From Stuck to Free

All right, hey, let's jump into the word of God today. All right, I feel like the Lord has just been leading me to this season of our church that it's a season of new beginnings. It's a season of going to higher heights and doing more for God. God's a do-over God, He's a good God. He's a fresh start God. He's a God that will give you a clean slate. The Bible says, if you just confess your sins to Him, He not only forgives you, but He cleanses you. He just washes you away. He gives you a fresh start. And I'm just so thankful for a God that doesn't treat us as we deserve, but He offers us forgiveness and hope. Someone say amen there. And I wanna read this verse to you. I read it to you in week one, but I wanna read it to you again. The Bible says, forget the former things. Forget the former things. 2025 is over. Do not dwell on the past. See, I'm doing a new thing. And the Bible says, this is a now kind of thing. Now it springs up. And then He says this line, don't you see it? I'm making a way in the wilderness and I'm making streams in the wasteland.

So week number one, we talked about new faith. What would it look like if in your Christian spiritual journey, you said 2026 is gonna be a year that's different in my spiritual walk than ever before. Really the sum of the message was this. You gotta repent. You gotta turn from that sin. You make a 180, go the opposite direction and it's time to just go all in with God. The light is green. It's just time to go. It's time to just move forward. Last week, we talked about new fitness, that a lot of us start the new year with fitness goals for our physical body and getting in the gym and working out. Those are not bad things. The Bible says that that's important. It has some value, but there's more value in taking care of your body, your mind, your emotions, your habits, getting those things in order so you can be vessels fit for the master's use. Today, I wanna talk about finding freedom. I'm calling this message from stuck to free, from stuck to free. And when I'm talking about going from stuck to free, I'm making the assumption that most of us in this room, come on, you got up in the middle of a snowstorm and you came to church today.

I'm making the assumption that most of us in this room today have experienced different levels of freedom because we really love God and wanna serve God. In other words, you've said, God, would you take whatever that area of sin is? God, would you take whatever this issue is, this thing that has bound me and has held me captive? And I promise you the moment that you say that prayer, God answered that prayer and he says, yes, I will take that from you. Yes, I will provide you freedom. The problem is that was just in one moment. And for many of you, including the person who is preaching this message right now, we find ourselves right back in that same situation again. So it's a very short lived freedom. And today I wanna challenge you with this thought of how to keep your freedom. How to keep your freedom. What would 2026 look like if you actually had a new type of freedom? Because like most people who start off the year with resolutions, most of these resolutions don't actually make it out through the month of January. I heard this story of this resolution from a guy. He said, my goal this year is to pay off this loan. He got to the next year and he said, my goal this year is to pay off my loans. Then he got to the next year and he says, my goal this year is just to get out of the country

before they find me. And maybe you're like one of those people that you're like, Pastor Dan, I tried this last year and I offered this to God the year before and I offered it to God the year before that. And I just have not really ever experienced freedom from my debt, my hurts, my habits, my hangups, my addictions, my wounds, my sins. I'm just carrying them on the journey with me. Some of you, you've just even learned to live with it. You've just decided this is how your life is always going to be. I want you to see the verse that Jesus said in John chapter eight. He said, to the Jews who had believed. So these are believers. These are people who believe in Jesus as Lord. Jesus said, if you hold to my teaching, you are my disciples. He says, if you hold to my teaching, you're my disciples and then you'll know the truth and the truth will what? The truth will, you'll know the truth. Come on, say it with me. And the truth will set you free. And they answered, we're Abraham's descendants. We ain't never been slaves to anyone. How can you say that we need to be set free? And Jesus said, very truly, I tell you, everyone who sins has become a slave to it.

