Moralizing from the church and pressure to be successful transform expectant pilgrims en route to the heavenly Jerusalem into a dispirited traveling troop of brooding hamlets and frightened rulers.
SPEAKER_01: Alcoholism, workaholism, mounting addictive behaviors, and the escalating suicide rate reflect the magnitude of this particular problem.
SPEAKER_01: The great divorce between my head and my heart endured throughout my ministry.
SPEAKER_01: For 18 years I proclaimed the good news of God's passionate, unconditional love, utterly convicted in my head, but not feeling it in my heart.
SPEAKER_01: Christians who remain in hiding continue to live the lie.
SPEAKER_01: See, we deny the reality of our sin.
SPEAKER_01: In a futile attempt to erase our past, we deprive the community of our healing gift.
SPEAKER_01: If we conceal our wounds out of fear and shame, our inner darkness can neither be illuminated nor become a light for others.
SPEAKER_01: We cling to our bad feeling and beat ourselves up with the past when what we should do is let go.
SPEAKER_01: As Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, guilt is an idol, but when we dare to live as forgiven men and women, we join the wounded healers and draw closer to Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: And these wounded healers imply that grace and healing are communicated through the vulnerability of men and women who have been fractured and heartbroken by life.
SPEAKER_01: In love sacrifice, only wounded soldiers can serve.
SPEAKER_01: And so, my friends, many of us, all of us, have been wounded at some point in our journey.
SPEAKER_01: We can't get a new start to the story, but we can change how it ends and how we live from it.
SPEAKER_01: We change the ending by understanding the starting place.
SPEAKER_01: It might be a painful, it might be painful, but identify the wound, the arrow that has almost taken you out of your own story that's remained in that you've never dealt with.
SPEAKER_01: Don't run from that place.
SPEAKER_01: Stay with it.
SPEAKER_01: It's painful, it's scary, but there's promise, there's freedom, there's something beautiful on the other side of it.
SPEAKER_01: When you're willing to risk it all for what God's offering on the contract, the exchange is priceless and it's beautiful and it's well worth it.
SPEAKER_01: Take it to the Father with Jesus and receive the healing, the complete healing that he offers.
SPEAKER_01: Remove the lie from around the pain and find the freedom to receive the Father's love over you today.
SPEAKER_01: Four kingdom truths that we all live from.
SPEAKER_01: God created me.
SPEAKER_01: I'm made in his image.
SPEAKER_01: God saw that it was very good when he created man and woman and he made them in his own image.
SPEAKER_01: Everything else up to that point, days one through five, everything was good.
SPEAKER_01: But when he culminated us, you'll notice that he added very good at the end.
SPEAKER_01: So everything else was good, and then he made us, and we're very good.
SPEAKER_01: And I gotta tell you that the enemy has tried to take that and add a lie to that too.
SPEAKER_01: You're not very good.
SPEAKER_01: God doesn't have that much interest in you.
SPEAKER_01: You were just one of the other things he had to add in the creation so that the animals, you know, didn't just run free and take over.
SPEAKER_01: Insert lie.
SPEAKER_01: Whatever you want to say there.
SPEAKER_01: No.
SPEAKER_01: God said, You were very good.
SPEAKER_01: You are very good.
SPEAKER_01: The Father has loved us from the beginning.
SPEAKER_01: That's a fact.
SPEAKER_01: Kingdom truth, number one.
SPEAKER_01: Number two, plays into that.
SPEAKER_01: Not that he has loved us from the beginning, but God loves us.
SPEAKER_01: He loves you so much, he gave his own blood to heal you, save you, and set you free.
SPEAKER_01: 2 Corinthians 5 21.
SPEAKER_01: For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sins, so that we could be made right with God through Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus did the complete work, not the partial work or only some of it.
SPEAKER_01: He took it all.
SPEAKER_01: He completely covered the sin of all humanity.
SPEAKER_01: It wasn't a partial deal, it wasn't an incomplete contract, he took it all.
SPEAKER_01: He created me.
SPEAKER_01: He loves me.
SPEAKER_01: Number three is huge, and where we get stuck, and the enemy does some of his deepest work here.
SPEAKER_01: He forgives me.
SPEAKER_01: He forgives me completely.
SPEAKER_01: If we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
SPEAKER_01: An opportunity to pray with some brothers to say, hey, you know what?
