Reverse The Curse | Jabin Chavez | City Light Church

We're in a series entitled, The God First Life, and I'm just gonna read two verses to you. We'll get into a few different things throughout this series, but really we're focusing on prayer. This is 1 Chronicles chapter four and verse nine. Now Jabez was more honorable than his brothers. By the way, my name is Jabin, this is Jabez, but if you call me Jabez, I won't be offended. But anyway, you can always just call me pastor if you forget my name. Hi, pastor, that's good enough. And I'll just call you brother or sister. Amen. His mother called him Jabez, here's why, because I bore him in pain. She had a painful pregnancy, a painful birth, and she declares over him that he is painful. But now watch this, but Jabez, he called upon the God of Israel saying, and let's pray this prayer together. Everyone out loud, we're gonna pray together. Let's go. Oh, that you would bless me indeed. I said everybody, let's start over again. Everybody, oh, that you would bless me indeed and enlarge my territory, that your hand would be with me and that you would keep me from evil, that I may not cause pain, amen.

So God granted him what he requested. Oh, that you would bless me. I wanna talk just for a few minutes this morning about reverse the curse, reverse the curse. Can we have a little church here today? Can we have a little church tonight? Reverse the curse. Lord, I thank you that you're reversing every curse, every label, every limitation put on us. In Jesus' name, we declare 2026 as a year of miracles. We're gonna see it with our eyes. Amen. Amen and amen. Thank you, C. That was great. Beautiful music today. Music shouldn't be that good at 9.45 in the morning. That should be like eight o'clock at night kind of music. Amazing. Just tame it down for the next service. So we're in 1 Chronicles chapter four. And if you know anything about the Bible, if you've ever read through the Bible, you know 1 Chronicles is kind of a crazy book because it's so-and-so begat so-and-so, begat so-and-so, begat so-and-so. This guy had a baby with this person, this person had a baby with this person, this person had a baby with this person, had a baby with this person.

It's a little bit boring. If you're ever reading through the Bible in a year or you're in a Bible reading plan, you know, when you get to 1 Chronicles, you put it, you grab the audio version, amen? You get the U version and you hit triple speed, amen? You just get through it. Start fresh in 1 Samuel, praise the Lord. Too real, Jabin, too real. But right here in the midst of this book, so-and-so begat so-and-so, begat so-and-so, begat so-and-so, all of a sudden, the name Jabez jumps off of the pages and jumps out of the history books and gives us this beautiful little thought that Jabez cried out to God, that everything changed when Jabez prayed. And I just wanna tell you, everything can, your life can jump off the history books. Your life can jump off of the norm and the normal. Your life can jump out of cycle after cycle after cycle because when you become a man of prayer, when you become a woman of prayer, it distinguishes you in your generation. And people can look back and go, everything changed because they prayed. And I just wanna declare over you in the name of Jesus, everything is changing this year because as you pray, God will hear your prayer. Say amen, everybody. And I wanna talk about, I talked about prayer last week.

If you didn't hear last week, please get it because it will build. We've got all these sermons online. They're all free for you. But I wanna talk about prayer a little bit more. I wanna talk about pressing into prayer. Point number one, pray till you're different. Jabez was more honorable than his brothers, honorable. This word honorable is the Hebrew word kabod. It's where we get glory. Jabez's life had glory on it. It had heavy on it. It wasn't light and flaky and movable. It was heavy. It was saturated with the presence of God. Jabez's life had glory on it, had God on it, had a God. factor about it, that you could not see, it didn't make sense in the natural, it only made sense if you're spiritual. Like Samson, when they looked at Samson and they said, we don't know the secret of your strength, it doesn't make sense by looking at you, but there's something powerful about you. In the same way, when you looked at Jabez, it wasn't his family, and it wasn't his mama, and it wasn't his history, it was his prayer life that gave his life glory, gave his life weight, gave his life something that when people look at you, all they could do is say, this had to be God. Oh, that our life would be heavy with the presence of God.

Not light, not weak, not fragile, and not frazzled, like the book of James that said, people are blown around by every wind of doctrine. That we wouldn't be moved by the winds of culture, by the trials and the temptations of this world, but that our life would have weight, that we would be planted and secure. First Corinthians 15, Paul prays that we would be immovable, always ready and zealous to do the work of the Lord. That's the kind of life I want. I don't wanna be here today, gone tomorrow. I don't wanna be hot today, cold tomorrow. Come on, I'm declaring the glory of God over your life that you are immovable. Say amen, everybody. He was different in his generation. It was his private life that created his public life. Pray till you're different. Pray till you're different in your family. Pray till you're different in your workplace. Pray till you're different in your city, in your region, in your generation. Go so low before God that he has to elevate you and lift you up before a generation. Elijah was a man with a nature like ours. I want you to catch this, he was just like us. See, we read the Bible and we think these people were angels or something. We think they had halos and wings. They're just like us.