And a slave, the problem with slavery is that even though the slave is going to heaven, they have no permanent place in the family affairs and the family things. Basically, that means you might get all that you would want out of knowing Jesus in that you're going to heaven, but you're not living your most fulfilled life here on earth. It's this principle. that God delivered the Israelites out of Egypt. He delivered them out of slavery, out of the bonds and the ruling of Pharaoh, and he placed them in this area as they were prepped and primed to head into the desert lands, yet they were grumbling, murmuring, and complaining. And they said, it would have been better for us when we were slaves, as we were in Egypt. Let's go back to Egypt. It's this principle that you can be out of Egypt, but Egypt can still be in you. And I want to talk about today how to really find freedom. And it's not just a one-time moment or a one-time decision. In fact, I'm gonna show you a very, very discouraging verse in scripture today. So you can develop some theology around this topic, Luke chapter 11, and here's what it says. It says, when an evil spirit leaves a person,

it goes into the desert searching for rest. So whenever you say, you know what? I take authority over you, devil, in the name of Jesus, get your hands off my mind, get your hands off my finances, my struggles, my pain, this addiction, this habit, my marriage, whatever's going on, whatever's happened to me in the past, get your hands off me in the name of Jesus. It has to leave at the mention of the name of Jesus. And it goes looking for rest, but when it finds no place to rest, it says, I will return. And this is a teaching that Jesus is giving to us to understand spiritual warfare dynamics. He says, I'll return to the person I came from. And when it returns, it finds that the former home or that person has their house all swept clean. In other words, that person, they went to part one, two, and three of higher heights, and they realized, oh my goodness, it's a new beginning. It's a new start, it's a new journey, I'm brand new. But then the spirit, unfortunately, listen to what the text says, find seven other spirits more evil than itself, and they all enter that person and live there. And so the person is worse than they were before. So Jesus is basically describing the cycle that every single person in this room and every person that's online today needs to understand is that sometimes the freedom we experience can be short-lived.

And by the way, that's not just only true of spiritual dynamics. You see this in countries and nations as they rise to prominence or power, or maybe this has even been your story over the last couple of years. You got out of debt, you got a good job, you got a promotion, your finances started to go up, therefore the quality of your living started to go up, you bought a bigger house, you bought a better car, your shopping is going up, you're taking more vacations, and things begin to prosper in your life on the outside. But here's the problem, when life begins to prosper and you think I'm doing so well, what do we have the tendency to do? We have the tendency to ignore God. In fact, you see it in church attendance. Every time, honestly, things go bad in the world, the room fills up. And every time the world's quiet, everyone's good. People have a hard time making a commitment to church. I always say it this way, in wartime, people go to church, and at peacetime, they go to the shore house. And you see that, you see that. I always tell people, you have to learn to live with prosperity without getting prideful or complacent, because when you get prideful or complacent and you forget God, it leads you right back into that same sin, that same bondage, that same struggle every single time,

which is the reason why resolutions don't stick. And again, God's not looking for a new year's resolution in your life, he's looking for a new year's revolution in your life. Resolutions are external, revolutions are internal. So that's why I'm teaching you not just, hey, say the prayer one time, ask the Lord to free you from that addiction, ask the Lord to free you from that hurt one time, and as you believe it, say amen, and it will be gone forever. And I promise you, when you do pray the prayer, the Lord will bring you freedom. Where the spirit of the Lord is, there is the freedom. But then there's those of you that thought, yeah, it didn't stay with me though. I fell right back into it. Watch this verse then, Galatians chapter five. It says, it is for freedom that Christ has set us free. And wouldn't we love to just put a period there. Praise God, it's for freedom that God has set us free. Let's declare that in a song, let's memorize that verse. It's for freedom that God has set me free. But then the next line says, but stand firm. Now, if God set me free, why do I need to stand firm? He says, stand firm then, do not let yourselves be burdened again by the yoke of slavery. And that's what I'm trying to help you do today. I'm trying to teach you some warfare truths about who you are so you can have a new kind of freedom. Not the kind of freedom that is just short-lived

in a moment where you say a prayer, but you can determine once and for all, 2026 is gonna be the year where I settle that habit, where I settle that hurt, where I settle that problem, where I settle that thing that just keeps coming along for the ride that I know is not right. This is the year where I can be free indeed. Can I hear a good amen, anybody? Okay, so that's what I want to do today, under the framework of the text of Luke chapter 15, one of the most popular parables, the story of the prodigal son. Let's read it together. Here we go. There was a man who had two sons, and the younger son said to his father, I wish you were dead, because I want my inheritance now. And unfortunately, I've got to wait until you're dead, which is probably one of the most rude things a son could ever say to their father. He wanted all of the pleasure, and he wanted something that he was intended to receive later in life. He wanted it now. He said, father, give me my share of the estate. And so the father just obliged him. And the Bible says that he divided his property, but he didn't just give it to the younger son who asked for it. He went ahead and divided the property in half. He gave the younger son his inheritance. He also gave the older son his inheritance, even though he didn't ask for it. I want you to remember that about the older son. We're going to come back to that at the end of this text. It says not long after that, the younger son got together all the things that he has now, and he sent off for a distant country, and there he squandered his wealth and wilds living.

