Inner Vows | Landon Schott | Mercy Culture Church

Well, how many are ready for the word today? If you want my notes, you can text notes to the number that comes on the screen, or you could text grow to get the discipleship guide. I want to thank everybody that's watching online and all of our friends over in the four year that are watching on that new led wall in the four year in the overflow. We see you. We love you. Thank you for accommodating other people. I'm excited about this word today because I really believe that this is a life changing word. I'm not, I don't believe it. I know this is a life changing word and I can guarantee it because it changed my life. So I am preaching and ministering and teaching from a place of experience of something that God has showed me. And here's what I can guarantee. If God did it in me, he can do it in you. Amen. If you have your Bibles, turn with me to Genesis chapter 25, first book of the Bible, Genesis chapter 25. We'll beginning verse 29, it'll be up on the screen or in the notes. It says this once when Jacob was cooking stew, Esau came in from the field and he was exhausted. And Esau said to Jacob, let me eat some of that red stew for I am exhausted. Therefore his name was Edom. Jacob said, sell me your birthright, sell it to me. Jacob said, swear to me now. So he swore to Kim and sold his birthright to Jacob. Then Jacob gave Esau bread and lentil stew. He ate it and he drank and he went on his way. Look at this right here.

Thus Esau despised his birthright came to tell you today, an inner vow will cause you to miss the blessing of the Lord. A title of this message this morning is inner vows. Let's pray. So Lord, we come to you today and we declare that your word's true. Let every man be a liar. We declare your word as a lamp into our feet and a light into our path. Holy spirit, we hide your word in our hearts so we won't sin against you. I pray right now. Would you breathe upon your word? I pray your logos becomes Reema personal revelation to us today. Holy spirit, I pray you would give us ear to ears to hear hearts to receive minds to understand what your spirit is saying. We declare right now, no spirit, but the Holy spirit is welcome in this place. So we declare every other spirit. You must go spirit of fear. You must go spirit of shame. You must go in Jesus name. We say, Holy spirit come rule in rain. Father, we don't make room for you in this place, but Holy spirit, we give you the entire room. Lord, I thank you. Nobody came to hear me. We all came to hear you. So together we pray, speak Lord. Your servants are listening and all of God's people said, amen and amen. We're stewarding a prophetic word on a year of encounters and visitations. I think the women had an encounter in a visitation this week. This is an Exodus three, five year, a year that you will find yourself on Holy ground. I know that I have found myself on Holy ground last week in Fort worth at the 1130 service.

There was a special moment. I mean, it was probably a top five moment in my life as I laid on this stage and the band begin to play. I felt the same power that was in the thunder and the lightning and the storms that were happening in DFW on Saturday night happening over this sanctuary. I felt the power of God. It's been here all week. It hasn't left me. I have felt his power in his presence. I'm more stirred in my faith right now, and it's only may about the encounters and visitations and angelic visitations that we are going to experience this year. Is there anyone that's in faith with me? Say amen. We are in a series right now where we're teaching on the different ways to connect with God. Why? Because we really want you to spiritually grow and this will help you break through and grow. But as we pray in, in plan our year, we, we, we make a roadmap for everybody at mercy culture. So I go away and the pastors and elders, we go away and we pray and we ask the Lord what it's supposed to look like. I'm actually praying right now into 2028 and what 2028 supposed to look like. And we prepare it. We're not winging it. We're not just coming up with stuff and there's no pastor at mercy culture that will ever come up with the message on Saturday night, you know, and then you have the really spiritual people to like, well, what if the Lord wants to say something new? I gotcha. He's alpha to Megan outside of time. He can tell you something new two years in advance. So we seek him.

He speaks and then we prepare because we believe in stewardship. So we're in this series. We're about to go into summer of prayer, but the Lord began to speak to me this message on inner vows that rocked me. And I noticed that this thing called an inner vow has been in my life, trying to keep me from the perfect will of God my entire life. And I didn't see it coming. I became aware of it for the first time as we begin to plant mercy culture church. Many of you know our story of Heather and I, and we've grown grew up in church and we're pastors kids and mega churches, and we knew mega dysfunction. So everybody that's got a problem with church and, and, and, and a beef to pick with church. I get it. Go watch the podcast. The difference between you and me is instead of deconstructing and building the house down, I decided to pick up a hammer and a sword and start building the house of God. But I always loved the Lord. His followers just scare me. Christians are mean. You're hypocritical. Church folk are dramatic, not faithful. It's amazing all of the complaints that people have about pastors. I do not believe the complaints pastors have about you. You ever read about the children of Israel in the wilderness? That's a mirror. But in all honesty, because what I experienced, I was like, there's no way I'm pastoring. I'm never going to pastor. I said it over and over and over. I remember one time I was at a conference and this pastor came up to me and he goes, you're going to make a great pastor. And before he was done saying it, I was interrupting him, correcting him, telling him I will never

