 Hi there! This is Pastor Vlad. And before we go into this week's content, I would like to invite you to become a part of what God is doing at Hungry Generation today. This year we've seen a great blessing of the Lord and anointing of God, God's healings and salvation and deliverances. And in 2019, I know that God wants to take us further. And many of you who are watching this video right now and watching this message, you've been receiving from Hungry Gen. You've been growing. Your world has been changing and we give to God all the glory. But we would like you in 2019 to become a part of what God is doing. And you can do that by sowing your best gift into this ministry. Or maybe doing something monthly, like a partnership, a reoccurring gift. This will help us to go further in 2019 and bring more of what we're bringing to you to many, many more people. Me and my wife, we do that every single year. Our church does that every single year. Well, once a year, we give a special offering to God. And then we also become partners of this ministry by our monthly contributions. And I give you that opportunity today to become our partner and to become somebody who contributes to what God is doing today. Below is a link where you can make that happen. So, why don't you ask God, what would God have you give this year to this ministry to help us go further in God? And now let's go into this message. I want to speak to you today about path to freedom. This weekend has been a weekend of freedom. Yesterday there was prayers that were offered for people to find freedom, certification and this morning service. I focused on that. To be honest with you, I had a different message for the second service. But when I heard that the membership meeting was changed, so I need to preach and I heard that I'm going to preach on Wednesday. So I might preach the second service that I was supposed to preach on Wednesday night. So don't miss Wednesday night. We're doing a little promo for the Wednesday night, by the way. Amen. And then there's a youth service happening tonight at 7.30. It's supposed to be at 6.30. It got moved to 7.30, just giving you a heads up. Don't come today after you go to the wedding and you eat all of that. The food needs to settle in. Don't go to sleep. Come to church. With that said, a book of Esther chapter 2 and verse 5. This is the following. In, in Sushan, Sinadel, there was a certain Jew whose name was Mardukai, the son of Jir, the son of Shai Mai, the son of Kish, a Benjamin. And then if you can flip a few pages to Esther chapter 5 and we will read Esther chapter 5 in just a minute. The story of Esther begins as such that Esther was chosen to be a queen for the king who dethroned another queen because she didn't show up because he ordered her to do so. And Esther, who was adopted by Mardukai, her uncle, she was there. And Mardukai, the Bible says in here, it gives us specifically where he came from. Now, for most of us, we read these names, Shai Mai, Jaira, Shanae. And we're like, you know what? It's not Petroi, Stepan, Aranke. But I want you to notice something here because there's the reason why this was mentioned here. Mardukai was a direct descendant of the family of Kish. Family of Kish is a family. Kish was the father to Saul, remember King Saul? So Kish comes from a family of Saul. Family, Saul comes from the family of Kish. And we see Mardukai, he also comes from the family of Kish. And why is that important? Because all of the Book of Esther pretty much deals with one big enemy. His name was Haman. And Haman was a descendant of Amalek, which tells me that Saul was commanded by God to completely wipe out Amalekites. That was promised to Joshua when Moses fought Amalekites and he spoke to Joshua. He says, God will wipe out the memory of Amalekites. And there was appropriate time for that to happen because the wickedness of Amalekites reached the throne of God. And God commissioned Saul and says, I want you to go and completely wipe them out. King Saul disobeyed God by giving God half obedience and he spared some of the best things including the king of Amalekites. Only decades later, years later, the very thing that King Saul did not defeat resurfaced again and his descendants were faced with it. Everything you don't win doesn't die with you. It goes to the next generation. Every battle that you are faced by God and God challenges you and God calls you to win and God calls you to obey him. See, a lot of us what we call defeat, God calls disobedience. What we say, I've been defeated in this area in reality when Saul says, well, I didn't defeat the enemy, you know, I didn't do all of that, it was actually disobedience. Every area of our life where there is disobedience, there will always be defeat and that defeat is not something you will live with, that defeat will be passed on to your next generation. Now understand, I'm looking at young adults mainly and you're not thinking about your next generation, you're thinking about survival. You're thinking about how to get through this year without maxing out all your credit cards. So next year you can buy what you want or live out, purpose and travel and become an Instagram queen or an Instagram influencer and all of that. And that is great, there's nothing wrong with that. God bless you in your goals and in your pursuits, but I want to let you know, Satan will fight you hard. Not only because so you can live in defeat, he knows that if he can defeat you, he doesn't really have to fight the next generation. They already inherited your defeat. They have odds stocked against them. Statistics says if your parents were alcoholics, your chances of becoming an alcoholic is 10 times more than someone whose parents were not alcoholics. That means that the battle for the next generation, if the previous generation loses it, becomes 10 times harder and that's not even including the realities of the things that they have to fight. What am I trying to say with all of this? Is that many of us are fighting battles that didn't begin with us. Does that mean we're holding the other generation responsible? No, you're not responsible for what's passed on to you. You are responsible for what you activate and what you pass on to our next generation. When me and my wife purchased our duplex when we were married, we lived in apartments for a year and then we saved up some money and instead of buying a house, we bought a rental property so that we can have a little bit extra income and so we don't have to pay all the money for our mortgage. And we bought this really old rundown property because they usually sell for cheap and so we can fix it up. The guy who sold it to us was a lawyer. He didn't keep the property really well. In fact, it was so rundown that one side looked like a gothic, like some ghost-driven town. Had drug busts, windows broken, just dead cats buried like under the floor. Just scary stuff. We sprayed it and prayed it and oiled. I poured everything on those walls to sanctify it and to cleanse it and to purify it. And one of the things that it had on that house is the lawn, the front lawn and the back lawn was extremely unkept. There was no irrigation system installed. The weeds were literally to my knees. And you know, when I saw them, there was so much weeds. I was afraid to mow those weeds because I never knew what lived there. I'm looking at them, thinking, I'm like, man, this stuff is like, there's spirits there probably or like some kind of a snakes that lived there. Remember the first time I mowed it with my push