Free to Become – Sarah Jakes Roberts
Free to Become – Sarah Jakes Roberts
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Of um what a beautiful journey it’s been. God gave me something that I want to share with you.
And I am calling this message free to become free to be. Yes.
And um I’m gonna be speaking from Mark nine verse 20 through 27 before I dive into it.
Can you just give me 30 seconds of thanking God for the founder of this church, my husband pastor to you don’t understand that some of us would not be in church unless there was a place that echoed what God said to us.
And so I think you can for being obedient for making sure that there was a place for us to call home, need this church in this church all over the world.
It is my greatest heart’s desire to see your anointing multiply.
And I pray you see your anoint and multiply through me because I am certainly a byproduct of the grace that’s on your life.
So I love you want to say that Mark nine verse 23 27 free to become for context.
This moment in the scripture. Jesus is encountering a controversial moment.
There is an argument happening with the scribes and the disciples and the young boy who has been oppressed by a demon and unclean spirit.
And he walks into this moment because there’s confusion and Jesus is like, what’s going on here?
And someone from the crowd speaks up and he says the summary of what’s happening.
There’s a boy here with an unclean spirit.
We gave him to the disciples, the disciples didn’t know what to do with him.
So Jesus says that they need to bring the boy to him.
And verse 20 says, then they brought him to him.
And when he saw him, immediately, the spirit convulsed him and he fell on the ground and wallowed, foaming at the mouth.
So he asked his father, how long has this been happening to him?
And he said from childhood and often he has thrown him both into the fire and into the water to destroy him.
But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us, Jesus said to him, if you can believe all things are possible to him, who believes immediately the father of the child cried out and said with tears, lord, I believe, help my unbelief.
When Jesus saw that the people came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit saying to it death and dumb spirit.
I command you come out of him and enter him no more.
Then the spirit cried out, convulsed him greatly and came out of him. And he became as one dead.
So that many said he is dead.
But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up and he arose.
Spirit of the living God.
My prayer denied is that you would reach out your hand and that we would arise that wherever there is something that is oppressing us, something that is keeping us from becoming all of what you have in mind, that this would be a moment that we are reminded of who you are, but most importantly, who we can become when we partner with you.
God, I thank you for the greatest partnership that there will ever be in our lives.
And tonight, father, I pray that you would partner with me, that you would fill me with your spirit, that you would allow me to lock eyes on Jesus, that I may serve these your great people.
God give me the spirit of wisdom, revelation, prophecy and insight that there would be no gift that is not known to me to the extent that lives would be changed.
Deliverance would break through and that there would be joy and peace and power and healing released in this place.
Rest on us. Great God that you are in Jesus name. Amen. Amen.
There is a phrase that is popular in communities where people are recovering from alcohol abuse.
And this phrase is a bit controversial because there are some people who believe that it is necessary that this phrase stay in front of the person, while others fear that it constantly being in their mind will ultimately serve as a deterrent.
If you’ve ever experienced alcohol abuse or been around someone who’s gone through recovery, you would have heard this phrase.
It’s once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic struggle with this phrase because on the one hand, if you have been sober and you have been restored back to a place of health, then the idea of constantly reminding yourself that you are an alcoholic feels like it could be detrimental.
And if you ever get around somebody super duper safe, they gonna tell you over and over who the sun has set free free.
Indeed release your tongue from that. Don’t say that no more.
But I did a little bit of research about why this exists.
And I understand now something that I didn’t understand then the reason why this phrase even exists is because once the pathways in your brains have been exposed to alcohol, there is a hyper sensitivity that makes even the slightest string send you into a spiral.
So when someone says once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic, but I’ve been sober for 50 years, I’ve been sober for five months.
It is their way of reminding themselves of what they have been delivered from.
If I keep the deliverance in front of my mind, then even though I am sober, I will always remember exactly what I was delivered from.
Wish I could say this. The way I hear it in my head.
It stands to reason that liberation is only as permanent as your practice is.
So the practices that are connected to someone becoming sober, the practices connected to someone experiencing breakthrough are only as relevant as, as often as you are willing to practice them.
That means that you can be liberated the moment that you were liberated, but no longer practicing the very things that liberated you, You run the risk of going backwards and it’s so easy to go backwards when you don’t remember exactly what it was.
I wish I could. OK, let me break this down so often.
We are so busy moving past what happened to us that we get so distant from it that it’s easy to revert back to it because we think we’ve overcome it.
So the sweet spot is to be distant enough that I can remember exactly what happened, but not be in it, but not be so distant that I’ve lost it out of my mind so much that I begin to convince myself that I can dabble in it and not drown.
Yeah. So I can’t get too far from who I used to be.
You know, sometimes people tell you in an effort to keep you humble, don’t forget where you came from.
And a lot of times we shrug that off, but I do believe in our relationship with God that it is important that we never forget where we came from because when we forget where we came from, we also forget what we have been delivered from.
And if we forget where we have been delivered from them, we forget the power of the deliverer for the next stage of our life where we may need to be reminded that He is a deliverer.
There is something powerful about living in the consciousness of God as the deliverer. Yes, he is a healer.
Yes, he is a way maker. Yes, he blesses us beyond measure.
But if I don’t remember that he is a deliverer, then I will find myself feeling oppressed, depressed, going through something that is frustrating me.
And I will think that I have no way out because I have forgotten about all of the other times when the deliverer showed up and made a way out of nowhere.
I would dare say that your praise and worship is only as deep as your memory.
Some of us worship for what God did now, some of us are worshiping because when I look back over my life, I look at all of the ways that he showed up.
I looked at all of the ways that he made a way out of nowhere.
Some of you have the luxury of forgetting.