pastor. In the middle of him saying it to me, Heather and I go on our third date. We grew up in Seattle. I took her to this ledge that overlooks Seattle and I'm talking about ministry and what we're going to do. And I tell her, but we're not going to pastor. I had made plans my entire life. Lord, I love you. I will serve you. I will do this for you. We'll do media for you. I'll travel the world for you. We'll do all of these things. But this one thing I'm not going to do. And then in September of 2016, I'm filming on a Christian, a Christian television station. I'm driving back to Austin where we live. My map took me through Fort Worth for the very first time. Never seen Fort Worth in my life, been to DFW dozens and dozens of times, never been to Fort Worth. I'm driving over the freeway and as the city is over my right hand shoulder, I hear the Lord say, you can pastor here. It came so quick, so fast, like it was behind me. I could not believe what I heard. And then I kept it. Usually I share with Heather things that God speaks to me. I didn't tell her. I didn't tell her anything. I just kept it. And I think the first person I ever told was Steve and I was just trying to process this. And then I gained the confidence to tell Heather.

And the first thing she said, she said, you said we would never pastor. I was like, I know what I said. I told you. But I know what it's like to hear the voice of God. So now about six months is going by and now I'm in the, am I going to be disobedient range? Like the processing, the praying about it. Okay. If you're praying about it for six months, okay. Something's broken. It's not working. You're not doing it right. You're not hearing you're in disobedience. Something's wrong. That's a gray area. Okay. And so I, I'm, I'm entering in that stage of, am I going to be obedient or not? So that's when I went on my first 40 day fast and I was like, okay, this is a big boy. This is a big decision. This is life altering. I said, I would never do it so that we plant mercy culture and mercy culture is amazing. I remember Heather and I were going on a date when we first started, we're in a high school at this time. I remember telling her if any pastor around the world called me and asked me to come work for them or do this or do that, if anyone offered me any amount of money, I would say, no, I said, this is the most fun thing we've ever done in my entire life. This is when we're in a high school before we're here. And as I'm telling her that nothing could pull me out of stewarding and obeying what God told me to do in mercy culture, I hear the Holy spirit speak to my spirit on our date. And he said to me this, that is my perfect will, but here's the thing.

Inner valves don't stop. When you obey God, they keep coming in different ways. I remember in driving around Dallas with pastor Steve and we're hanging out and pastors were driving Dallas's at night and pastor Steve's like, man, I think we're gonna have a church here. And guess what I said? We're never going to go to Dallas. This is your fearless leader here. And I, and I wrote, oh, we're not going to go to Dallas. God called, God called us to go to Fort Worth, try, quit, quit, quit trying to add things. Quit trying to give us something to do. And I found myself over the years over and over and over saying, I will never do this. We're not going to do this. This is what we're going to do. And all of a sudden I realized in the course of years that I have been spiritually resisting the perfect will of God by constantly telling God what I will and will not do for him before he even asks me. Inner vows are a demonic attack on the perfect will of God and the blessing of God and inner vows have almost derailed my entire life and my entire ministry. And if you are not aware of them, they will derail yours. I want to give a caution for the Facebook theologians out there that the phrase inner vow is not found in your Bible, yet it is a biblical term. The same word same way the word trinity is not found in your bible, but it is a very biblical term Inner vowel is a concept that's biblically based, but it's not found in scripture It's a modern term that came in church in the late 20th century through pastoral counseling and inner healing ministries to describe eternal internal promises formed in pain or fear The language is new but the reality is biblical So let me give you my simple definitions for inner vowels It's simply this an inner vowel is when your heart has already decided what it will do before god ever speaks Let me give you some biblical words that describe the concepts

Of inner vowels. The first is a hardened heart Hebrews 3 15 says today if you hear the voice of the lord do not harden your heart at is in rebellion A heart a hardened heart is a heart that has become resistant to the things of god Another word is unbelief. John 10 25. This is a story of doubting thomas He said to the disciples we have seen the lord but he said to this unless I see his hands And mark the nails and place my fingers and put my mark of the nails and place my hand into his side Look at this. I will never believe He made an inner vowel that he would not put his faith in certain things I want to remind you of a prophetic word this year man If you can learn how to steward these prophetic words i'm telling you they are game changers for your ability to steward life You will find them almost like when you go mountain climbing or a hike they will be the pathway The direction of how you're supposed to navigate the complexities of life and the spiritual warfare that you encounter Through these prophetic words one of the prophetic words this year is you are going to go from trusting god to believing god As you steward that prophetic word on believing god you will break the strongholds of inner vows in your heart Another biblical word is a predetermined decision Luke 21 14 Settle it therefore in your minds not to meditate beforehand How to answer a predetermined decision is a choice you've already settled in your heart again before god's even speaking Before you even seek god. Here's another one. You see this in the children of israel stubbornness Or stiff-necked go ahead and elbow your spouse right now Jeremiah 7 24 says this but they did not obey or incline their ear But they walked in their own counsel and in the stubbornness of their evil hearts Stubbornness or stiff stiffness is a refusal to yield to god's authority. It is a resistance to correction or Direction this is important Because if you're ever corrected or someone in the least bit challenges you and you feel that stubborn or stiff neckness come on you Either physically or spiritually know that you're in the process of inner vows being formed Another one is demonic strongholds We know second corinthians 10 says for our weapons of warfare are not of the flesh but divine power to destroy

