Mindcraft

Hello, hello, friend. Welcome to Free Life Chapel, where we help you discover and live the free life in Christ. My name is Kati, and I'm so glad that you decided to tune in with us online today. Hey, if you ever get a chance to come visit us in person, we're located in central Florida, and we would love to meet you and your family. But until then, we have an encouraging message just for you. Check it out. I need everybody to say Minecraft. Everybody say Minecraft. Minecraft. Minecraft. I have a question for you. Have you ever been scared before? But some of you are scared to answer that question. Have you ever been scared before? I've been scared. Who's scared to take the trash out at night so you take it out in the morning time as long as you don't forget? Then, uh-oh, and there's always that one trash bag in the bathroom you forget to gather up. I know how it is. Me too. You ever been scared at work? Maybe about an opportunity, a task that has been given to you. Ever been scared in a relationship? She asked you, what are we? Uh-oh. I know from personal experience what Pastor Liz did to me. We all have been scared by something. All of us have to deal with fear. We don't all deal with fear the same way, but all of us have to deal with fear. Fear has a way of getting a grip, getting a hold of us, and trying to not let us go. There's fear that'll talk you out of applying for a job, applying for a motion, a fear that will keep you stagnant, a fear that will keep you quiet when you know you should be speaking up against the injustice. Fear will have you build your whole life around worst case scenarios that might not even happen. Fear is crippling, and if we're going to be honest, the reality is that some of us, we're not living a life of faith. We're living a life of fear. We're living a life not that's about being bold and stepping out, but rather being cautious and just trying to mitigate the risk. I'm scared of what might happen, and here becomes the problem with fear. Fear does not just stay in your emotions. Fear starts to affect your mindset. Fear starts to change the way you and I think, the way you and I respond. In fear, fear, it lays the foundations brick by brick by brick of anxiety, insecurity, shame, and guilt that now our life becomes built on these foundational pillars. The message today is called Minecraft. If you've never played the game Minecraft before, my cousin is great at it. Shout out to you, Josh. He's a smarter cousin. I'm the one that doesn't stop talking. He's the one that is really smart. My cousin is great at this game, and in this game, you literally build houses, cities, towns, worlds, building brick by brick, being able to build up what your imagination is. Our minds are constantly

building something. What are you building your life on? What are the foundational pillars that you are stepping on? Because we have to be careful. If we don't have the right foundation, then it doesn't matter how high we get. It's just a matter of time until it falls. And so we've got to make sure that we're building something that is able to last. My question to you is, what are you building? Our minds are constantly under construction. Thought by thought, belief by belief, word by word, we are constructing a narrative in our mind. Pastor Scott, he tells us this, you and I, we have to check our BS, belief system. I ain't cussing. Get your belief system right. Check it, because our belief system dictates where we allow our life to go, what we're standing on. It's going to either be a ladder that sets me up to reach higher, or it's going to be a staircase that takes me lower. Which one are you building your life on? We become what we think about. Proverbs, it tells us, as a man thinks in his heart, so is he. So if we want to change our life, we need to change our mind. And nothing changes if nothing changes. Anybody like watching fights? You're not going to get in trouble. I'm not talking about Worldstar, like UFC. I love watching UFC. I like watching boxing. I love that that's now on Netflix, and they're shimmying it out that way. I like watching. fights, as long as it's not me. I don't want to watch me getting beat up. I love watching fights, though, and watching fights, I love watching the interviews that lead up to the fights. I want to know the back story. I want to know why these two want to punch each other in the face so bad. Like, y'all from the island? Y'all extra, or y'all just like, this is what you do? I love knowing back stories. And here's what you see is they train for months on end, studying their opponent. What strategies do they use? Where are their strengths? Where are their weaknesses?

