Ep 51 - Pastor Rustin Rossello from Scottsdale Bible Church shares his personal journey of redemption and transformation through faith, offering a powerful testimony that resonates deeply with anyone who's ever felt trapped by life's strongholds. As someone who has battled with substance use, Pastor Rustin provides a raw and inspiring account of finding freedom in Christ.
Key highlights from our conversation include:
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Understanding Strongholds: Pastor Rustin breaks down the concept of spiritual strongholds, explaining how they are formed and why they have such a grip on our lives. He shares how, through seemingly small agreements, we give the enemy a place to operate in our lives.
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The 4 R’s to Break Free: Discover the biblical battle plan involving the 4 R’s—Repent, Receive, Rebuke, and Replace—that can dismantle these strongholds and lead you to a life of spiritual freedom.
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The Power of Truth: Highlighting the necessity of being rooted in God's Word, Pastor Rustin stresses the role of truth in overcoming the lies and deceptions of the enemy.
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Community and Accountability: Learn the importance of finding a supportive community that shares your struggles, as well as the transformational power of accountability in your journey.
This episode is a lifeline for anyone seeking to overcome addiction, fear, or any stronghold that keeps them from living abundantly. We explore not just the problem, but also provide actionable steps to pave your way towards spiritual victory.
We also encourage you to revisit the sermon by Pastor Rustin that sparked this conversation. It's linked in our episode show notes and is a must-watch for anyone wanting to delve deeper into spiritual warfare and freedom. https://www.scottsdalebible.com/message-archive/v/spiritual-warfare-week-1-breaking-strongholds?categoryId=648a5f39388c793aabc68b24
Thank you for being part of our community. We hope this episode equips and encourages you to stand firm in your faith and live life to the fullest as God intended.
P.S. Remember Galatians 5:1 - "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery." Let's walk together in this truth!
00:00 A sermon on spiritual battles attracted 2,000 attendees, emphasizing that our true battles are spiritual, not physical.
04:14 Molested at five, I became a people pleaser, using humor and athletics to cope, feeling at home in junior high where everyone felt awkward about sex and bodies.
08:18 Struggled with self-acceptance, rediscovered faith, and sought a grace-based relationship with God after a decade away.
11:12 A churchgoer, Steve, encouraged daily attendance to counter daily drinking; the narrator later confesses this to their concerned spouse.
14:49 Sober journey from suicidal to teaching pastor over 15 years; unexpected transformation attributed to faith.
18:52 Sin begins with agreement with the enemy, as seen in Genesis, where Eve is tempted despite being in God's perfect creation.
20:57 Mankind's choice to prioritize temptatio
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
the enemy is like a strongholdwhen he comes in and sets one
(00:04):
up, it's like a spiritual cancer.
And spiritual cancerdoesn't stay in one place.
It goes metastatic.
And so it starts with fear, tocontrol, to anxiety, to shame.
And then, by the way, because we canhave honest conversations about this
on this podcast, it requires a crazyamount of coping to try and compress
(00:24):
all the things that I just described.
And so bring on the addiction, right?
And we start to cope either throughprocess or through chemical,
(01:20):
Hey everyone.
Welcome to another episode of theSay Goodbye and Imagine podcast.
I have a very special guest with me today.
His name is Pastor, or his name isRustin Roselo and he is a teaching
pastor at Scottsdale Bible Church,which just so happens to be my church.
(01:41):
And I invited Rustin onto the podcastepisode today because, well, he,
he understands the struggles thatwe talk about on this podcast all
the time with respect to alcohol.
I'll give him an opportunityto share his testimony on that.
But Ruston did a sermonback in May of 2023.
(02:03):
Now that's how.
Much of an impact it had on me.
But this sermon was aboutspiritual battles and strongholds
and it was so powerful and he.
Felt called to do more than just asermon, to invite people back in case they
wanted to understand a little bit moreabout spiritual battles and strongholds.
(02:26):
And I think to everybody's surprise,he ended up having an audience of about
2000 people show up is a surprise.
That's out of a church of roughly, Ithink they're 10,000 online and on campus.
So one out of five and so it's a big deal.
People really heard that, and Iwant you guys to hear this too.
(02:50):
The focus of the sermon wasreminding us that while we're here
on earth, the battles we fightare not physical, but spiritual.
And I can't think of any better subjectmatter to apply this to then ha when
we have problems with substances.
And so I wanna share a coupleof verses before we get started.
(03:12):
Yeah.
The one of 'em is one that Rustinwill definitely talk about.
John 10 10 and ESV.
The thief comes only tosteal and kill and destroy.
I came that they may havelife and have it abundantly.
And then my favorite verseto pay attention to is also
(03:34):
found in one Peter five, eight.
Be sober minded.
Be watchful because your adversary,the devil, p prowls around like
a roaring lion seeking to some,seeking someone to devour.
Yeah.
And I know that this audiencereally resonates with these things.
Yeah.
Because when we are not sober minded,the enemy just takes full control of all
(03:57):
of our behaviors and we feel trapped.
Yeah.
I call, I call it, I like tocall it psychological slavery.
Yeah.
Anyway today Rustin is gonna help usunderstand what really is a stronghold.
Mm-hmm.
What is it and how does it work?
How does the enemy slowly.
Lure us into stealing, killing, anddestroying everything about who we
(04:21):
are and who we were created to be.
And finally, he is gonna help usexpose the enemy's tactics and walk
through the biblical battle planfor victory using four Rs, which are
repent, receive, rebuke, and replace.
Yeah.
So Rustin, with all of that, welcome tothe podcast and thank you for being here.
(04:42):
Thanks for having me.
I appreciate it.
Awesome.
'cause I know how busy you are.
That's good.
Pause.
Good.
Rustin, I want people to connect withyou first and foremost by your story.
Okay.
When I heard you share it for thefirst time, I welled up in tears.
And I would love for you to gift peoplewith the, your story of redemption really.
(05:07):
So I'll just, I mean, we got alot of ground to cover today,
so I'll give, uh, I'll do kindof the, the 10,000 foot version.
Um.
I'll say some things in this thatI just wanna give you guys context
of kind of where I'm coming from,but, um, I'll say some pretty heavy
things, but I'll say them quickly.
Um, it doesn't mean that they'renot important or if you've
experienced these things, I don'twant them to sound flippant.
(05:29):
But kind of hitting them quickly.
Grew up in a Christian home.
So I grew up going to church.
Life got complicated early for me.
I was molested at age fiveby a 16-year-old mentally
handicapped boy at church.
And so I became really afraid I becameyou know, we all have responses to fear.
They're all different.
I became kind of the people pleaser,peacemaker, get everybody to like me guy.
(05:52):
So through athletics and kind of beingfunny, that was kind of my combo and that
kind of, you know, rocked me through life.
Um, you know, junior high wasfunny just because I got to junior
high and by the time I got there,all of a sudden it was like.
I felt totally at home because it'sjunior high where everybody starts to
feel weird about sex in their bodies.
And I'd felt weird about sex inmy body since I was six years old.
(06:14):
So I was like, well, at leastwe're all on the same page now.
So this was a breeze for me.
But through high school, same thing.
Athletics, getting people to like me,girlfriends needing so much affection and
approval from others just to feel whole.
And so, it's the typical life cycle thatkind of produces a lot of need for things.
Came into about 20 years old, foundalcohol, um, really met a best
(06:39):
friend in that that was such a call.
It a wonderful thing that all of asudden I I had the ability to call
it, kind of make the noise go away.
There was something that seemed to sortof calm all those scary inner voices.
Uh, and I felt numbing for the first time.
And that was a really blessed event.
(06:59):
I had messed with alcoholprior to that because this is.
Probably gonna shock no one.
I had some addiction in my familybackground and so, um, I kind of went
through it a again, turbo through college.
Um, I had some really wild years whereI just powered through Old Town and I
mean, I, I hit old town, like a waist highfastball and I went really, really hard.
(07:20):
For a couple of years.
Met this super great Christian galwhere you meet all great Christian
gals at a hole in the wall, tequilabar in Old Town Scottsdale, which
is where we were both working.
Despite every possible reason whywe shouldn't have been together,
we ended up falling in love.
And I kind of knew how tospeak the Christian game.
I spoke it, uh, I kind of, I. If youwill just kind of lulled her into,
(07:42):
all right, this guy's got a lot ofpromise and she took great care of me.
And then you know, we got marriedand it no sooner we gotten married
than it started to fall apart.
And that was kind of how itstarted for the first two and a
half years was you know, she hadlearned to cry herself to sleep.
And I had learned todrink myself to sleep.
I was devastated by whata terrible husband I was.
I'd been looking forward to beinga husband for a really long time.
(08:03):
And then.
Once I got into the nuts and thebolts of it with no understanding of
kind of what my actual call it, jobdescription was based on the things that
she actually needed from me, not thethings that I wanted her to need from
me because I was good at them, uh, whichI think is how narcissism functions
and as addicts, uh, we can tend to bereally great narcissists sometimes.
(08:24):
And so, I spent a lot of time trying toconvince her that the things that I was
good at were the things that she needed.
Mm-hmm.
Um,
rather than attentively and sacrificiallyresponding to the needs that she
actually had because the needs that sheactually had, I sucked at providing for.
So the amount of shame that thatproduced in me just continued to
require, and it's not her fault.
(08:44):
I just, I wasn't doingmy job as a husband.
Two and a half years, it went on that way.
Uh, my drinking had gotten tosome pretty aggressive points.
By the time we kind of hit a, a reallysticking point, she had gotten so
wiped out through this about eightmonths before the bomb went off.
And I had to make some changes.
She prayed a crazy prayer, which wasvery simply like, Hey, change his
heart or Get me outta this marriage.
(09:06):
And for eight months sheleft me completely alone.
And, uh, I basically drank myself,uh, solid for eight straight months.
I was either hungover ordrunk for that entire time.
Typical story of implosion, uh, bignight led to problem after problem after.
And we ended up back at myhouse with a bunch of people.
And my rock bottom was thatnight I ended up sleeping with
(09:27):
somebody who wasn't my wife.
My call it my pathway, thatlife was on came to an end.
And I woke up the next morning alonein my home on a bathroom floor.
Couldn't reconcile who I was.
So it was at that point where I alwayskinda say the first miracle that
God really worked in my life was hestripped all the calluses away that
(09:48):
I had put on my heart for the last 10years that I'd been running from him.
'cause I kind of checked out a churchand like leading a godly life somewhere
around 17 and now I was 27 and I waslaying there and I came to this conclusion
of like, I couldn't face who I'd become.
I think that's the bottom a lot of usfind ourselves at where you go, oh,
I can't really live this way anymore.
(10:09):
And so you have this devastating thing.
And having had an experience thatwas positive when I was younger with
a higher power, I had to come home.
But the problem was I was stuck with,I don't really know how to do life
with you because that was my earlychildhood and I could never figure
out the grace based relationship.
I always did that me perform,you're disappointed me
(10:30):
perform, you're disappointed.
Which is not at all how the Bible portraysGod, but I sat there and was like, so
I don't know how to do life with you.
And the last 10 years has shown me, Idon't know how to do life without you.
I think I'm just done doing life.
And that was where we did this suicidalwrestling match on the bathroom floor.
And I had this profound discussion withGod that kind of led me to, Hey, I, I'm
coming home and I'm ready to see you.
(10:51):
And I, I, I wouldn't claimanybody else as my God, but I
don't wanna be down here anymore.
And so we kind of made a deal, me and Godafter he nudged me a little bit with like,
Hey, why don't you gimme one more shot?
And it was kind of a, alright, I'll giveyou three days, I'll give you till Monday.
And like jokingly now I kind of go, God'sgood at this three day thing, right?
Like good Freddy to Easter.
So,
you
know, it's taken me a lot of years toscrew my life up, but you can have 72
(11:13):
hours to give me some semblance of hope.
And I lied to my wife onMonday morning when I got up.
She came home.
The guilt and shame was immeasurable.
Like I couldn't barely function.
So I, I, I got up on Monday morning,I drove to my office and I Googled
something at my office early thatmorning that I'd never Googled
before, which was Scottsdale aa.
And I got up, grabbed my keys.
(11:33):
'cause I remember looking at 'em andI remember going, you're either gonna
grab your keys and you're gonna go dosomething about this or you're gonna die.
This is gonna take your life.
And I got up and I drove down to the gofor it number two meeting at Scottsdale
and Shey, which is hilarious because Iended up walking into my first AA meeting
about 500 yards from where I now pastor.
And so that was kind of a funny littlefingerprint that the Lord stuck on there.
(11:56):
But I'll never forget walking into myfirst meeting and 150 year old woman
with bright armchair patted me on theback and just was like, Hey, come on in.
We won't bite.
And I just remember sittingthere going, ah, what am I doing?
And so made it through the meeting.
They did the typical, Hey, isthis anybody's first day meeting?
I was like, well.
I'm probably gonna put a bulletin my head this afternoon.
So, yep.
(12:17):
It's my first meeting.
And so they're like, well,have you drank today?
No, I haven't had adrink since Friday night.
Well come on but up and get a chip.
And I'm like, I don't know what a chip is.
Like, I'm not hungry.
I don't, what are we doing here?
And so they gave me a 24 hour chip.
I stuffed it in my pocket, I walkedoutta the meeting when it was done.
This really sweet guy who now goes toour church named Steve, Steve rolls
(12:37):
in and you know, right afterward,shakes my hand, Hey, great to see you.
And he said, Hey man, it'sgreat to have you here.
We'll see you tomorrow.
And I'm like, oh, is thisnot like a once a week thing?
And he goes, oh, good question.
How often did you drink?
And I said, I drink every day.
And he goes, we'll see you tomorrow.
And it was like, shoot,how am I gonna hide this?
So I go back to work a mess, and atone o'clock that afternoon, my wife
walks into my office, stands in thedoorway, and just looks at me and
(12:58):
goes, um, something happened and you'regonna tell me what it is right now.
And so I said, well, grab a seat.
I lied to you this morning.
I didn't go to a Biblestudy like I told you I did.
I went to my first a meetingand I'm an alcoholic.