Strongholds, what is this demonic stronghold is when you have let go but demonic forces still are holding on to you You tried to let go of them, but they're holding on to you Another one another biblical term for inner vows is the deceitfulness of sin Proverbs 14 12 says there's a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death Let me give you a warning if any of these are Characteristics in you it reflects that inner vows are already being formed I want to highlight this this is wild Because part of an inner vow it is it is one of the most subtle Demonic attacks against the perfect will of god That it took this pastor who's been serving the lord all of his life into his 40s to begin to recognize This is subtle It is stealth and this is where the enemy comes to kill steal and destroy Let me set a little more of a biblical foundation in the old testament vows are sacred and binding And the hebrew we have a word for vow it's called nadir It means it's a voluntary promise made to god in binding to a person. These are sacred and intentional We see examples of this in numbers chapter 30 in deuteronomy chapter 23. We also see things called nazirite vows Nazirite vows are found in numbers chapter 6 where men would would Make a vow unto the lord to separate themselves from certain things in life and god would hold them accountable to it This is what you need to understand about vows is vows are promises that god expects you to keep And the new Testament, it shifts more from external vows to internal integrity. We see a Greek word called you. Hey, and it means this it's a promise expressed to God with an expectation to fulfill it. See vows, reveal what you value. We see a reflection of this in Hannah and first Samuel chapter one, where she desired a son. And because she desired a son, that's what she valued the most. She made a vow. And she said, Lord, if you will give me a son, I will give it back to you. We see vows are our holy promises. That's what a vow is. I would give it the most simple definition is a holy promise. The best example of this is your marriage vows where you stand before God. And not only do you make a promise to a person, but you invite the Lord into the, into the promise. Your marriage now reflects the Trinity where there's father, son, and Holy spirit. Now it's man, woman, and God in that holy promise. Speaking of holy promises,

Heather and I, like I said, it'll be 21 years in July, July, 21 years. This is us. We got married. She was 20 and I was 22 babies, babies. Matthew 5 37 says this, this is important. Simply let your yes BS and your no be no anything more from that comes from evil. Let me give you some practical advice. Do not swear or make promises to back your words, let your integrity and your character back your words, train your children. We don't make promises. We don't swear. You ever see every kid, they say anything and whatever they'd say, what's the next promise. Teach your kids, let your yeses be yes. And your nose be notes. There are over a hundred references to vows in the Bible. The reason why is because there is power in the mouth. There's power in the tongue. Proverbs 18 21 says death and life are in the power of the tongue. So I explained to that what vows are, but how do S how does something become an inner vow? A vow is a promise that you make with God, but watch this. This is important. An inner vow is a promise you made without God. You leave God out of the promise that you are making. So what was intended to be holy becomes unholy. Inner vows are promises you make to your yourself that resists the perfect will of God. Inner vows. Are you telling God what his will is inner vows? Keep you from the perfect will of God. Inner vows make you say to God, inner vows are things you say to God. You say no to God, causing you to resist God. Constantly inner vows are vows are formed in rebellion and inner vows are when you think you know better than God. And the Bible is full of individuals that are making inner vows, resisting the perfect will of the Lord. One of them is our hero from Exodus chapter three, Moses, who made an inner vow, who said to the Lord, I can't do it. You got to choose somebody else. Let somebody else lead this because he determined in his heart what he would or would not do from for God. Example of an inner vow is Jonah running away from the Lord that God called the prophet to go to Nineveh and to prophesy against the city. But he made an inner vow who he thought the mercy of God was for and begins to reject it and run away from it. And Jonas is one three. How about the rich young ruler who wanted to who wanted the kingdom of God and wanted validation for his character and behavior? But when God told him to give all of he had to the poor to give all of his wealth away, he turned around and left upset and sorrowful because he made conditions of things that he would give to God and things he would not give or would not do to God. How about really spiritual people like Zachariah in Luke chapter one, verse 18, where Zachariah reveals a limit to his belief, deciding what could happen or not happen in his life. When an angel comes to him and says,

