Search the transcript 0:00 I want to jump right in to what Holy Spirit has given me today, and I'm going to take this off because I don't know about you, but I'm a little bit warm today. Are you warm? It's a little warm in here, and that's kind of the nature of the... Thank you, Scott. So I want to teach this morning and share this morning about a subject that, you know, it gets talked about a lot in different ways, conversations that we have, people that we meet, and 0:27 But sometimes there needs to be, we need to address that as a whole, as a body. And I want to talk about breaking chains today. I want to talk about breaking chains. So everybody say broken chains. I'm going to begin with Isaiah chapter 58 verse 6. And it says this. So turn with me in your Bible or on your phone or whatever it is that you're using today. To Isaiah chapter 58 verse 6. 0:55 And let me encourage everyone in this room because we have people that have been in the body of Christ at different lengths of time. Some have been in there longer, some have been in there shorter. And there are things that I don't ever want you to feel any... 1:11 wait about and if you might say I don't know where Isaiah is or I don't even know who Isaiah is or I don't own a Bible or I don't know how do I download the app I want again I want you to know we're here to help you and we want you to be able to move through your faith with joy and by overcoming things that might in your mind hinder you but I want to tell you today we're here for you amen 1:39 Isaiah chapter 58 verse 6 in the English Standard Version reads like this. Is not this the fast that I choose? This is the fast I choose. To loose the bonds of wickedness. To undo the straps of the yoke. To let the oppressed go free. And to break most yoke. To undo the straps of the yoke. 2:14 To let the oppressed go free and to break every yoke. To break every yoke. Stand with me if you would, please. Father, I'm thankful today for your word, for your anointing, for what you are releasing to us, what you're doing in us. My hope and my prayer is that we never take for granted the goodness that you pour out to your sons and daughters. 2:46 My hope and my prayer is that we never look past that whatever good that is in us, we never look past the fact that it came from you. I pray today that you use the words that you put in me to become words that are found in each of these that are listening. I pray that what you free us from today is truly freedom. What you help us to see today, we see only if it's outside of your purpose. We see only because you want us to see it so that you can then free us of it. 3:28 You are faithful always. Doesn't matter whether we've walked with you for an hour, for a day, a month, a year, or a decade. What matters is that when we come to you, the same answer you have for the one that's walked with you for decades is the same answer you have the one that's walking with you for the first time. So do your work today. We draw out of you and we draw out of Holy Spirit, believing that 3:57 that you will awaken us to those things that were not meant for us so that we can walk in what is meant for us. To your glory in Jesus' name, amen. You may be seated. So there are many, many sons and daughters in the body of Christ who continue daily, all the time, constantly to try to overcome burdens in their life from the past without success. 4:33 There's this constant battle. Man, this thing weighs me down. I have to overcome that. Can anybody raise their hand and say, you know what I'm talking about? Are you willing to? This thing has weighed me down. I keep trying to overcome it. I just can't overcome this thing. I believe that I'm trusting the Father, but I cannot overcome this thing. 4:51 Well, this thing, whatever that thing might be, ultimately will lead, if we are not free from it, a yoke we refer to in Isaiah. It will lead to a yoke of bondage that will get heavier with every passing day. It will never get lighter. It gets heavier. It doesn't matter if it started as a grain of sand. As the days pass, as the months pass, as the years pass, 5:21 This thing gets more and more of your attention, costs more and more of your time, creates more and more tears, more and more frustration, draws you further and further away from all the potential that is available to you. 5:34 This thing gets heavier and heavier and heavier as we try to carry this thing even though it's something out of the past. These are the things I want to talk about today because these are the things, anything that pulls you down is not from God. So while we in the body of Christ, we are quick and we should be, we are quick to profess our freedom in Christ and 6:09 For some reason, for too many, there is always this constant battle with things that still bind us up. So with our mouths, we say we are free. But in our mind, all we can see is the yoke that is laid upon us. So we go about with a profession of liberty and freedom in Christ, yet we live our life with a demonstration that there is nothing but heaviness on us. 6:41 And then we follow that statement up too often. We follow the statement up, I have been set free in Christ, and we declare it. And then we might follow that statement up with something like this. Man, if I could just get through this, I could really serve the Lord like I want to. 7:00 So while there's a sense of freedom, there's a statement of freedom, there's also a measure of acceptance and way too many in the body of Christ that there are also things that are hindering me from enjoying the freedom like I should be able to enjoy it. I want to talk about these things today. And if I'm speaking to you today, I can tell you what I want for you is to have true, true freedom. 