lawn mower and it would get stuck every few feet or so. Now, I could have stayed there and called that guy who sold us the house and said, how dare you? You know, what kind of a citizen are you? You know, aren't you thinking you're a lawyer but there's no brains in your head because you're not even taking care of your own house? What kind of, I could have built a case against them. But that's not gonna help my lawn, right? The lawn is not gonna get better because I'm blaming somebody. So I took the lawn mower, mowing the lawn once, mowing the lawn second time, put the sprinkler system, start, you know, putting weed and feed and then putting all kinds of stuff and then after about a few years, all of the stuff got cleared out. And when we sold the property a few years ago, you know, not only it was completely remodeled, but the lawn looked like somebody actually put a lawn there instead of build that. And I passed on something that was good. Maybe your situation today is the same. Perhaps even as one of the young men shared, perhaps you come from a broken family. Perhaps divorce is your custom to it. Parents fighting with each other and World War III is already happening in your house. The world just doesn't know yet. Perhaps sickness and disease runs rampant. People don't take care of their bodies. People don't take care of what they eat. People don't take care of... They don't exercise. They don't think that's important to take care of your temple. Perhaps there is an anxiety and fear and depression that is normal. Nobody can sleep in the house without popping pills. Perhaps in your house, there's abuse of alcohol. And that's what you've been accustomed to and it's something that you've been tempted with. Perhaps there's lust that runs in your family tree. My encouragement today to you is that Mordecai faced an enemy that belonged to his ancestors, but he didn't blame Saul for that. He faced him. He overcame them. And Esther and Mordecai did not pass on Amalekites to the next generation. They passed on a festival. They passed on a holiday that Jews celebrate till this day where they celebrate the victory that Mordecai and Esther achieved. Pass on triumphs to the next generation, not trials. Many of you sitting here today, you come from a good family. You come from a family where your mom and dad is together. For you, the idea of divorce is strange. It's alien. The same way as it is for me. My mom and my dad have been married for over 33 years. My grandpa passed away last year, 93 or 92 on his birthday. He was a pastor. His grandpa, his dad Lazarus was a pastor and they were in ministry. They were married all their life. Never seen my mom or dad argue. They fight sometimes. But my dad learned a secret to marriage is always listen to my mom. My mom is a Korean woman. Short, little feisty. And as long as dad obeys her, everything is fine. Husbands listen. Amen. But I see that they're together. I see they love each other. I see that they care of us as a family. And so for me, it's very easy. It's easier to be able to see challenges in my relationship with my wife and overcome them because my parents passed on something to me that I'm benefiting from. Same thing with finances. To manage finances, it comes a lot easier for me because my dad does it. My dad never gave me a financial lesson. He never set me down and went Dave Ramsey on me. My dad simply lived his life balancing his books, never owning money to anybody and always was very generous. And seeing that and seeing how he modeled that to me, it comes very easy for me to manage my finances that even when we give all of our money away, we're still able to manage it in a way that glorifies God and in a way that helps us to take care of our needs because that was passed on to us. And so the Bible says in the New Testament, 1 Peter 1, 18, it says, knowing that you were not redeemed from corruptible things, like with corruptible things like silver and gold from your aimless conduct received by tradition from your fathers. 2 Timothy 1, 5, it says, when I call to remember the genuine faith that is in you which dwelt first in your grandmother, Lewis, and your mother, I am persuaded it is in you. I want you to see both of these scriptures. Peter is saying God redeemed us from things that were passed on from our fathers. And Apostle Timothy says, Timothy, Apostle Paul says to Timothy, he says, Timothy, there was your faith. I know your grandma, she had that faith. Your mama has the same faith. And he says, I'm persuaded you got the same faith. That tells me though you can't pass on salvation to the next generation, you can pass on your faith, your passion for God. You can pass on good things to the next generation. That's why devil fights you hard. He will fight me hard because he knows if I beat him at this level, this is what's going to happen. It's going to be easier for the next generation to overcome the enemy. When King David died, he passed on to his son Solomon a lot of good things. He passed on to him a lot of money. He passed on to him a throne. He passed on to him a crown. He passed on to him authority. He passed on to him houses. And he passed on to him a blueprint for how to build the temple. But there was one more thing that King David passed on is that he gave him a very clear description that though King David will die, the enemies King David accumulated throughout his life will not. They will be passed on to Solomon. And King David was very clear to Solomon and he says this and he actually named those enemies. He says this is the guy. That's the guy. That's the guy. He lives there. That guy lives there. That guy lives there. He says make sure none of them die normally. Meaning you take care of them. Solomon is young and inexperienced. That's before Solomon had the wisdom from God. Before Solomon builds his house and builds the house of the Lord. The Bible says the Solomon the first, I think chapter of the Kings. Kings chapter 2. You see one problem surfaces. It's his daddy's problem. One guy begins to make some fuss and asks for something that he shouldn't be asking. Boom, his surfaces. And then another surfaces. Then Solomon gave another person a restriction. He says you can't go past Jerusalem. And I want you to see this. The Solomon doesn't go building his kingdom until he establishes his kingdom by getting rid of his daddy's demons. Impatience. Anger. Passivity. Laziness. Gossiping about pastors. Constantly criticizing worship. I met a person yesterday here who says I criticize your church and I really, really apologize. And he says my daughter today don't go to church. Those things. Some of you you're battling with that inside of you. And it's a battle that didn't begin with you. It began somewhere else. If you don't win it, it will continue. But I'm challenging you today. This afternoon that the Holy Spirit has empowered you to have victory in your life and for the future generations. The Holy Spirit wants you and I to win as many battles as we can so that the next generation will use our ceiling as their floor. You're not responsible for what's passed on to you. You are responsible for what you activate. Scientists did a study and they found out there are certain things that are passed on in our DNA. Not only the color of hair, the color of skin, the color of eyes, but our characteristics, sicknesses, health habits are passed on also in our DNA. That's why when you go to the doctor he doesn't just ask you, hey, you had a flu for how long? What are some of the symptoms? If you fill out the first time you