your wife is going to get pregnant. An angel comes and he's having a hard time believing when an angel comes and gives him the word of the Lord. If you can't believe when an angel came, it means you made some inner vows that are resisting the perfect will of God. Well, this is going to give insight to mercy culture church because you could be in the year of encounter and visitation and you could be standing on holy ground. Watch. And as you are on holy ground, your inner vow is resisting the purpose of the ground. Holy spirit. I pray that you would awaken our eyes and ears to inner vows that we have made. intentionally that are resisting the perfect wheel of God. One of my goals for you today is to get you to recognize inner vows. Took me 40 years. Watch this. Watch this. I'm gonna help you. I'm gonna give you the fast track secret. Inner vows usually start with never. Okay. What do you mean? Pastor? Never. I'll never forgive them for that. I'll never trust a pastor or church leader again. I'll never submit to a church again. I'll never be a member. I guess I'll never change. I guess I'll never break this cycle. I guess I'll never have peace. I guess I'll never get married. I never have kids. I would never adopt. I would never give my money to the church. I'll never give to that offering again. I'll never be a part of that ministry again. I'll never believe I could be healed. I'll never believe in miracles again. I'll never speak in tongues. I'll never be in ministry. I'll never share my testimony. I'll never believe I'll be used by God. I'm telling you, all of these always start with never. And let me give you some advice. Never tell God never. Inner vows are when you are telling God, the creator of the universe, what you will do and not do for him. And watch this. And you don't even ask him. So if you are making decisions without God, who are you making decisions with? An inner vow is a self-made promise rooted in pain. Watch that gives a spirit of fear, authority in your life instead of God. When you make an inner vow, the holy spirit is not your wise counsel. The spirit of fear is we're going to expose spiritual warfare today. I want to warn you today. Inner vows are so dangerous because God doesn't create them. So you end up building your lives around what God isn't doing, saying, or building. I'm going to give you today the process of how inner vows are formed. Number one, you experience pain. And once you experience pain and you were hurt and you were disappointed and you were devastated and something happened to you or something didn't go the way you thought

it would go, or something happened that violated you, you begin to tell yourself, I will never go through this again. I won't experience this again. I won't put myself in a position for this to happen again. And you begin to prepare or change the way that you lead, discern or make decisions. Psalms 35, it says for the anger is for a moment, but his favor is for a lifetime weeping may Terry for the night, but joy comes in the morning. There are too many Christians. Here's how, you know, you're not spiritually growing because you're constantly living in a state of pain or what took place to you. It means you haven't either forgiven, forgiven. You haven't been delivered. There's been a stunt in your spiritual growth. That's why you're drawn to the same podcast in ministries that keep you bound in that same flesh. That's why you constantly need deliverance because you're withholding things that you're giving to God because you have idolized your pain above his healing. So because you experience pain, you begin to build your life around that pain. Let me give you a warning for you. If you do not daily encounter, you will find inner vows forming in your pain. You will find them beginning to form. The Lord had to teach me this. This is probably honestly one of the most intense lessons, maybe the greatest mistake I've made pastoring so far recently did a podcast where I'll tell the story. But two years ago, Heather and I were on our sabbatical. We're in the most beautiful beach in America. A friend of ours is letting us stay in their beautiful beach house. I'm with my family. All of our needs are met. We're in paradise. And the only way I could describe it is it felt like there was a bomb in my chest that was going off and I couldn't turn it off. My fuse was about this big. Anything was agitating me and Heather and I are watching the sunset and I got so much pressure inside me, anxiety in me. She turned to me, she's like, what's wrong with you? I said, I don't know. And she said, you better figure it out. You're ruining this vacation. She said, you better take that in your daily encounter. So I go into a daily encounter and I hear the Lord speak to me, and this is going to offend some self-righteous religious people, but he said, go read Robert Morris's book. And the moment he told me to do that, I knew what book by the spirit to read.

It was the book called the blessed church. And I hadn't read it in five years since before we planted mercy culture. So I go and start reading the book and in the book he starts talking about sunken, shrunken heart syndrome, where you begin to learn or lose empathy by the battles and the trials of life in a ministry. As I'm reading this book, I start having daydream visions flash before my eyes of me in real life saying dozens of times over the last 10 years, over and over and over saying, this is nothing compared to my debt. And every time I would be attacked, every time I'd be betrayed, every time someone would take advantage of me, every time they lied about me, every time a new article came out, every time I felt personally violated, whatever it was, any time I was feeling pain, I would say, this is nothing. I remember planting our church and I was talking to this church planter. I was like, what's the hardest thing about planting? He's like, man, you give your life to people and you know, a year or two years in, they leave, don't even tell you, don't say anything, man. They just trample on you. He's like, it tears your heart out. And I was sitting there thinking wimp, it's like, I haven't heard from my family in 13 years. I can't handle a stranger leaving my church processing pain. So I entered this journey and then when you get attacked and you get hit, I would say, this is nothing compared to this. This is nothing compared to this. This is nothing. Just keep going on. This is nothing. I got this. And what I didn't realize is I'd been stabbed. What I didn't realize is some bullets got through the Cavalier vest.

