Teen Track #2: Taking the First Step to Freedom

Dannah: The church is not a country club; it's a hospital. One of the precious girls I prayed with earlier (we're getting more prayer counselors for our next time so that we can pray with everybody. I want everybody who wants to get prayed with, to get prayed with today. So Jason, he's out there looking . . .) I wanted to recap with this. One girl came up and confessed something to me, very transparently.

She took her "country club" mask off, and she said, "This is my thing." And she said (and I quote), "God can't set me free because of . . ." and then she named it. Do you hear the lie in that? "God can't set me free because of . . ." Fill in your blank.

That's why He sets her free from that! That's why He's the Deliverer for her!

Erin: Do you want to know the truth? "He whom the Son sets free is free indeed.

Dannah: That's just an example. Almost all of you, when I said that, did you think, Well, that's a lie! How many of you were like, That doesn't make any sense, that God can't set you free because you're in bondage? You've got to be in bondage to be set free! Amen?

Another girl came up and confessed something that I'm in process with, right now. She's not alone, and I told her that: "This is my thing right now." So I'm wondering if we could just take our masks off-the three of us-and say, "Okay, because I've said today that freedom is a process (it's not like once and for all) . . ." What's your thing right now, Erin, where you just need Him to show up, the Deliverer needs to show up in this bondage? What is it?

Erin: I think there are parts of my heart (this is the lie) that will never really believe that He's satisfied with me, that the Lord is pleased with me, that I've done enough for Him. I just have this sort of constant fear of disappointing Him and then constantly thinking, Oh, yeah, this is where God's love kind of runs out for me. Not His love as much as His approval.

Dannah: Wow. Do you think God's pretty tickled-silly-pink, madly-in-love with this girl? Do you think that He just like dances when He sees the way she brings us joy? And wait 'til you hear her deliver the meat of the Word this afternoon, because, even though . . .

Erin: I might wear these.

Dannah: She's deep.

Erin: Probably not.

Dannah: Do you trust me?

Erin: A little bit.

Dannah: Okay, so I'm going to say a lie that you told me today, to them.

Erin: Sure.

Dannah: You really do trust me?

Erin: I trust you.

Dannah: Because they're going to laugh at this lie. They're going to say, "Are you kidding me?" Erin was telling me today that she's got this fear she might not relate to teenage girls. [laughter] I told you they would laugh! [Erin laughs] See, we're in process. Now, do you still trust me? Did you like that laugh?

Erin: I do. I did. [laughter] It's cute. They're cute!

Dannah: Steph, bare your soul.

Steph: I think, for me, it's not being worried and anxious about things. I'm learning how to trust God, because I like to be in control and I like to know what's going on. I'm going to have a child-and that means that no more will I have control. So part of me is kind of freaked out about it. I'm so excited, and I've waited so long. But at the same time, it's kind of scary, because I just have to learn to trust Him and not worry and not try to fix everything and make sure that everybody's okay.

I think about that. My lie is like I have to hold everything together, and my truth on it is . . . Nancy quoted the verse last night that He holds all things together by the power of His Word.

Dannah: He does.

Steph: I don't have to hold it all together.

Dannah: It's His job description.

Steph: Just the other day I was worried about something and feeling weepy, and I heard Him speak to me and say, "I just want you to be my daughter." It's like, "Okay, well I know being a daughter of my dad, I never worried about anything." I never worried about money; I never worried about how things were going to work out. I just was my dad's daughter.

So I just want to learn to be His daughter so that I don't have to feel like I have to hold everything together.

Dannah: So let's get you guys taking your masks off a little bit. I just want to ask, are any of you control freaks? It's hard, right? That's His job description, not yours-to be in control. One of my favorite verses (I don't know the address). Lord, help me to get better with my addresses. But it talks about that all things are under Christ's feet. Do you know that verse? Does that sound kind of familiar? Does that sound Scriptural? It is.

Erin: Something like that. It's close.

Dannah: As a control freak, when I feel like I'm in over my head, it's still under His feet. It's still under His feet. So one of the girls came up to me, and she said, "I'm struggling with approval-addiction." Don't look like that at me.

Erin: I know someone that struggled with it. [laughter] I'm talking about myself! [laughter]

Dannah: So you know how I said, the first step in freedom-that first thing you know-is that you become aware of bondage. But you don't always know what it is. All summer long, as we were praying for you, we were praying for our freedom, too. Because we can't teach it unless we are living it.