I'd never said it before.
And there was a bunch of times in mystory where particularly for the first
90 days, God spoke to me through me,where like I would say something and
(13:22):
I was like, Bo, that's so true, butI've never had that thought before.
But it just came out andI said, I'm an alcoholic.
And I went, oh, that's true.
And it felt like forever.
But she looked at me right awayand said, I'm so proud of you.
And I just remember like, oh gosh.
(13:42):
And I said, well, before you go get allproud of me, let's talk about what me
being an alcoholic for the first two anda half years of our marriages looked like.
And it felt like it took an hour, butit probably took about 10 minutes.
And she just looked at me and she goes,look, have you ever cheated on me?
And I said, yeah, I have.
And I just started talking and I said,you've been an amazing wife to me and
I have been a disaster of a husband.
(14:03):
I'm not.
I've brought nothing but chaos anddestruction to you in the two and
a half years we've been together.
You should run from me as fastas you can because I've been a
mess to now and I don't know whatit's gonna take to get me sober.
And she just looked at me and I'll neverforget 'cause this changed my life.
She said, where do you want me to go?
You're all I have.
(14:23):
And then she very calmly just lookedat me and she said, Rustin, I don't
know what will look like when this isover, but we're gonna get you sober
and we're gonna get through this.
Hmm.
And I
just remember going and honestlylike Roseanne, the profundity
of what happened in that moment.
I've had 15 years to process.
Now I can tell you what happened now, butin the moment it was just an experience.
(14:44):
It was a feeling.
But what happened was I wasshocked, but it was this like
Rubik's cube of emotions and.
What hit me was this I was lookingat my wife across the desk and
going, I know you're human.
But what hit me the hardest wasif this is the type of love and
(15:06):
forgiveness and grace that God's kidsare capable of, Jesus Christ might
be the God of my wildest dreams.
And that's sort of becomea life motto for me.
And I realized I'd never faced unmeritedundeserved grace and forgiveness because
whether it was what happened to me as akid or this and that, I would've never
(15:26):
said that what I was doing wasn't sinful.
But I would've given you someversion of like, but I think God
understands why I am the way I amand I don't know how to change.
And it would've been kind of that, but itnever forced me to face like his love for
me, having enough nothing to do with me.
Mm-hmm.
It was just
he loved me and this wasavailable because he loved me.
(15:49):
I had to face it that day.
This woman had no reasonto sit in front of me.
She should have been runningfor me, and she wasn't.
And it was like, Jesus is betterthan you, and I don't have a category
for better than you right now.
And for the last 15 years,that's really been the journey.
We've just been walking itout a little bit at a time.
God, in my wildest dreams, um, I'vebeen doing it in recovery in a lot
of different forms and fashions.
(16:10):
I've remained sober and I'vegone from suicidal and drunk on a
bathroom floor to getting to be yourteaching pastor in the last 15 years.
And that has, that has beena wild it's been a wild ride.
That's not something you plan for whenyou're laying on a bathroom floor.
So I always joke with people.
I'm so far into bonus territory atthis point that I don't really have
(16:31):
a category for even the journey andhow far the Lord's brought, brought
me from where I wouldn't even saystarted, but from kind of where I found
myself it was just so devastating.
And so.
God, my wildest dreams.
That's kinda what we, wedo a little bit at a time.
And, um, I think a lot of thatcomes through in my preaching.
There's just a lot of like, Hey,he can, kind of the question
(16:53):
is, are we willing mm-hmm.
Uh, to
put ourself in his hands?
And that's a really hard thing to do.
I think that's why as we walk throughthe steps and we have an admission of
need in step one, we immediately have to,you know, as soon as we admit there's a
problem that's bigger than us, we haveto admit that there's a higher power.
There's a power bigger than us in order tosolve the problem that's bigger than us.
(17:15):
Right?
So
the first two steps of admission arereally putting the human condition
into a hierarchy that admitsdefeat and salvation from defeat.
So
I love the, I love the storyof grace that you described.
I, um.
The audience that I serve primarily Yeah.
Already knows Jesus.
(17:37):
They already have arelationship with Jesus.
Sure.
So they are, what's wrong with me?
Yeah.
Why can't I stop this?
Why can't I quit?
Yeah.
And I love, this is why we're, thisis what we're gonna talk about today.
Right?
Yeah.
You, you can't quit becauseyou're trying to do it.
You, you think this is a, abattle of flesh and blood.
(17:58):
Yeah.
And there is a, a, a formidableenemy out to get you to hide.
Yeah.
The light that you are created to emit.
Yeah.
Like your wife emitted to you.
Yeah.
She showed you a piece of Jesus.
And that's what we're called to do.
I think that the audienceI serve understands that.
(18:19):
Yeah.
They don't know how to get there.
So let's dig in.
Thank you.
Yeah.
Fire away.
So.
One of the most a very profound thingthat you've shared in the sermon.
And by the way, the sermon will I'mgonna link that in the show notes.
Yeah.
So that people can watchit themselves, but Yeah.
Describing what a stronghold is.
(18:40):
Yeah.
What a fortified place is.
Mm-hmm.
I I love that description.
It made sense to me immensely, andI'd love for you to share that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, uh, we're talking we're talkingsecond Corinthians 10, right.
So it says, the weapons of ourwarfare are good for dismantling
or taking apart strongholds.
And so we have this, this place inthe scriptures where the concept of a
(19:05):
stronghold is being described, but it'sdescribed pretty quickly and then loosely.
So we kind of have to.
Ferret some of this out.
And so if you look at like a robustpresentation of the scriptural evidence,
you start to see all these versesthat kind of start to rise together in
some of these places of, call it likehuman stuckness, like where we get
(19:27):
stuck and how our stuck can function.
So one of the verses that'sreally helpful is when you walk
through that idea of like, okay,here we are, we're in this place.
And it tells us in the scriptures,don't let the sun go down on your anger.
Don't give the enemy a And then dependingon which translation you're working
out of, you're working out of this ideaof don't give the enemy a foothold.
Don't give the enemy an opportunity orthe actual translation of that Greek word.
(19:53):
Topos is a place, so it's actually wherewe get our English word topography.
So if you think about a topographicalmap with all those crazy, you
know, circles and lines on it, andas the circles get tighter, it's
showing an elevation change up.
And as they get.
Like more spread out.
It's showing that there'sa dissipation of elevation.
(20:15):
We're moving down into a flatter area.
So that's topographical map.
So if you think about that,what it's saying is don't give
the enemy a place in your life.
Well, how does a place function?
What would the enemy do with a place?
What we need to realize when we sin, andthis is really hard, sometimes we don't
realize that sin from the beginning inGenesis started with agreement with the
(20:39):
enemy's thing over the Lord's thing.
So right off the bat, when you go toGenesis and you look at the fall in
chapter three, you're looking at evesitting there in the midst of God's
place and God's thing in creation,operating in perfect relationship.
(20:59):
The enemy comes along, who bythe way, had already fallen.
So he's already sinful.
So the accounts that we haveof like him and a third of the
angels falling has already takenplace within the creation order.
And now he steps into earth andis now interacting with Eve.
Now, if we go back to why the enemyfell, he wanted to sit upon the mountain.
(21:22):
He wanted to be the morningstar and to be worshiped.
So the enemy's deepest desireis to always have attention.
Like the most insecure individual everin the cosmos is the first one that fell.
He wanted to be the attention, hewanted to be kind of the primary figure.
So in that, now you have him alluringeve into what, Hey, I've got an idea
(21:45):
for you see that tree over there?
See this idea that God didn't tellyou everything Now, is that true?
Yeah, it is.
It's absolutely true.
Every lie has truth mixed into it.
Otherwise nobody would believe it.
So it's the same way with ourdrinking, which we can get to.
But there's this reality of he basicallysays, Hey, did he tell you this?
(22:08):
Did he tell you that whenthe reality is no, he didn't.
What didn't he tell him?
Well, don't eat of the tree.
Why?
Because when you do,there's disobedience there.
Sin will enter the world.
It'll devastate everything.
Well, God didn't want mankind to know sin.
We just needed to listen to God andnot go through the process of saying,
well, how's it gonna affect me?
So the first thing that happenswhen all of mankind falls is when
(22:32):
Eve says, okay, you know what?
Enemy, Satan, you're ontosomething I want to know.
It takes Eve going, I wantyour thing over God's thing.
So in that agreement, which is a reallykey phrase, we now see this process where
mankind agrees with the enemy over God.
(22:55):
We see sin happen.
And then you see the consequence ofsin because death, decay, corruption,
as it talks about it is now happeningto the entire created order.
And so the process that you're in thereis you go, agreement equals connection,
which gives the enemy authority andit creates a fallen stuck state.
So that's the process and it'sstill playing itself out today.
(23:19):
And so the way that strongholds areformed is kind of the first question.
What does it mean whenwe give the enemy place?
It means we give him authority, places tooperate, places to influence in our lives.
And that authority is howstrongholds are built.
We agree with him.
We give him place.
He then operates from thatplace to expand that place.
(23:40):
So that's why
I, I wanna interrupt you because this is aperfect place to bring in another concept
that you discussed in the sermon, andthat's, that's how cunning he is, right?
Yeah.
He doesn't do things ina, in a big way, right?
Yeah.
He just one little thing at a time.
Absolutely.
One little thing at a time.
(24:01):
And especially in the case ofalcohol, it's so, it's so acceptable.
It's promoted, it's okaybecause it was in the Bible.
God used, you know, wine forour first his first miracle.
Yep.
So acceptable.
And, but the enemy istaking a place That's right.
(24:22):
And telling us a lie about it.
Yeah.
So talk about, uh, you had a,uh, an example about stealing.
Stealing that went along with that.
Do you remember what that was?
Yeah.
So it's like the enemy inJohn 10 10, the enemy is, came
to steal, kill, and destroy.
Okay.
So what is it he'strying to steal from us?
Well, the reality is anything he canget you to agree with, you're now
(24:44):
feeding into, call it his ecosystem.
So when he steps in like the exampleof the enemy stealing from us.
And I think what you're talking aboutis this process of sort of how a
stronghold can progress and get bigger.
Mm-hmm.
And so this, this idea, like when we saythis, like let's use the example of fear.
This, I use this a lot and thisis helpful for people 'cause
(25:06):
a lot of us wrestle with fear.
We just, and we may do it indifferent ways, but like for
some people, fear is like fear ofthe unknown or fear of sickness.
Or for others who call themselvesmaybe a little tougher, they don't
realize how afraid they are to fail.
So fear of failure, or I'mreally afraid that this person
won't like me or this, or that.
Well, welcome to Fear of Man.
(25:26):
So we have all these differentplaces where fear can operate.
So, so let's walk throughthis as an example.
Fear will operate in such a waywhere what we don't realize when we
have a stronghold of fear is thatwe, just like Eve, have actually
said that fear is better than God.
So, like you're saying,fear is better than God.
And as soon as I say that,everyone's like, well, I, I
can shut this podcast off.
(25:47):
Like this guy has no ideawhat he's talking about.
But, but just stick with me for a second.
What happens is, and this is where likethe enemy's defeated, but he's not dumb.
He knows how to trick mankind.
And he's a master manipulator, right?
Lies are his native tongue.
So when you think about this wholelies thing and him, him kind of
working on us, what he comes in andhe does, is he'll, he'll step in and
(26:10):
let's, let's, let me be the devil.
And Roseanne, I'll be workingon you in this scenario.
And so I'll, I'll roll in andI'll be like, Hey, Roseanne.
This really tough thingjust happened to you.
It was by that friend who oh, you'repretty close to, and, and they hurt you.
That kind of caught you off guard.
Now remind me, do you likebeing caught off guard?
I didn't think you likebeing caught off guard.
(26:32):
And so, you know, I've actually got thisthing that's gonna be really helpful.
It's got a really bad rap, butplease hear me out because I
promise, it's not understood.
Well, it's called fear andpeople, people don't like it.
But fear is actually gonna help youbecause it's gonna sit right on the front
of your brain and it's gonna keep aneye out for you of any of these little
surprising things are being caught offguard that could ever happen to you again.
(26:55):
And so I think you and I both agreethat you being prepared, even the Bible
says being prepared is a good thing.
You being prepared is really important.
So you and I can both agree 'cause you'llnod your head along with me on this.
That fear could help you.
Do you agree?
Absolutely.
Great.
And then once fear comes along, the enemycircles back and go, Hey, congratulations.
(27:16):
You've been doing a greatjob staying prepared.
Now that you've been prepared for alittle while and you can see all these
things because you're doing such agreat job, wouldn't you like to be able
to maybe change some of those things?
And I got this great thingover here, it's called control.
And control's gonna help youbecause you're gonna be able to,
now that you see these things outthere, I've got a joystick for you.
(27:36):
Now, he doesn't tell you that.
It's not connected to anything.
He just says, here's a joystick,and you can work this thing.
And you can make these thingsmove around and and control's
like a really, really good thing.
And now that you realize thatthere's so many things to control,
it's kinda overwhelming, isn't it?
Well, there's this thing that comes along.
I forgot to tell you, the side effects.
Anxiety is one of these things thatkind of kicks in after a while.
(27:57):
And don't worry the importance of.
Being on guard and being able to changeyour future are so important that you
shouldn't worry about anxiety too much.
And you know what?
I'm back.
It's been a few months or a few years,or maybe a decade or two, or maybe
your family taught you how to do thissince you were a little kid and you
don't even realize you're doing it.
But now that I'm here again, I just wantyou to know there's actually some passages
(28:19):
in the Bible, Matthew six, that say, worryisn't good, that you shouldn't worry.
And if you remind me, Roseanne,you really like being a good
little Christian girl, don't you?
So the fact that you're indirect disobedience from
God is kind of a problem.
You should be pretty ashamed about that.
And it's a long example.
But what it starts to show us is the enemyis like a stronghold when he comes in and
(28:45):
sets one up, it's like a spiritual cancer.
And spiritual cancerdoesn't stay in one place.
It goes metastatic.
And so it starts with fear, tocontrol, to anxiety, to shame.
