Sermon Transcript: Overcoming A Grasshopper Mentality 6/25/2023 Cal Rychener 28 min read Pastor Cal Rychener: I want to begin today with a passage from the Bible. We're going to read it together. It's going to come up here on the screens. It's from Numbers 13, if you have your Bible. And Jeff had told me that some time ago, I don't remember, it was a fall series or sometime here earlier in the year, you guys were in Exodus for quite a while. Took you all the way up out of Egypt and onto Sinai, Ten Commandments are given, right? Leviticus is then all about some of the other laws that God gives. Then by the time you get to the Book of Numbers, we're ready to roll, it's time to go to the Promised Land. He brings us out to bring us into. Not only that, He doesn't want to just get us out of Egypt, He wants to get Egypt out of us. We get to the Book of Numbers and it's to take 11 days to get into the Promised Land, and you remember that it took them 40 years. What happened? Well, this kind of gives you the idea of what happened. Moses, ready to go, he sends out 12 spies to go and look at what kind of land it is. They changed the assignment. They were supposed to go and check out the fruit and come back and give a report of what kind of land it was. They came back, gave a report as to whether they thought they could go in and take it or not. That wasn't the assignment. God had already told them they were going to take it. But so we catch up what's going on when they come back to give the report. It's found in Exodus... Or, I'm sorry, Numbers 13:26. "They came back to Moses and Aaron and the whole Israelite community at Kadesh in the Desert of Paran. There they reported them and to the whole assembly and showed them the fruit of the land." Just a little parentheses here for some of you who are leaders, part of Moses' problem here is he didn't have the meeting before the meeting. He should have gathered these 12 and said, "What do you think?" And then he would've been able to shut down the negative report. He didn't have that meeting. Now he's letting him spread all this cancer to the entire group. "They gave Moses this account. "We went into the land to which you sent us, and it does flow with milk and honey. Here is its fruit. But the people who live there are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large. We even saw descendants of Anak there."" And that's the giants. ""The Amalekites live in the Negev; the Hittites, Jebusites, Amorites live in the hill country; the Canaanites live near the sea and along the Jordan."" Now, Caleb could see this thing kind of going south. The people getting scared. So he tries to rescue the meeting. "Caleb silenced the people before Moses and said, "We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it."" I want to hear you say "we can". Congregation: We can. Pastor Cal Rychener: Oh, you can do better than that. Congregation: We can. Pastor Cal Rychener: All right, that's what they should have been saying. "But the men who had gone up with him said, "We can't. We can't attack those people; they are stronger than we are." And they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored. They said, "The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size. We saw the Nephilim there, the descendants of Anak come from the Nephilim."" We saw the descendants of the giants. Look at this. "We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them." We're going to talk about that grasshopper mentality today. Before we do, let's pray, and ask the Lord to speak into our hearts. Father, in Jesus' name now, I thank you that there is anointing over every letter in your word. And we pray Holy Spirit now, that you would take these words off the page of the Bible, and burn them into our hearts today through your speaking voice. Lord, help us to hear you. And I pray, Father, that wherever we have fallen prey to a grasshopper mentality that is holding us back from all that you want us to do, from rising up into the full stature that is ours in Christ, I pray that that would be broken today in Jesus' name. Will you do it here, Lord? And we'll give you the thanks and praise in Jesus' name. Everyone said... Congregation: Amen. Pastor Cal Rychener: Amen. All right, so I've entitled this message Overcoming Your Grasshopper Mentality, which I believe is something all of us will struggle with from time to time, maybe some more than others. But so we are all on the same page from the get go, what do I mean by a grasshopper mentality, as we just read about here in the scriptures? A grasshopper mentality is a self-defeating and self-limiting perception we carry of ourselves and our abilities. It's characterized by self-condemning thoughts of being inferior, unworthy, and incapable. At root, it's an identity issue. I've become aware today that identity needs to be a foundational piece of our discipleship