go to the doctor you fill out the application they will ask you about your grandma. Like she lives in Moscow. Why would you want to know my grandma? What about your uncles? They'll ask you about your parents. And you say, I don't know my parents. I don't talk to them. They want to know. Has diabetes been in your family? They will ask you, has the heart problem? Is it something that goes in your family? And you can say, well, doctor, I don't believe in that stuff because under the blood all of that is taken care of. He doesn't care what you believe because science doesn't operate by belief system. They believe they operate by facts. And it's been proven scientifically that there are things that are laying in my DNA and your DNA passed down from my father that can be activated or deactivated based on my choices, my experiences and my associations. Good or bad? You can have faith passed on to you. You can have good marriage passed on to you by your parents. You can have a prayer life passed on to you by your parents laying dormant until it's activated by your choices, your associations and your experiences. That's why when you go to a Bible school that's why when you go to and have an encounter with God you have an experience with God. When you connect yourself with right people you have proper associations and then when you have a proper you make a decision. This is what happens. It begins to activate certain those things and you go into ministry and it's not necessarily because you just went into ministry because your daddy was in ministry but at the same time there was choices, associations and experiences that activated the same grace that is moving from your father God of Abraham, God of Isaac and God of Jacob. God is a generational God. God doesn't just want the blessing and favor to rest on you. He wants you to spread to the next generation and generation after on your children, your grandchildren and your great-grandchildren. So is the devil. He doesn't want porn to be your problem. He wants your children's problem to be the same. He doesn't want depression to be your problem. He doesn't want nightmares to be your problem. He wants that to be just going through you to other generation. That's why today it's not an option to live a victorious life. I don't care if you're 15 or if you're 27. Victory is our portion and we have to do it for our sake, for God's sake and for generations' sake. Come on somebody. Are you with me? How do we receive? How do we walk in that victory? How do we receive that victory? And we're going to take a look at Book of Esther chapter 5 and I'm going to share with you three simple steps on how to walk in victory, receive victory. Now it happened on the third day that Esther put on her royal robes and stood in the inner court of the king's palace across from the king's house. While the king sat on his royal throne in the royal house, a lot of royal, facing the entrance of the house, so it was when the king saw Queen Esther standing in the court, she found favor in his side and the king held out to Esther, the golden scepter that was in his hand and Esther went near and touched the top of the scepter and the king said to her, what do you wish Queen Esther? What is your request? It shall be given to you up to half of the kingdom. And so Esther answered, please increase the limit on my credit card so I can buy more shoes from China. I'm just checking if you're listening. And Queen Esther answered, we're about to die, kill Haman. That's not what it says. If it pleases the king, let the king and Haman come today to the banquet that I have prepared for him. She knew the key to every man's heart is food, especially good food, mama's food. She says, I want you to come to my banquet. Dear Lord, I ask you that today you will open our hearts to your word, to your faith. And I pray that you will help us to receive what we came for today in Jesus' name, amen. I want us to see first of all is when Haman, the enemy who's been there for generations before, resurfaced that Esther's first reaction to dealing with Haman was not political or physical. Now this problem that her life would be destroyed, the Jewish people would die, this was a real problem. It was not a spiritual made up, mystical problem somewhere on the Mars. This was here, right here. You could see it, everybody gonna die. Die means no more. Physical problem, real problem. Esther, unlike many people in Babylon, had a position which she could leverage to solve that problem. She was in a very high political place. In fact, she was so close. I'm pretty sure she had an unspeed dial. Many of the governors, many of the people who influence different territories, she could have easily pulled the strings, called the committee, created a campaign, create a GoFundMe account. She could have did some physical things to pull the strings, influence her husband, who was the king, to move upon the Supreme Court of that land to reverse the law. But when Esther hears of this problem that is physical, I want you to see what Esther does not do. She doesn't lean on her political connections. She doesn't lean on her political abilities. She calls the whole nation. Now this is the girl. She didn't win a championship of the cutest girl on Instagram. This girl, she was the queen. She was the most influential when it comes to women. She had a platform. She had the look. She had the favor. But this girl, she got brains. In order to discern that this problem is spiritual and it doesn't require my political connections and my good face. It requires something bigger. It requires spiritual, spiritual solution. She gets the whole nation to do what? Fast and pray. She doesn't create a GoFund account. Let's defund Mardukai. She doesn't call up her connection. She says, I want to bring the whole nation to fast and pray. Dear friends, having a good-looking body and no brains here is no good. Having big pocket by not seeing the spiritual world is no good. Having a status of a millionaire by not understanding that the world you live in is spiritual is not good. The Bible says we do not wage a war in a physical realm. We fight a spiritual warfare. This war exists right now, whether you like it or not, whether you like to admit it or not, whether you are engaged in this warfare or not, it is up to you and I. And that is why fasting and prayer is not an option to people who understand the world they live in is spiritual. The problems they face might be physical, but many times, many times, the roots of those problems are not visible to a human eye. That's why therapy, that's why counseling, that's why many times, medicine, all of that numbs those problems, but many, many, many times, they don't necessarily fix them. What am I trying to say? Many of our problems that we face right now are physical, but the roots are spiritual, and their solution has to be not fists but knees. When I went to a growth conference in Portland, the second largest church in America, the Church of Highlands, they have a whole system called the growth track and all of this stuff and we use that system. The senior pastor, Chris Hodges, he does this whole thing of describing how they bring people to church, how they disciple them, all of those things that I know some of you guys even do here as well. And then at the end, he does this thing, when he talks about prayer and fasting, how they do twice a year, 21 days of prayer and fasting. And something that shocked me hearing that from American churches, especially church that size, and he says, if you do every