And then, by the way, because we canhave honest conversations about this
on this podcast, it requires a crazyamount of coping to try and compress
(29:06):
all the things that I just described.
And so bring on the addiction, right?
And we start to cope either throughprocess or through chemical,
right?
And so that's where like this wholespiritual warfare thing, and, and
this is where like everything I justdescribed is a spiritual reality that's
(29:26):
going on inside us as believers even.
'cause this is not describing anonbeliever, only this is describing us
as believers because like it said, wecan let the sun go down in our anger.
We can have an agreement with theenemy and give topos or place over
to the enemy, even though whatshould our places belong to the Lord?
(29:50):
So just remember, the enemy can'tcreate, he can only co-create or distort,
meaning he can take God's creationand distort it, but he can't create.
That's God's business.
Original creation is God's, and the enemycomes in to distort God's creations.
So what he's trying to comein and do is again, replicate
God or be chosen over God.
So the ultimate simple equation of anystuckness contained around sin in the
(30:14):
human life is this what's being toldThat should be our stronghold God.
He is our stronghold.
He is our rock.
He is our salvation.
Like I could go through scriptureafter scripture that basically
lays all of those things out.
Psalm 18, my God is myrock in whom I take refuge.
He is my shield, the horn of mysalvation, my stronghold, Psalm 94,
(30:36):
the Lord has become my stronghold.
Psalm 27, the Lord is mylight and my salvation.
Whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the stronghold of my life.
So what the enemy's trying todo is step in and say this,
choose my stronghold over his.
Be with me.
Come rest in me, reside in me, worship me.
I'll take better care of you than he will.
So a stronghold is just simply a placewhere, whether it's fear, whether it's
(30:59):
pride, whether it's sexual immorality,whether it's addiction, whether it's
this, whether it's that, or a myriad ofother things, shame, condemnation, fear.
You go through the list.
It's a place where we've saidThis thing will do a better
job for me than that thing.
And the challenge for so many ofthese places, 'cause I hear people
go, oh, I'm just a fearful person.
No you're not.
(31:20):
The Bible literally tells you, you'venot been given a spirit of fear, but
a spirit of power and self discipline.
So we speak the enemy's language,we speak lies over our own lives,
and we start to hamstring ourselvesinto a hopeless, un unviable place.
And then we just start hunkering down forthe long haul into the enemy strongholds.
(31:44):
And I say it this way.
What I see most often is Christiansfighting a spiritual battle in the
physical realm, and they can't figure outwhy they're getting their teeth kicked in.
And so that, and again, there's a, ifwe have more time, if we have, you know,
these sermons are available, right?
We can do a more pride
episode.
But I'm, yeah, I'm, I'm flyingthrough the stuff really quick just
(32:05):
to kinda, kinda wet your appetite alittle bit on the fact that the enemy
wants to come in and he wants yourattention on him, not on the Lord.
So he's a deceiver.
He's a decept.
The verse you said prowlsaround like a roaring lion.
He's looking to devour you.
John.
10, 10, steal, kill, destroy.
(32:25):
Look at me, don't look at him.
Ephesians six.
We don't wrestle against fleshand blood, but against the rulers,
against the authorities, againstthe cosmic powers over this present
darkness against the spiritualforces of evil in heavenly places.
Yeah.
So a
lot of times, even his addicts,like we sit here sometimes and we'll
like look around and we'll go like.
Oh, it's my circumstances.
It's this, it's that any recoveryprogram's gonna look at you and say,
(32:50):
I have a daily reprieve contingentupon my spiritual condition like
I have, I have spiritual characterdefects that I'm working through
to continue to find healing.
And that's where I always submitto people like, regardless of
what recovery looks like for you,you're going to need two things.
You're gonna need to be in aregular conscious contact with God
(33:10):
and you're gonna need to be aroundother people who are also pursuing
God, but limp the way you limp.
Because if you don't have a communitythat you can like regularly talk to,
Hey, there are plenty of people whoI know who love Jesus and can drink
and they can drink in moderation.
Uh, that's not me.
(33:31):
So there are people I gotta get aroundwho I go, Hey, do you got this thing?
I got this, you know, this allergythis, this thing where when I put
alcohol into my body, it seems tojust completely take my life apart.
Like I break out in adultery anda addict like I, any of anybody
else got that allergy going on.
And it's like, yeah.
So those are the places where whenwe get with people who are struggling
the way we're struggling, we can nowstart to look at things differently.
(33:53):
And that's where I see likethe stronghold concept.
That to me is again, the 10,000 footflyover of how do strongholds get formed?
They get formed through agreement,and that's us agreeing with the enemy.
And then what we don't realize isat that point, we give the enemy
authority to come in and have a deeplevel of influence in our lives.
(34:15):
That's the opportunity.
It's once the stronghold is built,once the opportunity is taken
place, the stronghold is present.
And now it's the perfect analogybecause what happens from a stronghold?
A military force comes in and operatesfrom a fortified place, that place now
belongs to the enemy because we gave itto him and it should belong to the Lord.
(34:37):
So it no longer flourishes.
And just like we talked aboutthat area of your life where fear,
control, anxiety, shame, all thesedifferent things are manifesting.
It starts to fall apart.
Right.
So that's kind of the, that's the, likeI said, that's the 10,000 foot view.
No, I love that.
And the difference between yourjourney and mine, especially after I
(34:59):
heard you preach on Sunday you werea believer and then you were like the
prodigal son and left and just kindof said, I'm like done with this.
I was the person in thechurch who loved Jesus who was
maybe giving him topos place.
Yeah.
(35:19):
Believing that God didn't know everything.
Like Yeah.
You know, but God,everybody's doing this, right?
Yeah.
And not understanding theplace I was giving Satan.
And, and now that I can look at it inthe rear view mirror, slowly but surely
(35:40):
over decades didn't happen over years.
Decades.
Yeah.
My life was being stolen.
It was being killed.
It was being destroyed up untilthe point, the same as you,
where I was like, I'm ready.
God, just let's go.
Yeah.
Nothing left.
Let's go.
I'm, I'm ready to call homethe dogs and put out the fire.
(36:01):
So I, I, there's twoteachings I kind of do.
They're very quick around these concepts.
You know, for me it was always easierto take one more step down life's broken
staircase than it was to have to turnaround and start walking towards healing.
So I could always handlea little more pain.
And I was comfortablewith the misery I was in.
But it was terrifying togo to an unknown better.
(36:22):
I was like, I don't, that justsounds like me getting ready to
disappoint a whole lot of people.
'cause eventually I'm gonna fallright back down the staircase.
So you're kind of getting intosome of those realizations.
But the idea of incrementallycoming unraveled is a little bit
of what you're describing there.
Mm-hmm.
And I'll kind of walk people throughthat idea of like, the enemy doesn't
steal everything all at once.
(36:43):
Mm-hmm.
Again,
he's defeated becauseChrist reigned supreme.
He conquered sin, he conquered death.
Everything like we talked aboutin this last week in sermon, we're
talking about that place in Ephesianswhere it's all things have been
put into submission under his feet.
So the enemy is defeated,but he's not dumb.
So the enemy's not gonna show up in yourlife and take everything all at once.
(37:04):
Even though his desire is tosteal, kill, destroy it, he's
gonna steal incrementally.
And the reason being, it'seasy for him to stay hidden.
So he's gonna roll in and just liketake you from a 10 to a nine, nine.
And then kinda like, did you notice?
Alright, alright, let's try 9, 8, 9, 6.
Oh man, what kind of, I don't know.
(37:24):
I'm having a funky season.
You know, I just don't feel like myself.
9, 5 2, oh, now something bad happens.
Let's seize the opportunityto try and get you to hun.
Let's get you to an eight.
And you're like, oh gosh, man.
Oh why did it happen?
We're always so quick, particularlyas a, as western thinking Christians,
we're happy to look at the naturalfirst and for a really long time.
(37:47):
The last thing we're gonnalook at is the supernatural.
We're just, again, we are logicallyminded, naturally minded people who
just want to go, it's my circumstance.
I just lost my dad.
And so I always describelike life's circumstances.
Sometimes, particularly when it's trauma.
I. Trauma's hard, and it doesn'tmatter what the trauma is because
(38:09):
we always make our trauma relativeto other people's trauma instead of
making it relative to our own trauma.
You don't, you don't, using somebodyelse's relative measure doesn't matter.
That's not your life.
Use your life and kind of go,oh no, this is actually really
hard relative to the other thingsthat I've had go on in my life.
So I think that's where we can gettricky sometimes, but that incremental
(38:29):
stealing place is when all of a suddenthe enemy wants to come in and use
trauma and it's, it's not usually thecircumstantial pieces of the trauma.
So I use the analogy, it's not the threefoot fall in the kitchen where you land
on the ground that hurts you because ifyou fell three feet in the kitchen and
you landed on your, your, your butt,you'd pop right back up and be fine.
(38:53):
But in panic, you grab the kitchenknife and it lays your hand in all the
ligaments open, and now you got a 12month recovery through five surgeries.
Trauma's the same way it, the enemy'ssmart, because what he does is he
uses traumatic events and then hetries to just pork belly a ton of
strongholds into those seasons.
And we don't even realize, just likeI said, whether it's the loss of a
(39:15):
family member, whether it's somethingtraumatic with a friend, whether it's
an injustice, whether it's whatever.
The enemy comes in and juststarts dumping stuff into your
fear, anger, shame, condemnation.
So like you look at people who'veexperienced sexual abuse somehow,
they all tend to walk out withthe same condemning thought.
That's totally absurd.
(39:36):
Which is, it's my fault, fault, my fault.
Right.
And you just go like, and again, I getto work with people here and there just
based on some of my testimony pieces,but like, I've had really, really
radical situations where people willcome forward and just spill stuff out.
And I, I have this place whereI just simply have to go like,
lemme see if I get this straight.
Is it okay to abuse people sexually?
(39:58):
No, not at all.
Okay.
Somebody did that to you.
That's right.
Okay.
And you're at fault for that.
Right.
And you can just sort of see, likecognitively, they can't, they can't get
the gears to sink up on, on, on thatequation, but somehow they know deep down.
But it's still true for me.
(40:20):
And it literally takes likesome prayer and some unwinding.
And typically when I start, because I'll,like, I'll speak at something, you know,
at, at different events and you know,I just did like a speaking event up at
GCU Young Life recently and I did havea student come down and, and, and opened
up just about some, some really, reallyawful, um, abuse that they'd gone through.
And again, I mean, you're talkingabout this will take years to
(40:41):
unravel and God is good and hewill walk this journey with you.
And the good news of it will take years isthat the Lord's not gonna put you through
everything you need to go through tonight,because if he did, it would devastate you.
So it's out of kindness that theLord gives us time to unravel these
tight knots of trauma, particularlywhen they've sat for decades.
The first thing that I do with peopleis to try and just kind of walk through
(41:04):
some semblance of at least getting themto tell me that this wasn't their fault.
Right?
Saying,
I can see this.
I can affirm this.
As somebody who's experienced traumain this area, I don't ever compare
trauma one to the other, but to justsay, in my own life, I had to come
to the recognition where I had tosay out loud, this wasn't my fault.
(41:25):
Is that somewhere where youthink you and I could go tonight?
And just trying to break some of thatground up where the enemy has fortified
it, because now all of a sudden they'restruggling with condemnation, but
they're looking at the circumstancesof the problem and you're like the
circumstance, or again, flesh and blood.
It's not flesh and blood.
(41:45):
It's.
All of these cosmic spiritual powers thatthey're wrestling with under condemnation,
shame, inferiority, insecurity, isolation.
These are all things that the enemyjust wants to import into our lives.
And then again, the event may behorrible, but like in the instance of
my life, like the event itself was,and again, I don't say this lightly, I
(42:06):
just, I've had 15 years to process mysexual abuse or, I, I've had a lot of
years to do it and I've done a lot ofintense counseling, but at one point
a counselor asked me wonderfully.
So help me understand Rustin, where doyou think the abuse that you experienced
arrives or exists on a spectrum of abuse?
Which was super helpful for me becauseby the time I came to the conclusion, he
(42:29):
was like, you know, on the light end, itcould be somebody who was walked into a
bathroom and saw you and probably lingeredfor a minute more than they should have.
And that, that would qualifyas like an a sexual intrusion.
All the way to something horrificlike being ritualistically abused
by a family member for decades,you know, type where do you, and
I kind of said, I, I don't know.
And I kind of put it on the scale andsaid, I, I think it was kind of here,
(42:52):
but it was kind of, you know, callit somewhere in the middle and, and
he said, I can accept that Reston.
I think that may be good.
Does that feel comfortable for you?
It was a wonderful process that I gotto walk through because it allowed
me a place to sort of go, I knowwhat I'm dealing with, I know what
it wasn't, and I know what it wasn't.
And I'm finding my subtleness.
(43:12):
It allowed me to sort of go, okay, I.
Now I can start a healing process onceI know what that is, but it kind of
severed some of the enemy's abilitybecause this is what truth does.
Amen.
It severed
the enemy, abil, enemy's ability tostart going, oh man, yours wasn't
anything at all and it was your faultand it was this and it was that.
And you just start torealize some of that.
And God's really good.
(43:33):
I mean, I got to a point with my sonwho it's really sweet when you have
kids sometimes, because I got thisat the time when my son turned five.
And it was really powerful becauseI remember looking at him and
in your head, you always believeyou're way more mature than you are.
So I always thought that five-year-oldkid probably had a lot more to do with
(43:56):
that event than than he really did.
And all of a sudden I had this littlefive-year-old kid running around
my house and he looked like me.
And the Lord just hit meone day when I went Uhoh.
He couldn't have knownand neither did you.
It was so restorative to look acrossthe room at this little boy who looked
just like I did, and go, oh Lord,
(44:20):
it was not my problem.
He wouldn't, he wouldn't have known.
Mm-hmm.
And again, that's theredemptive nature of the Lord.
So we look at all these thingswe're fighting that the enemy
wants to incrementally steal fromus and continue that process.
And what breaks my heart so many timesis, and the reason I'm passionate about
this, this teaching and the, and justwhat the scripture has to say about
(44:40):
strongholds and freedom in Christ.