strategy. We generally help people believe the right things from the Bible, believe the right doctrine, try to be the best person you can, start serving in the church, and you're mature. No, no, no. We got to help people get free from the wounds in their lives, and get established in the identity free from the lies that the enemy has spoken in their lives, so that they can be and rise up into everything that God wants them to be. Congregation: Amen. Pastor Cal Rychener: And that has not been, historically, a part of our discipleship program in our churches. Our discipleship process, I should say. I've sat with hundreds of people in freedom and deliverance encounters, and I would tell you at root, the issues they're dealing with are identity issues. And most of the enemy's doorway into their lives, or the bondage he's created is due to self-hatred, to self-loathing, to self-rejection, to self-condemnation. Yeah, a lot of times, shame and guilt, their voices are there too, keeping them bound to how terrible you are because of what you did. And listen, you'll never rise above the level of your self-perception. You don't have to pay me for that. That's a powerful line. You'll never rise above the level of your self-perception. Can I tell you something else? Once you have your identity established in Christ, you'll never again fall to the level of a grasshopper mentality. God wants to bring you up into who you are in Christ. And so we're talking, when we talk about a grasshopper mentality, it's really an identity issue, and were it to merely to afflict us in just the everyday areas of our lives, I'm walking around my house and this and that, and I tend to be negative about myself, that's one thing. You'll carry a lot of pain because of that, a lot of depression at times because of that. But when this kind of mentality creeps into our walk with God, and begins to prohibit us from carrying out His plans for our lives, that's absolutely tragic, and that's what happened here in this passage. In fact, I can remember several battles with my own grasshopper mentality in my college days. Guys, I now look back, I didn't know about this at the time, I wouldn't have labeled it a grasshopper mentality, but I can tell you almost from the day I was born, or my earliest recollections, I didn't like myself very much. Number seven out of 10 kids, you probably wouldn't have been able to tell that, I was an ordinary kid. I was good in athletics and stuff, but that was my compensation. I was trying to earn approval. But if you could have got inside me, you would've heard, my messages were, "I'm never going to measure up." I had an older brother that I loved, but the sun rose and set on him. I wanted to be like him. But in and of myself, I was not good enough. So I would use my basketball as a way, listen, not as an expression of who I am, but as a way to earn a sense of approval from people. I was a pretty good basketball player. However, when it came time for college, God had called me very clearly to prepare for ministry, so I went to Fort Wayne Bible College, and I played in what was the NCCAA, the National Christian Collegiate Athletic Association, and had a pretty successful career there. And it was in 1979. See, here's what happens. If you're building your identity upon your basketball prowess, and then something radically shifts that, you don't have a whole lot to stand on. 1979, we made the nationals, and finished fourth. And as a result of our success, we, along with every other college basketball team in Indiana who had made it into postseason play that year, had been invited to the Hoosier Dome by the then governor of Indiana, Otis Bowen, for an event that had been dubbed A Salute to Hoosier Hysteria. Now, you guys, if you're in Colorado, you may like your basketball, and you got a reason to like your basketball right now, but you don't know Hoosier Hysteria if you haven't been in Indiana. And I'll tell you, we went to this thing. I'm just thinking, "That's going to be great." I have no idea what we're getting into, it's going to just be an event to eat and this type of thing. I had no idea who all was going to be there. And following a nice banquet, each team was asked to come to the platform, where each member of each team, one by one, by name, were awarded with a certificate bearing a gold emblem, representative of the governor's highest honor. I still have that thing, I should have brought it so you can see I'm not blowing smoke. It was a neat event to be a part of. But it became even better when I realized what was going on. The other teams present that day included Bobby Knight and the Indiana Hoosiers. Heard of them? Then Indiana State, who had just finished runner up to the Magic Johnson and Michigan State Spartans in the 1979 NCAA finals. If you're as old as I am, some of you may remember that Indiana State also had