single thing that we do, but you don't pray and you don't fast, he says it will not work. And this is why, because church is not a social club. Church is not scratch my back, I scratch your back club. Church is a spiritual place. Church is a place where people get plucked out of hell and put into heaven. Church is a place where the warfare is being done for the souls of people, because church is a place that deals with eternity of people and there are spiritual forces that do not want that to happen and they occupy the Bible says they live in the heavenly places and when you fast and pray, now you might not understand anything about spiritual world and that's completely fine. But something happens when you pray and fast, the spiritual world begins to move. When Moses lifted his hands on the mountain and Joshua fought on the bottom of the mountain against the Malachites, any time the hands were up, Joshua was winning. When the hands went down, Joshua was losing. So the victory did not depend on how strong Joshua was, it depended on how high his hands went up. I genuinely believe that Jesus says, this kind doesn't come out by prayer and fasting. There are forces of darkness can never be crushed in our city and in our region except if we pray and fast. Fasting and prayer is not an option for people living in a broken world. Not only we humble ourselves by it, not only we see God, but it's like Daniel who fasted 21 days and the Prince of Persia, the Bible says he was occupied. Prince of Persia wasn't the guy who was sitting on the throne. It's the guy who occupied the guy who sit on the throne. It was a spiritual entity and when Daniel fasted and prayed, Daniel wasn't rebuking the devil. Daniel was just fasting. Daniel was just seeking God. But God's angels were moving on his behalf. I'm not saying to go demon hunting and looking for devils behind every bush. What I'm saying is you get on your face before God and recognize that everything that you face in life you can't fix because you have more degrees than a thermometer. You can't fix because you got connections. You can't fix because you finally reached 10,000 followers on Instagram. You can't fix just because you got money in your bank account or just because you have a good health insurance. None of that stuff really matters if what you're facing is spiritual. What matters is our prayer and humility before God and it's fasting. I challenge some of you. In fact, when your church is fasting and you are not and you don't have a health problem, why? What can be any other excuse except pure laziness? I'm going to die. Really? Most of us will die because of overeating. This is not third world country. We live in a nation where most of our diseases is because we eat too much. You're not going to die. You will actually live. And very long perhaps. Well, when I have a headache because you're drinking too much Dr. Pepper and that's a cleansing system. You're not going to die. It's going to feel like your flesh is going to suffer for a little bit but then you're either going to break your flesh or you're going to break your heart one day. I challenge each one of you. There is no excuse. When the church, I don't, like, forgive me, I just get a little bit emotional when I talk about this because as a church we fast three days every month. So after our last Sunday every month then we do Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday after the last Sunday. Every single month we've been doing this for the last few years and this is not like, oh, if you feel like, really? What do you think? Devil wakes up and says, well, I don't know how I feel about attacking him today. Really? You don't wake up in the morning and your flesh doesn't say, well, I don't feel like attacking you today. That doesn't happen. That's not an option. People have built a life of prayer and fasting to Christians today. It's like a super life. There's a basic life where you don't do anything. You're a couch potato and then there's like a deeper life. No, no, no, that is the only Christian life we have. It's whether we follow Jesus or we don't follow Jesus. Nothing in between. I just sense a little condemnation lad coming from you. If your lazy self is offended, I'm happy. My goal is to electrocute the fence you're sitting on right now. If you're sitting on the fence between this or between that, my goal is to make you to jump this way or that way. If God is the Lord, Elijah says, we follow him. If he is not, we pack our bags, go smoke pot and go to hell. But we don't choose to go to hell. That means we need to go run after God 100%. And the problem with many of us, when we serve the devil, we went all the way. And when we serve God, we do bare minimum. When we did drugs, $500 every single month went to do drugs. And our tithing record is $50 a month. What kind of madness is that? So we could spend money on drugs that destroyed us and we can't be generous. I don't believe in tithing. You tie to the kingdom of the devil and you can tie to the kingdom of God. Get rid of that Judas problem and give God everything that you got. You only got one life. You have no right to live a normal life. If he died a brutal death and if that offends you, look at the cross. There is no right I have to live a normal life. If my savior died a brutal death for a wretch like me, we owe to live with every fiber of our being for him. That means humbling yourself. That means praying. That means fasting. And when we do that, things shift in the realm of the spirit. You might not feel it. You might not see it, but it does happen. You're a praying church. And I believe even as the new campus is starting, without prayer and without fasting in this country, now we can bring people from other churches. Please understand moving money from my savings to my checkings doesn't make me richer. We can make better music, better programs. But a young lady who shared a testimony from another country, the lost people don't come because only come because of God. Social media brings them to church. Only Holy Spirit brings them to God. We have today pretty much 50% of other people that come to our church, come to social media. That's why we put a lot of emphasis on social media. We stop doing television. We stop pretty much doing everything, putting all the money into social media. Because it brings a lot of people to church. But once they are here, only the Holy Spirit can bring them to Christ. Because the gospel is offensive. We believe in a guy who became a man and died and rose again. That's offensive. And if that's not offensive, I don't know what it is. And only the Holy Spirit can convict somebody's heart. We pray out loud. We pray passionately. And our services are not microwaves. They're not an hour and 20 minutes. They're two hours and 30 minutes. And that's not going to happen. That's not going to be for normal people. And I don't want normal. I want God to convert people. I want people to be saved, to be saved, to be born again. Not just to pray a sinner's prayer. I like what Charles Spurgeon said. Because Charles Spurgeon had this follow-up program where the next morning at five in the morning they had to show up at his office. And he gets saved. By next morning they lose the conviction. He says, if you put a nail in the eye of a bull he says it will not stop hurting by next morning. What he was saying, he says when the Holy Spirit wounds his soul like that, he says it will stay there. And to do that, we need God. We need the move of the Holy Spirit. We need the shift in the realm of