What are my strengths? What are my weaknesses? How can I use that to my advantage? They have a strategy whenever they get to fight day. But like Mike Tyson say, everybody got to plan until they get punched in the mouth. It gets different. You see these fighters, guys that are known for their hands, known for throwing punches. They get against another guy, it's like, oh, you can kind of punch hard kind of too. They have to figure out, what am I going to do inside of my strategy? What I thought I had planned for, everything just changed, and now what? What do I do? The best fighters, they know how to pivot. They know how to say, this is where I was going. If that's not working, I know how to stick my foot in the ground and pivot to another direction so that I can achieve the outcome that I want to achieve. They listen to their corner. They got somebody that's giving them feedback. They switch the strategy. They learn how to adjust. If you've ever played football, halftime, we do something for an entire half, but at halftime, we have a meeting. Is what we're doing working? And if not, how can we shift?

How can we redirect? Business meetings, maybe you've gone through it. Hey, how was our first and second quarter gone? What can we do at the end of the year in order to change some things about? We all have a pivot. Everybody say pivot. We all have a pivot to make. Have you pivoted before in life? Have you had one of those moments where you had the plan, you had the idea, you had the strategy of what to do, but then it just didn't work out the way that you wanted it to? Maybe you were running with this job. You've had your whole career based on this job. Everything was going good and then unexpectedly got laid off. Now what do I do? I've been running my whole life towards this relationship. This was my world. And then they walk out. Gotta pivot. I had a plan, but things didn't go the way that I wanted them to go. I didn't see this bump in the road. And so then I have to pivot. I'm 29 years old. I'm well aware that there's a lot of life that I have not yet experienced.

And I'm okay with that because I know that I've experienced a lot of life still. And here's what I've learned in life. I'm not able to control every fight, but I can control how I fight. I can't always control the situation. I can't always manipulate it in order to do what I want to do. But what I can control is myself. And what I'm learning is if I change me, then the situation has to change because now it's responding to a different version of me. I can't always change how people respond to me, but if I change me, then they're gonna have to change their response a little bit different because it's a different me that is showing up. I can't control everything, but I can control something. I can control how I pivot. There's a guy in the Bible. The name's Gideon, found in Judges chapter six. And man, he does a great job of showing us how we can be human, not perfect, not to be glorified. You and I aren't worth worshiping. Gideon isn't either. How you can be an imperfect man following after Jesus, make a pivot, and then your life be used to glorify God. Let's take a look at this. Judges chapter six starts talking about Gideon. And here's the thing. Gideon, we don't hear anything about him as a boy.

We don't hear anything about him growing up. It kind of just steps on the scene, he's a man. And what the Bible starts talking about to give the context is that Israel, the Bible says that they have done evil in God's eyes. They had turned their back to God. Because of that, they got overtaken by the Midianites, some rival gang that they had, a rival country that they had. They got overtaken by them. And the Midianites, they were stealing Israel's crops, destroying their livestock, running them from their homes and pushing them into caves, completely hopeless and full of fear. Israel was afraid, defeated, and distant from God. Gideon fits right in line with this. Judges chapter six, verse 11 says that Gideon, he was threshing wheat in a wine press in order to keep it away from the Midianites. Now that don't mean much to you and I like right now, but here's what that means. The threshing wheat, he was harvesting the wheat, and that harvesting was something that you did on a high plain, out in the open, because the wind would blow and it would help take the grain that was inedible, the grain that you just throw away, it would blow that away so that you could keep and harvest the grain that you should eat, the wheat that you should eat.

He wasn't doing that. He was so scared for his life, so full of fear, that he did it in a wine press, which was dug out and it was low. Gideon was doing a normal activity in an abnormal way. Has that ever happened to you before? You ever done something, but because of your fear for something, you're doing it the longer way? You're doing it the harder way? There's no need for it to take this much time, this much effort, but fear isn't allowing me to do it the way that it was meant to do it. I could, this relationship could be so much better, but I'm too scared and so I'm stuck in toxicity. My life, my relationship, my work can be so much better, but I'm so skeptical of everything and I'm so scared of failure that I'm doing the bare minimum just to make sure that I'm getting by. Gideon, he was hiding. Everything that he was doing was coming from a place of fear. He was hiding, not leading. He wasn't fighting, he was surviving. And in the middle of this mindset of fear that was taking over all of his actions, God sent an angel down to Gideon. Here's what the Bible says in Judges chapter six, verse 12, to read the highlighted part with me, please.