But there are some of us who realize that when I say I should be dead and sleeping in my grave, I’m not talking about something that is hyperbole.
I’m talking about something that is actually factual. I wanted to commit suicide. I should be locked up.
I should be in a toxic relationship, being abused.
But some kind of way there was a deliverer who would not allow me to stay in the mess that I was in some kind of way.
He made a way out of. No way.
If I had about 10 seconds on a Good Friday, I would let people who have been delivered, take a moment and thank God still a deliverer.
Somebody you’re sitting next to May need a reminder that he still delivers. Let me tell you something.
I don’t know what has a hold of you, but I know who can put his hand on you.
And if he put his hand on you, it doesn’t matter what’s holding you back it or have to let you go.
I’m telling you, I know him as a deliverer.
I’m telling you that I know that he knows how to break the chains, how to pull the strongholds down, how to get through the middle of that depression.
You crying in the middle of the night. Don’t know what to do.
He knows how to move in the dark. He knows how to move through your pain.
He knows how to move through your grief. He knows how to the betrayal.
He knows how to move through the disappointment. He knows how to move through the job loss.
He knows how to move when they walk away from you.
He knows how to move when everything else is standing still. I’m talking about the God that I serve.
I know Him as a deliverer. I know how he can deliver me from me.
He delivered me from the way I used to think from the way I used to be, he delivered me from what I thought I needed.
He delivered me from who I wanted to be and showed me what he had in mind.
I wish I had somebody in this room who was in need of a deliverance because baby, you’re in the right room at the right time.
The delivery room, the delivery room, the delivery room, the delivery room, not where you push something out but where something gets broken off of you.
This is the delivery room and deliverance.
Mm It’s not something that we often talk about because we want to be sensitive to where everyone is on their journey and we don’t want to push them before they’re ready.
But without pushing you, I just wanna shine a light on the places of your life where you feel trapped and uncertain and you are worried that you will always be this way and you are worried that you will always be tormented.
I wanna let you know that he still delivers.
I wanna let you know that he still delivers.
He’s still breaking chains, he’s still performing miracles, still healing families. He’s still restoring and redeeming.
He’s still showing down doors.
He’s still opening doors that no man can shut and closing doors, that no man can open. The.
Hm The goal is to make sure that we stay close to the identity of Jesus as a deliverer.
I’ll tell you how I know that this is important to God because when the Children of Israel walked through the Jordan river, he told them to grab a stone while the dry, while the ground was dry.
Because He wanted them to be able to have this stone for generations to come.
Because He understands that we have a proclivity to forget once we are on the other side of an obstacle that we were once in an obstacle.
So He tells to them, I want you to grab these stones as a memory, not just for you, but for the generations that will come through you of what I did for you.
That means if you don’t know God as a deliverer, then your Children may not know God as a deliverer.
But if you get a revelation that God is a deliverer and you stay close to the deliverance of who God is.
You stay close to who that is and his identity.
It is something that will pass on through the generations, wanna pass on generational wealth.
And I get that somebody wants to pass on generational jewelry and I get that.
But there are some of us who may not be able to pass down those things.
But one thing we will pass down is a revelation of who God is.
Because if I leave back a revelation of who God is, I don’t really have to leave you anything else.
Because if you understand who God is, you’ll have everything that you need to know.
And I want somebody in this room to know that someone may not have left you a revelation of who God is.
But God will make sure that you are not without the very thing that you need because God knows how to let you borrow someone else’s revelation.
God knows how to let you be exposed to who He is in someone else’s life, not so that you can feel like you were left out, but so that you can be reminded that if he did it for them, then he can do it for you, even if it starts with you, that means you may not have got it from your heritage.
But God says, I’m gonna throw it into your destiny because I’m gonna do it through you.
I wanna talk to some trail blazers in this room who’ve never seen it done before.
They’ve never seen somebody surrender to God before. They’ve never seen somebody live a life of purpose before.
And sometimes you feel isolated and sometimes you feel like you’re in it on your own.
But God says, if I’m gonna start it through you, I’m gonna make sure that it is sustained through the generations because you allowed it to stay close to the revelation that you understood.
If we can stay close to the identity of God as a deliverer will never experience the notion that there is no way out.
There are some people who end up feeling like I am forever going to be plagued by this insecurity, forever plagued by this fear, forever plagued by this confusion.
And if I am forever plagued, then I will also be forever restricted.
There is nothing more limiting than the notion that things will always be this way.
Maybe just maybe I’ll always feel this pain, always struggle with this addiction.
If we’re honest in this room, within ourselves, not even out loud, there are moments where we worry will I always be this way.
When we find this father in the text, he is dangerously close to believing that there will never be a way out for his son.
His son has been plagued with this unclean spirit from his childhood.
See if you are a parent, then you understand that from the moment you have a kid, you’re thinking about all of the things they could become all of the things that you wanna watch them do in the earth and do in the world, nothing prepares you for the moment when you realize that that person that you’re rooting for that person you gave birth to may not be able to become after all.
And it only takes a little bit of time of something happening for us to think that it’s gonna happen forever.
We go through a struggle for six months. Lord, you have forgotten about me for my whole life.
Where are you? What is this? Have I wronged?
You imagine watching a child for years go through a struggle and wonder within yourself are things always gonna be this way even to come into agreement that this is just the way things are always going to be.
There are people in this room who didn’t even realize it.
But because you stopped fighting to change, you came into agreement with the very thing that is trying to destroy you.
The very thing that is trying to restrict you. The very thing that is trying to limit you.
Sometimes we get a word from God.
We leave here, we ready to fight whatever is coming up against us, ready to go to war with it, ready to overcome it, ready to get the therapy to do the tools to take the number out our phone to block it, to get off of social media to start the business.