So he experienced the freedom, the freedom of no longer being in the house, the freedom of no longer having those responsibilities of working for his father. He experienced that freedom, and with all of the money that he gets, prosperity, he doesn't know what to do. And he squanders all of his wealth with wild living. And after he had spent everything, now again, that was the cycle I was just talking about. Wouldn't you know, there's a famine that's in the land. So not only did he spend all that he had, but circumstantially now, things are starting to go wrong at the same time, which by the way, have you ever noticed this? I think sometimes God allows things to shake us up to really get our attention to go back to him. And some of you, you might be in that moment right now where literally everything is falling apart, and I'm just trying to help you recognize what you need to do. You need to turn to the Lord and find freedom. And there's a severe famine in the whole country, and he began to be in need. So he went out and he hired himself to be a citizen. And again, I think that's a little, but it's an important detail that I've highlighted in the story, because what he should have done in that moment is he should have repented to God and went back to his father and repented and worked for his dad. But he didn't do the right thing. Instead, he did the wrong thing, and he looked for a worldly solution to his problems. He went and hired himself out to a citizen of that country. And for a lot of us, we've done that. We've said, God, you can't fix this. And God, I don't know if I trust you to do it anyways. And I'm too embarrassed to actually come back to you and repent of my sins. And so I put myself actually into a worse situation, a worse problem, a deeper pit, a deeper hole, and they sent him as a worker out to feed the pigs, because he longed to feed his stomach with the pods. So pig food, there he is in this slop.

Can you imagine the dilemma that he's in as a Jewish person, not even supposed to touch those animals or eat those animals? Now he's not even eating the animals. He's eating the food that the animals have to eat. He's living amongst them. His life as a Jewish man in that culture could not get any worse. And I love this phrase, and this is going to be point number one of this message today, that when he finally came to his senses, which is the first step to really finding freedom, because God's looking for somebody who will enter 2026 and say, that's enough. That's enough. I'm not going through another year with this habit, with this addiction, with this hurt, with this pain. He said, how many of my father's hired servants are there to spare? And here I am starving to death. If you're taking notes, write this down. Point number one is this. You've got to admit that I need help. You got to admit that I need help. And that's the first step of real freedom. When you come to the place and you say, I can't handle this on my own any longer, I need some help. I need some help. King David in the Bible, he had all sorts of issues. Issues with adultery, issues with murder, issues with all sorts of things. But he reaches this point in scripture where he says, enough is enough. Here's what he says. He says, then when I refused to turn to God, my body wasted away, I groaned all day long. And day and night, your hand of discipline, it was heavy upon me and my strength evaporated like the water in the summer heat. But finally, come on, someone say finally, I confess all of my sins to God.

I stopped trying to hide my guilt, and I said to my God, I will confess my rebellion to you, and you forgave me, and now all of my guilt is gone. And God gave him a brand new beginning. Only when he reached the point of saying, enough is enough. Let's continue in the story. Luke chapter 15, verse 18 and 19. He says, And I will say, set out to go back to my father, and I will say to him, Father, now this is an important detail, I want you to see this in the text, I have sinned against heaven. I've sinned against God. I've sinned against you. He's talking to his dad. Write this down. Point number two, the second step towards finding real freedom is you have to humbly repent to God and humbly repent to others. You have to repent to God and repent to others. So this is one of the mistakes that a lot of us make is that we're trying to deal with our resolutions, we're trying to change some part of our life, and we're way too personal with what we're trying to change. We're just trying to handle it all on our own. And the key here is not only to confess your sin and your struggle to God, because God is the only God who can forgive, but you need to confess your sin and your struggle to somebody else in the context of community who will hold you accountable, who will hold you accountable. Many of you, you probably know this story if you've been around here for a couple years, but in the year 2020, I decided that it was time for me to start getting healthier in my body. I've kind of been up and down on the whole fitness journey and had back surgery a couple years before, and I mean, everybody just wants to meet with a pastor over food, so eat quite a bit out and just got a little bit unhealthy and decided it was time for me to just start getting healthy. And I'd kind of bounce back and forth every