And so I would get on the phone every week, and I was sharing a specific relationship that I was really struggling in. And I would say, "It's not just these things that are happening between me and this friend. It's a bondage. I know it's a bondage, and I just don't know what it's called. I don't know what its name is."

And they were just praying with me. One week they prayed, "Lord! Give her a name; give her a name for it!" Then we started praying for you and kind of got off the focus on ourselves, and it never came up again. Last night, I was up in the hotel with these crazy ladies, and we were very seriously going over our notes for today.

Erin: We were loopy.

Dannah: And I said, "Guys, I've got a name for it-it's approval addiction! And Erin said . . .

Erin: I know. I did feel, after we prayed about it, I felt like the Lord wanted me to call you and say, "It's approval addiction." And I was like, "I'm not calling and telling her that!" So He did it.

Dannah: I could have maybe found out sooner. But I want to tell you that when I was able to name it, I was able to pray over this friendship and felt so much peace the next day in my interactions with her. My expectations for her were different.

Erin: I wonder if you could unpack "approval addiction."

Dannah: I'm going to unpack it, because two weeks ago Steph and I were ministering in New York City, actually ministering to a group of ladies from Brooklyn Tabernacle. Jim Cymbala will be with us tonight. I'm so excited about that. Anybody excited about that? Because I'm excited for all of us. If you're not excited, I'm s-o-o excited!

So I went up to teach-sort of what I taught you a little bit ago, on taking every thought captive, only it went down like this. I read the thing about taking every though captive, and then I look up and I look over to my right, and Steph is bawling her eyes out! Should we tell them why? No, we won't tell them why.

Steph: Let's just say I had a lot of pain.

Dannah: When you're pregnant, your body does weird things. We'll leave it at that. So I thought (this is how approval addiction works), Steph doesn't like my teaching! Hello-o-o-o-o! Like all I did was read a Bible verse. I think she likes the Word of God! And then that turned into, Nobody in this room likes my teaching.

Erin: Oh!

Dannah: And then that turned into, Nobody in this room likes me!

Erin: Oh!

Dannah: And I delivered the whole teaching-and in my heart and in my mind I was in a very fetal position, because I believed, I'm not getting everyone's approval right now. Steph doesn't approve of me right now; these ladies probably don't approve of me right now. And that turned in to a whole night.

But here's the thing, because I've been set free from so many things, in real time after I taught, I went to the back of the room and I was like, "Lord, I know right now that there's bondage in my life. I don't understand it yet, but I pray that in Your Name, You will reveal it."

The next day I was able to come in, confess to the ladies about what I'd experienced. They didn't see that-of course, they did see a difference in the way I taught. Was that true?

Steph: Yeah.

Dannah: It was pretty stinky. The Lord can work through our stink, so He did stuff. So that's how it manifests for me; it might be different for you.

It might be, when you look in the mirror, Nobody's going to like this today. This doesn't look good; this is not cute. It might be when you go to church, Nobody wants to sit with me. I don't know who I'm going to sit with. It might be . . .

Erin: Those girls over there are talking, and you are sure . . .

Dannah: . . . they're talking about you.

Erin: You walked into the room and everyone got quiet, and obviously you were the center of that conversation. Then the wheels turn exactly in that strange way as you just described.

Dannah: And it doesn't make any sense. But because of the victory I'd experienced over the summer, of weeks of laboring with approval addiction, that night I was able to deal with it right away. It was good. Should we get a little more free?

Erin: Can I pray for you as you teach, and for them?

Dannah: Yeah.

Erin: Jesus, we thank You for today, and we thank You that there aren't enough chairs! We thank You for the ways You've already moved. As Dannah teaches now, Lord, would You move us from freedom in theory to freedom in reality, Lord? Would You help these girls to know where it is that You would want to set them free and where You want to begin the process?

We thank You for the ways You've given freedom to this team already, and we just ask You for greater and greater doses of Your freedom. We pray for Your anointing on Dannah as she teaches. We thank You for the promise that Your Word is a two-edged sword. We ask You to do surgery. In Your holy, holy, holy Name I pray, amen.

Dannah: Amen! All right, grab your Bibles and notebooks. The Bible records the dramatic story of the freedom of women. That's such a beautiful thing in the New Testament, because in that day and age, women had such little value in society. But in God's eyes, in the eyes of Christ, they had great value. We're going to look in on one of the stories of freedom.