Now watch this, same physical. That means he had anger, means he had lust, means he had hunger. He was just like us. Physical, mental, spiritual limitations and shortcomings. He was just like us. And yet, watch this, he prayed. What made Elijah different in his generation was not his appearance. It was his prayer life. Elijah was a man of prayer and what changed a nation was his prayer life. And let me just encourage you. Some of his prayers were powerful. He'd pray and it'd stop raining. He'd pray and fire would fall down. He'd pray and it would start raining. Some of his prayers were awesome. Some of his prayers were not powerful, they were pitiful. Hello, you read 1 Kings? Some of his prayers were terrible. He said, God, kill me. God, I'm the only one left. God, nobody loves you but me. He had a weird main character energy sometimes. Come on, somebody. Some of his prayers were powerful, some of them were pitiful, but every prayer touched the heart of God. I just want you to know, pray when you're full of faith

and pray when you're full of doubt. Pray when you're happy and pray when you're sad. Pray when you're calling down fire and pray when you're suicidal. Pray on your highest mountain and pray in your lowest valley. Pray, pray and pray again and pray again and pray again. And watch God do something in your life. Pray till 2026 looks different than 25 and different than 24 and different than 23. Come on, if we wanna see some different things this year, we gonna have to pray some different prayers this year. I'm asking you to pray a little longer. Pray a little harder. Push, pray until something happens and watch God move in your life. Give me a good amen right there and I'll keep preaching, but pray till you're different. Number two, pray till you're blessed. Man, is it hot in here or am I pre-metapausal? What is happening right now? I'm having a hot flash up here. All right, all right, relax. I had a woman go, I agree. Pray till you're blessed. Oh, that you would bless me. Bless me, bless me. My mother cursed me, but God, you can bless me. See, names meant a lot in the Bible. They spoke of your future and of your destiny

and they declared something about you. And again, this is not born of the spirit of God. This was their tradition. This was really their superstition because even God's people can become very superstitious. And so she had a painful birth, she had a painful pregnancy, and then she named him pain. You were a pain, you are a pain, you will always be a pain. you were painful to me and you will be painful to a generation this is what she said, she said well if the birth was painful and if the pregnancy was painful I guess this is who he will be in a generation but see when God blessed him, what the blessing does is it reverses the curse it reverses the normal, it reverses the prediction let me just explain the blessing real quick the blessing is the opposite of the curse the blessing is not stuff the blessing is not a brand of vehicle, the blessing is not a zip code the blessing is not the brand of shoes you're wearing right now the blessing is not what's in your bank account all of those things can be great, I want all that for you I want you to have a good life, I believe God's a generous father that's not what I'm saying, my point is that's not the blessing now it can manifest that way but you can also have stuff and not be blessed the blessing is the opposite of the curse that was spoken over you the blessing is the contradictory word to what authority or what the devil or what the demon said about your life and when the blessing comes on you, it fights for you and it pushes back against the darkness of the demonic prophecy spoken over your life somebody shout reverse the curse, reverse the curse this is the blessing of God, that I'm no longer limited by my limitations okay, what's the curse?

well the curse at its most basic definition in the Hebrew language the curse is to be bound, to be stuck to limitation it's to be bound it's to be bound to a moment and to believe that's what I will always be it's to take your weakest moment it's to take your lowest moment it's to take the experience that when you were at your worst or life was at its worst and you're stuck there and you can't get past it the curse is I saw you at your worst and you can never get better once an addict, always an addict once angry, always angry once bound, oh I'm stuck to my lowest point let me just tell you something, you're not your weakness don't make me preach, I can't go nowhere right now I was talking to a therapist the other day, she goes to our church and we were talking about some of my junk in my trunk and I said, I'm a mess and she goes, no you're not she goes, that's not the real you and then she looked at me with eyes full of love and she said, you're not your trauma and I said, girl, you don't have to tithe another time this year, amen see, the devil wants to label you wants to trap, somebody get me out of these before, are you getting me out of these? before I get claustrophobic he wants to get you right here to where you feel bound forever to one moment