'cause the goal isn't tounderstand strongholds.
The goal is to find freedom in Christ.
Amen.
When we walk and we're gonna,
we're gonna end withGalatians five one, trust me.
Yeah.
And so when we, when
we look at that, I think that's theprocess that we have to see is that
that incremental stealing, whetherit's in lies that we believe like it's
my fault, or, I have to have this, orI can never get away from addiction
(45:02):
or alcohol, or I was made this way.
We have to remember this is,people have probably heard
this, but it's worth repeating.
Guilt says, what I did was wrong.
Shame said, who I am is wrong.
Yeah.
Shame is an identity attack.
And the enemy's primary attack in us isto help us not identify, not identify
our sin, but to identify as our sin.
(45:24):
So it's a difference between, Itold a lie and you are a liar.
It's a difference between I did abroken thing and I'm a broken person.
Meaning like, I'm unredeemable, I'm,so again, that's some of the places
where we can get really, really stuck.
And I do think it's worth kind ofsettling into some of those ideas
just to dig around and sort of go,all right, what do we do from here?
Yeah.
I, I agree.
(45:44):
Lots to, lots to process.
So we need to get into thefour Rs pretty quickly.
Yeah.
But before I do, I do wanna, I wannahave a careful transition, especially
given the conversation we just had.
Yeah.
Um, because a lot of people turnto substances because of horrific
(46:05):
things that happen to them.
Yeah.
They don't they don't know howto go, they don't know how to
process and they use a substance.
And then the substance steals,kills and destroys, uh, and takes
and takes everything from them.
So we wanna get rid of strongholds.
I always try to havecompassion with people.
(46:26):
Uh, I I deal with a lot ofthe the population you do.
Yeah.
Here a lot of the, I. I justlike, I hear so much of it.
I can't believe it.
I like I was molested as a child.
Yeah.
It's just so, it's more commonthan any of us even Yeah.
Totally.
Begin to understand.
Yeah.
But I try and say you use the substanceto self-medicate, but that's right.
(46:51):
This wasn't, so where do wecarefully start with the four rss?
Because what I don't want somebody to,to do, I, I want people to recognize that
Satan has taken, has, has distracted them.
Yeah.
That God has a better plan.
(47:11):
Right.
Where do we start?
How do we start with those four Rs?
Yeah.
Um, yeah.
So the, the question at the rootof it is, okay, strongholds exist.
We've seen that.
Now what do I do?
This would be the worst podcast ever ifwe just turned it off right now, because
it's like, how do I, you've, you've maybe,maybe you've convinced me I'm stuck.
How do I get unstuck?
(47:32):
How do I dismantle a spiritualagreement or stronghold in my life?
And so we look at it, we've gotta takethe idea, and, and all of these are
gonna be biblical concepts, right?
Repenting, receiving forgiveness.
The idea of rebuking the enemy or usingour authority that we have in Christ
to press through and to stand againstthe devil who is our adversary, right?
(47:57):
And then the idea ofreplacing it with truth.
So if, if we break 'em downreal quick just one after
the other, repentance, right?
So Acts three 19 says, repenttherefore, and turn back, but
your sins may be blotted out.
When we think about repentance, alot of time we think of repentance
as God, will you forgive me?
That's actually not what repentance means.
Repentance is a two part Greek word.
(48:18):
It's meta noo, or meta to change.
Noo to think.
So it means to change yourthinking or to change your mind.
And if you think about, particularlywith a lot of us who wrestle with
addiction, we had to change our thinking.
Mm-hmm.
We had to
literally come in and start recognizing,oh, I need to change the way I
think about this whole thing andthe lies that we were believing.
(48:39):
So that idea is profound.
And just like Romans talks aboutlike we are renewed by that, we are
transformed by the renewing of our mind.
So we have to change ourmind about these things.
So the idea is like this, it's likewe're sitting there, let's use that fear.
I'm gonna try to turn my body.
We use that fear idea.
It's like I'm sitting hereagreeing that fear is helping.
Fear is helping.
Fear is helping.
I have an epiphany because just likeSecond Corinthians seven says, it's
(49:02):
like I have this grief in my life.
You can have godly grief or worldly grief.
Godly grief leads to repentance,which leads to salvation.
And then I love this words.
These words without regret.
As to where worldly grief leadsto death, what kind of death?
Spiritual death.
So in this moment, I'mdying a spiritual death.
I'm feeling worldly grief becauseI feel bad about what I'm doing,
(49:22):
but it's not leading to anything.
And so the upgrade of Christ inour lives is we get to feel a
different grief, a godly grief.
I now look at this and Igo, fear's not helping.
That's revelation.
Either through the word throughteaching or through the Holy
Spirit saying, I got a better way.
And we, after that revelation, we nowwe repent, we change our thinking,
(49:44):
and we turn from fear back to God.
And so that change of thinkingbrings us now to what?
This is not your best for me.
God, I'm turning from thisand I'm turning back to you.
Why?
Because you have a better way.
So my repentance is my turning frommy sin, not my asking for forgiveness.
(50:05):
So now that there's been repentance,and I'll cover this in just a second,
don't hang on to that one phrase.
If you have like a two secondreel of this podcast, don't have
me not asking for forgiveness.
Don't make that the reel.
But now that we're standing here,having turned from our sin and looking
at the Lord again saying, Lord, Irecognize that's not your best for me.
(50:25):
I see it for what it is.
And I'll pray you guysthrough this in just a minute.
At least give you an opportunity if youwanna pray through the four s today.
But this idea of going,now I'm back to the truth.
What's the truth?
God, you have a better way for me.
So that's repentance.
It's not just feeling bad.
It's not like this self-mutilation,spiritually of, of condemning self.
That's not repentance.
(50:46):
Repentance is a changing about what webelieve and turning back to the goodness
of God who has a plan for our lives.
So next after we've repented, then wecome to this receiving God's forgiveness.
So first John one, nine, if weconfess our sins, he's faithful and
just to forgive us our sins and tocleanse us from all unrighteousness.
So the way I always say it is like ifyou open this book and you think about
(51:06):
this as God's invitation or his lovestory to mankind, God spoke first on
the topic of relationship with man.
What he said is, if you confessyour sins, I'm faithful to forgive.
So seek us out.
None of us were around when thosewords were penned or when they were
actually put into place by Christ.
We gotta lean on what's alreadythere, which means when we got into a
(51:30):
relationship with Jesus, we got into anunderstanding that's the understanding.
So I'm not coming to Godsaying, will you forgive me?
He's already answered that question.
Now I've already confessed andturned in this repentance step.
So it's not unacknowledged sin, it'sjust simply the place where we go.
Now I'm leaning on my relationshipwith Jesus and the things that I'm
(51:51):
promised as one of his childrenthat when I confess, he forgives.
So I'm coming now saying, Jesus,I receive what you've told me
as mine because I'm your child.
And so as your child in the uniquerelationship I have with a spiritual
father, I am understanding thatforgiveness and I'm receiving it.
And then I always have peoplemake the same statement.
(52:12):
I receive it as a free gift.
I will not try to earn my forgiveness.
And that those first twosteps repent and receive.
We've done business with the Lord.
So now it's time to do businesswith the enemy, and that's
where we step in and we rebuke.
So that's James four, seven.
Submit yourselves, thereforeto God, resist the devil
and he will flee from you.
(52:33):
So I've had people argue before,well, my obedience is how I resist.
Okay, that's fine.
But the Bible has way too robust anunderstanding about how we have to
rebuke, we have to move against, wehave to continue to wage war in the
heavenly places, but just obediencebeing the only way we do that.
So I pushed back and just said, wehave to be willing to out loud rebuke
(52:55):
the enemy, which by the way, we seeall the time through the scriptures
with Jesus and the disciples.
The same thing in, uh, Luke nine.
The disciples go out,they cast demons out.
They, Luke 10 72 followers that aren'tdisciples go out and move in authority.
And that's where we get the, I saw Satanfalling from heaven like lightning,
and they came back and said, eventhe demons obey us in your name.
(53:18):
This isn't apostolic authority.
This is followers of Christ likeyou and me, using the authority
that they've been given to rebukethe enemy and to bring the kingdom.
So we're trying to bring kingdomreality into these places and see
these strongholds dismantled andthat topos or that place given
back to God to make fruitful.
And that's why the last step wecome in with is the replace step.
(53:41):
Galatians two 20, I've been crucifiedwith Christ is no longer I who live
but Christ who lives in me and thelife that I now live in the flesh.
I live by faith in the son of Godwho loved me and gave himself for me.
So we're coming in and replacing theold, and we're living new life in Christ.
We're speaking the truth of what's true.
Well, fear is not helpingme, Lord, you will lead me.
(54:03):
You will guide me, you willprotect me, you'll restore me.
I was never promised perfect protection.
I was promised perfect restoration.
I will get beat up on earth.
That's why Jesus says, in this worldyou'll have tribulation, but take
heart, I've overcome the world.
So the promise isn't perpetual safety.
It's perfect restoration.
(54:24):
Time and time again,you will get battered.
When you've gotten better.
Don't worry, I've overcome the world.
Just keep coming back and I'mgonna continue to restore you.
But it's essentially Jesussaying the world sucks.
Mm-hmm.
And you're
gonna get that all over you.
And when you do come home,child, I'll clean you up.
Yeah.
So that's the
invitation of it.
So,
and I like the fact that you, the laststep is replaced because I, I speak a
(54:47):
lot about truth and the only way thatwe can manage through these strongholds
is to recognize there's an enemy and torecognize that he's constantly lying to
us and trying to deceive us about whatwe think the substance is gonna give us.
Totally.
The matter of fact, Russin, Idon't know if you know this, I
developed an acronym called Lie LIE.
(55:09):
Yeah.
And it's look Intercept Explorer.
So it's, look at the story you're tellingyourself and identify its false nature.
Awesome.
Intercept that thought witha vision of your future self,
the one that God created.
Good.
And explore alternative activitiesuntil the craving goes away.
(55:32):
Yeah.
And so people like can process it, lookintercept, explore, but then when they
see the substance or think about thesubstance, then you're just go lie.
Yeah.
Lie.
Yeah, totally.
And um, the other cool thing aboutthat, I mean, again, and we could do
another podcast right, through Ephesiansand the the Armor of God, but what is
(55:52):
the first the first piece of armor?
Yeah.
It's the belt of truth.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so we all, and and that kindof wraps everything up for us here
because what do we do with this?
What do we do with allthat we've heard today?
Yeah.
And I think what we'rehearing and agreeing on is
we need to be in God's word.
(56:13):
We need to understand the truth.
Yeah.
We need to understand that thereis a formidable enemy who is
just continually working Yeah.
At trying to redirect our focus on him
without a doubt.
Yeah.
And and the other thing that youmentioned we need to get for,
(56:34):
you know, the audience is varied.
Those who haven't done anything aboutit but want to do something or those
that are in the process of doing itand are still struggling and what you
mentioned, finding an accountabilitygroup, a partner, a small group somewhere
where you're taking what's hiding inthe darkness and put it into the light.
(56:57):
Yeah.
And you're not gonna win the battle.
In your head
promise?
No.
That's what, yeah.
I always tell people likethat train's got two tracks.
You know, a recovered life hastwo tracks and it's gonna be
a conscious contact with God.
You've gotta be pursuing Christ andyou've gotta be around a community
that struggles like you struggle.
And I've seen people try todo recovery life without one
(57:18):
of the sides of the track.
It's the Jesus will doeverything for me and I'm healed.
Mm-hmm.
And then they eventually get to aturn where this track doesn't exist.
They go, life goes this way,and the train tumbles off.
I've watched people try to do itwithout the higher power and it's just
all recovery and it's the same result.
This side of the track's gone.
Life goes this way andthe train tumbles off.
(57:40):
You kind of gotta have both.
And I think, I, I spend a lot oftime in recovery settings and at
the end of the day the people who Isee flourishing say the same thing.
Addicts are the lucky ones.
Because we had something that wasgonna end our lives if we didn't
get on top of it and truly submitourselves to a higher power.
And I sit in places where I hear peoplesay, I feel really bad for people
(58:02):
who don't have that in their lives.
Right.
'cause nothing's forcingthem to defeat of God.
Yeah.
The word, the word of God comes alivefor people with addictions or Yeah.
Any kind of strongholds,because Preston, I'm trying to,
I don't wanna say normalize, but I, I,you know, I have a slightly different
(58:26):
aspect of how I manage this, but yeah.
Alcohol substances, statisticallyit's almost one in five.
Yeah, one in five.
So let's just add on top of that.
I don't know.
Pornography, gambling, shopping, gaming.
Yeah.
Cell phone.
Right.
We're, we're up to 60%.
(58:47):
We shouldn't feel like we're the onlyones battling something unless, no.
The reality is like humannature exhaustively is to cope
in some way, shape, or form
with something other than God.
Yeah.
If you take it outside of all thethings you just listed and beyond,
human nature is to create idols.
(59:08):
We love to find things to worship,and we love to create our own
because then we can control them.
Which of course is hysterical becauseyou go, man, you have got lightning in a
bottle, that thing's gonna blow you up.
Like anything you createeventually ends up like.
Anything you end up worshipingeventually, like you, you get it
(59:30):
to go, to make you feel better.
And eventually it's gonna,you're gonna be worshiping it.
It's not worshiping you.
No, it's not making you feel better.
It's actually taking your life apart.
Amen.
So, so we're gonna end with, um,I'm gonna end with Galatians five
one and you can end in prayer.
But Galatians five one I love forthe purpose of what we're discussing.
Yeah.
I'm using the NIB version.
(59:52):
It is for freedom that Christ set us free.
Yeah.
Stand firm then, and do not let yourselvesbe burdened again, by a yoke of slavery.
Yeah.
And I like that stand firm becausethat, that's about resisting temptation.
Yeah.
And do not be burdened again, becauseif you're walking this path Right.
(01:00:16):
Don't be burdened again by whatI call psychological slavery.
Um, totally.
Um.
And, uh, yeah, this isa, this is a life verse.