I read somebody’s mail right there. You got a fresh revelation again.
But then life happens and we lose that revelation.
We lose the momentum, we lose the focus required and eventually you only have so many attempts at trying and failing and trying and failing before you think this must be the way things are always gonna be the father gets this revelation though, that there is a man named Jesus and his disciples who may have the ability to change the way that things have always been.
That’s why when we come into spaces of faith and people no longer feel safe, they miss out on an opportunity to have a revelation of Jesus as we know him in this text because they cannot get past people and because they cannot get past people, they cannot get the deliverance that would radically change their lives.
Because if they ever got that opportunity to have a revelation of who Jesus is, they would recognize that no matter what it is you’re going through.
There is a solution in the pursuit of the Holy Spirit, there is a solution in laying down your life.
There is a solution and you don’t have to change anything about yourself in order to lay hold of that revelation.
As a matter of fact, it is best that you come as you are.
Jesus says, we’ll figure everything else out.
What if this man would have said I can’t take him to Jesus because he’s got, he’s got these unclean spirits and he’s not cleaned up yet and he doesn’t have a perfect little appearance yet.
If he would have done that, he would have missed out on his breakthrough.
I wanna commend somebody who came into this room knowing that your life is not together, but I’m gonna come anyway, because if I get into the right room, if I get by the right person, if I get under the right leadership, then I’m crazy enough to believe that God can do the rest.
I wanna congratulate you sis for being in here with your baby because I hear God saying that when you get your breakthrough, you’re holding her breakthrough in your arms too.
I wanna give you some hope in this place that what God’s gonna do through your life is gonna echo throughout their life.
And when you get finished echoing throughout their life, I hear God saying that she’s never gonna know the pain that she knew.
She’s not, never gonna know the breakdown that you knew.
She’s never gonna know the betrayal and the rejection that you knew because you made it a point to get in a place of your own healing.
And I want that to be somebody else’s word in this place that if you could just get in the right atmosphere where I hear miracles are happening, I hear that the tide is changing.
I hear that God is doing something new.
As a matter of fact, if God has done something new in your life, I want you to just take 10 seconds to make some noise.
If you’re waiting for the team turn in your life, I want you to hear the praise of somebody who understand that the because if you get by the right person, you might get swept away about what God is doing in their life.
You better be careful who you’re sitting next to.
Because the time might start turning on a Friday night in Los Angeles, the time might start turning before you even lift your voice, before you even lift up your praise.
Because you’re sitting next to somebody who I hear God saying is a tide turner.
I hear God saying they’re a chain breaker. I hear God saying they know it for.
I hear God saying that they shook up the devil.
So if you sit, there might be an earthquake that sets that devil out for you.
I feel like preaching this place.
I hear God say, yeah, Jesus is on a mission.
He’s on a mission in this text and he’s on a mission tonight.
He’s on the same mission. The mission has not changed.
The mission is to get you back in a place where you are no longer restricted where you are no longer oppressed, not so that you can just be free, but so that you can be free to become all that God knew you could be so that you could be free to create so that you could be free to love so that you could be free to forgive, so that you could be free to move with power so that you could be free to move with authority.
And that’s why work out against you and make you believe that you didn’t have anything to work with because if I make you believe you don’t have anything to work with.
You never put it to work.
But if you get crazy enough to start putting it to work anyway, I hear God saying somebody’s moving into their becoming season, somebody’s moving into their free system.
I hear God saying that the tides are about to turn into somebody’s life.
And the thing that used to oppress you is about to start respecting you because you found a way to get free.
When the anointing of God falls on your life, the demons have no choice but to tremble.
I gotta respect that oil for and for a second.
But when the oil flows, I doubt it.
The thing that used to oppress you is now the thing that has to respect you because I got a revelation about who God is.
And now when I speak a word, I decree a thing in the earth and it is established power because had been stripped away.
But Jesus restored my power and now where I was once powerless, I have authority to shred on the head of no, no over fear.
I got authority for this. I’m not just built for it.
I don’t just do it because I studied it.
I do it because God gave me the to write this book.
God gave me the authority to preach. This message, gave me the authority to raise these Children.
Oh, that runs up on me then ran up on some authority.
Yeah, Jesus has got to move.
What’s blocking the boy from becoming so that he can grow. He’s gotta move.
What’s blocking the boy from becoming so that he can walk in power. He’s gotta remove it.
He’s gotta remove it. You came to the Good Friday Service and I wanted you to know that something’s getting on the cross tonight because something’s gotta be removed.
It’s OK. Something has to be undone so that you can become, if you’re undoing doesn’t have, if you’re becoming, doesn’t have undoing, then you are pretending.
But anybody who has become, understand that I had to undo before I became so that I could say where God sent me, you can pretend that it has been undone or you want to.
But the real ones know that I had to undo some things before I could walk in something.
I had to undo my low self esteem. I had to undo my fear of inadequacy.
I had to undo in perfect.
I understand I do less and it hurt me and it felt like I was on the cross.
But God said it was the only way, the only way I become is if I undo and I got some things that I need to undo so that I can be free.
If I don’t undo it, then I’ll keep reverting back.
So many of us. Skip steps.
I wanna go from press to becoming, but the middle step is the undoing so that I don’t go back.
And when I was praying and I was asking God, what are we doing tonight?
God told me that he needed someone to understand that you can be delivered in such a way that you never go back.
No, I mean that, no, I mean that, no, I mean that, that you can be delivered in such a way that you never go back to smoking, that you never go back to drinking that you never go back to sexting that you never go back to who you used to be.
And I know that you may be like the father who said, Lord, I believe but help my unbelief.
I shouldn’t know. Oh God, that got me excited.