a couple players in those days who could play a little, one of them by the name of Larry Bird. Now, he wasn't present at the event, because of some recruiting trip that day. Purdue was present, including their seven-foot center, Joe Barry Carroll, who had a pretty successful career in the NBA. He came right down off the steps, and my table was sitting right there, looked down at me from a mile high, since we're in the mile high, that's exactly what it looked like. And I'm sure he saw that my mouth was agape like... How does anybody get a ball over that? He kind of looked down and said, "Hi, buddy." I'm like, "Joe Barry Carroll, are you kidding me?" And oh yeah, Notre Dame was there, along with such future NBA notables as Kelly Tripucka, Orlando Woolridge, Bill Laimbeer, their coach, Digger Phelps. Oh, I mean to tell you, was this fun to be around and watching these guys? I sat there and stood in silence as I watched these huge 6'8", 6'10", 7 foot, 250 pound guys walk the stage. I had never seen so much size gathered in one place in my life. But try to imagine it. They called IU, Purdue, Notre Dame, Indiana State, all these national collegiate powers up across that stage, and I forgot why we were there, because then they called Fort Wayne Bible College. You're laughing because you kind of understand Where's Waldo? Now, all of us, 5'8", 5'10", 6 foot, 150 pound imposing Bible college guys, get up and cross the stage. Guys, I can only tell you that my joy of being at that event, in a moment, went from that to I need to crawl under the table right now. Like, no, we don't play basketball, we're just here to watch people who do. Right? Something happened in me that day, which I didn't recognize until a few years later in my life. It exposed a serious grasshopper mentality, and actually, it crippled me as a basketball player. I understood this passage. I felt like a grasshopper in my own eyes, and I know I looked that way to everybody else in the room that day. On the bus ride home that day, instead of being excited about what we had accomplished, and about our opportunity to be a part of that event, I was actually thinking about quitting basketball. I was berating myself for ever having thought of myself as a good basketball player. My field of comparison had been so radically altered that day by D1 players, that I could never again find as much enjoyment in playing the game of basketball as I had previously, since I knew by comparison that no matter how good I was, I wasn't close to being in a league with those guys. And while I played my final two years of college, had a very successful career, becoming an NCCAA, all-American, that type of thing, it's interesting that while nothing about my ability had changed that day, the way I viewed myself had changed. And actually became a detriment to my enjoyment of the game. My experience among the giants that day exposed a serious grasshopper mentality, a feeling of inferiority and inadequacy. Now again, that wouldn't cripple me that much if it's just about basketball, because years later I'm not playing basketball anymore. You know what I'm saying? So if that's all it did, okay, I just didn't enjoy basketball as much. But no, no, no. That experience was simply pointing to something much deeper in my life, about a whole orientation that was just part and parcel of my life. Interestingly enough, we can find people afflicted with this mentality all across the pages of the Bible. In fact, long before these Israelites spies exhibited a grasshopper mentality, their leader had demonstrated the same sort of self-deprecating mentality in response to God's call for him to lead. Remember when God called Moses, he just jumped up and said, "Here I am. What do you want me to do? I know I can do it." No, that's not what he said. He gave every excuse in the book. "I can't do it. I can't speak. Lord, please find somebody else." When He called Solomon, wisest man in the world, to lead? "Lord, I'm only a child. I don't know how to lead these people." When He called Jeremiah, "Lord, I can't do it." You can go right down the list, you can find these weren't people just acting humble. And I could give you a list of people throughout history as well. Sir Winston Churchill was crippled by a grasshopper mentality that left him in depression all the time. We could talk about presidents, we could talk about people who attained high levels, but in their hearts, were never really released from that self-deprecating, self-limiting kind of talk that was going on inside their lives. And just so we understand why it's so important that we not let this kind of mentality run our lives, I want to alert you to some of the crippling effects a grasshopper mentality could have in our lives, and as we turn the corner at the end of this message, I'm going to show you some ways that you start dealing with this and get rid