Memorize it.
Yeah.
Rustin.
Thank you very much and I'm just gonnaask you to close us out in prayer.
Yeah.
Happy to pray for us.
So, Lord, just thank you.
Pray for anybody who's listening tothis right now, that, Lord, if there's
(01:00:36):
breakthrough, that kind of needs to behad kind of some walkthrough in some
of these areas, maybe for a little bitdeeper dive might be that sermon or just
getting with somebody who can kind ofwalk 'em through some of these things.
But just pray that for those who arestruggling, who are feeling stuck, who
are having a tough time finding their wayout, they know all of the right things.
They've, they've done all of the rightthings, but are still struggling.
This spiritual component, likeI said, this is usually the
(01:00:57):
last inner healing on the block.
They've tried the physical, they'vetried the emotional, they've tried
the relational, and yet there's stillsomething that's weighing 'em down.
So, Lord, just pray forbreakthrough for those individuals.
My heart is heavy for them.
Uh, just pray that youwould use your holy word.
Your teachings around whatyou long to set, three.
It's a move in the lives ofthose who would here this time.
(01:01:18):
We just thank you for the way youwork in our lives and your ever
present hand offering restoration.
We love you.
We say this in your name.
Amen.
Amen.
Restin, and thank you again.
You bet.
the enemy is like a strongholdwhen he comes in and sets one
(00:04):
up, it's like a spiritual cancer.
And spiritual cancerdoesn't stay in one place.
It goes metastatic.
And so it starts with fear, tocontrol, to anxiety, to shame.
And then, by the way, because we canhave honest conversations about this
on this podcast, it requires a crazyamount of coping to try and compress
(00:24):
all the things that I just described.
And so bring on the addiction, right?
And we start to cope either throughprocess or through chemical,
(01:20):
Hey everyone.
Welcome to another episode of theSay Goodbye and Imagine podcast.
I have a very special guest with me today.
His name is Pastor, or his name isRustin Roselo and he is a teaching
pastor at Scottsdale Bible Church,which just so happens to be my church.
(01:41):
And I invited Rustin onto the podcastepisode today because, well, he,
he understands the struggles thatwe talk about on this podcast all
the time with respect to alcohol.
I'll give him an opportunityto share his testimony on that.
But Ruston did a sermonback in May of 2023.
(02:03):
Now that's how.
Much of an impact it had on me.
But this sermon was aboutspiritual battles and strongholds
and it was so powerful and he.
Felt called to do more than just asermon, to invite people back in case they
wanted to understand a little bit moreabout spiritual battles and strongholds.
(02:26):
And I think to everybody's surprise,he ended up having an audience of about
2000 people show up is a surprise.
That's out of a church of roughly, Ithink they're 10,000 online and on campus.
So one out of five and so it's a big deal.
People really heard that, and Iwant you guys to hear this too.
(02:50):
The focus of the sermon wasreminding us that while we're here
on earth, the battles we fightare not physical, but spiritual.
And I can't think of any better subjectmatter to apply this to then ha when
we have problems with substances.
And so I wanna share a coupleof verses before we get started.
(03:12):
Yeah.
The one of 'em is one that Rustinwill definitely talk about.
John 10 10 and ESV.
The thief comes only tosteal and kill and destroy.
I came that they may havelife and have it abundantly.
And then my favorite verseto pay attention to is also
(03:34):
found in one Peter five, eight.
Be sober minded.
Be watchful because your adversary,the devil, p prowls around like
a roaring lion seeking to some,seeking someone to devour.
Yeah.
And I know that this audiencereally resonates with these things.
Yeah.
Because when we are not sober minded,the enemy just takes full control of all
(03:57):
of our behaviors and we feel trapped.
Yeah.
I call, I call it, I like tocall it psychological slavery.
Yeah.
Anyway today Rustin is gonna help usunderstand what really is a stronghold.
Mm-hmm.
What is it and how does it work?
How does the enemy slowly.
Lure us into stealing, killing, anddestroying everything about who we
(04:21):
are and who we were created to be.
And finally, he is gonna help usexpose the enemy's tactics and walk
through the biblical battle planfor victory using four Rs, which are
repent, receive, rebuke, and replace.
Yeah.
So Rustin, with all of that, welcome tothe podcast and thank you for being here.
(04:42):
Thanks for having me.
I appreciate it.
Awesome.
'cause I know how busy you are.
That's good.
Pause.
Good.
Rustin, I want people to connect withyou first and foremost by your story.
Okay.
When I heard you share it for thefirst time, I welled up in tears.
And I would love for you to gift peoplewith the, your story of redemption really.
(05:07):
So I'll just, I mean, we got alot of ground to cover today,
so I'll give, uh, I'll do kindof the, the 10,000 foot version.
Um.
I'll say some things in this thatI just wanna give you guys context
of kind of where I'm coming from,but, um, I'll say some pretty heavy
things, but I'll say them quickly.
Um, it doesn't mean that they'renot important or if you've
experienced these things, I don'twant them to sound flippant.
(05:29):
But kind of hitting them quickly.
Grew up in a Christian home.
So I grew up going to church.
Life got complicated early for me.
I was molested at age fiveby a 16-year-old mentally
handicapped boy at church.
And so I became really afraid I becameyou know, we all have responses to fear.
They're all different.
I became kind of the people pleaser,peacemaker, get everybody to like me guy.
(05:52):
So through athletics and kind of beingfunny, that was kind of my combo and that
kind of, you know, rocked me through life.
Um, you know, junior high wasfunny just because I got to junior
high and by the time I got there,all of a sudden it was like.
I felt totally at home because it'sjunior high where everybody starts to
feel weird about sex in their bodies.
And I'd felt weird about sex inmy body since I was six years old.
(06:14):
So I was like, well, at leastwe're all on the same page now.
So this was a breeze for me.
But through high school, same thing.
Athletics, getting people to like me,girlfriends needing so much affection and
approval from others just to feel whole.
And so, it's the typical life cycle thatkind of produces a lot of need for things.
Came into about 20 years old, foundalcohol, um, really met a best
(06:39):
friend in that that was such a call.
It a wonderful thing that all of asudden I I had the ability to call
it, kind of make the noise go away.
There was something that seemed to sortof calm all those scary inner voices.
Uh, and I felt numbing for the first time.
And that was a really blessed event.
(06:59):
I had messed with alcoholprior to that because this is.
Probably gonna shock no one.
I had some addiction in my familybackground and so, um, I kind of went
through it a again, turbo through college.
Um, I had some really wild years whereI just powered through Old Town and I
mean, I, I hit old town, like a waist highfastball and I went really, really hard.
(07:20):
For a couple of years.
Met this super great Christian galwhere you meet all great Christian
gals at a hole in the wall, tequilabar in Old Town Scottsdale, which
is where we were both working.
Despite every possible reason whywe shouldn't have been together,
we ended up falling in love.
And I kind of knew how tospeak the Christian game.
I spoke it, uh, I kind of, I. If youwill just kind of lulled her into,
(07:42):
all right, this guy's got a lot ofpromise and she took great care of me.
And then you know, we got marriedand it no sooner we gotten married
than it started to fall apart.
And that was kind of how itstarted for the first two and a
half years was you know, she hadlearned to cry herself to sleep.
And I had learned todrink myself to sleep.
I was devastated by whata terrible husband I was.
I'd been looking forward to beinga husband for a really long time.
(08:03):
And then.
Once I got into the nuts and thebolts of it with no understanding of
kind of what my actual call it, jobdescription was based on the things that
she actually needed from me, not thethings that I wanted her to need from
me because I was good at them, uh, whichI think is how narcissism functions
and as addicts, uh, we can tend to bereally great narcissists sometimes.
(08:24):
And so, I spent a lot of time trying toconvince her that the things that I was
good at were the things that she needed.
Mm-hmm.
Um,
rather than attentively and sacrificiallyresponding to the needs that she
actually had because the needs that sheactually had, I sucked at providing for.
So the amount of shame that thatproduced in me just continued to
require, and it's not her fault.
(08:44):
I just, I wasn't doingmy job as a husband.
Two and a half years, it went on that way.
Uh, my drinking had gotten tosome pretty aggressive points.
By the time we kind of hit a, a reallysticking point, she had gotten so
wiped out through this about eightmonths before the bomb went off.
And I had to make some changes.
She prayed a crazy prayer, which wasvery simply like, Hey, change his
heart or Get me outta this marriage.
(09:06):
And for eight months sheleft me completely alone.
And, uh, I basically drank myself,uh, solid for eight straight months.
I was either hungover ordrunk for that entire time.
Typical story of implosion, uh, bignight led to problem after problem after.
And we ended up back at myhouse with a bunch of people.
And my rock bottom was thatnight I ended up sleeping with
(09:27):
somebody who wasn't my wife.
My call it my pathway, thatlife was on came to an end.
And I woke up the next morning alonein my home on a bathroom floor.
Couldn't reconcile who I was.
So it was at that point where I alwayskinda say the first miracle that
God really worked in my life was hestripped all the calluses away that
(09:48):
I had put on my heart for the last 10years that I'd been running from him.
'cause I kind of checked out a churchand like leading a godly life somewhere
around 17 and now I was 27 and I waslaying there and I came to this conclusion
of like, I couldn't face who I'd become.
I think that's the bottom a lot of usfind ourselves at where you go, oh,
I can't really live this way anymore.
(10:09):
And so you have this devastating thing.
And having had an experience thatwas positive when I was younger with
a higher power, I had to come home.
But the problem was I was stuck with,I don't really know how to do life
with you because that was my earlychildhood and I could never figure
out the grace based relationship.
I always did that me perform,you're disappointed me
(10:30):
perform, you're disappointed.
Which is not at all how the Bible portraysGod, but I sat there and was like, so
I don't know how to do life with you.
And the last 10 years has shown me, Idon't know how to do life without you.
I think I'm just done doing life.
And that was where we did this suicidalwrestling match on the bathroom floor.
And I had this profound discussion withGod that kind of led me to, Hey, I, I'm
coming home and I'm ready to see you.
(10:51):
And I, I, I wouldn't claimanybody else as my God, but I
don't wanna be down here anymore.
And so we kind of made a deal, me and Godafter he nudged me a little bit with like,
Hey, why don't you gimme one more shot?
And it was kind of a, alright, I'll giveyou three days, I'll give you till Monday.
And like jokingly now I kind of go, God'sgood at this three day thing, right?
Like good Freddy to Easter.
So,
you
know, it's taken me a lot of years toscrew my life up, but you can have 72
(11:13):
hours to give me some semblance of hope.
And I lied to my wife onMonday morning when I got up.
She came home.
The guilt and shame was immeasurable.
Like I couldn't barely function.
So I, I, I got up on Monday morning,I drove to my office and I Googled
something at my office early thatmorning that I'd never Googled
before, which was Scottsdale aa.
And I got up, grabbed my keys.
(11:33):
'cause I remember looking at 'em andI remember going, you're either gonna
grab your keys and you're gonna go dosomething about this or you're gonna die.
This is gonna take your life.
And I got up and I drove down to the gofor it number two meeting at Scottsdale
and Shey, which is hilarious because Iended up walking into my first AA meeting
about 500 yards from where I now pastor.
And so that was kind of a funny littlefingerprint that the Lord stuck on there.
(11:56):
But I'll never forget walking into myfirst meeting and 150 year old woman
with bright armchair patted me on theback and just was like, Hey, come on in.
We won't bite.
And I just remember sittingthere going, ah, what am I doing?
And so made it through the meeting.
They did the typical, Hey, isthis anybody's first day meeting?
I was like, well.
I'm probably gonna put a bulletin my head this afternoon.
So, yep.
(12:17):
It's my first meeting.
And so they're like, well,have you drank today?
No, I haven't had adrink since Friday night.
Well come on but up and get a chip.
And I'm like, I don't know what a chip is.
Like, I'm not hungry.
I don't, what are we doing here?
And so they gave me a 24 hour chip.
I stuffed it in my pocket, I walkedoutta the meeting when it was done.
This really sweet guy who now goes toour church named Steve, Steve rolls
(12:37):
in and you know, right afterward,shakes my hand, Hey, great to see you.
And he said, Hey man, it'sgreat to have you here.
We'll see you tomorrow.
And I'm like, oh, is thisnot like a once a week thing?
And he goes, oh, good question.
How often did you drink?
And I said, I drink every day.
And he goes, we'll see you tomorrow.
And it was like, shoot,how am I gonna hide this?
So I go back to work a mess, and atone o'clock that afternoon, my wife
walks into my office, stands in thedoorway, and just looks at me and
(12:58):
goes, um, something happened and you'regonna tell me what it is right now.
And so I said, well, grab a seat.
I lied to you this morning.
I didn't go to a Biblestudy like I told you I did.
I went to my first a meetingand I'm an alcoholic.
I'd never said it before.
And there was a bunch of times in mystory where particularly for the first
90 days, God spoke to me through me,where like I would say something and
(13:22):
I was like, Bo, that's so true, butI've never had that thought before.
But it just came out andI said, I'm an alcoholic.
And I went, oh, that's true.
And it felt like forever.
But she looked at me right awayand said, I'm so proud of you.
And I just remember like, oh gosh.
(13:42):
And I said, well, before you go get allproud of me, let's talk about what me
being an alcoholic for the first two anda half years of our marriages looked like.
And it felt like it took an hour, butit probably took about 10 minutes.
And she just looked at me and she goes,look, have you ever cheated on me?
And I said, yeah, I have.
And I just started talking and I said,you've been an amazing wife to me and
I have been a disaster of a husband.
(14:03):
I'm not.
I've brought nothing but chaos anddestruction to you in the two and
a half years we've been together.
You should run from me as fastas you can because I've been a
mess to now and I don't know whatit's gonna take to get me sober.
And she just looked at me and I'll neverforget 'cause this changed my life.
She said, where do you want me to go?
You're all I have.
(14:23):
And then she very calmly just lookedat me and she said, Rustin, I don't
know what will look like when this isover, but we're gonna get you sober
and we're gonna get through this.
Hmm.