7:30 True freedom, the kind that only comes, can only come, Scott, if I have a right relationship with Jesus Christ and I understand what that relationship does regarding my position in the Father and His Spirit that He sent to help me overcome these things that keep getting in the way. Today, there is freedom for every person here, if you can receive it. There is freedom. There is freedom. 8:01 Before I can do what I want to do this morning, say what else I want to say this morning, I want you to understand this. 8:08 the difference between two things that we often refer to see if we're not careful we will put the word bondage and conflict in the same category those are the same thing see but I want you to know today that there's a difference between bondage and conflict and let me explain that bondage is what you have no control over the power of bondage is external think slavery I mean nobody wants to think slavery but it's a great example 8:41 Those who were put into slavery had no control over that. They were captured. They were against their will. There was nothing. There were no answers. So bondage is what you have no control over. But conflict is what you can control. Its power is internal. Think choosing your battles. We've all used that statement. I'm going to choose my battles well. 9:10 That is because that's internal. You can control conflict. You can control that. Sometimes bondage and conflict overlap. For example, we may be in bondage to fear. It's a bondage. It's external. I'm fearful. Things of my past have made me fearful. And then within it, the overlap is within it, we can choose how we fight. Think spiders. Somebody just said to me the other day, I'm trying to think who it was. I was surprised. They told me how fearful they were of spiders. 9:54 They're terrified of spite. I can't remember who it was. But there's a bondage to fear, overall fear. You're fearful of thing. But within that bondage, you have the ability to also choose your battles to allow the conflicts to be specific. 10:13 I'm going to overcome this fear of spiders because I'm going to say to myself, this conflict that I have with this thing, I'm just going to smush it. I remember one time we were with my granddaughter, Raiden, and we were at the park and we were watching the, what was it, the fireflies. And it is beautiful. It's a beautiful thing. They got signs up everywhere. Don't kill them. Don't touch them. Don't do anything. And Raiden was like two years old. 10:37 And we're walking, it's night, and it's just cool, man, the fireflies. It only happens once a year, and the fireflies are buzzing everywhere. It's up at De Leon's Blue Springs State Park. And the fireflies are everywhere. We're walking around, and we're on the little thing, and we're like, oh, look at those. Those are beautiful. And then one will fly across your face, and you're just watching it. You know it's dark out there. And then here's my two-year-old little granddaughter. A little firefly lands on the thing, and she went, I killed it. 11:08 And there's little glowing all over on the, she chose her battle. It's not landing on me. I killed it. So again, bondage is what you have control over. Conflict is what you control. Bondage is external. Conflict, it's internal. So conflict is in our DNA. Now listen to me, listen to me. Conflict is in our DNA and is part of the creativeness of the Father. 11:42 So just because you have conflict with things that are in yourself and you realize, I'm going to deal with this thing. I'm not going to let this thing beat me. That's a gift and an anointing of God that you're not going to simply sit back and say, I'm a good Christian. I can't touch this. Conflict is saying, this thing's coming against my purpose and I'm going to deal with it. I'm making a choice. I'm choosing. I'm going to accept that. I'm going to walk with it or I'm not. 12:14 It's part of our creative being. It's part of God's design. But bondage to anything is the counterfeit of God's promise of freedom for you and me. Bondage is the counterfeit. It is so oppressive, you can't shake it. You can't get it off of your shoulders. You can't get it out of your mind. And then conflict. Conflict. 