of it. Here's the crippling effect, here's why you need to get rid of it. Crippling effect number one, a grasshopper mentality will cause you to focus on your weaknesses instead of your strengths, and on your inabilities rather than God's abilities through you. That's how you can know you're wrestling with a grasshopper mentality. Ask yourself, "Do I tend to focus on my weaknesses more than on God's gifts in my life? Am I more focused on my limitations, than on God's purposes for me? Do I tend to focus more on the reasons why I can't do something, rather than how, through God's strength, I can?" I've learned that there are basically two kinds of people in this world. There's the "I cans" and there are the "I can'ts" and we saw them both in this passage today. Among the 12 spies, 10 of them come back, "We can't do it. Can't do it." Caleb's trying to shut them down. "Yes, we can." 10 of them influence everybody else, which is to say the "I can't" crowd will always vastly outnumber the "I can" crowd, because with any great challenge in front of us, it's just easier for us to believe the negative than to see the positive, or to focus on our inabilities rather than God's capabilities through us. In fact, one philosopher has estimated that 95% of all the people in the world live with an "I can't" attitude, and therefore are basically slaves to whatever their body tells them they can or can't do. Only five out of a hundred live according to what they think and believe in their minds, and four out of that group rarely rise above or step beyond the group norm, the peer opinion, or the general train of thought. Only 1% of all the people in this world truly think and believe what the Lord has said to them about themselves, and about their unique purpose and place on this earth. And BRAVE, I say, by God's grace, may I be one of that 1%. Amen? You want to be one of the 1%? Let's go. Think about it, friends. Here in this account, God's will was to give His people the land. He has already made that very clear. In order to take the land, they're going to have to overcome some giants. But only two people believe they can do it. 10 men with a "we can't" attitude influenced all the others. And according to Numbers 1:46, you ever understood how many people said "We can't"? There were 603,550 fighting men age 20 or above, all with the same opportunity, all with the same promise, and only two got to experience what God had promised. Only two. Isn't that amazing? The rest, because they were focused on their limitations in view of the giants, got only what their focus could produce, and that was 40 years of wandering around in the desert, accomplishing nothing, and missing out on God's best. That's because a grasshopper mentality will always cause you to focus on your weaknesses instead of your strengths, your inabilities rather than God's abilities, and your problems rather than God's promises. Here's another crippling effect. A grasshopper mentality will cause you to be negative in the appraisal of yourself, even in the midst of positive facts. You just see the negative. And so we take on an "I can't do it" mentality, even when the truth is if we knew, particularly when it's something God's called us to, we can. It was Henry Ford who said, "Whether you think you can or whether you think you can't, you're probably right." Here in this story, God wanted to give His people the land. Now, as I said, it's not going to fall in their laps. They're going to have to fight for it. Listen, every Old Testament shadow is fulfilled in the New Testament, so I want you to understand the reality here. I always say it this way; without God, we can't. Or without God, we cannot. Without us, He will not. That's the divine partnership. So God says, "I'm giving you the land." Without Him, I cannot. Then He says, "Go in and take it." Without us, He will not. It's a spiritual principle, divine partnership. We're in training for reigning. God says, "Yeah, I could do it by myself, but I haven't. I'm training you." And so we have to decide that we can do what He calls us to do. But see, when we say we can't? Now we're lacking faith. Without faith, Hebrews 11 tells us, it's impossible to please God. Why? Because without faith, we don't even step out to do the things that we could otherwise do, that God is waiting to show us that we can do. Friends, most of the barriers we have to overcome in releasing more of what God wants to do through us are mental and attitudinal. They have everything to do with this grasshopper mentality. In fact, in one survey, a psychologist found up to 80% of all the external messages placed daily in the human mind are failure messages. Don't. Can't. Shouldn't. And when we hear those messages, and feed those messages to ourselves, we don't give ourselves permission mentally to do what we otherwise could do. Many times, our greatest limitations