the Spirit. And for that to happen, that's why we pray. That's why we fast. That's what the church is doing 21-day fast. And I ask you, if you've not been doing it, if this is for them, this is not for me, I'll rebuke you kindly in Jesus' name. And I ask you to snap out. This year is not supposed to be the same year that was last year for you. And most likely those of you who are saying stuff like that right now, you have issues, you're fighting, you can't beat on your own. Perhaps one of those issues is a passive spirit. Is this passivity, this couch potato thing where you just don't feel, you just don't have that. And that can be broken if you get on your knees. If you put the foot away and say, Lord, I need you more, like Esther. I don't rely on my looks. I don't rely on my connections. I don't rely on my committees. Lord, we rely on you. So the first thing is that we have to win the battle in the spiritual realm if we want to see the change in the natural realm. Number two, we see that Esther, after three days when she fasted and prayed, I'm sorry, I kind of went off a little bit right now. So Pastor, you take care of that afterwards. Yeah, sorry, I kind of feel better. Secondly is that we see here that after the third day of fasting, Esther, she put on her royal garments, the Bible says, and she went to the royal palace to see the king. So the fasting, I believe it changes things in the realm of the spirit. It breaks spiritual strongholds. Yes, it helps us to humble ourselves. There's a lot of benefits of fasting and your pastor did a phenomenal teaching. You can see it on YouTube, four types of fasting. And so there's a lot of teaching that is in this house. So I don't want to take time to talk about that. But that's one of the things that it does, is it changes things in the realm of the spirit. But the second thing that I want us to see for us to experience true freedom is not only to pray and fast and to fight spiritual forces, but secondly is that we have to put on a royal garments instead of rags of our problems. What does it mean? It means that we have to mentally dress up instead of dress down. We have to dress up in royal garments instead of dress down in rags. Esther could have easily been dressed down in rags of a problem. Her heart was broken. Her nation was about to be wiped out. She just fasted for three days. She could have easily put on the worst kind of clothes that she had ripped and put holes in them and walk into the king like some kind of a beggar and plead and beg. But I want you to see that Esther didn't see the change yet. Haman was still there and he was still smiling and laughing. He was still near to the king. But Esther did not wait for the change in life before she changed how she thought, how she perceives herself and how she carried herself. That tells me that spiritual breakthrough in the spiritual realm must lead to having a breakthrough in your heart or in your mind before there is a breakthrough that manifests itself in your life. Meaning renewing of the mind precedes the transformation of our life. Romans chapter 12 verse 2 it says that present your bodies as a living sacrifice and it says this, do not conform to this world but be transformed by the renewing of our mind. What it means is that don't let your mind be conformed to what's happening around in your life right now. Let it be transformed by what God says in his word. But what hinders that in our life many times is that we say well but my life is not changed yet. My kids are not serving God yet but I don't have a boyfriend. I don't have a job. But my bills are not being paid for. But I don't know what to do with my future but I'm still battling with this pain from my past and so until all of that is taken care of only then my mind will be changed. That tells me your mind is conformed to your world instead of transformed by his word. Don't dress your mind down to the world you are in. Dress it up with the word that you're living in. The truth of God. Jesus says you shall know the truth and what? The truth will set you free. That tells me that the freedom exists is not only on the level of the spirit where Jesus comes and rebukes the devil. Where the anointing of God breaks the yoke. But there is a freedom that exists through knowing the truth. That breaks certain things here, breaks certain things here, breaks my speech pattern, breaks my how I feel, how I think and how I speak and that leads me to freedom. If you don't see freedom after fasting and after praying, the Lord wants you also to fill your mind with his truth to that degree that it changes how you see yourself. Presence of truth doesn't make anybody free. The same way as presence of soap doesn't make anybody clean. You can have a truck load of soap in your garage and stink like a skunk. None of you do, I know. So relax. But soap doesn't make you clean. It's applying soap that makes you clean. Putting it whatever you want it to be clean, that's where you put the soap. And you don't just kind of put it casually, religiously. No, you scrub it. And when you have negativity, when you have brokenness here, you have to take that truth and you got to scrub your soul with it. It's good. It's important to pray. It's important to fast after three days. Esther put on the royal garments and that tells me that after I pray, after I fast, I also have to take the word of God and I have to let it conform me instead of me being conformed to my situation and me being conformed, excuse me, to my problem or whatever I am going through right now. The problem happens with our problems is that when you stay in them long, they begin to affect how you think and how you feel. That even if the Lord takes you out of that problem, you still think the same way. It explains why Israel, though leaving Egypt, still were slaves. Because when you stay in slavery for 400 years, it's not just a place, it becomes your identity. I think I've shared this a few years ago is when they did an experiment on a fish, a barracuda fish. They put a barracuda fish in the fish tank and they put other small fish in the fish tank. Barracuda fish is not born again so she eats other fish for living. So she went to the other side and ate the rest of the fish. They put a glass in between the barracuda fish and other fish. They put a glass there. And so, barracuda fish can't see through the glass and so it was going to the other fish and bam, it hit the glass. Stretch yourself, realize, OK, maybe I shouldn't be going that fast next time. So next time, it went a little bit slower. It still hit the glass. Third time, it hit the glass. Fourth time, it realized, don't go to the other side. They removed the glass after a few days and barracuda fish never went to the other side. Glass was no longer there. Why? Because the glass that was in the fish tank after hitting it so much went into her mind. If it happens with the fish, it happens with people. After you experience hurt and abuse, after you experience certain things for so long, many times what many of us do is we're like Titanic. We're letting the world that's on the outside to get inside and we become conformed to that world that we are in. And therefore, our mind are dressed in rags. We can pray and fast, but if we don't change the mental dress code and we don't put the truth of God inside of us, if we don't change who we are because of what God says, instead of being defined by what we feel, what we see, what people have said about us, the labels we've been given, what we've experienced, if we don't do that, we