I want to just say up front that the specific issue this woman needed freedom from was boy-craziness. She had a bad case of it, and it had been a prolonged case that went into her adulthood. I want to say this about boy-craziness: the Bible tells us in Genesis that when Adam and Eve partook of that piece of forbidden fruit, that that broke relational laws.

Just as if you and I jumped off the top of this convention center today, we would break laws of gravity, and we would have consequences in the bones of our bodies. So God shows up to Adam and Eve right after they take that piece of forbidden fruit, and the laws that they had broken were laws He had set into motion at the point of creation. They were relational laws.

So He comes to describe to them what the consequences are now going to be like in their relationships. To Eve, He looks at her and He says, "Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you" (Gen. 3:16). Now, the word "desire" there is very critical. Bible scholars say that in the Hebrew language, it would have been better translated "violent craving."

From that point on, Eve was going to have a violent craving for her man. And girls, listen to me, when we show up in kindergarten class and we need a boyfriend and we're writing notes, "I love you, do you love me? Circle yes or no"-that is the violent craving manifesting in our life. We don't need a boyfriend in kindergarten class! And yet, it is part of the curse; it is natural.

I will say that almost everyone in here will experience that violent craving. Let me explain to you the recipe and the reason why we need victory over it. Ephesians 5:31-32 says, "For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh." And then it's almost like the apostle Paul has ADD and changes his topic, because the next verse says, "This is a profound mystery-but I am talking about Christ and the church."

He has not changed the subject; it is the same subject, because in Genesis, God had said He was creating man in His image, and in the image of God He created them male and female. When they are joined together as one, they are a picture of God.

In fact, in the Old Testament, the Bible uses the word echad for two things: "Hear, O Israel: the LORD our God, the LORD is one" (Deut. 6:4) Echad = God. The only other time that's used is the reference to marriage: one man, one woman = echad. Marriage is a picture of the love of God.

In Ephesians 5:31-32, it's more specific. It says marriage is a picture of Christ and the Church. Girls, do you know what boy-craziness is? It's drawing a picture without seeing the original. You see, the original is the love of God for you, the love of Christ for His Church.

Only when you experience that can you have the ability to paint a picture of it in marriage. Does this make sense? A lot of sense, right? You've got to see the original to paint a picture of it. But instead, we get caught up in the violent craving. That's why I wrote the book Get Lost.

It's based on the sentence, "A girl needs to get so lost in God that a guy has to seek Him to find her." If you can get lost in God's love, it won't matter if He brings a guy. He might, He might not. He may ask you to paint the picture of His love as a single woman who honors your femininity and your womanhood and the men in your life, or He may bring someone who lets you paint a romantic picture with one man, one woman in a beautiful marriage relationship.

But this morning, that might not necessarily be what you need to get free from. Some of you have been telling us that you need to get free from the lies about your beauty. Some of you confessed to us this morning, through tears, that you can't look in the mirror. Some of you have confessed to us sins that were committed against you in the past that you feel shackled and bound to. I want to say this about that: If someone has sinned against you sexually when you were a little girl, it was not your fault.

Some of you are in bondage because your parents' divorce from the past. I heard again, "I think it was my fault!" It was not your fault! The sins of others are never your fault. The sins of others against you are never your fault. They don't disqualify you!

And it was the heart of this broken woman that we find in John 4:1-26, that's a little bit like you and a little bit like me. I want to just read this story to you and tell you two things I believe you need to know about her freedom, which is so dramatic and so swift. Let's start reading:

Now when Jesus learned that the Pharisees had heard that Jesus was making and baptizing more disciples than John (although Jesus himself did not baptize, but only his disciples), he left Judea and departed again for Galilee. And he had to pass through Samaria. So he came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the field that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob's well was there; so Jesus, wearied as he was from his journey, was sitting beside the well. It was about the sixth hour.

A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, "Give me a drink." (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, "How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?" (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, 'Give me a drink,' you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water." The woman said to him, "Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock." Jesus said to her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of [living] water welling up to eternal life." The woman said to him, "Sir, give me this water, so that I will not be thirsty or have to come here to draw water."