are mental. They always have been, always will be. That's true in both the natural realm and the supernatural realm. Do you know that before Roger Bannister broke the four-minute mile barrier, and I don't know if you saw, about two weeks ago, a guy from Norway just ran two miles in 7:54? Two sub four-minute miles. But before Roger Bannister did that back in the '50s, it was thought to be an impossible barrier, and one under which the human body would surely succumb. There were all kinds of reasons to why it was impossible. Our bone structure is all wrong. Wind resistance is too great. We have inadequate lung power. A million reasons why no one would ever do it, and live to talk about it. But then one man proved that it could be done, and even lived in the process. But miracle of miracles, the year after Roger Bannister did it, 37 other runners broke the four-minute mile barrier. Do you know that two years after Roger Bannister broke that barrier, 300 runners broke that barrier? Today, high schoolers break that barrier. What changed it all? Did human potential suddenly increase that dramatically in two years? No, I think one man's doing it gave other people the permission to believe that they could do it too. Kind of lifted the lid on their mental "I can'ts". I have a particular trophy I keep in my office to remind me to never live with an "I can't" attitude. It's the only one I've kept when I downsized a couple of years ago. Since I was stepping off the stage, I went up in the attic, we had to move out of our house. I had this box full of old trophies and this type of thing, and they're all, after 40 years of melting and freezing up there in the attic, they're falling apart. And I went and dumped them. I had a little tear, but I thought, "Nobody's ever put my trophies on their mantle, so I don't need them." But I kept this guy because he speaks to me all the time. And it's first place in the Napoleon Invitational, 1973. This guy is 50 years old. I was at junior high, eighth grade. Got another one of these in the 880 that day, I was half-mile runner, but this is from the high jump. And I want to tell you why this guy speaks to me. Because up until this event, one of my teammates, Kent Beck and I, would take turns winning the high jump at every meet. Now we're eighth graders, okay, so we're not going like seven feet. I actually finished fifth in the AAU state high jump meet that year, and there was a little 5'8" pip squeak that could jump... Or 5'6", I think he was, he jumped 6'2". That was amazing. I didn't see any other eighth graders go over six foot. If you could do, I would say, 5'4", you're going to win most of your meets. Kent and I were winning just trading off at 5'2", 5'2", 5'2". We could never get over 5'3". Now on this particular day at this big invitational, they had all of the field events happen in the morning. I happened to be in a band competition, so I had to miss the morning field events. And so the organizer of the meet said, "Anybody who was at the band competition, we're going to allow them to come back in the afternoon and compete in the field events, even though they're already finished." So at noon, I was eating a sandwich at McDonald's. That's the way I got ready for my 880 run, you know? And one of my teammates come up and said, "Did you hear how high Kent Beck went today?" I was like, "No." Said, "He went 5'6", and won the thing." They might have just well told me he went seven-foot. Guys, you don't go from 5'2" to 5'6". That was about the height we were at that time. 5'6". I actually began to wonder, do I even want to go out and take my jumps? But something happened that day. I don't know what it was. Maybe it's just that Kent lifted the lid for me. Because he did it, maybe I started to think I could do it. I warmed up, 4'10", 4'11", 5 foot was our first jump, right up and over. 5'1", right up and over. 5'2", right up and over. Never been 5'3" in my life, right up and over. 5'4", right up and over. 5'5", right up and over. 5'6", right up and over. No misses. The first miss I ever had, 5'7", I think it's because Kent Beck didn't go 5'7". But I walked away with the first place trophy on fewer misses, because Kent had about five or six misses. I didn't have any misses up through that height. And that guy just continues to remind me not to be... Listen, that trophy is usually speaking to me that we are more often limited not by what we can and cannot actually do, but by what we think we can and cannot do. And we all need lid lifters in our lives, and I don't know, but if you're connected to the Lord Jesus Christ, I think He's the number one lid lifter. That when He tells you you can do something, you better come in an agreement with Him. Congregation: Amen. Pastor Cal Rychener: Amen? Guys, you have a grasshopper mentality, it's going to hold you back from some great accomplishment that God has