Here's what he said, when the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon, he said, the Lord is with you, mighty warrior. Anybody like humor? You like humor? You like dry humor? To me, that was dry humor. How are you gonna call somebody who's scared of shaking in their boots a mighty warrior? Like he's not even doing his farming work the way that he should have. He was so scared, he's trying to hide farming. How are you gonna call him a mighty warrior? Because God wasn't talking about who Gideon is in the moment or what he's doing. God always talks to us, not for where we are, but for where he's called us to be. He was talking to him about his future, talking to his destiny, talking to the plan that God had for Gideon. And I'm so grateful that God doesn't talk to you and I based off of our track record. Because how do you call you? How would have I called me? Gideon would not have called himself a mighty warrior. Gideon would have had probably other words to use for himself, but God says, I'm not gonna call you based off of how you feel. I'm not gonna call you based off of what you're doing. I'm gonna call you based off of what I've said for you,

where I have planned for you to go. Gideon was in a moment where he had to make a decision. I'm either gonna stay stuck in this mindset of fear or I'm gonna pivot and believe God's word. That his word will never return void. That he's the same yesterday, today, forever. That I can fully buy into the promises that he said about me. Whose report are you gonna believe, Gideon? It's up for you to decide. There's some lessons that I think you and I can learn from Gideon's life story that I think applies perfectly to you and to me. The first one is this. It is okay if you started building the building block of your mind with fear. That's exactly where Gideon started. And it didn't mean that God wasn't able to use him. Sometimes I tell myself, Caleb, had you started different, God could use you so much more. And now I'm putting my efforts as a limiting factor to God. God was not scared of Gideon's fear. God met Gideon inside of his fear. Gideon was the one who was hiding. Gideon was the one who was away. And God sent an angel to him. Gideon didn't go get one, God sent one to him. How has fear held you captive? Fear of failure? So you still haven't started that business

that you've had the business proposal written for three years. Just waiting for it, waiting for it. And have great reason and great logic. to justify why, but if we're gonna be honest, it's because I'm just scared to take that step. Fear of being misunderstood, fear of not being enough, maybe because of past, what life has shown you, I just can't go into there. Here's one for me. I'm fearful of if what I do actually works. Because now what's gonna be expected of me? Now what responsibility is gonna come with that? Now there's another level of expectation that comes if it actually works. All of us at some point or another are gonna be held captive by fear, or we're gonna have to fight through this thing of fear. That's exactly what Gideon does. But Gideon, he continues to entertain and build this relationship with God, which is beautiful because 1 John 4, 18 says, there is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out all fear. That because of Gideon's relationship with God, it was able to start to push back against the fear that was holding him enslaved and in bondage because of the relationship with Jesus, because of the relationship with God.

So here's what I want you to know, fear might have laid the first bricks, but you don't have to keep building your life with fear of bricks, with bricks of fear. It might've been the first thing that you've gone through. Maybe I'm fearful because of how I grew up. Maybe I'm fearful because of what I've seen. I'm fearful because of what I've experienced, and I've already built up some things. That doesn't limit God's ability to use you or to be an impact inside of your life, to use your life for his glory. It's just gonna take a pivot. Everybody say a pivot. You can't always stop the fear from showing up, but you don't have to give it the blueprints to build your life. There's something different that you and I can do because God gives you and I permission to pivot. And here's how Gideon began to pivot, and I so relate with this. The angel of the Lord called him, the Lord is with you, mighty warrior. Gideon was not feeling like a mighty warrior. Judges chapter six, verse 15, Gideon comes back and says, God, how am I gonna save Israel? You must not know I am from the smallest tribe of Israel called Manasseh, and everybody in my family is more important than me.