single new year. I'd kind of do the same thing over and over. I'd start working out for a little bit, start eating healthier for a little bit, and I'd go right back to the same lifestyle that I was doing for the last couple of years. And things changed in January of 2020 after a Thursday night of worship team practice January 3rd, when a member of our production team who's a runner by the name of Jeremy Norris said, hey, I like to run. Would you want to go run with me right now at Cinnamon Memorial Park at nine o'clock at night? It was 20 degrees out, January 3rd, and I was crazy enough to say, let's go do it together. And that started a journey for us. The moment that we started running together, everything changed for me. Why? I could no longer cancel, even if it was for good reasons. Because, you know, we all use good reasons. I've got to pray so I can't go work out. I've got to study the scriptures so I can't get my time to work out. God, I've got to have more time. I can't go work out. And we come up with all of these excuses. But, you know, I've found in life you can make excuses or progress, but you can't make both. And the moment that I had somebody waiting for me to run, things began to change in my fitness. Things began to change. And now here I am six years later, and I can say that five miles a day, five times a week, 1,200 miles a year, 7,500 miles I've ran since January of 2020. Why? Because I had somebody who was waiting for me to run. And the key for you and for me is this. You've got to get some accountability in your life in 2026. Who's praying for you every single day? Who's holding you accountable? Not just a place where you actually share your struggle, but a place where somebody is actually holding you accountable to the Word of God? Who's saying, this is what the Word of God tells us? And that's why we're not a church with groups. We're a church of small groups. That's what small groups are all about.

It is a community where you're going to study the Word of God. It is a community where you're going to be going through different topics. And we have free market groups. We believe that your life is your group. We believe that we can take fishing and reading the Bible and all of these different activities and make them small groups. And they all do the same four things. They all do ESPN, encouragement, scripture, prayer, and next steps. But what I also hope that you experience in that small group is two or three people in that group that week four or five, you can say, hey, can I talk to you for a minute? Can I tell you what's really going on in my life? Can I tell you the thing that I'm doing at night that nobody knows that I'm doing? Hey, hey, I'm a guy and I travel for business and I go away every Friday night. And as I go away every Friday night, this is what I do. Hey, man, could you call me at eight o'clock on Friday night so I don't get into the same thing again? You know what I'm talking about? And I am so serious about this because some of you, you'll come to church every single Sunday, 52 Sundays this year, but you'll never let someone know what you're struggling with. And I promise you, if you don't let someone in on this and you don't confess it to God and confess it to people and get accountability, you're probably going to still be struggling with that same thing a year from now. You got to get into groups. You got to get into groups. You got to get into groups. So let's continue with the text. So he got up and he went to his father. But while he was still a long way off. I love that. His father saw him, was filled with compassion, ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him. Now, I included this part of the story because I think people still have a wrong view of who God is. And they think if I let God in on the fact that I'm really struggling with this, he'll reject me. And I want you to see what the text says. The father saw him while he was a long way off. Now that can only be true. If the father was waiting on the front porch for his son to come back home

I think every day the father was out there saying is this gonna be the day? Is this gonna be the day is this gonna be the day where my lost son comes back home? And I want you to know this morning Your heavenly father is on the front porch of your life saying is this gonna be the day? Is this gonna be the day is this gonna be the day and he has eager hope in his heart that this will be the Day that you'll return back home And when he sees you he doesn't wait for you to grovel and crawl all the way back to him The Bible says this the father saw him from a long way off and he was filled with compassion He ran to his son. He met him halfway through his arms around him and he kissed him Now you see the next detail of these last two points of this story that don't get taught in this story because most people usually stop The story there, but I want to talk about what happens after the prodigal son gets home So the text says this while all this is happening Meanwhile, the older son who never left home is in the field and when he came near the house He heard music and dancing and he called one of the servants. He asked him he says what's going on and the servant said your brothers come back home and your father has killed the fattened calf because he's back safe and sound and the older Brother became angry and refused to go into the party. So his father went out and pleaded with him. Watch this He answered his father look all these years I've been slaving for you I've been doing the right thing For you. Look what I did for you dad. I've slaved for you. Look at this language I've never disobeyed you the King James Version says it this way. I've never broken a single one of your commandments Now, do you think the older brother in all of his years had never once disobeyed the commandments of his father? Look at the extremism of this lie You never even gave me a young goat so I could celebrate with his friends remember at the beginning of the story the father divided his inheritance in half and Set half aside for the younger brother and half aside for the older brother Yeah, he's lying right here and says you never even gave me a goat But your rebellious son comes home who squandered your property with prostitutes and you killed the fattened calf for him And there's some of you listen some of you this is the third point right here You've got to learn how to deal with the enemy's lies that he's speaking over your life