equipped you to pull off, but which you won't give yourself permission to, if you have a negative appraisal of yourself. Here's effect number three. A grasshopper mentality will cause you to limit your chances of success because of your fear of failure. See, the truth is that people who are the greatest successes in life aren't such because they have so much more ability than other people, because they have a whole lot more of whatever it takes. I think the main difference between those who succeed and those who don't is that those who succeed don't know how to quit trying. They're not afraid to risk. Here's another thing, they're not afraid of failure. Why? Listen, you might write this one down, because they know failure is an event, not a person. Grasshopper mentality will tell you since you failed, you're a failure. These guys know that in order to succeed, they're going to have to get knocked down. A lot of times, they just get back up one more time than they get knocked down. Guys, 33 years ago, I nearly said no to one of the greatest invitations of my life, and that's when God had put in my heart 35 years ago a vision for a new church that was all about reaching people who are far from Christ. 33 years later, He gave me the opportunity to do it, and I'm telling you, I'm so grateful. Somehow, I had a serious grasshopper mentality, and I almost said no. And if you could have got inside my head, it was spinning up things like, "What if I try and it doesn't work? I don't know how to do this. I've never done this before. If I try this and it doesn't work, I might look like an idiot." I will forever remain grateful that in that moment of decision, somehow, faith won out, and the fruit followed, because the fruit always follows faith. Here were nearly a million people standing on the brink of the most fertile and productive land they'd ever known, a home God wanted to give them, and instead of enjoying the fruit of that land, they spent 40 years walking around in a desert, crippled by fear because of grasshopper mentality that wouldn't allow them to believe that they could possibly overcome those giants and possess the land. And because they believed that, they didn't even try. It's one of the tragic stories in Bible history, and the point is let's not let this story be repeated in our own lives. Where are you limiting your chances of success today because of your fear of failure, all due to a grasshopper mentality? God says, "I want to deal with that grasshopper mentality, so you can rise up to the stature that I've designed you for." Here's effect number four. A grasshopper mentality will cause you to live with a sense of regret over what you could have had but what you missed out on because you didn't embrace your opportunity. I'm so glad I'm not living in that regret today. I'm so glad that somewhere along the way in my early forties, God began to pour into me and help me to understand that you don't have to live with the grasshopper mentality. Began to heal my life, and is now using me to help other people get free from that identity issue in their lives. But guys, you read it sometimes. Numbers 14, to me, is one of the saddest chapters in the Bible, because God says, "Okay, I will forgive these people, but you know what? They're going to get what they said. They're not going into the Promised Land." And of course they all begin, "No, no, no, no, please, now we'll do it, now we'll do it." And God said, "Nope! Nope! You're going to get one year for every day that the spies were in that land. One year for the 40 days. You get 40 years in the wilderness, instead of enjoying my promise." How's that for regret? In her book, Silver Boxes, the late renowned author and Bible teacher Florence Littauer tells a story revealing the power over our dreams that often can be held by those close to us. It's about her mother-in-law, Marita Littauer, and she said after knowing her for many years and being a little intimidated by her, Florence one day asked the aging woman what she would've been if she could have been anything she wanted. Marita answered without hesitation, "An opera singer. I wanted to study music, but my parents felt that was a waste of time. That I'd make more money in the millinery business." That's making hats. But she said, with great joy, "But I was in one show in college and I had the lead." Florence says the memory of that dream never left Marita Littauer, even though her mother had shot it down. In her last days, her mind faded, and she could no longer speak. Just get this picture. She said some evenings, she would stand proudly by her chair and sing opera to her nurse. Even in the twilight of her years, the deep desire never left her. Florence said, "Mother had talent that was never developed, a music box that was never allowed to play, a career that was never begun. Mother died with the music still in