The father says, I wanna believe you can do it.
But there’s a part of me that doesn’t believe Lord I believe but help my and belief.
Jesus doesn’t even respond to what he said.
Jesus performs the deliverance of the little boy.
Ask Jesus, why didn’t you acknowledge what the father said about his unbelief?
Because I wanna help people understand how you move from a place of Lord I believe but help my unbelief.
And Jesus said, I did respond by what I let him see.
What I let him see was my way of showing him that even when you don’t believe, it doesn’t mean that I can’t do it.
I hear God saying, pay attention to what you see because your next level of faith is connected to what God allows you to see.
So every time you see something, you have two choices, you could allow it to disqualify you or you could allow it to pump up your faith.
Because every time I see that he’s still delivering, every time I see that he’s still showing up.
Every time I see what he’s doing for somebody else. I am reminded of what he can do for me.
The Lord is helping your unbelief through what he allows you to see.
I’m gonna let you see some multi million dollar deals. I’m gonna let you see some families being restored.
I’m gonna let you see somebody build, let’s a marriage.
I’m gonna let you see someone start a business and write a book and you’re gonna wonder God, why aren’t you letting me see it?
God says because I’m helping you build your faith. I speak it to you.
I want you to have a reference book of who I am and what I can fight that unbelieving revelation and a testimony you telling me?
But when I look at the history of White can do show up in the midnight hour, I got evidence, I got evidence, got evidence.
I got evidence. I can’t argue with you. I got evidence.
I can’t explain it to you but God told me he was gonna do it and then he showed me knows how to get it done with no connections with no finances, with no family with no support.
I seen them do. I’ve seen them do more with nothing.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Oh, that, um, father says something to Jesus that he didn’t say to the disciples when explaining what was happening with the little boy, he tells the disciples this is happening to him and he’s, that’s happening to him.
He’s shaking violently. It’s a full list of things. Read your whole Bible. OK?
I did my study and you gotta do yours.
But he says something in our text that reveals to us that he understands fully what he is up against.
He tells Jesus in this text. Not only is it tormenting him.
Not only is it plaguing him, but it’s also throwing him into the fire and even into the water, it’s trying to destroy him.
He uses that word destroy that.
Let me know that this is not just something that is embarrassing because other people can see it.
It’s not just something that’s inconvenient because he doesn’t act right in public.
This father recognizes that what is blocking this son from becoming is something that is meant to destroy him.
So often.
We think it’s just a nuisance when we come into agreement with what’s blocking us.
We think it’s just a part of life not realizing that in actuality, it’s trying to destroy you, trying to destroy your destiny, trying just because someone else can live with.
It doesn’t mean that it’s not on assignment to destroy you.
Do you understand the father recognizes that this spirit has a mission to destroy that word.
Destroy means to reverse what has been built when we have our issues, our struggles that we have normalized or become desensitized to and we’re willing to live with them.
We don’t understand that we’re sleeping with the enemy.
That the very thing we’re willing to live with is actually on assignment to destroy us.
I believe that this revelation is what made the difference when Jesus performed the miracle because the father understood and saw the unclean spirit the same way that Jesus did until you start to see what’s holding you back as something that is on assignment to destroy you.
You will never access the type of power that will make sure it can never come back because we cannot ask God to cast out something that we still want to keep.
Yeah. So you have to be real about what you’re getting from it and you gotta break covenant and be willing to go through the pain of letting it go.
Something happens in this text that reminds me so much of why many of us never get to fully walk in deliverance.
I’m closing the spirit that is plaguing this boy that’s tormenting him and shaking him up and making him act a fool.
When Jesus goes to deliver him, it says that he convulses greatly.
Now, we are limited in our perspective because we know who Jesus is and we know that whatever is happening, they can trust him.
But if you would for a minute, just think about being on the outside, looking in the Deliverance looked a lot like the destruction convulsing, shaking, blacking out.
God told me that many of us don’t experience Deliverance because it looks so much.
It feels so much like destruction that I’m going through this pain when I let it go, that I’m experiencing this loneliness when I let it go, if I’m gonna be in pain, I just wanna be delivered.
I don’t wanna go through the process of the pain. I don’t wanna go through the loneliness.
I don’t wanna go through losing the friendship circle. I don’t wanna go through losing the identity.
I don’t wanna move back to a different city. I don’t wanna go through this process of deliverance.
And so we give up in the middle of that moment because it looks so much like it wasn’t worth it.
But Jesus knew that if they could just wait till the end, that they would see that he would go from convulsing to looking like he was dead to being raised again.
It’s Good Friday family.
And when I saw this text before Jesus even gets to the cross, he’s allowing this little boy to go through something similar to what he will go through.
He will go through great pain. It will look like he is dead.
And then Jesus lifts out his hand, he rises again.
It struck me that the father came to a stage where he knew what it was.
He knew the damage it was doing.
But still he didn’t have enough faith to actually make a difference.
And yet he had an opportunity to partner with someone so that he could borrow their faith.
The beauty of our relationship with Jesus is that we’re not always gonna have enough faith for the mission that is ahead of us.
Not gonna have enough faith to start this business, not on my own.
I’m not gonna have enough faith to start this journey of wholeness on my own.
I may not have enough faith.
But when I admit that I don’t have it and I allow myself to come into partnership with the one who is the most faithful.
He makes up the difference. God bless you family.
Well, I just believe and know that that word ministered to you as they often always do remember to subscribe so that you can continue to experience this rich.
We’ll send you a reminder if you want to sow into this ministry, we are reaching people as you know, all around the world and we need your help and your support to not just bless people spiritually, but practically in all the ways that we do the giving instructions on the screen sow into this.