12:35 I love this because there's, and I forgot how this goes, and I couldn't find it this week. I was looking for this, but I couldn't find it. But conflict allows us to discern, contemplate, prepare, and overcome. In other words, conflict raises something in us. What is it? It raises, it causes something to come up in us. There's something that, it's that fight or flight. And there's something that comes up in us that says, I'm going to address this. I'm going after this. I'm not going to let it beat me. 13:04 So whenever something arises like that, conflict, that feeling of a battle, a choice is about to be made, a choice needs to be made, it is part of our DNA, part of our creative being. It allows us to discern, to contemplate, to prepare, and to overcome. I'm going somewhere. But bondage, bondage takes all of your natural choices away. You don't get to choose. You don't get to pick your battles because bondage chose you. You choose. You choose. 13:41 What you have conflict with. Bondage chooses you. So what does the Apostle Paul say about bondage? Turn with me to Galatians chapter 5 beginning with verse 1. He says, For freedom Christ has set us free. Well, that's pretty simple. For freedom... 14:14 Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. Everybody say this with me. Stand firm and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. See, so what I want to say to you today, for those who are like, man, it seems like there's always conflicts in my life. You can deal with conflicts, but I want you to know something. Conflicts aren't your problem. Bondage is. Bondage is. 14:55 I don't mind conflicts. I don't mind that somebody disagrees with me, somebody yells at me, somebody shoots me the bird driving down the road. I don't mind all that. I can deal with that kind of conflict. I can deal with that. I shoot one, no, I'm just kidding. Just kidding. I can deal with conflict. That's not a problem. It's the things that get on you, that control you, that were sent to you by someone outside of you. 15:25 And then it weighs you down. And as I said earlier, again, I want to point it out again that bondage is external and it comes from outside of yourself. It comes from family. It comes from friends. It comes from coworkers. It comes from your neighbor. It comes from your parents when you were children. It comes from whatever. But there's these things, it's words that are spoken over you until you believe them, feelings that you possess that are projected from someone else. Yeah. 15:53 And it weighs on you and you can't, you're struggling to break away from this thing. And all you do is every time you, you're past conflict. You've tried to deal with it like it's a conflict, but you've never overcome it. Because you can't. Because it's not a conflict. It's a yoke. Yokes don't fall off because you say, fall off. You have to recognize who put the yoke there in the first place. You can be free today. 16:31 And this is why. Because bondage does not have its own power. But in order to oppress you, it requires you to believe that it does. Did you hear me? Bondage has no power of its own. But in order to add to you a heaviness and a weight and hold you back, it needs you to believe that that bondage has power. 17:11 And people walk around every day believing, if I could just be free, if I could just get this monkey off my back, if I could just stop hearing the words that were spoken over me all of my life, if I could stop feeling the things that people made me feel, if I could just stop, if I could just... See, that bondage, those words, those feelings, those things that were added to you came from somewhere. For each person listening to me today, 17:50 that is connecting with what Holy Spirit is using me to say to you today. The place where that bondage came from, where that yoke came from, is very different. You define it your own way. Nevertheless, there's no one in this room that's under bondage today or under a yoke today that is bound up or heavy. And with your mouth, you're free. But with your life, you feel completely weighted down and oppressed. 18:16 unable to fully demonstrate the goodness of God and what he's really set you free from. You struggle with that. And I want to tell you today, it's because as long as bondage has you believing that it has power, it will have power. Again, I refer back to what Paul said. He said, but for freedom, everybody say for freedom, Christ has set me free. 18:51 I'm going to do a demonstration this morning. So I'm going to ask two people to come and join me this morning. And where is Dyle? Dyle, would you come in and join me? And then where is, well, I've already got, where did Jamesy go? Did he run out? Jamesy right here in front of me. Come on up here, Jamesy. Everybody give him a hand as they come this morning. They're going to help me do something today. And so, Dyle, if you will stand on this side. Jamesy, I'm going to ask you to stand up here, and I'm going to start with you today. Okay? I want everybody to look at Jamesy. 