And I
just remember going and honestlylike Roseanne, the profundity
of what happened in that moment.
I've had 15 years to process.
Now I can tell you what happened now, butin the moment it was just an experience.
(14:44):
It was a feeling.
But what happened was I wasshocked, but it was this like
Rubik's cube of emotions and.
What hit me was this I was lookingat my wife across the desk and
going, I know you're human.
But what hit me the hardest wasif this is the type of love and
(15:06):
forgiveness and grace that God's kidsare capable of, Jesus Christ might
be the God of my wildest dreams.
And that's sort of becomea life motto for me.
And I realized I'd never faced unmeritedundeserved grace and forgiveness because
whether it was what happened to me as akid or this and that, I would've never
(15:26):
said that what I was doing wasn't sinful.
But I would've given you someversion of like, but I think God
understands why I am the way I amand I don't know how to change.
And it would've been kind of that, but itnever forced me to face like his love for
me, having enough nothing to do with me.
Mm-hmm.
It was just
he loved me and this wasavailable because he loved me.
(15:49):
I had to face it that day.
This woman had no reasonto sit in front of me.
She should have been runningfor me, and she wasn't.
And it was like, Jesus is betterthan you, and I don't have a category
for better than you right now.
And for the last 15 years,that's really been the journey.
We've just been walking itout a little bit at a time.
God, in my wildest dreams, um, I'vebeen doing it in recovery in a lot
of different forms and fashions.
(16:10):
I've remained sober and I'vegone from suicidal and drunk on a
bathroom floor to getting to be yourteaching pastor in the last 15 years.
And that has, that has beena wild it's been a wild ride.
That's not something you plan for whenyou're laying on a bathroom floor.
So I always joke with people.
I'm so far into bonus territory atthis point that I don't really have
(16:31):
a category for even the journey andhow far the Lord's brought, brought
me from where I wouldn't even saystarted, but from kind of where I found
myself it was just so devastating.
And so.
God, my wildest dreams.
That's kinda what we, wedo a little bit at a time.
And, um, I think a lot of thatcomes through in my preaching.
There's just a lot of like, Hey,he can, kind of the question
(16:53):
is, are we willing mm-hmm.
Uh, to
put ourself in his hands?
And that's a really hard thing to do.
I think that's why as we walk throughthe steps and we have an admission of
need in step one, we immediately have to,you know, as soon as we admit there's a
problem that's bigger than us, we haveto admit that there's a higher power.
There's a power bigger than us in order tosolve the problem that's bigger than us.
(17:15):
Right?
So
the first two steps of admission arereally putting the human condition
into a hierarchy that admitsdefeat and salvation from defeat.
So
I love the, I love the storyof grace that you described.
I, um.
The audience that I serve primarily Yeah.
Already knows Jesus.
(17:37):
They already have arelationship with Jesus.
Sure.
So they are, what's wrong with me?
Yeah.
Why can't I stop this?
Why can't I quit?
Yeah.
And I love, this is why we're, thisis what we're gonna talk about today.
Right?
Yeah.
You, you can't quit becauseyou're trying to do it.
You, you think this is a, abattle of flesh and blood.
(17:58):
Yeah.
And there is a, a, a formidableenemy out to get you to hide.
Yeah.
The light that you are created to emit.
Yeah.
Like your wife emitted to you.
Yeah.
She showed you a piece of Jesus.
And that's what we're called to do.
I think that the audienceI serve understands that.
(18:19):
Yeah.
They don't know how to get there.
So let's dig in.
Thank you.
Yeah.
Fire away.
So.
One of the most a very profound thingthat you've shared in the sermon.
And by the way, the sermon will I'mgonna link that in the show notes.
Yeah.
So that people can watchit themselves, but Yeah.
Describing what a stronghold is.
(18:40):
Yeah.
What a fortified place is.
Mm-hmm.
I I love that description.
It made sense to me immensely, andI'd love for you to share that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So, uh, we're talking we're talkingsecond Corinthians 10, right.
So it says, the weapons of ourwarfare are good for dismantling
or taking apart strongholds.
And so we have this, this place inthe scriptures where the concept of a
(19:05):
stronghold is being described, but it'sdescribed pretty quickly and then loosely.
So we kind of have to.
Ferret some of this out.
And so if you look at like a robustpresentation of the scriptural evidence,
you start to see all these versesthat kind of start to rise together in
some of these places of, call it likehuman stuckness, like where we get
(19:27):
stuck and how our stuck can function.
So one of the verses that'sreally helpful is when you walk
through that idea of like, okay,here we are, we're in this place.
And it tells us in the scriptures,don't let the sun go down on your anger.
Don't give the enemy a And then dependingon which translation you're working
out of, you're working out of this ideaof don't give the enemy a foothold.
Don't give the enemy an opportunity orthe actual translation of that Greek word.
(19:53):
Topos is a place, so it's actually wherewe get our English word topography.
So if you think about a topographicalmap with all those crazy, you
know, circles and lines on it, andas the circles get tighter, it's
showing an elevation change up.
And as they get.
Like more spread out.
It's showing that there'sa dissipation of elevation.
(20:15):
We're moving down into a flatter area.
So that's topographical map.
So if you think about that,what it's saying is don't give
the enemy a place in your life.
Well, how does a place function?
What would the enemy do with a place?
What we need to realize when we sin, andthis is really hard, sometimes we don't
realize that sin from the beginning inGenesis started with agreement with the
(20:39):
enemy's thing over the Lord's thing.
So right off the bat, when you go toGenesis and you look at the fall in
chapter three, you're looking at evesitting there in the midst of God's
place and God's thing in creation,operating in perfect relationship.
(20:59):
The enemy comes along, who bythe way, had already fallen.
So he's already sinful.
So the accounts that we haveof like him and a third of the
angels falling has already takenplace within the creation order.
And now he steps into earth andis now interacting with Eve.
Now, if we go back to why the enemyfell, he wanted to sit upon the mountain.
(21:22):
He wanted to be the morningstar and to be worshiped.
So the enemy's deepest desireis to always have attention.
Like the most insecure individual everin the cosmos is the first one that fell.
He wanted to be the attention, hewanted to be kind of the primary figure.
So in that, now you have him alluringeve into what, Hey, I've got an idea
(21:45):
for you see that tree over there?
See this idea that God didn't tellyou everything Now, is that true?
Yeah, it is.
It's absolutely true.
Every lie has truth mixed into it.
Otherwise nobody would believe it.
So it's the same way with ourdrinking, which we can get to.
But there's this reality of he basicallysays, Hey, did he tell you this?
(22:08):
Did he tell you that whenthe reality is no, he didn't.
What didn't he tell him?
Well, don't eat of the tree.
Why?
Because when you do,there's disobedience there.
Sin will enter the world.
It'll devastate everything.
Well, God didn't want mankind to know sin.
We just needed to listen to God andnot go through the process of saying,
well, how's it gonna affect me?
So the first thing that happenswhen all of mankind falls is when
(22:32):
Eve says, okay, you know what?
Enemy, Satan, you're ontosomething I want to know.
It takes Eve going, I wantyour thing over God's thing.
So in that agreement, which is a reallykey phrase, we now see this process where
mankind agrees with the enemy over God.
(22:55):
We see sin happen.
And then you see the consequence ofsin because death, decay, corruption,
as it talks about it is now happeningto the entire created order.
And so the process that you're in thereis you go, agreement equals connection,
which gives the enemy authority andit creates a fallen stuck state.
So that's the process and it'sstill playing itself out today.
(23:19):
And so the way that strongholds areformed is kind of the first question.
What does it mean whenwe give the enemy place?
It means we give him authority, places tooperate, places to influence in our lives.
And that authority is howstrongholds are built.
We agree with him.
We give him place.
He then operates from thatplace to expand that place.
(23:40):
So that's why
I, I wanna interrupt you because this is aperfect place to bring in another concept
that you discussed in the sermon, andthat's, that's how cunning he is, right?
Yeah.
He doesn't do things ina, in a big way, right?
Yeah.
He just one little thing at a time.
Absolutely.
One little thing at a time.
(24:01):
And especially in the case ofalcohol, it's so, it's so acceptable.
It's promoted, it's okaybecause it was in the Bible.
God used, you know, wine forour first his first miracle.
Yep.
So acceptable.
And, but the enemy istaking a place That's right.
(24:22):
And telling us a lie about it.
Yeah.
So talk about, uh, you had a,uh, an example about stealing.
Stealing that went along with that.
Do you remember what that was?
Yeah.
So it's like the enemy inJohn 10 10, the enemy is, came
to steal, kill, and destroy.
Okay.
So what is it he'strying to steal from us?
Well, the reality is anything he canget you to agree with, you're now
(24:44):
feeding into, call it his ecosystem.
So when he steps in like the exampleof the enemy stealing from us.
And I think what you're talking aboutis this process of sort of how a
stronghold can progress and get bigger.
Mm-hmm.
And so this, this idea, like when we saythis, like let's use the example of fear.
This, I use this a lot and thisis helpful for people 'cause
(25:06):
a lot of us wrestle with fear.
We just, and we may do it indifferent ways, but like for
some people, fear is like fear ofthe unknown or fear of sickness.
Or for others who call themselvesmaybe a little tougher, they don't
realize how afraid they are to fail.
So fear of failure, or I'mreally afraid that this person
won't like me or this, or that.
Well, welcome to Fear of Man.
(25:26):
So we have all these differentplaces where fear can operate.
So, so let's walk throughthis as an example.
Fear will operate in such a waywhere what we don't realize when we
have a stronghold of fear is thatwe, just like Eve, have actually
said that fear is better than God.
So, like you're saying,fear is better than God.
And as soon as I say that,everyone's like, well, I, I
can shut this podcast off.
(25:47):
Like this guy has no ideawhat he's talking about.
But, but just stick with me for a second.
What happens is, and this is where likethe enemy's defeated, but he's not dumb.
He knows how to trick mankind.
And he's a master manipulator, right?
Lies are his native tongue.
So when you think about this wholelies thing and him, him kind of
working on us, what he comes in andhe does, is he'll, he'll step in and
(26:10):
let's, let's, let me be the devil.
And Roseanne, I'll be workingon you in this scenario.
And so I'll, I'll roll in andI'll be like, Hey, Roseanne.
This really tough thingjust happened to you.
It was by that friend who oh, you'repretty close to, and, and they hurt you.
That kind of caught you off guard.
Now remind me, do you likebeing caught off guard?
I didn't think you likebeing caught off guard.
(26:32):
And so, you know, I've actually got thisthing that's gonna be really helpful.
It's got a really bad rap, butplease hear me out because I
promise, it's not understood.
Well, it's called fear andpeople, people don't like it.
But fear is actually gonna help youbecause it's gonna sit right on the front
of your brain and it's gonna keep aneye out for you of any of these little
surprising things are being caught offguard that could ever happen to you again.
(26:55):
And so I think you and I both agreethat you being prepared, even the Bible
says being prepared is a good thing.
You being prepared is really important.
So you and I can both agree 'cause you'llnod your head along with me on this.
That fear could help you.
Do you agree?
Absolutely.
Great.
And then once fear comes along, the enemycircles back and go, Hey, congratulations.
(27:16):
You've been doing a greatjob staying prepared.
Now that you've been prepared for alittle while and you can see all these
things because you're doing such agreat job, wouldn't you like to be able
to maybe change some of those things?
And I got this great thingover here, it's called control.
And control's gonna help youbecause you're gonna be able to,
now that you see these things outthere, I've got a joystick for you.
(27:36):
Now, he doesn't tell you that.
It's not connected to anything.
He just says, here's a joystick,and you can work this thing.
And you can make these thingsmove around and and control's
like a really, really good thing.
And now that you realize thatthere's so many things to control,
it's kinda overwhelming, isn't it?
Well, there's this thing that comes along.
I forgot to tell you, the side effects.
Anxiety is one of these things thatkind of kicks in after a while.
(27:57):
And don't worry the importance of.
Being on guard and being able to changeyour future are so important that you
shouldn't worry about anxiety too much.
And you know what?
I'm back.
It's been a few months or a few years,or maybe a decade or two, or maybe
your family taught you how to do thissince you were a little kid and you
don't even realize you're doing it.
But now that I'm here again, I just wantyou to know there's actually some passages
(28:19):
in the Bible, Matthew six, that say, worryisn't good, that you shouldn't worry.
And if you remind me, Roseanne,you really like being a good
little Christian girl, don't you?
So the fact that you're indirect disobedience from
God is kind of a problem.
You should be pretty ashamed about that.
And it's a long example.
But what it starts to show us is the enemyis like a stronghold when he comes in and
(28:45):
sets one up, it's like a spiritual cancer.
And spiritual cancerdoesn't stay in one place.
It goes metastatic.
And so it starts with fear, tocontrol, to anxiety, to shame.
And then, by the way, because we canhave honest conversations about this
on this podcast, it requires a crazyamount of coping to try and compress
(29:06):
all the things that I just described.
And so bring on the addiction, right?
And we start to cope either throughprocess or through chemical,
right?
And so that's where like this wholespiritual warfare thing, and, and
this is where like everything I justdescribed is a spiritual reality that's
(29:26):
going on inside us as believers even.
'cause this is not describing anonbeliever, only this is describing us
as believers because like it said, wecan let the sun go down in our anger.
We can have an agreement with theenemy and give topos or place over
to the enemy, even though whatshould our places belong to the Lord?
(29:50):
So just remember, the enemy can'tcreate, he can only co-create or distort,
meaning he can take God's creationand distort it, but he can't create.
That's God's business.
Original creation is God's, and the enemycomes in to distort God's creations.
So what he's trying to comein and do is again, replicate
God or be chosen over God.
So the ultimate simple equation of anystuckness contained around sin in the
(30:14):
human life is this what's being toldThat should be our stronghold God.
He is our stronghold.
He is our rock.
He is our salvation.
Like I could go through scriptureafter scripture that basically
lays all of those things out.
Psalm 18, my God is myrock in whom I take refuge.
He is my shield, the horn of mysalvation, my stronghold, Psalm 94,
(30:36):
the Lord has become my stronghold.
