Sheryl Brady - A Reset Season

I just want to talk to you about the subject of a reset season. This is not a season where we are going to come back and simply resume; it’s not a resuming season where we will just pick up where we left off. That’s not what I feel. I believe this is a season that God has been using to reset us for a while. Most everybody knows we have been in a pandemic, and those who do know that we have experienced loss—not only in America but globally. Many of you watching me have lost loved ones, jobs, opportunities, and wages. Some of you have even lost stability in your lives and time. It has been a season of loss, and most people know by now that there is a vaccine that has been developed. The last I heard, if I understood it correctly, they stated that over half of Americans have taken that vaccine. For many people, it feels like an answer to prayer. For many, it feels like a new beginning, a new lease on life, allowing them to return to being with their families, hugging people, or dining out—whatever it is you feel deprived of. For many, that is what the vaccine means. I know there’s a lot of controversy around it, and I’m not here today to speculate on those matters, but for a lot of people, it almost feels like it’s the light at the end of the tunnel. It feels like we can take a deep breath and are on the verge of a fresh start after 15 months of confinement. I say 15 months because that’s what it feels like, and I believe it’s been close to that since we last had church in the sanctuary. After 15 months of most people being confined at home and not venturing out except for the occasional need to get life’s necessities, it feels like a measure of freedom has come. In reality, we have been held captive by a virus that sought to kill, steal, and destroy—not only physically but also emotionally, mentally, financially, and even relationally. It has even destroyed some people spiritually. The fact that you have survived it should make you recognize that it was God who brought you through it all. We used to sing a song written by Andre Crouch that said, «Through it all, through it all, I have learned to trust in Jesus and I have learned to trust in God.» For many of us over the last 15 months, we have had to learn to trust God more than we ever have in our lives. Through the ups and downs, fears, frustrations, anxiety, loss, lack, and for some, even loneliness—through the ventilators and sitting in a hospital parking lot while someone you love was being placed on a ventilator—the long nights, late nights, tears, trauma, and sometimes even torment, the confinement and the conflict of your emotions, the quarantine, and just straight-up captivity—this is what it feels like to me. To be honest, we were not ready for that kind of captivity. This is the land of the free and the home of the brave. How in the world could we all be driven into our homes and away from each other by something called a virus? I mean, we were not ready for that. We are believers, and you have no right to try to hold me captive to anything. Yet, the Bible, if you take the time to look, is full of scriptures that deal with captivity. In fact, the major theme of the Old Testament is captivity for the people of Israel. They spent 400 years in Egypt and another 70 years in Babylon. The words «captivity,» «captive,» and «captives» are mentioned hundreds of times in scripture. Captivity actually means the condition of being imprisoned or confined. It denotes that your freedoms have been limited, and it is not a voluntary limitation; it is an involuntary one. It means you have been confined, trapped, restricted, limited, narrowed, or controlled against your own will. Does that sound like 2020 and a bit of 2021 to you? It does to me; it sounds very familiar. But the opposite of captivity is freedom. It is emancipation—being liberated to go and come as you please. It means I have options; it means I have choices to make. In that regard, I think it is safe to say…