I was victimized but I'm not a victim I was hurt but I won't live there forever because I'm not in denial of what happened I'm not in denial of what you said about me I'm not in denial of what they wrote about me I'm not in denial of what my father told me I'm not in denial of what that teacher declared over me I'm not in denial of what that person did to me I'm not in denial of it, but I am denying it of its final authority in my life because though they cursed me God will bless me and when God blesses me it reverses everything that's ever been done to me or said about me because I'm blessed come on, somebody shout reverse the curse reverse the curse I'm not my trauma, I'm not my drama I'm not my daddy or my mama I am blessed you are who God says you are I'm not bound to a label, I'm not bound to a boundary I'm not bound to a prediction, I'm not bound to a mindset I'm not attached my weakest moment. Josh, think about what, God shows up to Gideon and goes, Gideon, you're a mighty man of valor. Gideon didn't go, amen, I am Lord, whatever you say, be it unto me according to your word.

No, that's not what he said. God says, you're a mighty man of valor. Gideon goes, I'm the weakest person in the weakest family in my nation. That's not the way to agree with God, amen. Some of y'all come to church, all you do is fight with God and argue with God. Say, like, come into agreement with this thing, man. God's trying to help you. Now, what Gideon said, it was true until God said he was a mighty man of valor. So everything about your life, I'm not in denial of it. I'm just saying you've met the curse breaker. Amen. His name is Jesus, and what he says about you is more real than what has been said about you. So, see, see, I'm a Chavis, but I'm more than a Chavis. I'm a male, but I'm more than a male. I'm a Mexican, but I'm more than a Mexican. I'm an American, but I'm more than an American. I'm a husband, but I'm more than a husband. I'm a father, but I'm more than a father. Why, because all of those things, though they may be true, I must refuse to let any label limit me. By the way, let me just go here real quick since it's jammed. That's why I don't think you should put your gender in your Instagram account, in your profile. You shouldn't do that, because don't let culture tell you who you are.

Don't follow the way of culture. You are who God says you are. See, don't let those outward pressures try to tell you something. I am who God says I am. I'm a child of God, and I will not be bound by what anybody has told me. This is what happens, they would tell us, with the circuses back in the day, they would take a baby elephant and they would tie it to a post. And that baby elephant couldn't get past the post. And because elephants don't forget, it would always go back to that point of limitation. So every time it would feel resistance, it would stop moving. Even though now that elephant is tons, it's thousands and thousands of pounds, it's way stronger than the post that's keeping it bound. But every time it feels any resistance, it gives in to, well, man, I'm tempted to drink, I guess I need a drink. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. You are who God says you are. Well, I'm angry, I guess I need to lose my cool. No, no, no, no, no, you can be angry and not sin. Come on, somebody. Well, I didn't like what that preacher said. I guess I got, well, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, get it, wait, hold on, chill out.

Well, my wife frustrated me, I'm gonna let it rip. No, no, no, don't let it, wait, wait a second. Just because you feel, you're not your feelings. You're stronger than the lid. You're stronger than the label. You're stronger than the curse. Because what you don't realize is you've been growing. You don't realize you've been getting better. And just because I feel something doesn't mean I have to give in to that thing forever. Say amen, somebody. And now you can uproot the label that was put on you. Well, everyone in our family, no, hold on, I'm blessed. Hold on, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho. You know, all the chavisies, ho, ho, ho, ho, chill out. I like my last name, I got my family crest tattooed on me, but wait a minute now, hold on. I'm blessed. You know, all men, no, wait, hold on. All women are, no, wait. You know, everyone in Vegas, wait, hold on, don't put that on us. You know, everyone in our age group, wait a minute, hold on, don't, don't, don't say that. We curse young people and old people. Well, man, you turn 50, amen, everything just starts going. Wait, don't put that on you. In 040, man, I'll tell you, everything started slowing down, ha, ha, ha. Don't believe that.

You know, all 20-year-olds, no, no, no, no, no, no. We got blessed 20-year-olds in here. Gen Z loves God. Gen Z's on fire for God. Don't put that on them. Don't put that on your teenager. Well, I'm 70, I guess. Well, wait a minute, hold on now. You're blessed. You're blessed before your age. You're blessed before your race. You're blessed before your gender. You're blessed before your citizenship. You are who God says you are. Reverse the curse. So his voice came in direct disagreement with his mother's voice. No voice decides your future except your own. He chose to believe that his word had more power than her words. My tongue is the pen of a ready writer. My tongue, my tongue, not my mom's tongue, my tongue. Not what the culture says, my tongue. Not what a politician said, my tongue. Nothing in your past has more power. I'm gonna, I think I'm gonna run today, I'm going to take a lap today. I just feel it. I know we got overflow, but I think I'm gonna run through the fold. I mean, I feel this in my bones. So I declare your past is not your prophecy. Say amen, everybody.