will continue to live feeling like nothing is changing, even if God changes everything and everyone. And then we do this prayer. Change everybody, Lord. Change my husband. Change the president. Change the pastor. Change the deacons. Change my children. Change the weather. And God, while you're at it, change yourself. But just don't touch me because I wait for everybody to change and only then I'll feel better. The Bible says do not conform yourself to the world. Be transformed by the renewing of your mind, meaning we have the truth of God and we have to allow it to define who we are. Many of you hear your young people and you probably have a nice car from what I've seen in a parking lot. God bless your soul. But many of your cars have salvage title. Shall we ask raising of the hands? No, no, no. We won't do that. No shame and condemnation to those who are in Livingstream Church. Amen. What is a salvage title? Russians understand. It's very simple. You bought a car on the auction for a little discount. And then Victor at that shop, he fixed it for you for half price. Car on the auction just means the car has been through something. Had a rough day. And then you had somebody else fix it. If they fixed it really good, an average Joe is not going to see the difference. He's going to see your car and he's going to say, man, you got a nice car. And you're going to say, yes, I do. Until you have to sell it. And they look at the car, I mean 45,000 miles on the Toyota Camry. Super deal. Looks great, clean, smells good. Until you have to tell them of what it says on the title deed. And then the atmosphere changes. He said, well, this car, you know, salvage title. Oh, okay. Well, I'll call you later then. That's why salvage cars, they don't sell as good as the other cars. Most banks will not loan you money. Everything is fine with the car. Something is wrong with the title deed. Why? Because what the car went through, went on the title deed. And because of that word on the title deed, in the glove box, rebuilt salvage, it reduces the value of the car, causes conversations to be awkward. And makes you have a great car, but no, you don't have a great car. And many people, exactly what the devil does, you go through stuff and those problems and go into the glove box of your mind. And people start treating themselves, settling for less. Why? Because, well, what I've been, I've been, I've done drugs or I've been delivered from this or in my past life, you know, I've lost virginity. I've been struggling with this before. And so what happens, even if God delivers you, the devil says, well, that's great that he delivers you. Well, make sure, let me put a stamp on your consciousness and on your mind that you are salvage. Why? Because as long as you think you're salvage, you'll always sell yourself for less. You will make your life painful. People say, no, Vlad, I don't do that. Just people think of me like that. Have you ever tried to pay your utility bills with people's opinions? People's opinions are like feet. Everyone has them and sometimes they stink. What people say is one thing. The question is what do you think? The question is, what do you feel? What do you speak? What does it say on your mind? That is to say what God says, the truth of God? Or does it say your history is those who are in Christ are new creation? I didn't find it there. It says rebuilt. It didn't say those who are in Christ are salvage title. It says those who are in Christ are new creation. But see, the church will see you. People will see you. You will see you as rebuilt. And that's why when you fight in the spiritual realm, you have to also fight in the realm of your mind where you remove what the world says, what you say, what others say, what you feel and put only what God says about you and the truth of God's word. You must say, but what if it's not true? You have to understand. The truth of God is the truth. Everything that facts could change. But the truth never changes. Muhammad said, I'm the prophet of truth. Buddha said, I'm the secret of truth. Jesus said, I am the truth. In other words, you got to know Jesus intimately. The title deed that's in your glovebox right now. So many young ladies, they've had a sin in their past before they came to Christ and after they've repented. But there is a thing that exists in their title deed that says, but I've lost my this, I've lost my that and therefore God can never send me a great man. God can never send me a great marriage. God can never bless me with a great future. Who told you that? They did. Did he say that? Remove the rags, put on the royal garments, and you will see what God will bless you with. Because you don't attract into your life what people say. You attract what you believe and you can believe God's word and you can believe your feelings and other people's experiences. And I want to challenge each one of you here today. Begin to change how you see yourself based on God's word instead of how you feel. For example, if you're battling what sin? When you fight, when you fast, when you say, Lord deliver me from that. You go for prayer. Somebody prays for you like, man, I feel God delivered me. You get up from that prayer. You must change how you see yourself. That means, like a brother mentioned, you no longer see yourself as a sinner who's trying to get righteous. You see yourself as a righteous who fights sin. You say, oh, it's just a play of words. It's not a play of words. It's a change of position. Because one says, I'm a sinner. The other one says I'm a righteous. And Bible tells me that the righteous person falls seven times and he what? A wicked. The next verse says the wicked falls by calamity. Meaning, the wicked doesn't even fall into sin. He falls by a problem and he can't get up. Why? Because of who he is. A righteous man is pulled as a line. That means that I have to adjust. When I become a Christian, when I become free, when I receive deliverance from God, when I feel things shifted in the realm of the Spirit, something has to shift in my mind. I no longer associate myself with my sin or my struggle. I associate myself with Christ. I died with him. I live with him. I'm sitting with him. I am in him. Do I still fight sin? Of course I do. Sometimes even stronger than before. But I don't fight a sin as a sinner. I fight a sin as a son. I am a son who fights a sin. I'm a righteous person who fights a sin. I always tell a church I tell them to tell yourself all the time I'm not a weak person trying to get strong. I'm a strong person fighting weakness. I'm not a sinner trying to get righteous. I'm a righteous person fighting weakness. I'm not a sick person in fact trying to get healthy. I'm a healthy person fighting sickness. Every doctor will tell you there is nothing wrong with your body. If they remove that virus, they remove that cancer, if they remove that little thing your body is fine. Therefore you can't let one little cell or one little tumor or one little cyst change who you are now. That doesn't mean you reject the reality of the problem, the sickness, the issue, the stronghold, the problem. It just means you don't make it who you are. You make it who you are who's you are. And from that position you fight. It does not mean that when I renew my mind that I am righteous in God I am victorious. That's it. The devil comes like, okay, I give up. No, in fact, he will fight you stronger. When God came to Joshua and says, Joshua, I gave you promised land. You did not see Midianites and Jebusites and all of the otherites that didn't come