Jesus said to her, "Go, call your husband, and come here." The woman answered him, "I have no husband." Jesus said to her, "You are right in saying, "' have no husband'; for you have had five husbands, and the one you now have is not your husband. What you have said is true.'" The woman said to him, "Sir, I perceive that you are a prophet. Our fathers worshiped on this mountain, but you say that in Jerusalem is the place where people ought to worship." Jesus said to her, "Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth." The woman said to him, "I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things." Jesus said to her, "I who speak to you am he."

So this woman comes to the well every day with her jar. I asked Erin, because she drove in and I flew in, to bring me a jar so that I could carry it in to this teaching, and she brought me this-because it was nice and small.

Now, this woman probably carried a jar about this size, though, and probably a long way. And I can tell you as I'm standing here looking so graceful, that it's heavy-a lot like the burdens you wake up with every morning. And you carry 'em around all day, and you're weary and you're in bondage, but this is just normal. Carrying this all day, every day, is just your normal.

You know that God did not call Christians to be normal? You're not supposed to look like everyone else. You might look a little crazy. Philippians says we should shine like starts in a dark night's sky. If you are living the way God wants you to live, you are going to stick out. You are going to be noticeable; you're not going to be normal.

Now, you might not be Erin Davis-crazy, but you're not going to be normal. You might be Erin Davis-crazy . . . she's going to recruit. But I want you to understand the full impact of this story, because in this day and age it was not acceptable for men to talk to women. It was not acceptable especially for Jewish men to talk to Samarian women.

A Hebrew man never spoke to a woman on the streets. Coed conversation was like a big scandal. It would have shown up on our tabloids' front page: "Jew talks to Samarian at water well." True to form, the religious leaders of the day took this tradition to legalistic levels. When they saw a woman walking in the streets, they closed their eyes. Because they weren't going to talk to her, they also were not going to look at her.

This caused one Bible commentator to call them the bloody and bruised Pharisees, because they often ran into things-bam! [laughter] But Jesus didn't close His eyes. And He does not close His eyes to your need today. He does not close His eyes to the burden that you pick up every morning.

It's not really a stretch to consider that He deliberately sought out this woman, because there was a faster route to the place where Jesus was going. But for whatever reason, He went through Samaria and, for whatever reason, the Scriptures only record one encounter there-the story of a woman lost in her boy-craziness, picking up her jar of shame and works (like she's doing it all herself, you see?) and loneliness, because she came in the heat of the day, when nobody else was there because she was so ashamed.

Are you ashamed of something? Is there a secret in your heart that nobody knows about, that you've never told anyone? Maybe you are carrying a jar, a heavy weight.

At the well, He finds her, and she's thirsty for that water from all the work of trying to take control of her life. He says He has something for her-living water. First He asks her for a drink. Do you know what? When He does that, He's breaking another religious tradition of the day. Because if you can't talk to a woman (and the Pharisees don't think you can look at a woman), you sure can't touch her. You sure can't pass a cup from a man to a woman.

I want to tell you something-I believe in purity, I believe in holiness, and I also believe that sometimes as humans we can be Pharisaical and take God's rules of holiness and purity to legalistic levels. Jesus does not care about the traditions of the Church; He cares about the written Word. But the traditions of man, the rules of man, He breaks them to set her free.

Jesus answered, "Will you give me a drink?" The woman, with shock in her voice, asks "How can you ask me for a drink?" In response, He insists that He's not really the one with the parching thirst. Some of you today have a parching thirst. He knows she's thirsty for men and sex, but that might not be what you're thirsty for.

You might be thirsty for affirmation; you might be thirsty for control. You might be thirsty for a perfect grade; you might be thirsty for a family; you might be thirsty for friendship. Jesus says, "The only place you're going to truly be satisfied is if you put down this jar and you pick up the living water that only comes from the Holy Spirit."

I want to share with you two things that this woman did. The first thing she did, that you need to do to be set free today, is she got transparent. Sure, Jesus helped her. He helped her along. With the power of prophecy, He said, "Tell me about your husband." And she said, "I don't have a husband."

And He said, "I know! You've had five, and the one you're with now is not." If the Body of Christ needs anything desperately today it's transparency. James 5:16 says, "Confess your sins to one another . . . that you may be healed." Girls, listen to me! The thing that causes shame in your life, the thing that causes you to cower in secrecy, that lie that, "Nobody needs to know about this!"-it's from Satan, it's from the pit of hell, because Satan knows how much freedom is on the other side of that confession. And I've got to tell you something: forgiveness comes from God and God alone. You do not need to confess to someone in order to be forgiven; you need only to tell your Father.