Your past is not your prison and your past is not a prediction. God writes your story and you get to write it with God. Number, number three, pray till you're free. Pray till you're free. Let me, let me say something. Maybe that, that could be startling to you, but it's important. You can be blessed and not free. And if you've ever seen someone blow up their life, it's because they got blessed. They, they trusted God to bless them, but not to free them. Now I know this firsthand because I'm a preacher. So I've got all my friends are preachers. So when preachers fall and if you ever hear about a preacher falling and losing their ministry, blowing up their life, ruining their family, I know those men. I know them. And, and here's the problem. They let God bless them. But they never let God free them. So they'll preach to thousands of people, but they got money issues. They'll preach to thousands of people, but they're abusing their staff. They'll preach to thousands of people, but be having an affair. They'll be preaching a thousand. They got blessed, but they never got free. So Jabez doesn't just pray, God bless me. He says, God, please make sure my life never causes pain. Did you see it in verse 10? Lord, please don't let me repeat the words of my mother. Amen. I'm kind of, I'm kind of teaching preaching and I'm kind of prophesying today. So it's a little bit of a mess, but let me just, I just got to declare some of these things.

I declare you will never fulfill the curse of your enemies. Whatever they said, it's canceled in the name of Jesus. Lord, heal me so deep that I never repeat the pain of the false prophecy of people that did not know who God is. May I be so free that when I tell people my story, they wouldn't believe me if I tried to tell them. Can I get just somebody just stand for a second? Just like, look at me like, yeah, yeah. Just give me a, just give me a good amen. Pentecost. Yeah. Thank you. I just need one of those because, because, because here's what I declare over you. Not a hair on their head was singed, nor their clothing scorched. They didn't even smell like smoke. Here's my, this is for somebody. You won't look like what you've been through. Oh, I'm talking to somebody right now. You won't look like the addiction. You won't look like the death. You won't look like the sickness. You won't look like the recession. You won't look like the pain. God will so heal you that you won't look like what you've been through. You'll tell your kids what God's done in your life and they'll go, no way. Yeah, bro. I'm about to run. Okay, I gotta stop. See, I don't want to just be, if I'm just blessed and God don't set me free,

I'll squander the very thing he put in my hands to be a blessing to the world. So God don't let me cause pain. Don't let me bring shame to the name of Jesus. Don't let me hurt my wife. Don't let me hurt my kids. God, don't let me, don't let me bring shame. So free me to such a great extent that when people think about me, they think about blessing, not about pain. And see, this is hard and this is why in February I'm gonna start a series on strongholds because I'm gonna teach you how to think because, because you get blessed but you still got all this negative, cursed language that you've learned. And you have to, you have to cut all that out of you. Okay, so second, I got one more verse. You can, you can be seated, you can stand, you can do whatever you want. Timothy, can we put it up? So I call to your remembrance your genuine faith that is in you. Now watch this. God says, Timothy, there's faith in you, but now, now watch this. But it didn't start with you. It started in your grandmother Lois, went down to your mother Eunice. Now it lives in you. See, we're not, this is the blessing of God that you don't pass down generational curses. Generational mindsets, generational labels and lids. You pass down generational blessing. Now, and then Paul says, so it's in you, Timothy. Now here's what you have to do with that. You have to stir that up. The gift which is in you by the laying on of hands. So now there's two things that have happened. There's a blessing that came down from his family.

There's a blessing that came down from his pastor. Now we separate all these verses if you've been in church, but they're all connected. Verse seven, and God has not given you a spirit of fear. Don't fear the curse. Don't fear what was. God's lifting that off of you. Now here's what's crazy. You never hear about Timothy's dad or grandfather. But his grandmother's faith and his mother's faith was so strong. In a male-dominated culture, in a patriarchal culture, the Bible takes a moment to honor the women's faith. By the way, this is why we have women who preach at our church. I can't receive from a woman. Timothy did. I listen to, I don't know if you really want me to freak you out. I listen to Joyce Meyer every day. I told you I'm thinning out the crowd, right? I'm like, oh my God, I'm hitting your gender and now I'm hitting Joyce Meyer and everybody's mad at me. I listen to her every day. Because I just love, because she's just such a straight talker. I just listen to her podcast. You just need to confess the Word of God. It's like, amen, Joyce, I got to level up. Timothy became the product of generational blessing. And I declare that over you. That's going to be your testimony. That's going to be your story. And we're going to uproot something today. Because God told me to do this yesterday.