Psalm 27, the Lord is mylight and my salvation.
Whom shall I fear?
The Lord is the stronghold of my life.
So what the enemy's trying todo is step in and say this,
choose my stronghold over his.
Be with me.
Come rest in me, reside in me, worship me.
I'll take better care of you than he will.
So a stronghold is just simply a placewhere, whether it's fear, whether it's
(30:59):
pride, whether it's sexual immorality,whether it's addiction, whether it's
this, whether it's that, or a myriad ofother things, shame, condemnation, fear.
You go through the list.
It's a place where we've saidThis thing will do a better
job for me than that thing.
And the challenge for so many ofthese places, 'cause I hear people
go, oh, I'm just a fearful person.
No you're not.
(31:20):
The Bible literally tells you, you'venot been given a spirit of fear, but
a spirit of power and self discipline.
So we speak the enemy's language,we speak lies over our own lives,
and we start to hamstring ourselvesinto a hopeless, un unviable place.
And then we just start hunkering down forthe long haul into the enemy strongholds.
(31:44):
And I say it this way.
What I see most often is Christiansfighting a spiritual battle in the
physical realm, and they can't figure outwhy they're getting their teeth kicked in.
And so that, and again, there's a, ifwe have more time, if we have, you know,
these sermons are available, right?
We can do a more pride
episode.
But I'm, yeah, I'm, I'm flyingthrough the stuff really quick just
(32:05):
to kinda, kinda wet your appetite alittle bit on the fact that the enemy
wants to come in and he wants yourattention on him, not on the Lord.
So he's a deceiver.
He's a decept.
The verse you said prowlsaround like a roaring lion.
He's looking to devour you.
John.
10, 10, steal, kill, destroy.
(32:25):
Look at me, don't look at him.
Ephesians six.
We don't wrestle against fleshand blood, but against the rulers,
against the authorities, againstthe cosmic powers over this present
darkness against the spiritualforces of evil in heavenly places.
Yeah.
So a
lot of times, even his addicts,like we sit here sometimes and we'll
like look around and we'll go like.
Oh, it's my circumstances.
It's this, it's that any recoveryprogram's gonna look at you and say,
(32:50):
I have a daily reprieve contingentupon my spiritual condition like
I have, I have spiritual characterdefects that I'm working through
to continue to find healing.
And that's where I always submitto people like, regardless of
what recovery looks like for you,you're going to need two things.
You're gonna need to be in aregular conscious contact with God
(33:10):
and you're gonna need to be aroundother people who are also pursuing
God, but limp the way you limp.
Because if you don't have a communitythat you can like regularly talk to,
Hey, there are plenty of people whoI know who love Jesus and can drink
and they can drink in moderation.
Uh, that's not me.
(33:31):
So there are people I gotta get aroundwho I go, Hey, do you got this thing?
I got this, you know, this allergythis, this thing where when I put
alcohol into my body, it seems tojust completely take my life apart.
Like I break out in adultery anda addict like I, any of anybody
else got that allergy going on.
And it's like, yeah.
So those are the places where whenwe get with people who are struggling
the way we're struggling, we can nowstart to look at things differently.
(33:53):
And that's where I see likethe stronghold concept.
That to me is again, the 10,000 footflyover of how do strongholds get formed?
They get formed through agreement,and that's us agreeing with the enemy.
And then what we don't realize isat that point, we give the enemy
authority to come in and have a deeplevel of influence in our lives.
(34:15):
That's the opportunity.
It's once the stronghold is built,once the opportunity is taken
place, the stronghold is present.
And now it's the perfect analogybecause what happens from a stronghold?
A military force comes in and operatesfrom a fortified place, that place now
belongs to the enemy because we gave itto him and it should belong to the Lord.
(34:37):
So it no longer flourishes.
And just like we talked aboutthat area of your life where fear,
control, anxiety, shame, all thesedifferent things are manifesting.
It starts to fall apart.
Right.
So that's kind of the, that's the, likeI said, that's the 10,000 foot view.
No, I love that.
And the difference between yourjourney and mine, especially after I
(34:59):
heard you preach on Sunday you werea believer and then you were like the
prodigal son and left and just kindof said, I'm like done with this.
I was the person in thechurch who loved Jesus who was
maybe giving him topos place.
Yeah.
(35:19):
Believing that God didn't know everything.
Like Yeah.
You know, but God,everybody's doing this, right?
Yeah.
And not understanding theplace I was giving Satan.
And, and now that I can look at it inthe rear view mirror, slowly but surely
(35:40):
over decades didn't happen over years.
Decades.
Yeah.
My life was being stolen.
It was being killed.
It was being destroyed up untilthe point, the same as you,
where I was like, I'm ready.
God, just let's go.
Yeah.
Nothing left.
Let's go.
I'm, I'm ready to call homethe dogs and put out the fire.
(36:01):
So I, I, there's twoteachings I kind of do.
They're very quick around these concepts.
You know, for me it was always easierto take one more step down life's broken
staircase than it was to have to turnaround and start walking towards healing.
So I could always handlea little more pain.
And I was comfortablewith the misery I was in.
But it was terrifying togo to an unknown better.
(36:22):
I was like, I don't, that justsounds like me getting ready to
disappoint a whole lot of people.
'cause eventually I'm gonna fallright back down the staircase.
So you're kind of getting intosome of those realizations.
But the idea of incrementallycoming unraveled is a little bit
of what you're describing there.
Mm-hmm.
And I'll kind of walk people throughthat idea of like, the enemy doesn't
steal everything all at once.
(36:43):
Mm-hmm.
Again,
he's defeated becauseChrist reigned supreme.
He conquered sin, he conquered death.
Everything like we talked aboutin this last week in sermon, we're
talking about that place in Ephesianswhere it's all things have been
put into submission under his feet.
So the enemy is defeated,but he's not dumb.
So the enemy's not gonna show up in yourlife and take everything all at once.
(37:04):
Even though his desire is tosteal, kill, destroy it, he's
gonna steal incrementally.
And the reason being, it'seasy for him to stay hidden.
So he's gonna roll in and just liketake you from a 10 to a nine, nine.
And then kinda like, did you notice?
Alright, alright, let's try 9, 8, 9, 6.
Oh man, what kind of, I don't know.
(37:24):
I'm having a funky season.
You know, I just don't feel like myself.
9, 5 2, oh, now something bad happens.
Let's seize the opportunityto try and get you to hun.
Let's get you to an eight.
And you're like, oh gosh, man.
Oh why did it happen?
We're always so quick, particularlyas a, as western thinking Christians,
we're happy to look at the naturalfirst and for a really long time.
(37:47):
The last thing we're gonnalook at is the supernatural.
We're just, again, we are logicallyminded, naturally minded people who
just want to go, it's my circumstance.
I just lost my dad.
And so I always describelike life's circumstances.
Sometimes, particularly when it's trauma.
I. Trauma's hard, and it doesn'tmatter what the trauma is because
(38:09):
we always make our trauma relativeto other people's trauma instead of
making it relative to our own trauma.
You don't, you don't, using somebodyelse's relative measure doesn't matter.
That's not your life.
Use your life and kind of go,oh no, this is actually really
hard relative to the other thingsthat I've had go on in my life.
So I think that's where we can gettricky sometimes, but that incremental
(38:29):
stealing place is when all of a suddenthe enemy wants to come in and use
trauma and it's, it's not usually thecircumstantial pieces of the trauma.
So I use the analogy, it's not the threefoot fall in the kitchen where you land
on the ground that hurts you because ifyou fell three feet in the kitchen and
you landed on your, your, your butt,you'd pop right back up and be fine.
(38:53):
But in panic, you grab the kitchenknife and it lays your hand in all the
ligaments open, and now you got a 12month recovery through five surgeries.
Trauma's the same way it, the enemy'ssmart, because what he does is he
uses traumatic events and then hetries to just pork belly a ton of
strongholds into those seasons.
And we don't even realize, just likeI said, whether it's the loss of a
(39:15):
family member, whether it's somethingtraumatic with a friend, whether it's
an injustice, whether it's whatever.
The enemy comes in and juststarts dumping stuff into your
fear, anger, shame, condemnation.
So like you look at people who'veexperienced sexual abuse somehow,
they all tend to walk out withthe same condemning thought.
That's totally absurd.
(39:36):
Which is, it's my fault, fault, my fault.
Right.
And you just go like, and again, I getto work with people here and there just
based on some of my testimony pieces,but like, I've had really, really
radical situations where people willcome forward and just spill stuff out.
And I, I have this place whereI just simply have to go like,
lemme see if I get this straight.
Is it okay to abuse people sexually?
(39:58):
No, not at all.
Okay.
Somebody did that to you.
That's right.
Okay.
And you're at fault for that.
Right.
And you can just sort of see, likecognitively, they can't, they can't get
the gears to sink up on, on, on thatequation, but somehow they know deep down.
But it's still true for me.
(40:20):
And it literally takes likesome prayer and some unwinding.
And typically when I start, because I'll,like, I'll speak at something, you know,
at, at different events and you know,I just did like a speaking event up at
GCU Young Life recently and I did havea student come down and, and, and opened
up just about some, some really, reallyawful, um, abuse that they'd gone through.
And again, I mean, you're talkingabout this will take years to
(40:41):
unravel and God is good and hewill walk this journey with you.
And the good news of it will take years isthat the Lord's not gonna put you through
everything you need to go through tonight,because if he did, it would devastate you.
So it's out of kindness that theLord gives us time to unravel these
tight knots of trauma, particularlywhen they've sat for decades.
The first thing that I do with peopleis to try and just kind of walk through
(41:04):
some semblance of at least getting themto tell me that this wasn't their fault.
Right?
Saying,
I can see this.
I can affirm this.
As somebody who's experienced traumain this area, I don't ever compare
trauma one to the other, but to justsay, in my own life, I had to come
to the recognition where I had tosay out loud, this wasn't my fault.
(41:25):
Is that somewhere where youthink you and I could go tonight?
And just trying to break some of thatground up where the enemy has fortified
it, because now all of a sudden they'restruggling with condemnation, but
they're looking at the circumstancesof the problem and you're like the
circumstance, or again, flesh and blood.
It's not flesh and blood.
(41:45):
It's.
All of these cosmic spiritual powers thatthey're wrestling with under condemnation,
shame, inferiority, insecurity, isolation.
These are all things that the enemyjust wants to import into our lives.
And then again, the event may behorrible, but like in the instance of
my life, like the event itself was,and again, I don't say this lightly, I
(42:06):
just, I've had 15 years to process mysexual abuse or, I, I've had a lot of
years to do it and I've done a lot ofintense counseling, but at one point
a counselor asked me wonderfully.
So help me understand Rustin, where doyou think the abuse that you experienced
arrives or exists on a spectrum of abuse?
Which was super helpful for me becauseby the time I came to the conclusion, he
(42:29):
was like, you know, on the light end, itcould be somebody who was walked into a
bathroom and saw you and probably lingeredfor a minute more than they should have.
And that, that would qualifyas like an a sexual intrusion.
All the way to something horrificlike being ritualistically abused
by a family member for decades,you know, type where do you, and
I kind of said, I, I don't know.
And I kind of put it on the scale andsaid, I, I think it was kind of here,
(42:52):
but it was kind of, you know, callit somewhere in the middle and, and
he said, I can accept that Reston.
I think that may be good.
Does that feel comfortable for you?
It was a wonderful process that I gotto walk through because it allowed
me a place to sort of go, I knowwhat I'm dealing with, I know what
it wasn't, and I know what it wasn't.
And I'm finding my subtleness.
(43:12):
It allowed me to sort of go, okay, I.
Now I can start a healing process onceI know what that is, but it kind of
severed some of the enemy's abilitybecause this is what truth does.
Amen.
It severed
the enemy, abil, enemy's ability tostart going, oh man, yours wasn't
anything at all and it was your faultand it was this and it was that.
And you just start torealize some of that.
And God's really good.
(43:33):
I mean, I got to a point with my sonwho it's really sweet when you have
kids sometimes, because I got thisat the time when my son turned five.
And it was really powerful becauseI remember looking at him and
in your head, you always believeyou're way more mature than you are.
So I always thought that five-year-oldkid probably had a lot more to do with
(43:56):
that event than than he really did.
And all of a sudden I had this littlefive-year-old kid running around
my house and he looked like me.
And the Lord just hit meone day when I went Uhoh.
He couldn't have knownand neither did you.
It was so restorative to look acrossthe room at this little boy who looked
just like I did, and go, oh Lord,
(44:20):
it was not my problem.
He wouldn't, he wouldn't have known.
Mm-hmm.
And again, that's theredemptive nature of the Lord.
So we look at all these thingswe're fighting that the enemy
wants to incrementally steal fromus and continue that process.
And what breaks my heart so many timesis, and the reason I'm passionate about
this, this teaching and the, and justwhat the scripture has to say about
(44:40):
strongholds and freedom in Christ.
'cause the goal isn't tounderstand strongholds.
The goal is to find freedom in Christ.
Amen.
When we walk and we're gonna,
we're gonna end withGalatians five one, trust me.
Yeah.
And so when we, when
we look at that, I think that's theprocess that we have to see is that
that incremental stealing, whetherit's in lies that we believe like it's
my fault, or, I have to have this, orI can never get away from addiction
(45:02):
or alcohol, or I was made this way.
We have to remember this is,people have probably heard
this, but it's worth repeating.
Guilt says, what I did was wrong.
Shame said, who I am is wrong.
Yeah.
Shame is an identity attack.
And the enemy's primary attack in us isto help us not identify, not identify
our sin, but to identify as our sin.
(45:24):
So it's a difference between, Itold a lie and you are a liar.
It's a difference between I did abroken thing and I'm a broken person.
Meaning like, I'm unredeemable, I'm,so again, that's some of the places
where we can get really, really stuck.
And I do think it's worth kind ofsettling into some of those ideas
just to dig around and sort of go,all right, what do we do from here?
Yeah.
I, I agree.
(45:44):
Lots to, lots to process.
So we need to get into thefour Rs pretty quickly.
Yeah.