What I didn't realize is I was beat up, but you pastor can't get beat up. The pastor can't have bad days. You got to look good. You got to keep it together. You're leading thousands of people. You are the, the, the, the, the, the, the punching bag, the, the, the, the Kenyatta for, for the world to hit whenever they didn't matter what your feelings are, doesn't matter what you're going through. And I'm reading this and this would be like saying that, you know, getting punched in the face is nothing compared to cancer, but I haven't met someone that enjoys getting punched in the face. And here's what I realized, church, I was beat up. And I'm sitting there and I realized that I'm beat up and I don't know what to do. I don't know how to fix it. So I do the only thing that I know how to do is be honest, be authentic, be vulnerable and stay in the presence of God. I came back from sabbatical. I'm in the prayer room, I'm with my intercessors, the wind gates, and they say to me, how are you? I said, I'm not good. I feel horrible. Just got back from vacation and I realized I'm beat up. I felt violated. I remember, let me help, let me help marriages for a second. One of the hardest things in our marriage, I was top 10 worst husbands in the world, probably for the first five, seven years of our marriage. And the reason why I was so bad is because Heather would hurt my feelings at times. And instead of being mature enough to communicate, well, I would hurt her feelings back even worse. And I remember years into it, I had to learn how to tell her she hurt my feelings.

And I hated admitting that I'm like, how is this little woman affecting me like this? I hated it, but watch, unless I humbled myself and communicated, then I would respond in the flesh. And when I learned how to, how to admit when she hurt my feelings and in pastoring, when I had to learn how to admit when my feelings are hurt, all of a sudden I began to process. They said, why don't you come out and pray with us? We went out to this little church in the middle of nowhere, Texas, and we started worshiping in this old chapel. And it reminded me of last Sunday at the nine 30 service, where we just started singing and worshiping like that. And all of a sudden the presence of God just comes and falls. All of a sudden tears are flowing down my face. The only way I could describe is it feels like the Lord just grabbed my soul and just begin to wring it out. I just start all of a sudden feeling air hit my lungs. Like I couldn't breathe before all of a sudden I feel that weight start lifting off of me. I feel his presence come on me and in that moment was his sweet, beautiful deliverance that only he can do. I'm talking about pain. But unfortunately too many people in the body of Christ do not come before the Lord and give them their pet give him their pain They hide their pain. They cover their pain. They mask their pain I was talking with a pastor who's been in ministry for years and I brought up something of his past He said my counselor said not to talk about it anymore I said I you need to get yourself a new counselor, bro Because here's the thing in Christ you're made new and when the old is gone It means the new has come my favorite thing about my wife is when she talks about her past It's like she's talking about a different human being because guess what? She was her DNA has changed. She became the righteousness of Christ That's why when we're talking about mercy We say it's a hill we will die on because it's a hill that he died on because it's the resurrection power of the cross

So, what are you doing with your pain? You Got good Christian counselors awesome, make sure they're spirit-filled and they don't bow to fear Here's the problem if you do not bring your pain to the Lord your pain becomes fear Second second part part part of this forming is it becomes fear and this is so important I can't say this enough fear is not a stinking feeling It is a foul demonic spirit Second Timothy 1 7 put it up on the screen every campus look at your Bible says this God has not given us a spirit of fear Scripture calls it a spirit This is what fear is it is Satan's Counterfeit Holy Spirit Fear has a voice like the Holy Spirit Fear has a presence like the Holy Spirit Fear impacts you like the Holy Spirit does it's the same thing. You start feeling as present You start feeling as peace when fear comes in you start feeling anxiety Fear moves people Majority of people are bound and not fulfilling the call of God on their life because of fear think about how many times you have disobeyed God in your life What was the primary reason? When you didn't go say what he told you to say when you didn't give what he told you to give when you didn't step Out in faith what he told you to step out in faith when you didn't serve when you didn't go that small group all Of the things that you don't do because some fear comes in replaces the Holy Spirit Let me just ask this question who has heard the voice of fear in your life, let me see Okay, don't exaggerate you've heard fear Let me see your hands wave it at me If you've heard fear every campus wave your hand now look around the room look around the room at every campus look around the Room look at all these hands. Okay. Well, you know what this means. It means that these people in this room in every campus You have spiritual ears. I

Don't want to hear one more person ever tell me in this church I can't hear God if you can hear demons you can hear the Holy Spirit If you can hear the liar the tempter the accuser you can hear the father He's all you have to do is turn your ear to a different person. That's talking. Come on You're just serving the wrong God. You're bowing down to the wrong thing. This is a year. We break the back of fear This is a year that we wage war on fear. It's gonna stop when we start serving him When Fear comes in he immediately begins to deceive you Jeremiah 17 9 we're getting to spiritual maturity right now. The heart is deceitful above all things It is desperately sick who can understand it another one another version another translation says who can trust it Can I help you we don't go with our hearts Don't marry cuz your heart the last three relationships have been disasters cuz your heart We don't go with our heart I Just I just feel no no, we're not going with our feelings Watch we go with the word or his voice And let me help charismatics in the room if you say God said like it's a Christian Trump card will hold you accountable I Thought you said God said So did you use his name in vain or are you in disobedience? You got two options. What are the other now? I'm not saying shrink back from it. I'm saying growing it And before you to feel too bad, don't worry everybody misses God not true prophets s Samuel took Look at Iliad, David's oldest brother. What did he do? He thought for himself. See, even the most spiritual people can make assumptions and miss go. Watch the enemy will work into deception. See, that's why you stay in your daily encounters, because you'll be running for weeks or months without the wise counsel of the Holy spirit came saying, why are you doing that? I remember one time I got a call from one of our leaders and they made a decision to cancel the solemn assembly Saturday night. And we have a value of empowerment. I let people make decisions. And so I'm in a meeting. They're like, Hey, we decided that we're going to cancel Saturday night. There's so much things going on. We need people to be strong on Sunday, family nights, all these good reasons. I'm like, great,