and said, Joshua, we surrender. None of them surrendered. In fact, every piece of promised land Joshua won by war. But he got the victory before he got the battle. You have to have victory before you fight from God, from the Holy Spirit. Victory over sin, victory over doubt, victory over depression, victory over sadness. It comes from renewing your mind by his word. You may say, but what if, like, that doesn't actually work? If that doesn't work, the sun will fall out of its orbit and the earth will stop having gravity. If God's word doesn't have power we're toast. I trust in his word. Now, does that mean that always we see what we pray for, what we believe for? No. Does that mean the righteous man then never falls? He still falls. In fact, sometimes such a knucklehead falls seven times. He's still righteous because he gets up. He anchors his identity in something new. I shared this in a brief yesterday what I've seen happen with my wife. When we got married my wife was battling with chronic nightmares and loneliness and a sense of rejection. It was very difficult for her to connect in church in the ministry that she was in and I thought this is just normal way of couples adjusting. She's in a new place. She's a dear friend and maybe it's going to take six, seven, eight months and six, seven months passed but it wasn't changing. I started to recognize that it was a spiritual problem because anytime that she was asleep she would have these just attacks. It was attacks in her sleep, attacks at her night and she had a really difficult time working. She had a difficult time being in church and she just wanted to go home. Now as a pastor it breaks your heart when your own wife doesn't want to be in your church. There's no way you can explain it. I didn't tell it to anybody. I cared a lot about my reputation at the time. We would come to church at the time. Our prayer meetings on Tuesday there were just a bunch of friends and relatives. One small room, maybe 10 people, 12 people. If somebody is not praying it's clearly evident. It always happened. She just had this disease, a spirit of silence and she wouldn't pray. We need to pray. You don't feel the spirit like you got a show, you got it. So all over there no matter if I had an argument with my wife or not I would go like you got to fake it till you make it. My wife stands there and one thing I love about my wife is that she's never fake to the point that it embarrasses me sometimes. She will always be true to herself. She doesn't feel it, she'll never fake it. So she just stood there. In my pastor, my uncle looks and I'm trying to cover my wife so nobody sees that she's not praying because I'm embarrassed. I supposed to have a praying and fire wife brought her from another state from another city and so she needs to show that I made the right choice. I started praying for a long time so we started to pray for her freedom and then I decided to as a man of God I need to deliver my wife from her demons and then when you stop being a husband you become a deliverer in your house you quickly find out it ain't gonna work. I laid my hands on her, prayed for her with oil, with everything that I had and nothing and she was very kind and submissive you know, you're stronger and you can do this. Come on, this shouldn't affect you, you can beat this and I tried to push her into that. I tried to make her to pray I said listen, I don't have this and I pray a lot and you don't pray, you need to pray more you need to read the Bible more and of course the more I told her what to do the less she wanted to talk to me and then of course God taught me that God didn't call me to deliver my wife he called me to love her and that was a very painful revelation and all the guys will understand maybe I chewed it in my mind I acted with her as I would act if somebody I had that I was married to who was not a Christian just to give her space I said Lord, I'm gonna love her I'm gonna pray for her and I'm gonna be there with her because I can't change that woman I mean I can't even change myself the Holy Spirit started to do his work and all these prayers that we prayed they had some effect in the spiritual world they had exactly same feelings, exactly same thoughts and exactly same nightmares with the point she was working in a post office and she decided to start filling her mind with the word of God she was able to because her work allowed her to that she was able to listen to podcasts and listen to the Bible from five to six hours Monday through Saturday for two years and I started to see a change in my wife she still had the nightmares she still couldn't connect in the church she still had those moments but now I had freedom not to change her because I knew it's not happening but to be there to love her you can't grow a flower by pulling her you gotta water the flower and so and then this truth started to change how she started to think so when she would have those nightmares where somebody was choking her somebody was attacking her when she would wake up she now wanted to pray instead of saying I don't wanna do anything she now would rebuke she would say no this doesn't belong to me I'm a child of God now she will start to take authority and then instead of waiting for all the girls in the church to accept her and welcome her she just found the ones that nobody wanted to be with and started the home group with them I remember at one particular time I was trying to before this trying to really set her up with her sister because her sister was her best friend so I wanted to bring her sister marry one of the guys on our team and I kinda set up a blind date and her sister ran from that date and I was like oh come on I was really hoping that you know that you marry him so you can move here even if I'll marry him I'll take him there I'm not moving here cause I was thinking the solution would be if I just bring some friends to my wife it will solve the problem and nobody wanted to move and then when all of this started to change within about a year and a half to two years when this started to change the nightmares subsided her ministry started to open up without me trying to push her into anything she's on her own started to serve other girls started to minister to others her prayer life changed where today you know I see her every day Monday to Friday for one hour from six to seven o'clock pretty much every single day I see her at church praying on her own I don't tell her cause I go there a little bit earlier I don't tell her to do it I'm checking her now that that prayer life started our relationship changed her sister got married to my brother and moved to our city God does miracles and she loves our city now you know but now my wife doesn't need her sister we tell our sisters like we don't need you now okay you can move back but you can stay and today God has I've seen a change in her through changing of her mind by the word of God the situation was still there but when the word of God becomes more real through the quickening of the Holy Spirit I am not talking about building some faith in the Holy Spirit I am not talking about building some fantasies that you're this and that I'm talking about aligning yourself this is what God says and this is who I am I remember when I had to do that for my own self because I looked in the mirror for a long time I struggled with insecurity it was so chronic that I didn't want to live at the age of 13 and a half I skipped keyboarding class at Hanford High School in Richland because I was so shy to speak in