But before I do, I do wanna, I wannahave a careful transition, especially
given the conversation we just had.
Yeah.
Um, because a lot of people turnto substances because of horrific
(46:05):
things that happen to them.
Yeah.
They don't they don't know howto go, they don't know how to
process and they use a substance.
And then the substance steals,kills and destroys, uh, and takes
and takes everything from them.
So we wanna get rid of strongholds.
I always try to havecompassion with people.
(46:26):
Uh, I I deal with a lot ofthe the population you do.
Yeah.
Here a lot of the, I. I justlike, I hear so much of it.
I can't believe it.
I like I was molested as a child.
Yeah.
It's just so, it's more commonthan any of us even Yeah.
Totally.
Begin to understand.
Yeah.
But I try and say you use the substanceto self-medicate, but that's right.
(46:51):
This wasn't, so where do wecarefully start with the four rss?
Because what I don't want somebody to,to do, I, I want people to recognize that
Satan has taken, has, has distracted them.
Yeah.
That God has a better plan.
(47:11):
Right.
Where do we start?
How do we start with those four Rs?
Yeah.
Um, yeah.
So the, the question at the rootof it is, okay, strongholds exist.
We've seen that.
Now what do I do?
This would be the worst podcast ever ifwe just turned it off right now, because
it's like, how do I, you've, you've maybe,maybe you've convinced me I'm stuck.
How do I get unstuck?
(47:32):
How do I dismantle a spiritualagreement or stronghold in my life?
And so we look at it, we've gotta takethe idea, and, and all of these are
gonna be biblical concepts, right?
Repenting, receiving forgiveness.
The idea of rebuking the enemy or usingour authority that we have in Christ
to press through and to stand againstthe devil who is our adversary, right?
(47:57):
And then the idea ofreplacing it with truth.
So if, if we break 'em downreal quick just one after
the other, repentance, right?
So Acts three 19 says, repenttherefore, and turn back, but
your sins may be blotted out.
When we think about repentance, alot of time we think of repentance
as God, will you forgive me?
That's actually not what repentance means.
Repentance is a two part Greek word.
(48:18):
It's meta noo, or meta to change.
Noo to think.
So it means to change yourthinking or to change your mind.
And if you think about, particularlywith a lot of us who wrestle with
addiction, we had to change our thinking.
Mm-hmm.
We had to
literally come in and start recognizing,oh, I need to change the way I
think about this whole thing andthe lies that we were believing.
(48:39):
So that idea is profound.
And just like Romans talks aboutlike we are renewed by that, we are
transformed by the renewing of our mind.
So we have to change ourmind about these things.
So the idea is like this, it's likewe're sitting there, let's use that fear.
I'm gonna try to turn my body.
We use that fear idea.
It's like I'm sitting hereagreeing that fear is helping.
Fear is helping.
Fear is helping.
I have an epiphany because just likeSecond Corinthians seven says, it's
(49:02):
like I have this grief in my life.
You can have godly grief or worldly grief.
Godly grief leads to repentance,which leads to salvation.
And then I love this words.
These words without regret.
As to where worldly grief leadsto death, what kind of death?
Spiritual death.
So in this moment, I'mdying a spiritual death.
I'm feeling worldly grief becauseI feel bad about what I'm doing,
(49:22):
but it's not leading to anything.
And so the upgrade of Christ inour lives is we get to feel a
different grief, a godly grief.
I now look at this and Igo, fear's not helping.
That's revelation.
Either through the word throughteaching or through the Holy
Spirit saying, I got a better way.
And we, after that revelation, we nowwe repent, we change our thinking,
(49:44):
and we turn from fear back to God.
And so that change of thinkingbrings us now to what?
This is not your best for me.
God, I'm turning from thisand I'm turning back to you.
Why?
Because you have a better way.
So my repentance is my turning frommy sin, not my asking for forgiveness.
(50:05):
So now that there's been repentance,and I'll cover this in just a second,
don't hang on to that one phrase.
If you have like a two secondreel of this podcast, don't have
me not asking for forgiveness.
Don't make that the reel.
But now that we're standing here,having turned from our sin and looking
at the Lord again saying, Lord, Irecognize that's not your best for me.
(50:25):
I see it for what it is.
And I'll pray you guysthrough this in just a minute.
At least give you an opportunity if youwanna pray through the four s today.
But this idea of going,now I'm back to the truth.
What's the truth?
God, you have a better way for me.
So that's repentance.
It's not just feeling bad.
It's not like this self-mutilation,spiritually of, of condemning self.
That's not repentance.
(50:46):
Repentance is a changing about what webelieve and turning back to the goodness
of God who has a plan for our lives.
So next after we've repented, then wecome to this receiving God's forgiveness.
So first John one, nine, if weconfess our sins, he's faithful and
just to forgive us our sins and tocleanse us from all unrighteousness.
So the way I always say it is like ifyou open this book and you think about
(51:06):
this as God's invitation or his lovestory to mankind, God spoke first on
the topic of relationship with man.
What he said is, if you confessyour sins, I'm faithful to forgive.
So seek us out.
None of us were around when thosewords were penned or when they were
actually put into place by Christ.
We gotta lean on what's alreadythere, which means when we got into a
(51:30):
relationship with Jesus, we got into anunderstanding that's the understanding.
So I'm not coming to Godsaying, will you forgive me?
He's already answered that question.
Now I've already confessed andturned in this repentance step.
So it's not unacknowledged sin, it'sjust simply the place where we go.
Now I'm leaning on my relationshipwith Jesus and the things that I'm
(51:51):
promised as one of his childrenthat when I confess, he forgives.
So I'm coming now saying, Jesus,I receive what you've told me
as mine because I'm your child.
And so as your child in the uniquerelationship I have with a spiritual
father, I am understanding thatforgiveness and I'm receiving it.
And then I always have peoplemake the same statement.
(52:12):
I receive it as a free gift.
I will not try to earn my forgiveness.
And that those first twosteps repent and receive.
We've done business with the Lord.
So now it's time to do businesswith the enemy, and that's
where we step in and we rebuke.
So that's James four, seven.
Submit yourselves, thereforeto God, resist the devil
and he will flee from you.
(52:33):
So I've had people argue before,well, my obedience is how I resist.
Okay, that's fine.
But the Bible has way too robust anunderstanding about how we have to
rebuke, we have to move against, wehave to continue to wage war in the
heavenly places, but just obediencebeing the only way we do that.
So I pushed back and just said, wehave to be willing to out loud rebuke
(52:55):
the enemy, which by the way, we seeall the time through the scriptures
with Jesus and the disciples.
The same thing in, uh, Luke nine.
The disciples go out,they cast demons out.
They, Luke 10 72 followers that aren'tdisciples go out and move in authority.
And that's where we get the, I saw Satanfalling from heaven like lightning,
and they came back and said, eventhe demons obey us in your name.
(53:18):
This isn't apostolic authority.
This is followers of Christ likeyou and me, using the authority
that they've been given to rebukethe enemy and to bring the kingdom.
So we're trying to bring kingdomreality into these places and see
these strongholds dismantled andthat topos or that place given
back to God to make fruitful.
And that's why the last step wecome in with is the replace step.
(53:41):
Galatians two 20, I've been crucifiedwith Christ is no longer I who live
but Christ who lives in me and thelife that I now live in the flesh.
I live by faith in the son of Godwho loved me and gave himself for me.
So we're coming in and replacing theold, and we're living new life in Christ.
We're speaking the truth of what's true.
Well, fear is not helpingme, Lord, you will lead me.
(54:03):
You will guide me, you willprotect me, you'll restore me.
I was never promised perfect protection.
I was promised perfect restoration.
I will get beat up on earth.
That's why Jesus says, in this worldyou'll have tribulation, but take
heart, I've overcome the world.
So the promise isn't perpetual safety.
It's perfect restoration.
(54:24):
Time and time again,you will get battered.
When you've gotten better.
Don't worry, I've overcome the world.
Just keep coming back and I'mgonna continue to restore you.
But it's essentially Jesussaying the world sucks.
Mm-hmm.
And you're
gonna get that all over you.
And when you do come home,child, I'll clean you up.
Yeah.
So that's the
invitation of it.
So,
and I like the fact that you, the laststep is replaced because I, I speak a
(54:47):
lot about truth and the only way thatwe can manage through these strongholds
is to recognize there's an enemy and torecognize that he's constantly lying to
us and trying to deceive us about whatwe think the substance is gonna give us.
Totally.
The matter of fact, Russin, Idon't know if you know this, I
developed an acronym called Lie LIE.
(55:09):
Yeah.
And it's look Intercept Explorer.
So it's, look at the story you're tellingyourself and identify its false nature.
Awesome.
Intercept that thought witha vision of your future self,
the one that God created.
Good.
And explore alternative activitiesuntil the craving goes away.
(55:32):
Yeah.
And so people like can process it, lookintercept, explore, but then when they
see the substance or think about thesubstance, then you're just go lie.
Yeah.
Lie.
Yeah, totally.
And um, the other cool thing aboutthat, I mean, again, and we could do
another podcast right, through Ephesiansand the the Armor of God, but what is
(55:52):
the first the first piece of armor?
Yeah.
It's the belt of truth.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so we all, and and that kindof wraps everything up for us here
because what do we do with this?
What do we do with allthat we've heard today?
Yeah.
And I think what we'rehearing and agreeing on is
we need to be in God's word.
(56:13):
We need to understand the truth.
Yeah.
We need to understand that thereis a formidable enemy who is
just continually working Yeah.
At trying to redirect our focus on him
without a doubt.
Yeah.
And and the other thing that youmentioned we need to get for,
(56:34):
you know, the audience is varied.
Those who haven't done anything aboutit but want to do something or those
that are in the process of doing itand are still struggling and what you
mentioned, finding an accountabilitygroup, a partner, a small group somewhere
where you're taking what's hiding inthe darkness and put it into the light.
(56:57):
Yeah.
And you're not gonna win the battle.
In your head
promise?
No.
That's what, yeah.
I always tell people likethat train's got two tracks.
You know, a recovered life hastwo tracks and it's gonna be
a conscious contact with God.
You've gotta be pursuing Christ andyou've gotta be around a community
that struggles like you struggle.
And I've seen people try todo recovery life without one
(57:18):
of the sides of the track.
It's the Jesus will doeverything for me and I'm healed.
Mm-hmm.
And then they eventually get to aturn where this track doesn't exist.
They go, life goes this way,and the train tumbles off.
I've watched people try to do itwithout the higher power and it's just
all recovery and it's the same result.
This side of the track's gone.
Life goes this way andthe train tumbles off.
(57:40):
You kind of gotta have both.
And I think, I, I spend a lot oftime in recovery settings and at
the end of the day the people who Isee flourishing say the same thing.
Addicts are the lucky ones.
Because we had something that wasgonna end our lives if we didn't
get on top of it and truly submitourselves to a higher power.
And I sit in places where I hear peoplesay, I feel really bad for people
(58:02):
who don't have that in their lives.
Right.
'cause nothing's forcingthem to defeat of God.
Yeah.
The word, the word of God comes alivefor people with addictions or Yeah.
Any kind of strongholds,because Preston, I'm trying to,
I don't wanna say normalize, but I, I,you know, I have a slightly different
(58:26):
aspect of how I manage this, but yeah.
Alcohol substances, statisticallyit's almost one in five.
Yeah, one in five.
So let's just add on top of that.
I don't know.
Pornography, gambling, shopping, gaming.
Yeah.
Cell phone.
Right.
We're, we're up to 60%.
(58:47):
We shouldn't feel like we're the onlyones battling something unless, no.
The reality is like humannature exhaustively is to cope
in some way, shape, or form
with something other than God.
Yeah.
If you take it outside of all thethings you just listed and beyond,
human nature is to create idols.
(59:08):
We love to find things to worship,and we love to create our own
because then we can control them.
Which of course is hysterical becauseyou go, man, you have got lightning in a
bottle, that thing's gonna blow you up.
Like anything you createeventually ends up like.
Anything you end up worshipingeventually, like you, you get it
(59:30):
to go, to make you feel better.
And eventually it's gonna,you're gonna be worshiping it.
It's not worshiping you.
No, it's not making you feel better.
It's actually taking your life apart.
Amen.
So, so we're gonna end with, um,I'm gonna end with Galatians five
one and you can end in prayer.
But Galatians five one I love forthe purpose of what we're discussing.
Yeah.
I'm using the NIB version.
(59:52):
It is for freedom that Christ set us free.
Yeah.
Stand firm then, and do not let yourselvesbe burdened again, by a yoke of slavery.
Yeah.
And I like that stand firm becausethat, that's about resisting temptation.
Yeah.
And do not be burdened again, becauseif you're walking this path Right.
(01:00:16):
Don't be burdened again by whatI call psychological slavery.
Um, totally.
Um.
And, uh, yeah, this isa, this is a life verse.
Memorize it.
Yeah.
Rustin.
Thank you very much and I'm just gonnaask you to close us out in prayer.
Yeah.
Happy to pray for us.
So, Lord, just thank you.
Pray for anybody who's listening tothis right now, that, Lord, if there's
(01:00:36):
breakthrough, that kind of needs to behad kind of some walkthrough in some
of these areas, maybe for a little bitdeeper dive might be that sermon or just
getting with somebody who can kind ofwalk 'em through some of these things.
But just pray that for those who arestruggling, who are feeling stuck, who
are having a tough time finding their wayout, they know all of the right things.
They've, they've done all of the rightthings, but are still struggling.
This spiritual component, likeI said, this is usually the
(01:00:57):
last inner healing on the block.
They've tried the physical, they'vetried the emotional, they've tried
the relational, and yet there's stillsomething that's weighing 'em down.
So, Lord, just pray forbreakthrough for those individuals.
My heart is heavy for them.
Uh, just pray that youwould use your holy word.
Your teachings around whatyou long to set, three.
It's a move in the lives ofthose who would here this time.
(01:01:18):
We just thank you for the way youwork in our lives and your ever
present hand offering restoration.
We love you.
We say this in your name.
Amen.
Amen.
Restin, and thank you again.
You bet.
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