19:29 This hulk of a man. What are we looking at? 18, 19, 21, 22 inch biceps. I have no idea. I'm not your son. I don't measure. See, I needed sassy this morning. So when you look at Jamesy, I'm going to ask you to do something for me, Jamesy. See, let me tell you something before I do this. Let me say something about bondage today. So bondage isn't made strong because you're weak. It isn't stronger because you're weak and it isn't weak. 20:18 Because you're strong. Say this with me. Say bondage is a sentence from the wrong court. There are two courts. There's the court of the enemy and there's the court of the Lord. See, in court, when you're sentenced, you don't have any control over that. You're going to serve the time. So when you receive a sentence from the court of the enemy and he decides that you're going to carry something for the rest of your life, whether it's applicable or not, he decides you're going to carry that for the rest of your life. 21:03 See, that's the sentence. That's a sentence that will remain until a different judge passes a different sentence. You hear me today. So what I want to demonstrate today with the two of you is I want to show you how bondage works. A lot of times, Jamesy, I'm going to begin with you. A lot of times bondage starts. If you'll just hold this bucket in your hand, just hold it there. 21:34 Bondage starts, see this bucket, it's bondage. This represents that thing that we carry. See, a lot of people are carrying bondage and it's not weighty. You would say, and maybe there's some even in this room right now, I'm not in bondage to anything. There is no yoke on me that hinders me from fully walking out my purpose in Christ. There's nothing that's stopping me. You might be saying that because you don't feel any weight of it and yet it may be very well present. The only way that you ever know that it's present is when it comes up. 22:09 In a discussion at the dining room table or when you're sitting with friends and having coffee and somehow something comes out that you realize, man, that thing has been weighty. Didn't even know it. But see, hold that bucket out like this here. How long can you do that? Probably three minutes. So James, he's holding this bucket out here. See, this is how bondage works at first. Man, it's easy. Walk around with that thing sticking out like that. You can even use two hands if you want to. I don't care what he's making that look easy. But man, what happens when I do this? Keep walking. Keep walking. 22:55 And then I just want to remind you, you know, these are the things that I've been saying in your ear for so long. Keep walking. I've been saying a lot. I've had a lot to share with you, Jamesy, over the years. And you know what? You haven't known that you've been carrying it because it's been easy. You know, you've been able to hold your arm out. But I'm just going to keep adding it because you're doing so good. I'm going to keep adding it. And it comes like that. Wait a minute. Jamesy, you're shaking. Oh, I wonder. I wonder. 23:36 And now suddenly a yoke has gotten his attention. Oh, yeah, and you can even change arms. You can add more of yourself to it. It doesn't change the fact that over time, bondage just keeps on getting heavier and heavier. It's getting heavier. Oh, well, Jamesy, what's going on? What's happening? It's getting heavy. What happened to those 21-inch, 22-inch, 48-inch biceps you've got? I never had them. 24:07 Well, and then he just keeps talking, and all of a sudden... Now, see, in the beginning, when you were holding that bucket, it was like, this is nothing, right? What's it like now? Heavy. It's what? Burden. Oh, yeah. You can set that down. Thank you. Now do this. Don't they feel light? Yep. Isn't that amazing? Well done. Thank you. Give him a hand. So bondage, again, it's not a respecter. Just because James is this bulky, big dude that works out, and it's obvious he does... 24:48 Bondage isn't made weak because he was strong. That sentence keeps coming. When it's come from the wrong court and the wrong judge, the sentence keeps working itself and keeps adding until it doesn't care. Bondage is neither weak nor strong. It is a sentence. It doesn't matter if you've been walking with God for all your life or if you've been walking with God for three minutes. 25:27 Bondage is neither strong nor weak. It is a sentence from the wrong judge in the wrong court. So when this, I'm going to tell you, I was going to have a chain or a rope and put it on there and then put it around their neck. And then my son said to me, he said, dad, that's a lawsuit. I thought, okay, it's not a lawsuit. We're not going to do that. I don't want to hurt anybody, but it doesn't care. 26:17 It doesn't care if you're a petite, beautiful young lady or you're a guy that can bench press 300 pounds. Bondage doesn't care. Because again, and I want to make sure you hear what I'm telling you today. Bondage is a sentence from the wrong judge from the wrong court. 