Sermon Central
-
Do You Want To Get Well? Series
Contributed by Ken Hubbard on Feb 11, 2010 (message contributor)
Summary: A sermon discussing how God can help you take the initiative in your life to improve your situation rather than just continuing to endure what's wrong.
INTRO: For 38 years this man is stuck in a disappointment
Paralyzed in a situation
38 years...no progress...no victory...everyday the same!
It seemed as though he would forever be the victim...stuck in a rut
„« 38=== 3 Resurrection
„« 8 New Beginning
* The question is one that's a bit unsettling
* Do you want to get better?
* Yet his answer is what bothers me most...
* If this was the church...
...The water got stirred
...We sit paralyzed because of damaged emotions
...And our answer shows we are a victim
* I am concerned with those who become addicted to being a victim:
...addicted to a crisis
...addicted to a problem
...addicted to people feeling sorry for you
...addicted to people's reaction to your problem
...Addicted to feeling sorry for yourself
* Like the drug addict...
...his body doesn't want it
...his soul hungers for it
...love/hate relationship
...and you don't know how to function without it
* Victim addiction...
Victim = One who is harmed by or made to suffer from an act
Habit = A reoccurring, unconscious pattern of behavior acquired through petition.
Habit = Develops lifestyle
Lifestyle = Develops strongholds
> > > >If you always do what you've always done
> > > >You will always be what you've always been
* Many times we become a victim as a child
* The Devil is always trying to harm you when you're a kid...
- Message: "The King and the Kid"
* This leaves us with childlike emotions in grown up bodies
- Throwing temper tantrums
- Pouting / crying / screaming
* Paul told us to grow up
* Yet growing up is a process
* Habits and 'victim mindsets' don't come because someone laid hands on you
* Growing up is a process
* You don't get character in a prayer line.
"When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me."
LIVING WITH HOLES -- 3 REASONS WHY
1. I SPOKE AS A CHILD
* Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks
* I am not talking about what the mouth says on Sunday
* But what it says when you're down
* Stop talking like a victim
* You tell the world you're a victim...
...take advantage of me
* Continuing to repeat what someone has previously said!
...I am too ugly
...I will never get ahead
...I don't trust men
...I don't like women
...I want to love you, but I don't know how
* The enemy is using your mouth to curse you
* Every time you say it
* You reinforce it
* Now everyone in the family is fighting to be the victim
* You are cursing yourself
* Dead words
* Destructive words
2. I THOUGHT LIKE A CHILD
* How you view yourself
* Low self-esteem...
...strongholds / Stinking Thinking
EXAMPLE: The little girl who got molested...
...hates men
...hates authority
Or
...grows up thinking that sex is all she is good for!
* The word thought actually has meaning in the financial world:
Thought = To call into account
It's an accounting word
* Wrong thinking then gives us a word picture
* That we put things in the wrong account
* Remember in school when they taught us to add
* We had to line things up in the right column
* When different events come up in my life
* I think immaturely and put them into the wrong column
* So, I never get the right answer
EXAMPLE: He came home late...
...your column, he's cheating
He didn't listen to me...
...he don't care
...he hates me
Wrong column
She is friendly to you...
...your thoughts turn sexual
Wrong column
„« Always put new relationships
„« Into old relationship columns
„« Now second husband is paying the price for first
„« And wife is paying price for abusive mother
„« When you add it all up, you can't get the right total
>>>You need to change your stinking thinking!
"...to be made new in the attitude of your minds..."
- Make your thinking new
- You will not be made new in one prayer line
Study prayer line
Meditate prayer line
Read prayer line
- You get prayed for, but you need to...
...breaks habits
...stinking thinking
...strongholds
>>>> through the Power of His Word
- God won't pour new wine into OLD wine skin with Holes
- Thinking like a victim...
...victim = feels less than / weaker than / powerless
- Anger / Rage / Bitterness / Depression
...all stem from feeling powerless
...backed into a corner
...they explode / defense / to feeling powerless