her." Oh. That's what regret feels like. And I wonder how many people today are dying with music still in them, living with regrets over what they wish they had done but didn't do. Guys, listen to me. Here's what I know. 20 years from now, your greatest regrets will be the faith opportunities you passed up, because a grasshopper mentality prohibited you from stepping out in faith. Don't let that happen to you. Don't let that grasshopper mentality keep you from going after what God has put in your heart to do. You break free from that sucker, and you put it in its place for good. You say, "Well, Cal, how do you do that?" Well, I'm wrapping up, let me just give you some critical keys to overcoming a grasshopper mentality. I'm going to give them to you really quickly, but I want you to take the time to work through them, okay? And these first two are really root issues. We're talking about some other discipleship. This should be a part of your discipleship, but it's really getting after the root. Key number one is this, identify the root of your poor self-image or the root of your poor identity. Ask God to help you with this. Where and when did it begin? Some of you say, "Well, I can never remember a time." You know why? Because some of you have that from the moment of conception. Some of you have it printed into your spirit, that you were not even wanted at the moment of reception, or at the moment of birth. And even though your brain wasn't formed, your spirit understands it. "I wasn't wanted. Nobody wanted me. I was abandoned." Why it's hard for some of us, we grew up, maybe, in good homes, and so you don't have what I call B wounds. That's what we call bad wounds, where it was people beating on you, abusing you of some kind, verbal abuse, putting you down. At least it's easier to know where it came from when you have that. Why it's hard for some of us? Is because we have A wounds. A wounds are called absence wounds. It's the absence of what should have been there for you and wasn't. The absence of people speaking love over you. The absence of people saying, "Man, you're the greatest thing that's ever been born." The people just building you up and instilling that in you. It just wasn't spoken, it wasn't shown, it wasn't there, and so how did you know that you were loved? You go, "Well, I just do." No, you didn't. Your spirit didn't pick that up. You felt worthless. You felt that you'd never measure up. You felt inadequate, whatever it was, those are A wounds. My question to you is who did that to you? Who were the people that either spoke or didn't do what they were supposed to do? You have to forgive them. You have to forgive them from your heart. You spend time working through that and saying, "Lord, I release that father who did that to me. That dad who left me. That mom who did this. That teacher who did that. That coach who did that." Bring those before the Lord. Here's key number two, because now you identify, and then key number two, you renounce every lie you've believed about yourself. Very, very important and powerful. Guys, when you believe something about yourself that is contrary to how God sees you, you've believed a lie. And when you believe a lie, you didn't know you were doing it, but you essentially took Satan's hand and said, "Okay, I'll agree with you about me, rather than what God says about me." You came into agreement with the enemy. Renunciation is powerful, because that's where you say, "I'm taking this agreement, and I'm tearing it up, in Jesus' name. I no longer agree." Amen? That sounds like this. "In Jesus' name, I now renounce the lie that I am..." And you just put it in whatever, however that's affecting you. That I'm defective, that I'm inferior, that I have little worth, that I'm not loved, that I'm unable to do the things God has called me to do. You name and renounce those lies, and then you command any spirit of self-condemnation, inadequacy, insecurity, unloved, you command. If there is a spirit behind this, I command you to leave me now, in Jesus' name. Congregation: That's right! Pastor Cal Rychener: I know what I'm talking about, because I walk in freedom today. And I used to be as bound as bound could be. Now, as you do this, as you're tearing up those agreements, here's the other important thing you do. You pause and you say, "Now, Lord, in place of that lie, what do you want to say to me about who I am?" Didn't He say, "You'll know the truth, and the truth will set you free"? Let the Holy Spirit speak in those places where you have been held in hostage, and held in bondage, because of that grasshopper mentality, the place where you came in agreement with the enemy. Now, those two that I've just given you will get to the root and cut that sucker off. The rest of these now really become helpful if you take care of the root, because they're just a part of our discipleship. Key number