26:47 It is a sentence that you will serve until the right judge and the right court overrules it. So what happens is, so could you reach down and you don't have to pick it up. Let me make some things a little lighter. Oh, go ahead and have it sit down for just a second. No, no, no, go ahead and pick it up. Now have it, let it be seated. Now stand back up with that. Now you can put it down. And that's what we do. We pick it up. 27:29 We put it down. Because we believe that through conflict, if I will just fight this thing, I'm going to overcome the bondage. And conflict and bondage are not even close to the same thing. So we fight and we feel a little freedom. And then suddenly, why is it bad? And then we fight and we feel a little freedom. And we go, I've been set free. That thing, it's gone. It's no longer a part of me. And then all of a sudden, we wake up on Tuesday morning and... 28:08 heaviness, bondage. It's all right there. But then when we realize, hold on to it. Can you hold it? Then we realize, have I accepted this sentence from the wrong judge, from the wrong court? Why have I accepted this sentence? So what I'm going to do is I'm going to repent and say, I'm going to the right judge in the right court of the Lord. Shh. 29:00 As he begins to remove fear, words that people have spoken over me, challenges I didn't feel like I could overcome, failures I've had over and over, the lies that have been told about me. I'm going to keep believing. That sentence comes from the right judge and the right court. I can hold this thing up as a trophy and win this thing. Thank you. But too many, you can be seated too many and too often. 29:48 We wear this yoke on our, and for some it's six feet wide, for some it's a single yoke, for some it's a double yoke. We look in the mirror and what we see is an oxen with a yoke on their neck and wondering, will I ever get past this thing? I'm going to tell you something, there is a way. The way isn't by every day getting up and creating conflict to try to overcome it. 30:14 I'm going to tell you how you overcome the yoke and the burden. I've told you over and over already. You go to the right judge in the right court that can pass sentence not on you, but he passes sentence on the sentence that you receive from the wrong judge in the wrong court. And he says no more. But in order for him to be able to do the work that he wants to do in me, I have to be willing to come and say I recognize. 30:44 I have allowed the words, a sentence from the wrong court, from the wrong judge to be proclaimed over me for however long it's been there. And I have carried this yoke. I've tried to fight it. I've tried to come against it. And I've never been able to. And he says, because conflict. That's my creative power in you to know which battles to fight when. But the yoke, the yoke is a sentence. It's chains. Paul coming out of prison. Peter coming out of prison. 31:21 Joseph being free. I want to tell you there's a freedom when we go to the right judge, we go to the right court, and he overrules everything else that's ever been said or done about us. I'm going to tell you there's a freedom in it. And today your pathway to having that yoke eternally, not just for this week and not just next week, but today there is opportunity to have a yoke that has been on you for who knows how long, only you do. 31:52 There is opportunity for the right judge and the right court to remove the yoke today by sentencing your previous sentencer. Would you stand with me this morning? Jesus Christ says something about you, many things about you, but there's a few things that I want to speak specifically to you. One, he says, you are his brother and you are his sister. He says you are his son or you are a son of the father. 32:38 and you are a daughter. He says you are strong, and you are well able. These are sentences. You are an overcomer, and you are not defeated. He says, this is a sentence, you are whole, and you are not broken. He says you are redeemed, and you are not forsaken. And he says you are his, and he is yours. I want the pastors to come and stand with me across the front here, if you would please. 33:20 I know in this room this morning there are people that through conflict have tried to beat down, win, believing that it's some battle that we're going to fight that's going to get this yoke off of our shoulders, this get out from underneath this bondage that we've lived with. Man, the conflict that it takes to do that has already happened. And you're not the one that does it that way. Christ did. 33:52 But you're carrying bondage in this room today. There's a yoke on you that has hindered you. You with your mouth say, I am free. But with your mind, with your feelings, with your life, tells a whole different story. Today, today, the right judge and the right court, Yahweh God Almighty, from the court of the Lord, wants to sentence your sentencer. The one who told you over and over and over, you're going to carry this forever because I'm going to make sure I'm going to keep adding bricks to your buckets. 34:31 And every now and then I'm going to let you think you're winning. And then I'm going to add another brick. Today, it's done. Transcript generated automatically from the audio, so a few words may be off.
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