whatever you guys decide. I go on a prayer run and I hear the Holy spirit speak to me and say, I didn't tell you to cancel Saturday night. I was like, Oh, I didn't ask you. So I stood back in front of our entire church. I was like, Hey, we just mark it and send out videos and people make graphics and all this stuff. But guess what? We were wrong. Cause we assume see the enemy will come in and begin to deceive. And here's the wildest part. This is why our inner vows are so demonic. This is the trick. This is the trap is you thought it was your idea. You thought you were making the decision on the inner bow when you said I would never, but you didn't realize that a pain partnered with the demonic spirit of fear that begin to deceive you. And once you were deceived, all of a sudden you switched and you come into agreement. So now you are partners with not the Holy spirit, but you are partners with the demonic spirit name, fear, making decisions like it's your own. You are unified with the spirit that is not the Holy spirit. And this is how it begins to happen in our lives. And all of a sudden the enemy trips you and you thinking that you came up with the idea. Now you're in partnership and everything is switched. Now you are defending it like it is God. When it's a demon, Oh, people make fear-based decisions. And then what do they do? They call it wisdom. Well, I just want to use wisdom during COVID and just, I want to be really smart. I just want to eat in restaurants that are outside intense, like it's inside, but they're outside. We just want to use wisdom. No, but watch fear led to deception that led to agreement. And then you have absolute psychopaths leading our nation, telling you what to do. And the church folded like a cheap suit because the church could not resist things from the outside when they had their own intervals on the inside. If we are going to be ready for the 2.0 of COVID, if you're going to be ready for the 2.0 in your own life, because here's the thing you have to go back and say, where did I go wrong making these inner vows? Where did I start making these statements in these promises? Like they were God scripture says in second Corinthians 10, five to take every thought captive to make them obey Christ. This is so important. So the moment you begin to leave God out of any pain, any decision, any agreement is when inner vows come in, you need to understand this is a spiritual partnership that is not with God and inner vows are formed in the moments that you come into agreement with the enemy instead of God and inner vows must be broken. Inner vows cause you to repeat what the enemy told you. Like it was God saying it to you.

Inner vows are never formed in the presence of God. They're only formed in the presence of fear. I want to get to our story in Genesis chapter 25. This is a wild story. I prayed, I leaned in. I looked at many biblical examples of inner vows, and this is the one I felt the strongest with. I was actually reading another text and all of a sudden I started thinking of Jacob and Esau. It's a story of two brothers, a biblical patriarchy, and an inner vow that costs one blood, one brother, the blessing of the Lord. You all know Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. When we're talking about Jacob, this is the Jacob that we're talking about. But according to birthright and birth order, we should be talking about Abraham, Isaac, and Esau. The story goes that there's these two brothers. One was known as a deceiver, a trickster, and while his older brother Esau was out in the field, he came back starving, hungry, famished, and in a moment of weakness, Jacob took advantage of him. See, when you have a lifestyle of fasting, you don't let moments of the flesh dictate life decisions. And he said to him, in Genesis 25, sell me your birthright. If you read the context of this, he's like, what good's a birthright if I die? Or watch, temporary pleasure is more important than eternal covenant. He makes the agreement and he sells his birthright. Now put that last verse in verse 31, here's what he says, he says this, and he began to despise it. See, the birthright was not just an inheritance, but it was the right to carry the family's blessing, authority, and the future. I want you to hear this today. He traded his family's blessing, authority, and future because he was a man who was compromised in his flesh. And the Bible says he began to despise it. That word despise in the Hebrew is the word bazah. It means to treat with contempt, to be worthless, to hold as insignificant.

It's used when something is sacred and weighty, instead of having no value. Esau did not merely exchange his birthright, he evaluated as worthless. This is wild. Hebrews says in 12, Hebrews 12, 16, that no one is sexually immoral, look at this, or unholy like Esau, who sold his birthright for a single meal. Watch this, Hebrews is written 2,000 years after Genesis chapter 25, 2,000 years later, the Holy Spirit is warning the author of Hebrews about the unholiness of inner vows and the dangers and the destruction of it. And I believe the Holy Spirit is still warning us today. He said this, that he made an unholy vow or a profane vow. This is wild. So a profane vow is irrelevant, irreverent, godless, treating sacred things common or watch this, having no desire to please the Lord. So when vows are holy promises, inner vows become unholy promises. Inner vows keep you from holy ground in unholy moments. And here's what the Bible says is that Esau began to despise the blessing of the Lord. So watch when sons and daughters are always looking for the blessing of the Lord, looking for the direction of the Lord, looking for the ways of the Lord. Those that may have inner vows are actively rejecting and resisting the perfect will of the Lord. And you don't even realize that you're doing it the same way that Esau despised his birthright. It means this. He wasn't ready for it. He didn't honor it. He never found himself on holy ground waiting for it. And the same way that he despised the blessing of his father and the perfect will of the father is the exact same way. The people of God will despise the blessing of their father or the perfect will of the father. And I want to warn you today, the inner vows are the strategic demonic way that the enemy