You called the wrong person. Couldn't be me. Started disqualifying himself from being able to be used by God. Man, I've done that so many times. Disqualified myself because of what I did. Disqualified myself because of my thoughts. Disqualified myself from being able to be used by God because of my attitude. Acting as if I'm the one that can qualify myself. It is God's grace and God's mercy, God's extension that allowed Gideon, in order to be able to even be used, Gideon had to decide if he was gonna receive that gift or not. He doubted. He wrestled with God. He actually even questioned God, and here's one of my favorite parts of the story. Because if we're not careful, we'll think that questions only have to do with rebellion when questions also help you and I rebuild. Here's what Gideon was saying. God, you know what I've experienced, you know what I've gone through. I don't see how that's gonna be able to happen, so I have some questions, and I need you to show me what this thing is even gonna look like. Gideon's, his whole family, they worshiped Baal, false god. His whole life, he had seen false god worship. His dad had an altar to Baal, the false god.

So he didn't have this huge relationship, this lineage of following after God, and so what I've experienced, what I've known, what I've been taught, what I've heard is completely different than what you've said. So God, I have questions. Have you ever questioned God before? Ever had a question over, I hear that, I hear all the words that you're saying, but that must be for everybody else. I have no idea how that can be for me. God, I need you to show me. It's exactly where Gideon was. James chapter one, verse five gives me a confidence though, because it says this. If any of you need wisdom, what? You should ask God, and it'll be given to you. God is generous and won't correct you from asking. The beginning of wisdom comes from the fear of God. Not the fear that God is gonna punish me, but the awe, the reverence, the love of God. Gideon. His pivot moment was, I've been doing this all on my own and I'm trying to see how is this gonna happen, how am I gonna be able to make this happen? His pivot moment came when he became in awe of who God was, in awe of God's plan, in awe of God's power and what God was gonna be able to do. God wasn't offended by honest questions from Gideon. He was waiting for an open heart

that would be receptive to what God's plan was for his life. Your pivot, my pivot, it begins when we choose to replace old thoughts with God's truth. What old thoughts about yourself are you building your life on? If you were to look at the way that you're crafting your mind, are you building your life based off of God's word and his opinion on you or based off of what others have said about you? Based off of what social media says that you and I need to have? Based off of our favorite celebrity or influencer? Based off of whatever is being pushed out? Based off of whatever music says I need to have? Based off of whatever my family history has been? What are you building your life on? And I would tell you this, anything that isn't the word of God as a building block for your life is selling yourself short. Gideon, his whole life was being built off of fear until this encounter with God. And then here's what I love about it, he still had fear. He still had question. He still had doubt. I wish that I could push all fear out of my life. I wish I could push all doubt out of my life. I wish I knew what it was gonna be like raising my daughter. Hmm. I wish I knew what it was gonna be like raising my son. I wish I knew what my wife and I

are gonna have to climb over and come through. I wish I had no fear. But that removes the need of faith. If I had all the assurance, if I knew everything that was going on, then I wouldn't even need God. It's okay to have the fear. It's okay to have the question. It's okay to have the doubt, but make it submit to God. Gideon showed my fear can't be my excuse for not going after God. My fear can't be the thing that keeps me planted here instead of walking in the future that God already has for me. I don't understand it, I don't feel it, it doesn't look like it, I don't know how I'm gonna get there. Who cares if he said it? I believe it. I'm gonna walk towards it. Gideon showed my pivot happens when I replace my old thoughts with God's word. Just like in UFC fight, boxing match, like in a game, the team that pivots, the team that receives the feedback, makes adjustments and goes back out is the team that is able to win. And when you and I pivot, you and I are able to step into the full purpose that God has for you and God has for me.