So part of the reason why you keep bringing this stuff into every year is because you've bought into the lies of the enemy And it's created bondage in your life right this sound point number three. We have to reject the lies of the devil We've got to reject the lies of the devil We've got to reject the lies of the devil some of you are Tormented by things in life that are not even true the devil has lied to you And you're living in that shame and you're living in that guilt. I love what scripture says we destroy arguments in every lofty opinion We take every thought captive and we bring it under the obedience of Christ Jesus You've got to just stand up in the morning You say devil get your hands off this church devil get your hands off my marriage Devil get your hands off my finances devil get your hand off my mind it belongs to Jesus today And that's where you find freedom I always say about 85% of my time is spent in talking with God But 10 to 15 percent of my time is confrontation with the enemy Quoting the scripture saying he won't have my life And you got to reject the lies of the enemy back to the text point number four and we'll close with this my son the father Said you're always with me and everything that I have is yours Remember he gave him that full inheritance the same time he gave his younger brothers, and that's why number four you have to daily believe God's truth You've got a daily believe God's truth. What is his truth? It's the Word of God His word is a lamp unto our feet. It's a light unto our path his word is our offensive weapon It's how we defeat Satan and the father said this He said to his servant quick for my son Bring me three things Bring me a robe Bring me ring and bring me some sandals. Bring me a robe. Bring me a ring and bring me some sandals Break this down to you today and tell you what the truth is what God has for you when you experience freedom Here's these truths the robe is the robe of righteousness All throughout scriptures robe represented how you see yourself if you're really gonna be free in 2026 Do you see yourself as righteous and royal because the Bible says you're the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus

Or do you see yourself still bound by that sin? The second is that he put a ring on him the ring represents authority Some of you guys need to start doing as I just said take that stand against the devil and say enemy You won't have my life You won't hold me captive by this addiction any longer. I love it The great honors of being the lead pastor here at Calvary Church that many of you will come up to me on a Sunday or during the week and say, Pastor Dan, can you pray for me? I love your prayers, they're so powerful. And I always say, yes, I will pray with you, I'll agree with you right now. But you have the same power in your prayers as I do. If you know Jesus and Jesus is in your heart, you have that authority within you that says that same power that conquered the grave is living and active inside of me. And so I take authority in the name of Jesus that the enemy won't hold me captive any longer. You got to believe the ring represents authority. And then your old, crusty, dry feet, which represents how you feel about life. Got some pig stuff, some nasty stuff between it, some dirt, some filth of all the places you walked away from God, represents where your life has been. God washes it, God puts his sandals on it, and he gives you the shoes of peace. He says, my peace I leave with you, my peace I give you. Do not let your hearts be troubled because I want to bring peace that passes all understanding. In freedom, there's righteousness, you're the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus. Freedom, there's authority, your authority as a son, as his daughter, take your stand against the enemy. And then freedom, he offers you peace. Not to be balanced by the things of this world, but peace that passes all understanding. Let's pray together. Lord, we thank you for this day. We honor you, we bless you today. You're a great God, and a mighty God, and a strong God. And Lord, we just pray for every single person that's been bound today.

Lord, I pray that you would begin that journey of them finding freedom. Lord, that they would experience your freedom in this moment, but then as scripture says, that they would stand firm and say yes to you, and no to the things of this world. Lord, we thank you for these things. In Jesus' name we pray, amen.