And may the Lord bless you abundantly in every way. God bless you. We’ll see you next week.
And I am calling this message free to become free to be. Yes.
And um I’m gonna be speaking from Mark nine verse 20 through 27 before I dive into it.
Can you just give me 30 seconds of thanking God for the founder of this church, my husband pastor to you don’t understand that some of us would not be in church unless there was a place that echoed what God said to us.
And so I think you can for being obedient for making sure that there was a place for us to call home, need this church in this church all over the world.
It is my greatest heart’s desire to see your anointing multiply.
And I pray you see your anoint and multiply through me because I am certainly a byproduct of the grace that’s on your life.
So I love you want to say that Mark nine verse 23 27 free to become for context.
This moment in the scripture. Jesus is encountering a controversial moment.
There is an argument happening with the scribes and the disciples and the young boy who has been oppressed by a demon and unclean spirit.
And he walks into this moment because there’s confusion and Jesus is like, what’s going on here?
And someone from the crowd speaks up and he says the summary of what’s happening.
There’s a boy here with an unclean spirit.
We gave him to the disciples, the disciples didn’t know what to do with him.
So Jesus says that they need to bring the boy to him.
And verse 20 says, then they brought him to him.
And when he saw him, immediately, the spirit convulsed him and he fell on the ground and wallowed, foaming at the mouth.
So he asked his father, how long has this been happening to him?
And he said from childhood and often he has thrown him both into the fire and into the water to destroy him.
But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us, Jesus said to him, if you can believe all things are possible to him, who believes immediately the father of the child cried out and said with tears, lord, I believe, help my unbelief.
When Jesus saw that the people came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit saying to it death and dumb spirit.
I command you come out of him and enter him no more.
Then the spirit cried out, convulsed him greatly and came out of him. And he became as one dead.
So that many said he is dead.
But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up and he arose.
Spirit of the living God.
My prayer denied is that you would reach out your hand and that we would arise that wherever there is something that is oppressing us, something that is keeping us from becoming all of what you have in mind, that this would be a moment that we are reminded of who you are, but most importantly, who we can become when we partner with you.
God, I thank you for the greatest partnership that there will ever be in our lives.
And tonight, father, I pray that you would partner with me, that you would fill me with your spirit, that you would allow me to lock eyes on Jesus, that I may serve these your great people.
God give me the spirit of wisdom, revelation, prophecy and insight that there would be no gift that is not known to me to the extent that lives would be changed.
Deliverance would break through and that there would be joy and peace and power and healing released in this place.
Rest on us. Great God that you are in Jesus name. Amen. Amen.
There is a phrase that is popular in communities where people are recovering from alcohol abuse.
And this phrase is a bit controversial because there are some people who believe that it is necessary that this phrase stay in front of the person, while others fear that it constantly being in their mind will ultimately serve as a deterrent.
If you’ve ever experienced alcohol abuse or been around someone who’s gone through recovery, you would have heard this phrase.
It’s once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic struggle with this phrase because on the one hand, if you have been sober and you have been restored back to a place of health, then the idea of constantly reminding yourself that you are an alcoholic feels like it could be detrimental.
And if you ever get around somebody super duper safe, they gonna tell you over and over who the sun has set free free.
Indeed release your tongue from that. Don’t say that no more.
But I did a little bit of research about why this exists.
And I understand now something that I didn’t understand then the reason why this phrase even exists is because once the pathways in your brains have been exposed to alcohol, there is a hyper sensitivity that makes even the slightest string send you into a spiral.
So when someone says once an alcoholic, always an alcoholic, but I’ve been sober for 50 years, I’ve been sober for five months.
It is their way of reminding themselves of what they have been delivered from.
If I keep the deliverance in front of my mind, then even though I am sober, I will always remember exactly what I was delivered from.
Wish I could say this. The way I hear it in my head.
It stands to reason that liberation is only as permanent as your practice is.
So the practices that are connected to someone becoming sober, the practices connected to someone experiencing breakthrough are only as relevant as, as often as you are willing to practice them.
That means that you can be liberated the moment that you were liberated, but no longer practicing the very things that liberated you, You run the risk of going backwards and it’s so easy to go backwards when you don’t remember exactly what it was.
I wish I could. OK, let me break this down so often.
We are so busy moving past what happened to us that we get so distant from it that it’s easy to revert back to it because we think we’ve overcome it.
So the sweet spot is to be distant enough that I can remember exactly what happened, but not be in it, but not be so distant that I’ve lost it out of my mind so much that I begin to convince myself that I can dabble in it and not drown.
Yeah. So I can’t get too far from who I used to be.
You know, sometimes people tell you in an effort to keep you humble, don’t forget where you came from.
And a lot of times we shrug that off, but I do believe in our relationship with God that it is important that we never forget where we came from because when we forget where we came from, we also forget what we have been delivered from.
And if we forget where we have been delivered from them, we forget the power of the deliverer for the next stage of our life where we may need to be reminded that He is a deliverer.
There is something powerful about living in the consciousness of God as the deliverer. Yes, he is a healer.
Yes, he is a way maker. Yes, he blesses us beyond measure.
But if I don’t remember that he is a deliverer, then I will find myself feeling oppressed, depressed, going through something that is frustrating me.
And I will think that I have no way out because I have forgotten about all of the other times when the deliverer showed up and made a way out of nowhere.
I would dare say that your praise and worship is only as deep as your memory.
Some of us worship for what God did now, some of us are worshiping because when I look back over my life, I look at all of the ways that he showed up.
I looked at all of the ways that he made a way out of nowhere.
Some of you have the luxury of forgetting.
But there are some of us who realize that when I say I should be dead and sleeping in my grave, I’m not talking about something that is hyperbole.