SPEAKER_01: I'm always going to struggle with this.
SPEAKER_01: I'm winning the battle, but I'm going to struggle here.
SPEAKER_01: And they get into this construct, and there's this lie that the enemy wraps around them that all of their unrighteousness won't be handled.
SPEAKER_01: That's a huge pit, a lie from the pit, straight from the bottom.
SPEAKER_01: God didn't come up to deliver just part of our unrighteousness.
SPEAKER_01: He came to deliver all of our unrighteousness.
SPEAKER_01: And there is complete freedom on the other side of this, guys.
SPEAKER_01: Men and women, church.
SPEAKER_01: We receive a new heart and a new mind.
SPEAKER_01: We get the mind of Christ in the transaction.
SPEAKER_01: We have access to his holy armor for the battle every day.
SPEAKER_01: Are we willing to be disciplined enough to put it on?
SPEAKER_01: And number four, he's not just leaving us here.
SPEAKER_01: He's coming back.
SPEAKER_01: God will return for us.
SPEAKER_01: He's sending his son back for us, bringing us back to a place he's been preparing for us.
SPEAKER_01: He's been gone.
SPEAKER_01: He left us his Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_01: He's been busy working on our home.
SPEAKER_01: He's building us a custom place.
SPEAKER_01: He's coming back to take us there.
SPEAKER_01: We're not here forever.
SPEAKER_01: This is temporary.
SPEAKER_01: I want to look beyond so that the struggles that I'm experiencing right now, I can see beyond, and I'm going to get glory for how I'm responding in this life.
SPEAKER_01: If I'm doing it by his standards, I will receive the glory that's waiting for me.
SPEAKER_01: This is the prize Paul is talking about.
SPEAKER_01: The glory that awaits us.
SPEAKER_01: The heavenly banquet, the wedding feast, our custom mansion.
SPEAKER_01: That's what it's all for.
SPEAKER_01: This life is just practice for eternity, folks.
SPEAKER_01: We've been sitting on the sideline thinking that we're on team B instead of making the varsity and being a starter.
SPEAKER_01: And all that is another negotiation and a lie from the enemy because he's always intended for you to be on the starting lineup in the game, battling with him.
SPEAKER_01: It's not going to be easy here.
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't promise that.
SPEAKER_01: But we get the glory on the other side.
SPEAKER_01: But there is freedom here to operate in that.
SPEAKER_01: A place where anxiety lifts, fear lifts, and we have this beautiful space between us and the Father that we can meet anytime.
SPEAKER_01: Our only limitation to receiving what's being offered from him is grounded in our inability to receive the complete work of Calvary.
SPEAKER_01: In his story with Jesus, when he's talking about the prodigal, the prodigal didn't just take the robe.
SPEAKER_01: He didn't go up and say, Thank you, Father.
SPEAKER_01: I I only need the robe.
SPEAKER_01: That's enough.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
SPEAKER_01: It's all I need.
SPEAKER_01: No?
SPEAKER_01: The Father said, No, you get the robe.
SPEAKER_01: Here's a ring.
SPEAKER_01: And oh, by the way, come to the feast.
SPEAKER_01: I'm setting a party for you.
SPEAKER_01: Come to the feast.
SPEAKER_01: The prodigal got to receive everything.
SPEAKER_01: He received all that the Father offered.
SPEAKER_01: There's a mind shift, a new freedom, new routines, new disciplines, and no excuses.
SPEAKER_01: There's a gift of desperation when you're ready to risk it all.
SPEAKER_01: And that's where the real change begins.
SPEAKER_01: There's a gift that we're given when we are desperate.
SPEAKER_01: You see one way forward, and it's through the cross of Calvary for Jesus Christ, and he gives you complete freedom.
SPEAKER_01: He says, I'll never leave you.
SPEAKER_01: I'm always here.
SPEAKER_01: Will you take it?
SPEAKER_01: Let's start having three meals a day.
SPEAKER_01: Steve Prefontaine, an American middle and long distance runner, at one time in the 70s, held seven American track records from the 2,000-meter run to the 10K meter, 10,000 meter run.
SPEAKER_01: And this was his quote: to give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift.
SPEAKER_01: See, there's a gift of desperation that we all have.
SPEAKER_01: And at that moment, God can come in and do real change and real healing and do his perfect work.