Gideon eventually, he got to the point where he said yes to God. He said, okay, I have no idea how this is gonna happen. This doesn't make any logical sense, but fine. I guess I'll do what you said, even though I'm scared, I'm still shaking, but with every step of my shaking leg, he was doing the stanky leg, every single step he took, he kept moving closer towards God. God said, all right, here's what we're gonna do. I'm gonna use you to turn the entire nation of Israel back towards me, but it's gonna be crazy. Gideon said, I'm not ready, but let's go. God said, I need you to round up an army. Gonna take care of the Midianites. Gideon said, okay, I can do that. Gideon got 32,000 folk ready, coming swinging, probably from Polk County. They was ready to get out there and go to work. And then God said, Gideon, that's dope. You got everybody, but you got too many. He said, me and I got too many like, might not have been in that many fights, but like it's a numbers game at some point in time. I want more of my crew than you got in your crew if we're gonna duke it out. God said, no, there's too many people. I need you to cut it. He said, okay, I guess.

I still don't believe how this is gonna work, and now you even made me even more frightful, even more scared. But if you said it, let's go. I'm putting my hope, I'm putting my trust in you. Long story short, God made another cut, two cuts from 32,000 down to. to 300, 32,000 down to 300 to fight a war against an army that had you enslaved, that had taken all of your food, taken all of your crops, taken all of your wealth, pushed you into caves. I'm gonna fight with 300? God, make it make sense. Girl math don't even add up this way. Why would God do that? Why would God push Gideon to a point where he has such low resources in this fight that was going on? God was trying to show Gideon, you're still, he was weaning something out of him. Gideon, you still think that you're the one that's gonna win the war. You still think that you're the one that's gonna be fighting this thing. You still think that all this is gonna be done in your strength. But Zechariah chapter four, verse six, the Bible says this, I am the Lord all powerful. What does it say?

So don't depend on your own power or strength, but on my spirit. God said not by power, not by might, but by my spirit, you're gonna be able to defeat this thing. By my spirit, you're gonna be able to win the battle. Not because you know it all, not because you have the best strategy, not because you have all the resources, not because nothing's ever happened to you, not because you have the perfect team around you, not because you're gonna step perfectly, but because you're stepping with me. And when you step with me, this is how you will fight your battles. That everywhere that I step, God goes with me. Gideon, the war was rigged from the beginning. It wasn't even a fair war. The war was not about the war. The war was to build a trust between Gideon and God because relationships only move at the speed of trust. Pastor Liz, she used to tell me this whenever we was dating. I mean, she ain't said it in a bit. I guess I'm doing okay. She used to say it to me this way. If there's no trust, there's no us. When I tell you that was on repeat in our house. There's no trust, there's no us. God was saying, I wanna build this trust. I want you and I to build something

that we're gonna be able to last. Gideon, I need you to trust me. And I know you don't understand me. That's okay. You don't have to understand me in order to trust me. You don't have to like it in order to trust me. You don't have to get it. It doesn't have to make sense. There doesn't need to be a book for you to read in order for you to trust me. I just need you to do what I say. Gideon, an imperfect man, chose to lean on the hope of the world. And God was able to completely change the nation to the point where Gideon and the army of 300, they didn't even have to fight it. They obeyed God, made these loud noises, screamed the sword of the Lord. And Gideon, and the Bible says that the Midianites turned against themselves. Tell Gideon that the Lord won't fight your battles. I think he would have a different story. Here's why I love this. Esther, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, Daniel, Jesus, all dealt with fear. Nobody in this world is exempt from fear. Jesus said, God, let this cup pass from me. I know what I'm about to walk into. I'm nervous, I'm scared, I don't want to do this. But they decided to put their trust more