I’m talking about something that is actually factual. I wanted to commit suicide. I should be locked up.
I should be in a toxic relationship, being abused.
But some kind of way there was a deliverer who would not allow me to stay in the mess that I was in some kind of way.
He made a way out of. No way.
If I had about 10 seconds on a Good Friday, I would let people who have been delivered, take a moment and thank God still a deliverer.
Somebody you’re sitting next to May need a reminder that he still delivers. Let me tell you something.
I don’t know what has a hold of you, but I know who can put his hand on you.
And if he put his hand on you, it doesn’t matter what’s holding you back it or have to let you go.
I’m telling you, I know him as a deliverer.
I’m telling you that I know that he knows how to break the chains, how to pull the strongholds down, how to get through the middle of that depression.
You crying in the middle of the night. Don’t know what to do.
He knows how to move in the dark. He knows how to move through your pain.
He knows how to move through your grief. He knows how to the betrayal.
He knows how to move through the disappointment. He knows how to move through the job loss.
He knows how to move when they walk away from you.
He knows how to move when everything else is standing still. I’m talking about the God that I serve.
I know Him as a deliverer. I know how he can deliver me from me.
He delivered me from the way I used to think from the way I used to be, he delivered me from what I thought I needed.
He delivered me from who I wanted to be and showed me what he had in mind.
I wish I had somebody in this room who was in need of a deliverance because baby, you’re in the right room at the right time.
The delivery room, the delivery room, the delivery room, the delivery room, not where you push something out but where something gets broken off of you.
This is the delivery room and deliverance.
Mm It’s not something that we often talk about because we want to be sensitive to where everyone is on their journey and we don’t want to push them before they’re ready.
But without pushing you, I just wanna shine a light on the places of your life where you feel trapped and uncertain and you are worried that you will always be this way and you are worried that you will always be tormented.
I wanna let you know that he still delivers.
I wanna let you know that he still delivers.
He’s still breaking chains, he’s still performing miracles, still healing families. He’s still restoring and redeeming.
He’s still showing down doors.
He’s still opening doors that no man can shut and closing doors, that no man can open. The.
Hm The goal is to make sure that we stay close to the identity of Jesus as a deliverer.
I’ll tell you how I know that this is important to God because when the Children of Israel walked through the Jordan river, he told them to grab a stone while the dry, while the ground was dry.
Because He wanted them to be able to have this stone for generations to come.
Because He understands that we have a proclivity to forget once we are on the other side of an obstacle that we were once in an obstacle.
So He tells to them, I want you to grab these stones as a memory, not just for you, but for the generations that will come through you of what I did for you.
That means if you don’t know God as a deliverer, then your Children may not know God as a deliverer.
But if you get a revelation that God is a deliverer and you stay close to the deliverance of who God is.
You stay close to who that is and his identity.
It is something that will pass on through the generations, wanna pass on generational wealth.
And I get that somebody wants to pass on generational jewelry and I get that.
But there are some of us who may not be able to pass down those things.
But one thing we will pass down is a revelation of who God is.
Because if I leave back a revelation of who God is, I don’t really have to leave you anything else.
Because if you understand who God is, you’ll have everything that you need to know.
And I want somebody in this room to know that someone may not have left you a revelation of who God is.
But God will make sure that you are not without the very thing that you need because God knows how to let you borrow someone else’s revelation.
God knows how to let you be exposed to who He is in someone else’s life, not so that you can feel like you were left out, but so that you can be reminded that if he did it for them, then he can do it for you, even if it starts with you, that means you may not have got it from your heritage.
But God says, I’m gonna throw it into your destiny because I’m gonna do it through you.
I wanna talk to some trail blazers in this room who’ve never seen it done before.
They’ve never seen somebody surrender to God before. They’ve never seen somebody live a life of purpose before.
And sometimes you feel isolated and sometimes you feel like you’re in it on your own.
But God says, if I’m gonna start it through you, I’m gonna make sure that it is sustained through the generations because you allowed it to stay close to the revelation that you understood.
If we can stay close to the identity of God as a deliverer will never experience the notion that there is no way out.
There are some people who end up feeling like I am forever going to be plagued by this insecurity, forever plagued by this fear, forever plagued by this confusion.
And if I am forever plagued, then I will also be forever restricted.
There is nothing more limiting than the notion that things will always be this way.
Maybe just maybe I’ll always feel this pain, always struggle with this addiction.
If we’re honest in this room, within ourselves, not even out loud, there are moments where we worry will I always be this way.
When we find this father in the text, he is dangerously close to believing that there will never be a way out for his son.
His son has been plagued with this unclean spirit from his childhood.
See if you are a parent, then you understand that from the moment you have a kid, you’re thinking about all of the things they could become all of the things that you wanna watch them do in the earth and do in the world, nothing prepares you for the moment when you realize that that person that you’re rooting for that person you gave birth to may not be able to become after all.
And it only takes a little bit of time of something happening for us to think that it’s gonna happen forever.
We go through a struggle for six months. Lord, you have forgotten about me for my whole life.
Where are you? What is this? Have I wronged?
You imagine watching a child for years go through a struggle and wonder within yourself are things always gonna be this way even to come into agreement that this is just the way things are always going to be.
There are people in this room who didn’t even realize it.
But because you stopped fighting to change, you came into agreement with the very thing that is trying to destroy you.
The very thing that is trying to restrict you. The very thing that is trying to limit you.
Sometimes we get a word from God.
We leave here, we ready to fight whatever is coming up against us, ready to go to war with it, ready to overcome it, ready to get the therapy to do the tools to take the number out our phone to block it, to get off of social media to start the business.
I read somebody’s mail right there. You got a fresh revelation again.