SPEAKER_01: And we live from a place that he always designed us to live from.
SPEAKER_01: Our core self, our true self, the thing that we were made from, his original design with Adam, that we have now access in our own lives today, even though we live in a broken, fallen world, there's this complete transaction through Calvary.
SPEAKER_01: So don't waste the gift.
SPEAKER_01: Don't waste the gift, church.
SPEAKER_01: I wasted the gift.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you are wasting the gift right now.
SPEAKER_01: You're wasting the gift to complete freedom.
SPEAKER_01: It's so precious to me.
SPEAKER_01: Having experienced it, I would lose my life for it.
SPEAKER_01: I would lose my life than to waste the gift or take for granted the complete freedom that Jesus gives.
SPEAKER_01: Because it's an entire package.
SPEAKER_01: Our responsibility with the gift.
SPEAKER_01: We have a responsibility when we've received it.
SPEAKER_01: And we're to encourage one another in hard times.
SPEAKER_01: We're supposed to help stoke the fires in each other, to lift each other up, that we might become beacons of light, hope, and a reminder to the world of the Father's promise of an eternal rescue that is coming with Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: Church, we are needed now more than ever.
SPEAKER_01: Our light, the light that God shines through us, is needed now more than ever.
SPEAKER_01: I don't have to tell you, you know, you know the sound bites, you know the news feeds.
SPEAKER_01: By the way, newsfeeds, a newsfeed, they're feeding us.
SPEAKER_01: Stop eating with them.
SPEAKER_01: Eat with the king.
SPEAKER_01: Okay?
SPEAKER_01: I just want to say shut that down.
SPEAKER_01: If you haven't disciplined yourself to shut that off, okay to be informed, but don't go and uh indulge and be a glutton over there at the newsfeed uh buffet.
SPEAKER_01: Indulge and be a glutton with the king and the father eat at his table.
SPEAKER_01: I've always loved the idea of being a lightkeeper, this person who tends the light in a lighthouse, and they had an expression, you know, keep the light as they would exchange, and sometimes they would trade out, they'd be on the islands and alone for months at a time, and then the the new crew would come and give them a break, and then they'd ask, you know, as they were passing each other, it was a common expression to say, keep the light, keep it safe.
SPEAKER_01: And that light was a beacon of hope and of awareness of danger on the seas to ships and captains about what was around them.
SPEAKER_01: And they needed that keeper to do his job.
SPEAKER_01: They needed that keeper to keep the light safe.
SPEAKER_01: Keep it and keep it well.
SPEAKER_01: Let's keep the light well today.
SPEAKER_01: I'm thinking of the Lord of the Rings scene where it's the last movie in the trilogy, Return of the King.
SPEAKER_01: Gundor's in trouble.
SPEAKER_01: Gandalf has just told the steward to light the beacons, and the steward was like, they won't come for us.
SPEAKER_01: They never helped us, they turned our backs on, and they want Rohan to come rescue them.
SPEAKER_01: Fast forward, Gandalf ends up knocking that dude out, sends Pippin up to light the beacon, and Pippin has to kind of go on this stealthy ninja mission.
SPEAKER_01: And the next scene is just like, it gives me chills, church, because I think that's what we're being called to right now across the globe is to be keepers of the light and encourage one another.
SPEAKER_01: Pippin gets up there, he lights the torch, and then the guys wake up like across the mountain, they're like, oh, they lit the beacon.
SPEAKER_01: And it goes from one mountaintop to another hilltop to another mountain to a small village which looks like China, and then it goes to another mountain, and then eventually, after hundreds of miles, Rohan, the kingdom, sees it.
SPEAKER_01: Strider runs in, and he's like, The beacons of Gundor have been lit, and he challenges the king.
SPEAKER_01: And in that moment, the king of Rohan has a decision.
SPEAKER_01: Strider goes, They've called for aid.
SPEAKER_01: The beacon has been lit.
SPEAKER_01: It's a signal that they are in trouble.
SPEAKER_01: It's their SOS.
SPEAKER_01: And the king goes, Rally the Rohinians.
SPEAKER_01: We will answer the call.
SPEAKER_01: Church, we need to empty this.
SPEAKER_01: We need to receive complete freedom.