For ten years, after I sinned sexually as a teenager, I picked up the jar of confession every day. I would confess to the Lord every morning. I would wake up and the sun was shining bright, and I would think, "Oh, it's going to be a great day! But something's . . . oh yeah, that." I just didn't feel forgiven.

I was forgiven, girls; I just wasn't healed! Because He's given us the Body of Christ to do that. James 5:16: "Confess your sins to one another . . . that you may be healed." Forgiveness comes from God; healing comes from the Body. If you want healing, if you want freedom, you've got to take your mask of perfection off today and tell someone that thing that you never wanted to tell anyone.

But the next thing that she does is pretty critical, because she took this heavy jar that's weighing my arm down right now (thank you, Erin Davis!). She took it, she put it down, and she left it. She leaves her jar behind. She leaves her jar behind!

She runs to the streets and she tells people, "You've gotta know what He just did for me!" I want some of you to leave your jars behind today, and to be able to have testimony at the end of the day of the freedom that God's given to you. When you confess it to someone, you say, "This is too heavy for me, I can't carry it anymore."

I don't know what your jar is . . . perfectionism, pornography, addiction to approval, lies about your beauty. Maybe, like me, the jar you pick up every day is confession, but you still don't feel it. Jesus wants you to leave your jar behind today. He doesn't want you to carry that heavy weight.

We're going to give you some time this morning to do those two things. Now, I don't believe that all of us are called to publicly share every little shame-filled secret. The Lord's called me to be very transparent. If He's given me a spiritual gift, it's just spilling my guts, and I'm not afraid of it anymore. I used to be, but I left that jar behind.

But here's, I think, the litmus test-that thing that causes shame in your life, are you still struggling with it? Then you need to tell someone, because you're in bondage. In telling someone, you're going to have the accountability to leave the jar behind , because some of you need to go home and break up with guys.

Some of you need to go home-well, you know what? You don't need to go home and break up with guys; you need to do it today, during your lunch break, because you might chicken out when you go home. Some of you need to break off relationships that are pulling you away from Christ. You need to leave your jar behind.

Some of you need to tell your mom and dad that you shouldn't have a computer in your room. You need to leave your jar behind. Some of you need to quit the swim team, because it's your god. I have a dear friend, in college she was set to be in the Olympics. She was in the Olympic trials when she realized that swimming was her god, and she left her jar behind.

The litmus test for confession is, are you still in bondage. And the other litmus test is this: If you're not in bondage anymore and it's in your past, would you be willing to tell someone else the testimony of your freedom, so they could be set free? You don't have to stand on a stage and shout it out. But would you let God use that, because He works all things together for good for those who love Him and are called according to His purpose?

He took all my sin and all my mess, and He uses it today. I'm not up here today because I'm the poster child of Christianity, the poster child of perfection, the poster child of freedom, the poster child of sexual purity. I'm up here today because I was in bondage and set free. Because I told someone my deepest, most shame-filled secret, and I left my jar behind.

Some of you just need to journal this out. You need to confess it, make a commitment that over lunchtime you're going to share with your mom what your jar is and how you're leaving it behind. But some of you need some love right now, so we have a prayer team. I'm going to ask them to just come on over here and spread across the front.

And as Steph leads us again in worship, we want to ask you to use the words that God gave you. His Word is alive and active, sharp as a double-edged sword, and Erin referenced, "Lord, use Your Word to do some surgery today." There is some stuff that needs to be "cut out" of you today, and you've just heard how to get free-two things. Confess it and leave your jar behind! And you could do that first one right here, today. Some of you may need to go home and over the lunch hour, do some work to leave your jar behind. For some of you, it's just a decision, but we want to be here for you, so that you can do that first one and confess.

Let me pray over you. Lord, we're tired of carrying these jars. They're heavy! We pick them up every day and it's our "normal." But God, You don't want us to be normal. You want us to be free! I pray right now that You would allow some of us to be freed from these masks of perfection, these Christian traditions, these expectations that are not from You.

Lord, all You expect is for us to bring our brokenness to You. You do not expect us not to break. I pray that You would help us to bring it now, some of us in the quiet of our seats, others of us using the real words-terrifying as they may be-so that we can walk out of here free. In Jesus' Name and by the power of the Holy Spirit, and the authority of God our Father, amen!