But then life happens and we lose that revelation.
We lose the momentum, we lose the focus required and eventually you only have so many attempts at trying and failing and trying and failing before you think this must be the way things are always gonna be the father gets this revelation though, that there is a man named Jesus and his disciples who may have the ability to change the way that things have always been.
That’s why when we come into spaces of faith and people no longer feel safe, they miss out on an opportunity to have a revelation of Jesus as we know him in this text because they cannot get past people and because they cannot get past people, they cannot get the deliverance that would radically change their lives.
Because if they ever got that opportunity to have a revelation of who Jesus is, they would recognize that no matter what it is you’re going through.
There is a solution in the pursuit of the Holy Spirit, there is a solution in laying down your life.
There is a solution and you don’t have to change anything about yourself in order to lay hold of that revelation.
As a matter of fact, it is best that you come as you are.
Jesus says, we’ll figure everything else out.
What if this man would have said I can’t take him to Jesus because he’s got, he’s got these unclean spirits and he’s not cleaned up yet and he doesn’t have a perfect little appearance yet.
If he would have done that, he would have missed out on his breakthrough.
I wanna commend somebody who came into this room knowing that your life is not together, but I’m gonna come anyway, because if I get into the right room, if I get by the right person, if I get under the right leadership, then I’m crazy enough to believe that God can do the rest.
I wanna congratulate you sis for being in here with your baby because I hear God saying that when you get your breakthrough, you’re holding her breakthrough in your arms too.
I wanna give you some hope in this place that what God’s gonna do through your life is gonna echo throughout their life.
And when you get finished echoing throughout their life, I hear God saying that she’s never gonna know the pain that she knew.
She’s not, never gonna know the breakdown that you knew.
She’s never gonna know the betrayal and the rejection that you knew because you made it a point to get in a place of your own healing.
And I want that to be somebody else’s word in this place that if you could just get in the right atmosphere where I hear miracles are happening, I hear that the tide is changing.
I hear that God is doing something new.
As a matter of fact, if God has done something new in your life, I want you to just take 10 seconds to make some noise.
If you’re waiting for the team turn in your life, I want you to hear the praise of somebody who understand that the because if you get by the right person, you might get swept away about what God is doing in their life.
You better be careful who you’re sitting next to.
Because the time might start turning on a Friday night in Los Angeles, the time might start turning before you even lift your voice, before you even lift up your praise.
Because you’re sitting next to somebody who I hear God saying is a tide turner.
I hear God saying they’re a chain breaker. I hear God saying they know it for.
I hear God saying that they shook up the devil.
So if you sit, there might be an earthquake that sets that devil out for you.
I feel like preaching this place.
I hear God say, yeah, Jesus is on a mission.
He’s on a mission in this text and he’s on a mission tonight.
He’s on the same mission. The mission has not changed.
The mission is to get you back in a place where you are no longer restricted where you are no longer oppressed, not so that you can just be free, but so that you can be free to become all that God knew you could be so that you could be free to create so that you could be free to love so that you could be free to forgive, so that you could be free to move with power so that you could be free to move with authority.
And that’s why work out against you and make you believe that you didn’t have anything to work with because if I make you believe you don’t have anything to work with.
You never put it to work.
But if you get crazy enough to start putting it to work anyway, I hear God saying somebody’s moving into their becoming season, somebody’s moving into their free system.
I hear God saying that the tides are about to turn into somebody’s life.
And the thing that used to oppress you is about to start respecting you because you found a way to get free.
When the anointing of God falls on your life, the demons have no choice but to tremble.
I gotta respect that oil for and for a second.
But when the oil flows, I doubt it.
The thing that used to oppress you is now the thing that has to respect you because I got a revelation about who God is.
And now when I speak a word, I decree a thing in the earth and it is established power because had been stripped away.
But Jesus restored my power and now where I was once powerless, I have authority to shred on the head of no, no over fear.
I got authority for this. I’m not just built for it.
I don’t just do it because I studied it.
I do it because God gave me the to write this book.
God gave me the authority to preach. This message, gave me the authority to raise these Children.
Oh, that runs up on me then ran up on some authority.
Yeah, Jesus has got to move.
What’s blocking the boy from becoming so that he can grow. He’s gotta move.
What’s blocking the boy from becoming so that he can walk in power. He’s gotta remove it.
He’s gotta remove it. You came to the Good Friday Service and I wanted you to know that something’s getting on the cross tonight because something’s gotta be removed.
It’s OK. Something has to be undone so that you can become, if you’re undoing doesn’t have, if you’re becoming, doesn’t have undoing, then you are pretending.
But anybody who has become, understand that I had to undo before I became so that I could say where God sent me, you can pretend that it has been undone or you want to.
But the real ones know that I had to undo some things before I could walk in something.
I had to undo my low self esteem. I had to undo my fear of inadequacy.
I had to undo in perfect.
I understand I do less and it hurt me and it felt like I was on the cross.
But God said it was the only way, the only way I become is if I undo and I got some things that I need to undo so that I can be free.
If I don’t undo it, then I’ll keep reverting back.
So many of us. Skip steps.
I wanna go from press to becoming, but the middle step is the undoing so that I don’t go back.
And when I was praying and I was asking God, what are we doing tonight?
God told me that he needed someone to understand that you can be delivered in such a way that you never go back.
No, I mean that, no, I mean that, no, I mean that, that you can be delivered in such a way that you never go back to smoking, that you never go back to drinking that you never go back to sexting that you never go back to who you used to be.
And I know that you may be like the father who said, Lord, I believe but help my unbelief.
I shouldn’t know. Oh God, that got me excited.
The father says, I wanna believe you can do it.