SPEAKER_01: We need to get as much of his light in us so that we can answer the call, the SOS, the distress signals of humanity that are going across the world out right now.
SPEAKER_01: They need the light of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: They need the truth.
SPEAKER_01: They need the gospel like never before.
SPEAKER_01: Humanity is hurting, it's cracked, it's stressed, and it's breaking apart.
SPEAKER_01: And the church could be, this could be our finest hour.
SPEAKER_01: That we would remain a beacon of hope.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is extending an invitation to you today.
SPEAKER_01: In your homes, in your living rooms, through your screens, he's extending this invitation through this message today.
SPEAKER_01: It's time to receive the new narrative.
SPEAKER_01: It's time to receive the new contract.
SPEAKER_01: It's time to sit down with him and let him show you the better deal.
SPEAKER_01: That's wrapped in complete freedom.
SPEAKER_01: That the enemy is going to try and discourage you.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, there's too much risk around that.
SPEAKER_01: You could be found out.
SPEAKER_01: It's dangerous.
SPEAKER_01: You're going to lose it all.
SPEAKER_01: Garbage.
SPEAKER_01: It's not the God we serve, it's not the Father we have.
SPEAKER_01: So we reject that lie in the name of Jesus Christ because freedom from fear, freedom from shame, freedom from bondage, freedom from addictions, all of that is wiped away.
SPEAKER_01: It's a clause in the back of God's contract.
SPEAKER_01: And are you ready to sign today?
SPEAKER_01: This life isn't happening to you, it's happening for you.
SPEAKER_01: And true and complete freedom is only a moment away.
SPEAKER_01: It's entirely your decision to step into and receive all that the Father has.
SPEAKER_01: I want to close with one more quote out of Brendan Manning's book here.
SPEAKER_01: That's what he says about his personal journey.
SPEAKER_01: My own journey has taught me that only when I feel safe with God do I feel safe with myself.
SPEAKER_01: To trust the Abba who ran to his wayward son and never asked any questions enables us to trust ourselves at the core.
SPEAKER_01: The decision to come out of hiding is our initiation right into the healing ministry of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: It brings its own reward.
SPEAKER_01: We stand in the truth that sets us free and live out of the reality that makes us whole.
SPEAKER_01: Let me read that one more time.
SPEAKER_01: It brings its own reward.
SPEAKER_01: This is the complete freedom I'm talking about, church.
SPEAKER_01: When we stop trading our truth for lies and stop exchanging our freedom for bondage and slavery, we stand in the truth that sets us free and live out of the reality that makes us whole.
SPEAKER_01: Total freedom is waiting.
SPEAKER_01: It's an incredible gift to experience and share with others.
SPEAKER_01: I've already stated, and I can't state it enough.
SPEAKER_01: Our world needs it in each other like we've never had.
SPEAKER_01: We need to be grounded deeply in his word, the rescue of Jesus and the cross, the wisdom, strength, and the courage of his spirit.
SPEAKER_01: We need to embrace that fully today.
SPEAKER_01: In her song Out of Hiding, Stephanie Gretzinger's lyrics say this.
SPEAKER_01: And I speak this out as an encouragement to you.
SPEAKER_01: This song is so precious.
SPEAKER_01: You're safe here with me.
SPEAKER_01: There's no need to cover what I already see.
SPEAKER_01: You've got your reasons, but I hold your peace.
SPEAKER_01: You've been on lockdown, and I hold the key.
SPEAKER_01: Because I loved you before you knew it was love.
SPEAKER_01: And I saw it all, until I chose the cross.
SPEAKER_01: And you were the one that I was thinking of when I rose from the grave.
SPEAKER_01: Now rid the shackles.
SPEAKER_01: My victory is yours.
SPEAKER_01: I tore the veil for you to come close.
SPEAKER_01: There's no reason to stand at a distance anymore.
SPEAKER_01: You're not far from home.
SPEAKER_01: So, church, I just want to invite you right now, where you're at, in your living rooms, with friends, with family, come together, and I want to just enter into a time of prayer, and I just want to invite you into that space and pray for one another.
SPEAKER_01: As I pray right now, if any of you are on the precipice of even receiving the good news and the gospel and the promise and the rescue of Calvary for the first time in your lives, I just want to invite you to say right now, this is a call, and Jesus is tugging at your heart and saying, Give it to me, son or daughter.