gets you to never even start accomplishing the will of God on your life, never walking in the faithfulness of God. He'll try to keep you from the justice ministries. He'll keep you from distinct ministries. He'll keep you from whatever it is that God is calling you to do, because you've made a partnership that you will not obey God. And here's what you're really saying is, I will not participate. I will not live in. I will not walk in the blessing of the Lord church. The purpose of inner vows is to keep you from the blessing of God. The purpose of the spirit of fear is to keep you from obeying the Holy Spirit. Today we came to war on the spirit of fear. Would you bow your heads and close your eyes? all over this place. If you've got a prayer language at every campus, right now just begin to pray in the Holy Ghost. Nobody's prophesying in tongues, this is not out of biblical order. No one's bringing intention to themselves. You haven't received your prayer language yet, just begin to love on the Lord right where you're at. Come on, all over the balconies and every campus, just for one moment, just begin to love on the Lord. I'm going to pray and then I'm gonna invite the campus pastors up, but I just want to pray right now. Come on, pray in the Holy Ghost. I pray the enemy is exposed in Mercy Culture today. I pray the enemy is exposed in Mercy Culture today. I pray right now, I'm reminded of that prophetic word, if the thief is caught, he's gonna pace back seven times. I declare the thief is caught today at Mercy Culture Church, in Fort Worth and in East and in Dallas and in Waco and in Austin, in D.C. and O.C. and San Antonio, the thief is caught

on online campus, the thief is caught. The plans of the enemy are exposed, the strategy of the enemy is exposed. Lift your hands all over this place, in every campus, lift your hands high, just begin to breathe in the presence of God at every campus right now. His presence is here. Come on, campus pastors, come and take your services right now. Come on, all of this place, breathe in the rule of God. When I was in prayer this week, the Lord told me to tell you to identify the inner vow. Right now, I want you to mark it, if you want to write it down, write it down, if you want to write it down later, if you know what it is, but I want you to acknowledge it. I want you to pinpoint it. I don't want you to be in this moment and you summarize inner vows into a category, I want to know what they are. What decision did you leave God out of? What has been your never, I will never? When you've identified what it is, if you physically can, or if you're able to, or if it's appropriate for you, if you've identified what the inner vow is, would you just kneel before the Lord? Come on, even in the overflow. Sometimes when I'm kneeling before the Lord and my knees are uncomfortable, I try to think of the 39 lashes that he took from me, and a crown of thorns, beard ripped out of his face, marred unrecognizable, surely I can kneel before my King. As you're on your knees, because you've identified it, if you're not physically able, but you've identified it, now I want you before your God to repent of it. There's no right way to do this, but you're acknowledging what you've partnered with and you break the partnership right now. I would encourage you, don't just do this in your heart, in your mind, but whisper it to the Lord. I break the inner vow that I would never adopt.

I break the inner vow that I would never experience deliverance. I break the inner vow, I break the partnership. Partnership with the inner vow that God can never use me Now do it a little louder right now a little more aggressive Just a little more aggressive I Feel like I need to teach you in this moment because someone needs to break through and go to another level Stay where you are and stay in this moment, but I want to I want to help someone spiritually grow Heather and I were on a run together this week and as we're running I started hearing a weird Scratching pitter-patter coming up behind me fast And I turned around and there was a large Angry dog there was about 10 feet away from us and I turned around and With every fiber in me I yelled go I Watched this snarling dog Begin to back up shocked in fear Ran in the street and almost got hit by a car This is the response when you catch the enemy sneaking up on you This is the response When you see what the enemy is trying to do in your marriage This is the response when you catch the enemy coming into your mind coming into your soul coming into your spirit This is the response So the same way that I told that dog to go somebody get that same Aggressiveness on you and start telling the enemy get out of your mind get out of your family Get out of your marriage get out of your ministry get out of your church get out of your city Get out of our nation get out of our leaders. Come on start telling them to go right now Come on if the thief be caught tell them to go Go Somebody in the balcony shout go somebody in the overflow shout go The devil's a liar somebody shout go

Oh This is the best part now you just say Holy Spirit come You This is the best part right here This is where he replaces the spirit of fear This is where he replaces the lies of the enemy Close your eyes title over this place Out loud it could be a whisper you could sing it you can say it but invite the Holy Spirit to come closer Ask him to speak to you tell him you're listening Here's where we take back what the enemy stole you ready for this now for the next minute start praying the perfect will of the Lord Start telling him for his kingdom to come in your life For his will to be done Start telling him I want what you want So show me what you want Well, you feel that waves the glory of God you feel that you feel that waves you feel those waves You Waves of the glory of God are coming from the left side of my my left across the sanctuary Waves of the glory of God come on tell him we want what you want Come on Say it. Pray it. Now we pray right now your kingdom come. We pray your perfect will to be done. I pray right now would you establish heaven. Would you establish the kingdom of heaven. Would you establish the righteousness of God. Into our homes, into our minds, into our hearts, into our families. We say we want what you want. We say we submit to what you want. We say we yield to what you want.