But there’s a part of me that doesn’t believe Lord I believe but help my and belief.
Jesus doesn’t even respond to what he said.
Jesus performs the deliverance of the little boy.
Ask Jesus, why didn’t you acknowledge what the father said about his unbelief?
Because I wanna help people understand how you move from a place of Lord I believe but help my unbelief.
And Jesus said, I did respond by what I let him see.
What I let him see was my way of showing him that even when you don’t believe, it doesn’t mean that I can’t do it.
I hear God saying, pay attention to what you see because your next level of faith is connected to what God allows you to see.
So every time you see something, you have two choices, you could allow it to disqualify you or you could allow it to pump up your faith.
Because every time I see that he’s still delivering, every time I see that he’s still showing up.
Every time I see what he’s doing for somebody else. I am reminded of what he can do for me.
The Lord is helping your unbelief through what he allows you to see.
I’m gonna let you see some multi million dollar deals. I’m gonna let you see some families being restored.
I’m gonna let you see somebody build, let’s a marriage.
I’m gonna let you see someone start a business and write a book and you’re gonna wonder God, why aren’t you letting me see it?
God says because I’m helping you build your faith. I speak it to you.
I want you to have a reference book of who I am and what I can fight that unbelieving revelation and a testimony you telling me?
But when I look at the history of White can do show up in the midnight hour, I got evidence, I got evidence, got evidence.
I got evidence. I can’t argue with you. I got evidence.
I can’t explain it to you but God told me he was gonna do it and then he showed me knows how to get it done with no connections with no finances, with no family with no support.
I seen them do. I’ve seen them do more with nothing.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Oh, that, um, father says something to Jesus that he didn’t say to the disciples when explaining what was happening with the little boy, he tells the disciples this is happening to him and he’s, that’s happening to him.
He’s shaking violently. It’s a full list of things. Read your whole Bible. OK?
I did my study and you gotta do yours.
But he says something in our text that reveals to us that he understands fully what he is up against.
He tells Jesus in this text. Not only is it tormenting him.
Not only is it plaguing him, but it’s also throwing him into the fire and even into the water, it’s trying to destroy him.
He uses that word destroy that.
Let me know that this is not just something that is embarrassing because other people can see it.
It’s not just something that’s inconvenient because he doesn’t act right in public.
This father recognizes that what is blocking this son from becoming is something that is meant to destroy him.
So often.
We think it’s just a nuisance when we come into agreement with what’s blocking us.
We think it’s just a part of life not realizing that in actuality, it’s trying to destroy you, trying to destroy your destiny, trying just because someone else can live with.
It doesn’t mean that it’s not on assignment to destroy you.
Do you understand the father recognizes that this spirit has a mission to destroy that word.
Destroy means to reverse what has been built when we have our issues, our struggles that we have normalized or become desensitized to and we’re willing to live with them.
We don’t understand that we’re sleeping with the enemy.
That the very thing we’re willing to live with is actually on assignment to destroy us.
I believe that this revelation is what made the difference when Jesus performed the miracle because the father understood and saw the unclean spirit the same way that Jesus did until you start to see what’s holding you back as something that is on assignment to destroy you.
You will never access the type of power that will make sure it can never come back because we cannot ask God to cast out something that we still want to keep.
Yeah. So you have to be real about what you’re getting from it and you gotta break covenant and be willing to go through the pain of letting it go.
Something happens in this text that reminds me so much of why many of us never get to fully walk in deliverance.
I’m closing the spirit that is plaguing this boy that’s tormenting him and shaking him up and making him act a fool.
When Jesus goes to deliver him, it says that he convulses greatly.
Now, we are limited in our perspective because we know who Jesus is and we know that whatever is happening, they can trust him.
But if you would for a minute, just think about being on the outside, looking in the Deliverance looked a lot like the destruction convulsing, shaking, blacking out.
God told me that many of us don’t experience Deliverance because it looks so much.
It feels so much like destruction that I’m going through this pain when I let it go, that I’m experiencing this loneliness when I let it go, if I’m gonna be in pain, I just wanna be delivered.
I don’t wanna go through the process of the pain. I don’t wanna go through the loneliness.
I don’t wanna go through losing the friendship circle. I don’t wanna go through losing the identity.
I don’t wanna move back to a different city. I don’t wanna go through this process of deliverance.
And so we give up in the middle of that moment because it looks so much like it wasn’t worth it.
But Jesus knew that if they could just wait till the end, that they would see that he would go from convulsing to looking like he was dead to being raised again.
It’s Good Friday family.
And when I saw this text before Jesus even gets to the cross, he’s allowing this little boy to go through something similar to what he will go through.
He will go through great pain. It will look like he is dead.
And then Jesus lifts out his hand, he rises again.
It struck me that the father came to a stage where he knew what it was.
He knew the damage it was doing.
But still he didn’t have enough faith to actually make a difference.
And yet he had an opportunity to partner with someone so that he could borrow their faith.
The beauty of our relationship with Jesus is that we’re not always gonna have enough faith for the mission that is ahead of us.
Not gonna have enough faith to start this business, not on my own.
I’m not gonna have enough faith to start this journey of wholeness on my own.
I may not have enough faith.
But when I admit that I don’t have it and I allow myself to come into partnership with the one who is the most faithful.
He makes up the difference. God bless you family.
Well, I just believe and know that that word ministered to you as they often always do remember to subscribe so that you can continue to experience this rich.
We’ll send you a reminder if you want to sow into this ministry, we are reaching people as you know, all around the world and we need your help and your support to not just bless people spiritually, but practically in all the ways that we do the giving instructions on the screen sow into this.
And may the Lord bless you abundantly in every way. God bless you. We’ll see you next week.
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