SPEAKER_01: I want to give you this rescue, I want to give you this freedom.
SPEAKER_01: And join.
SPEAKER_01: Join his kingdom, be an adopted, bloodwashed saint, a son and daughter of the King.
SPEAKER_01: Father God, for all those watching right now, I pray in the name, in the blood, and the spirit of Jesus Christ.
SPEAKER_01: I pray for those right now that are hurting and in bondage, God, that want to free, they want free today.
SPEAKER_01: They want to take the new contract, they want completely free.
SPEAKER_01: Christian sons and daughters that have called you their savior for many years, decades even, that maybe are still struggling with some things that the enemy has held sway over, held them in captive or bondage for far too long.
SPEAKER_01: For such a time as this, you need the church, you need the church whole, you need the church healthy, you want to do a work today, you want to release them from the bondage that the enemy has right now.
SPEAKER_01: And so I pray they step into that.
SPEAKER_01: Father, right now, I pray for your Holy Spirit to come and minister to them right now, where they're at, with what they have, with who they are.
SPEAKER_01: God, they come with their offering of repentance.
SPEAKER_01: They cry out to you and they say, God, take this.
SPEAKER_01: I'm through with it.
SPEAKER_01: I want all that you have.
SPEAKER_01: I want to live from a complete space of freedom.
SPEAKER_01: I want everything that you offer at the Calvary, at the foot of the cross.
SPEAKER_01: I want it all.
SPEAKER_01: I receive the identity that you spoke over me when I was a child, when I was new in this world before I was even born, when I was in my mother's womb, who you created me to be in this world, the light you intended me to carry into the dark places, the warrior that you want me to be right now for humanity, Jesus, use me.
SPEAKER_01: But I need to be complete.
SPEAKER_01: So take it, Father God.
SPEAKER_01: Give me the freedom that you promise.
SPEAKER_01: For those right now who've never even made that initial exchange, Jesus is waiting.
SPEAKER_01: He stands at the door of your heart knocking, and when you're ready to open and acknowledge that he is the Son of God, he went to the cross, lived a perfect life, exchanged that life, died and bled on the cross, conquered sin and death when he rose again on the third day, and now sits at the right hand of the Father petitioning for your life as a direct conduit to God because of his love for you, because of his mercy for you.
SPEAKER_01: If you will receive that and acknowledge him today as your savior, as your Lord, as your King, as the Son of God, that we welcome you and we say, Step in to a new life of freedom, a new life of adventure, and receiving and experiencing all that God has for you.
SPEAKER_01: God, thank you for the work that you're doing.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus, I just pray that there'd be a sweet time of ministry.
SPEAKER_01: God, in these homes today.
SPEAKER_01: Bless them mightily, God.
SPEAKER_01: We thank you for your truth.
SPEAKER_01: We thank you for your word.
SPEAKER_01: We thank you that we can take on the mind of Christ, renew, recalibrate in these times, that we have you to give us your strength and your courage, and that we can.
SPEAKER_01: Stand in your victory to receive victories in our own lives.
SPEAKER_01: We pray these things in the mighty name and the power of Jesus Christ, our Lord, our King.
SPEAKER_01: I want to leave you with a benediction today out of Psalm 121.
SPEAKER_01: I will lift my eyes to the hills from where my help comes from.
SPEAKER_01: My help comes from the Lord who made the heaven and the earth.
SPEAKER_01: He will not allow my foot to be moved.
SPEAKER_01: He who keeps you will not slumber.
SPEAKER_01: Behold, he who keeps Israel shall neither slumber nor sleep.
SPEAKER_01: The Lord is your keeper, the Lord is your shade at your right hand.
SPEAKER_01: The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night.
SPEAKER_01: The Lord shall preserve you from all evil.
SPEAKER_01: You shall preserve, he shall preserve your soul.
SPEAKER_01: The Lord shall preserve your going out and your coming in from this time forth and even forevermore.
SPEAKER_00: You've been listening to The Road.
SPEAKER_00: We hope you have been blessed by today's message.
SPEAKER_00: To connect with us further, visit theroad.org.
SPEAKER_00: If you are walking through a difficult time, we want to pray for you.
SPEAKER_00: Go to the road.org, click on the ministries tab, and go to our prayer page to send us your prayer request.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for tuning in.