We bow to what you want. We say whatever it is, we don't care. Whatever you want we want it. I feel this strong in my spirit. I feel like we need to declare it as a church. And as individuals. But up in my spirit this week. I was in my office. And I kind of said out loud, kind of mildly shout out loud. I don't know how loud it was. I was playing music all week in there. I said this. I declared this. I decreed this. I'm done with inner vows. That's not a golf clap thing. It's a spirit thing. No you got to get up in your spirit. Come on. Come on tell the enemy I'm done with inner vows. Tell the Lord I'm done with inner vows. Come on tell your neighbor I'm done with inner vows. I'm done telling the Lord what I'm going to do. I'm done telling the Lord my master plan. I'm done telling the Lord exactly what I'm doing for him. I'm telling the Lord what can I do for you? How can I serve you? How can we please you? Father whatever you want us to do. Whatever you want we want it. Whatever you want we want it. Whatever you want we want it.

Whatever you want we want it. Whatever you want we want it. Whatever you want we want it. Whatever you want we want it. Whatever you want we want it. Whatever you want we want it. Whatever you want we want it. Whatever you want we want it. That dug a hole in the roof. Stay on the same melody. That put their friend down. So I pray over you. A blessing from this house. That what you received this weekend. That you would take back to your friends that are spiritually lame. I saw you taking your friends back to the healer and the deliverer. So father I pray right now. As you highlighted them. I pray a blessing from this house. To go to their house. I pray let the anointing from this house. Fall on their house. Lord and with the authority that you have given me as the pastor of Mercy Culture. I pray father. empower them, like the women of this house, to minister with authority in boldness. I declare, I even feel like the Lord's gonna call you guys into some significant seasons of fasting. Even as, I don't know if they made the announcement, but when Heather calls seasons of fasting

for women around the nation, there's a personal invitation to you. There's a connection in this house to you. So I pray, let a release of the blessing of the Lord, the favor of the Lord and the anointing of God come upon you now in Jesus' mighty name. Just the keys, just the keys. Okay, here's how we're closing. As we were praying, I had a vision. Don't wanna be weird, but whatever. I would rather appear to be weird, but be obedient than partner with the spirit of fear because it's a little weird. I felt like I was supposed to pray over your backs. And I saw you walking out of the sanctuary of mercy culture. And I saw the enemy coming in to try to talk you out of this word. And it's similar, who's been baptized in the Holy Spirit and spoken tongues before? Raise your hands, wave it, wave it, wave it. Look around the room. Okay, watch. How many, after you spoke in tongues, you had the thought, you thought it was your thought, but it was the enemy's thought that told you you just made it up? Wave your hand. Look around the room. Okay, the enemy does the same things in different strategies.

And I saw him coming behind you to talk you out of this word today. So I wanna pray that the Holy Spirit would be your rear guard. So in the little bit of weirdness and awkwardness, would everybody turn that way for a second and let me pray over your back? Sweet Holy Spirit, would you come upon them? Would you rest on their shoulders? I pray, would you be their rear guard? Holy Spirit, would you put your physical presence on their shoulders? And I pray that the enemy would be silenced, the deceiver has to go, in the same way that Jesus would not let the demon speak. Lord, I pray with whatever authority you've given me in this house, I declare, spirit of fear, you don't have a voice into the people of God. We don't submit to you. We don't bow to you. We break our partnership with you. We are dependent on the Holy Spirit. So I pray, Holy Spirit, would you be their rear guard? I pray you are going in the strength of the Lord today. I declare you are going in the strength of the Lord today. I declare you are going with the blessing of the Lord today. I declare you are going with the favor of God today. So Holy Spirit, I ask you to bless your people. I pray a covering over them.

In Jesus mighty name, and all of God's people said, amen. And amen, Pastor Les. Can we give the Lord one more hand clap of praise? Come on, not as a moment of transition, because he is the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. Come on, because he delivered some of us in this room this morning. Come on, not because we don't have anything to do, but because he's the creator of the universe. And he stepped into this room and he touched our lives and he saved and healed and delivered us today. How many of you have been delivered this morning? Jesus, we give you glory. Jesus, we take a moment, not because we're in a hurry, but because we love you and we thank you and we glorify you. We lift up the name of Jesus! You're worthy to be praised, Lord! We thank you, Jesus. Lord, we thank you for what you've done in this house this morning.