in a God who never fails than in their feelings. Can I let you know that you might have built your life off of fear? There might be something you're fearful of right now, a text message that you got, a procedure that needs to happen, a bill that just came in the mail that I don't know how this is gonna happen. Your 10-year plan just got completely wrecked because of one speed bump. But if I can encourage you, if God could do it for Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, Daniel in a lion's den, Esther, if he could do it for Jesus, if he could do it for Gideon, then you better believe he's able to do it for you. All right. Some of us in this room, we're fighting battles where we feel outnumbered, feel overwhelmed, we feel unqualified. God is saying this, if you can shift your mindset, I can shift your outcome. If you can shift your mindset, put your minds on things above, not on things below. If you can shift your mindset, doesn't mean that fear isn't there, but I'm not gonna focus on my fear as much as I'm gonna focus on my God, who is more than able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that I could ever ask

or think according to his power. my lack of fear. It's all based on him and as Gideon continued to obey him, they continued to win battles and win wars. A whole nation was able to be turned back to God. The life you build is limited only by the thoughts that you allow to take root in your life. If I can encourage you, let this book, let God's Word be the thing that takes root in your life. Oh well, he had an angel that was talking to him, that must be nice. God gave you and I the Word, a lamp to my feet, a light into my path to help lead to God, our blueprint for life right here, our ability to step forward in the middle of fear, in the middle of doubt, in the middle of question, but to remind us who our God is. This is what we're supposed to be building our life on. The Bible says this, don't add to or take away anything from this book. This book is perfect, but if I was going to summarize something, as to what are some things that God has said about you, for you to get rid of some of the old bricks that have laid down, here's some new ones for you to pick up. God says I've seen you, I've seen your fear, your questions, your pain. I know the battles that you've been fighting in silence, but you're not forgotten. I'm with you, even right here, in the cave, even in the wine press, even when you feel weak, unqualified, and alone. You don't have to be enough, because I am enough. You don't have to have the strength, because my strength is made perfect inside of your weakness. You don't have to have all the answers, because I am wisdom, and I give it freely. I have never left your side, not for a moment. I am the Lord your God, who is mighty to save. I am still powerful. I am still present. I am still working, whether you see it or not. You're not stuck. You're not too far gone. This is not your end. This is your pivot. So rise up, mighty warrior, and take ahold of the hope that is found in God. You're not done. You're not out. It's not over. The song we used to sing, it's not over, it's not finished, it's only the beginning, because if God is in it, all things, some things, all things are new. I'm grateful that God can help me with a new mind, a new way of building. To my kids, we're showing them how can we build different. Our community, our family, how can we

continue to build different, because God said, if I've started in what I started in you, I will bring it to completion. Your story is still being written, and it will end in victory. Everybody stand to your feet. The only Christ follower that has ever lost is the one that gave up, someone that quit. That's why throughout the Bible, it talks about run this race with endurance. Run this race with perseverance. Get a grit about you, that even when it doesn't look good, and even when it doesn't, I don't know what's going to happen. I know in whom I have believed. I know that everything has to bow to the name of Jesus. We just got done singing the song, when I speak the name of Jesus in this situation, things begin to change. The fight of your life is rigged for you, because Jesus is on your side. You have more answers than what you think. You have more capacity than what you know. You have more strength than what you realize, because of who God is in your life. Father God, we love you so much. We're grateful that we're not having to build this thing alone, that you're working not just in us, but with us and around us. And so God, I pray that you help us put our minds on things above, that we don't get so held down and weighted down by fear or the things that are going on around us. But the reality is that the fear is not as real as your power. Fear is not as real as your almighty hand, as what your capacity to make things happen is. And so God, I pray that we fix our minds on things above, not on things below, that we're able to realize there might be some things that I'm going through. But as long as I'm doing it with you, I'm going to make a way out. God, would you help us to encourage those that are around us, continue to push people closer towards you, understanding that the best thing that we can do for people is get them connected to you. God, would you help us build up our minds the way that you have, that we're not going to be a slave to fear. We're not going to be in bondage to fear anymore, but we're going to be able to live in the free. that your presence brings. In Jesus name we pray. Amen. Amen. Amen. Told you that message was gonna encourage you. For more encouraging messages, visit our website freelifechapel.org. Until then, have a phenomenal day.