front of 22 students I didn't tell my parents to sit at the bus station for six hours because I was scared to stand in front of people and my prayer at the time was God cause an accident so I will die because this world will be a better place without me in it and partial was because of my physical appearance and God never fixed my face yes I had two eye surgeries and they didn't help because I thought if my face will change, if God will do some cosmetic surgery if God will change how I feel inside I will be accepted I tried to find that acceptance in church at the time the church was small and we still had it in Russian language so there was pretty much three, four positions you can be involved in behind on the sound board I got kicked out, I said elephant stepped on my ear the second place was to lead worship they said you're deaf they kicked me out of the worship team I'm not making this up and the third place was to read poems at the church I did it one time and I was done I'm like come on Lord it can be below than this let the ladies read the poems they can't preach anyway or they shouldn't be preaching anyway and the last one is preaching in the Slavic church you would preach so I couldn't figure out which language to speak I always mixed up my languages English wasn't good, Ukrainian I already butchered it and Russian I couldn't pronounce it so my preaching wasn't good there was something to clean myself to school doesn't work the church literally kicks me out of the four departments they got you know how funny it is now but it wasn't funny when you're 13 and a half years old and you're trying to find who you are you know how many rags I had here a million of them and it wasn't a miracle it wasn't some kind of a touch of God and all of that was gone it was step by step taking these words fearfully and wonderfully I can't look at that mirror I'm going to look at this one Lord I'm going to look at your word and I'm not going to look at how my skin is stretched over my skeleton I will look at the fact that you made me in your image and your likeness did I feel that? No did I look like that? No but it's what he said and when that changed me on the inside today as I'm speaking to you I'm not afraid of you and when you're looking at me you're not looking at me you're like I don't care about it and if you're thinking not good if you're thinking I don't care about it because I'm already married so your opinion doesn't matter I'm a living witness that God's truth can transform your mind it will change how you will live it will change how you will minister it will change how you will relate to your children, to your spouse and in your business remove the rags replace them with royal garments church are you with me? are you ready for just one more and we're going to pray? lastly so spiritual world is changed by fasting and prayer the mental capacity our mental emotional world is changed by the truth of God's word instead of our feelings truth of God's word and number three is and this is the part that we read earlier excuse me Esther comes after fasting she comes to the presence of the king and remember when I've read that Esther said to the king if it pleases the king let the king and Haman come today at the banquet that I have prepared for him now think about this you have a problem you're about to die all of your family is going to die and this is the guy who allowed it to happen who happens to be your husband you haven't seen him for 30 days and he's the only one who can change something and he asks you a question Esther what do you want? what would you say? we would create a panic I mean Mardukai did that he screamed he yelled we would be like Bartimaeus son of David have mercy what touches me about the story the most is that Esther did not ask for her freedom she asked for a meeting with the king she asked to give him a meal something she knew he would really like so my third and final point is don't use God as a means to a goal make him your goal don't use God as a means to get freedom make God your goal many of us don't think of it like that you can use God to get freedom mm-hmm and then we leave him because when we're in bondage we fast and we pray we cry out every prayer meeting we're there every auto call we're there we don't care what people think but then something takes place we become calculated we become confident we mature we become something now that passion that existed before that drive that flame inside because see you can scream and not have a flame but when that's flame there only you and God know that that heat inside the heat for God's love this this passion for the Lord that was there that was fueled by the pain of life many times when the fuel is gone which is the pain of life many people transition to putting a fuel of their passion why because from the beginning God was not the goal he was just someone who helped us to reach the goal what was the goal I don't want to live in pornography I don't want to live in depression what is the goal I want to live a good life that was the goal God helped me to reach it and now that I reached the goal God is a sidekick that I need like a spare tire in case I find another goal I can't reach young people always ask me how to be used by God and I say this all the time stop using God make him your goal he will use you if you use him he's not the goal his gifts his power his freedom his breakthrough he wants to bless us with that but in Matthew chapter 6 verse 33 he doesn't say seek that he says seek him and everything else will be added my fear is in the passion for freedom in the passion for blessing in the passion even for the anointing in the passion for the miracles that a lot of times God becomes just something that we use to get there and we can say the right lingo but the motives only the Holy Spirit can examine and I dare not today to try to correct your motives because I need God to help me correct mine but when I read the prodigal son and I see prodigal son to his father and this is what he says his father give me what is mine so many charismatic people pray that prayer give me what is mine give me my healing give me my breakthrough give me my blessing God is so good even when you are wrong he will bless you he gave him his stuff and you know what happened to him the prodigal son left the father and then when he lost everything he came back to his father and I want you to see what he prayed now he had nothing he came to his father and the bible says he said father make me your servant let's not learn this lesson the hard way he did instead of coming to the king and saying king deliver me, king help me say king can we have a meeting with you in the 9 chapters of Exodus 17 times Moses told to Pharaoh let my people go and he gave this reason he didn't say because they are suffered enough let my people go why because you are not paying them wages they don't deserve this suffering this is madness he did not say that's why you should let my people go that they my serve me God did not see any other reason for deliverance and freedom except the fact people would be available to serve him Israel missed the point because when they came out of Egypt the only thing they did is complained and whined and worshiped cows God doesn't think that he delivers you so you can be better he thinks he delivers you so he can replace your monster in that place so you can worship him most of us don't see deliverance the same way what if we adjust right now and think a little bit differently I want you to rise to your feet to come