There's many people in the room like Jabez who have had something spoken over them. Now watch what I'm about to say. You are not cursed, okay? Watch me, you're not cursed. But people have said things that have, see, because Jesus called words seeds in Mark 4. Every word is a seed. And he called words seeds. And when a seed hits your soul, you have to do something very quickly. You either have to uproot it or it will produce 30, 60, 100 fold. Some of you have let a seed germinate in your heart. A curse word. I didn't say a cuss word, a curse word. It'll always be this way. It'll always be this way. Everyone gets cancer. Everyone gets a divorce. No one makes money. No one gets an education. You're just like your daddy. Whatever it might be. Everyone from where we live. Everyone on our side of town. All of this. And all this trauma is carried through your name, through your last name. This is powerful. That's why at 42 years old, if I talk to my mom, she still says, when are you coming home? Because there's that thing that's trying to pull you back. Y'all track it with me. And here's what I saw in the spirit. I saw a hook, but it was a barbed hook.

And there's barbless hooks and there's barbed hooks, and I saw that hook get deep down in your soul, and you don't know how to remove it. And it's like you've learned how to play hurt, so you've learned how to live with that soul wound for so long. Like an injured athlete that has learned how to play hurt, you've lived with it so long. But I saw the surgeon, the Holy Spirit, hover over you and so gently and beautifully take that hook out of your heart. And some of you, it's a phrase, it's a word, it's an idea that has been declared over you. For some of you, it's like you saw a TV commercial and something hit your heart and it got in your heart. For some of you, you're the one who said it. But I saw the Lord so masterfully get in there and He unhooked you and He loosed you. And here's what Jesus said, what you bind is bound and what you loose is loose. Let's get back to binding. What you curse, bound, bound to limit. What you curse is curse. And here's what I felt today, we're going to curse the curse. Come on. And so I want to pray for you right now. If you have something in your soul, maybe you've never had language for what I'm talking about right now, but right now it's hitting you. We're going to, we're going to take that thing out and you're going to, you're going to leave here going, I didn't even know I could feel this way because you're going to be so free and you're going to be so blessed. So if there's, if there's anything that I'm talking about right now, I want you to stand, hundreds will stand. Don't worry, you won't stand alone, just stand. And we're going to come into agreement with the word of God and the promises of God. And we're going to uproot that thing and we're going to uproot limitations and lids and labels and curses.

And that thing is going to lift off of you. So in the name of Jesus, I curse the curse and I lose the blessing of the Lord upon you. And I declare that haunting word, that haunting phrase, that haunting prediction, it breaks right now in Jesus name and it's silenced forever. Now you who are standing, I want you to lift up your hands and we're going to, I want you to close your eyes. We're going to pray. I'm going to teach you how to pray right now. We're going to pray together. And I want you to receive right now, I want you to attach your faith to these words. And I say, Father, in the name of Jesus, I thank you that you love me, that you care about me, and that you have blessed me in Jesus name, I renounce every curse spoken against my life, spoken against my future, spoken against my family. And I declare I'm free from the hook and the seed that has been in my soul and I will never be the same. I'm blessed. I'm a child of God. And I will do everything you've called me to do. I will be everything you've called me to be. I will have everything you've called me to have because I'm blessed. In Jesus' name, say amen to that word right now and clap those hands. We reverse the curse. I will have everything you've called me to have because I'm blessed. ♪ Yeah, yeah, I'm giving all that I am ♪ ♪ Cause you give me chance after chance after chance ♪ ♪ Who am I that you keep me on your mind ♪ ♪ God, I'm just grateful for you ♪ ♪ God, I'm just grateful for you ♪ ♪ All my life you've been right here by my side ♪ ♪ God, I'm just grateful for you ♪

♪ God, I'm just grateful for you ♪ ♪ Who am I, who am I that you keep me on your mind ♪ ♪ God, I'm just grateful for you ♪ ♪ God, I'm just grateful for you ♪ ♪ All my life you've been right here by my side ♪ ♪ God, I'm just grateful for you ♪ ♪ God, I'm just grateful for you ♪ ♪ I survived and I'm here to testify ♪ ♪ That I'm so grateful for you ♪ ♪ God, I'm so grateful for you ♪ ♪ I'm all right, Shay, and I'm all right ♪ ♪ If they say I'm out of my mind, God, I'm just grateful for you ♪ ♪ I'm just grateful for you ♪ Every grateful person, come on, lift up a praise to the Lord. What a song. Bow your head and close your eyes.