three, feed your faith with daily affirmations of God's promises. Guys, when you are walking with an all-powerful, all-loving God, you're drawing upon His strength and wisdom, seeking Him in prayer, believing what He says about Himself and about you, about His ability to empower and enable you to fulfill His purpose for you. It breeds an "I can" attitude. Philippians 4:13, "I can do all things through Christ who gives me the strength." Can I hear you say, "I can"? Congregation: I can. Pastor Cal Rychener: Can I hear it again? I can. Congregation: I can. Pastor Cal Rychener: That's how God... Listen. You'll know that He has done His work in your identity when you just carry that around and you're not even trying to make it happen. Or somebody slings, hurls something that used to just take you, and it just bounces off. You're like, you got Teflon around your heart, "I know who I am, and it doesn't just pull me into the ditch anytime something happens like it used to just pull me in the ditch." That's how you know that you're walking in the power of a new identity. Here's key number four, replace negative self-talk with positive. The most important conversations you have each day are the ones that take place inside your head with yourself. To the tune of several thousand words a minute. Did you know that you're talking to yourself quite a bit? You'd better pay attention to what you're saying. Medical science has discovered that every thought we think produces a corresponding chemical reaction in our bodies, be it positive or negative. Listen to this. Positive messages have been shown to release endorphins in the brain, which are the chemicals associated with a feeling of joy and a sense of wellbeing. Do you think God knew that? Is it possible that that's why He had the Apostle Paul write this greatest verse on our thinking in the Bible? Philippians 4:8, "Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think on these things." And I can't find any place in the scripture or connected to that verse that says, "Oh, but when it comes to yourself, it's okay if you think something different than that." No, that's the grid through which you are to think on yourself as well. Key number five, fill your life with what builds you up. Fill your life with what builds you up. Read and memorize verses in the Bible that stir your faith. Listen to teaching and worship podcasts that lift you up. Read books that lift you up. Hang around people who build you up. Some of you need a new team. I love the guy who said, "My friends didn't think I could become a good speaker, so I did something about it. I went out and found me some new friends." Man, get around people who build you up and bring out the best in you, rather than hang around people that are just tearing you down, and keeping you mired in that grasshopper mentality. Guys, you work at fixing these identity issues, and when you sense God giving you an opportunity or laying a desire on your heart, you go for it, because as I said, that's where the fruit is. That's where the kingdom impact is. That's where the miracle stories are. Let me ask you something. Any of you ever heard of Shammua? I'm not talking about the whale. Any of you ever heard of Shaphat? Igal? Palti? Gaddiel? Gaddi? Ammiel? Sethur? Nahbi? Geuel? Aren't those great names? Any of those names ring a bell? It's because there's nothing about them you want to know. Their names are hidden in obscurity, because they're the 10 who said, "We can't." Let me ask you this. You ever heard of Joshua? Congregation: Yes. Pastor Cal Rychener: Or Caleb? Congregation: Yes. Pastor Cal Rychener: Caleb's my man. I can't find anybody in the Bible with the name Cal, but I just take the E-B off that name and I got him. He's my man. Oh yeah. You don't build monuments to "we can't" people, but we all know about the "we cans", because they got testimonies of what God did through them. These were kingdom impact guys, because they believe God, they lived with a "we can" mindset. They crushed that grasshopper mentality, and that's what God's asking from us. I close with this story of the mouse and elephant crossing the bridge together. They'd become friends. One of those big old cable bridges that, with enough weight, it would start to swing, right? Elephant's going across that thing, and it began to sway. And they got to the other side, and his little mouse buddy looked up at him and said, "Wow, didn't we shake that bridge?" Now guys, I say to you, never forget what part of the equation we play and what part God plays, but know this, BRAVE. He wants you to be a part of His bridge-shaking activity. He has some kingdom land He wants you to take, and you can and you will if you put that grasshopper mentality in its place, and live out of your true identity in Jesus Christ. Amen? Congregation: Amen! Pastor Cal Rychener: Come on, stand to your feet.