What if the most powerful chains holding you back aren't made of iron, but of a single, dominant thought? I'll name that thought in a moment.

 

Two thousand years ago there stood a Roman Colony, proud and bustling. Its citizens walked streets paved with imperial ambition. Even so, many lived under a hidden shadow – the belief that their lives were determined by forces beyond their control: by unpredictable gods, by the cold calculations of the stars, or by the blind Fates who spun, measured, and ultimately cut the thread of every life.

 

What will be, will be.

Social structures seemed unshakeable. The privileged felt 'favored,' the struggling felt resigned. Slaves acquiesced to their lot in life... either buying their freedom through military service or a fluke of financial success.

Any whisper in the heart to break the predetermined mold was crushed by the simple futility of it. You are simply an observer, even a victim, of your own life. The stars, the gods, the fates rule all.

Now, consider our world. We don't overtly bow to ancient pantheons, yet don't global events, economic tides, and societal pressures sometimes leave us feeling small, overwhelmed, subject to forces beyond our control? And how does that feeling voice itself in our hearts? What voice rises from that sense of being powerless against the current?

It's that same ancient enemy, that same crippling two word phrase: I CAN'T.

I can't change my circumstances.
I can't break this cycle.
I can't make a real difference.
I can't overcome my 'destiny' – anxiety, failure, just getting by.

This voice is fed by any worldview that diminishes our hope in the face of overwhelming power.

I want to speak to whatever machine is causing you to say I can't.

So today I'm starting a new series: Quit Telling Yourself I Can't!

Over the coming weeks, we're going to explore an ancient message, delivered to a people steeped in fatalistic philosophy – a world that left them feeling powerless.

This message was written by a man facing his own impossible 'you can't' circumstances—that should have screamed a giant I CAN'T into his psychology. But he offered a radically different perspective.

This perspective hinted at a source of strength, a foundation for hope, that didn't depend on favorable stars or the whims of fate, but on something – or Someone – far more reliable, far more personal.

So here are people living convinced that their stories were already written by the unfeeling stars or the relentless Fates. Then suddenly a message comes to them... a voice from an imprisoned man who declares that their first and truest identity was one they never thought possible.

 

So we're looking at the letter to the people of Philippi, the epistle to the Philippians. The author is a man named Paul.

This is crucial. Paul isn't writing this from some ivory tower, some comfortable study. He is in chains. He is a Roman prisoner. This is one of 4 prison epistles he wrote. And when he wrote it, his future is uncertain, at best. He is on trial for his faith. His circumstances scream at him, 'You can't escape! You're done!'

Yet, from that very place, that place of confinement, how does he begin his message to these people? Not with his own troubles, not with a list of demands. He starts with an address. A label. And I tell you, it must have landed like a thunderclap in their deterministic world. This is the first building block for an 'I CAN' soul.

He writes this:
"Paul and Timothy, bondservants of Jesus Christ, To all the saints in Christ Jesus who are in Philippi, with the bishops and deacons..." (Philippians 1:1)

Saints.

Just let that word hang there for a minute. You hear 'saint,' and what pops into your head? For so many of us, maybe for them too, it's that stained-glass window figure, right? Super-holy. Practically glowing. Someone who lived a life without a single flaw, centuries ago. Someone pretty much not like you. Not like me. Especially when that internal critic, that voice you know so well, starts whispering about all your flaws, all your failures.

 

That voice, it says, 'Saint? You? You've got to be kidding me. I know what you did this morning. I know the thoughts you had just an hour ago. I know how stuck you feel in that habit, in that attitude, in that grief. You can't be a saint.'
Saint is a title for religious people. It's a title for holy people.

But Paul, from that prison cell, he's flipping the script. He's democratizing life with God.

'Saint' – the Greek word is hagios – it doesn't mean 'flawless.'

This was an identity Roman citizens would find striking. It's an identity we should find striking too.

It's not some status you earn by excessive devotion to religion. It's not a lucky draw in some cosmic lottery. No. Saint is an identity that's given to you. Conferred. This is foundational.

 

Can you imagine the psychological shift of knowing that you are a saint, and that as a saint, you have personal agency and unalienable dominion... from the Supreme God of heaven!

If you truly believe your life is a script already penned by cold, impersonal forces, then being a 'saint' feels like an impossible dream.

But what if this new message, coming from a man who, by all rights, should feel utterly fated himself, declared that a personal God was stepping in? Choosing? Setting apart individuals like you, regardless of your past, regardless of your social standing, regardless of what the stars supposedly decreed?

This isn't just a new nickname. This is an earthquake shaking the very foundations of everything in your psychology that makes you stuck. It's suggesting that your ultimate identity, who you really are, isn't fixed by your circumstances.

It's not dictated by some grand, impersonal cosmic plan. It's bestowed. It's a gift. This is block number one for building that 'I CAN' soul: recognizing this new name, this new identity.

And who gives it? Look at verse 2:
"Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." (Philippians 1:2)

The letter names a God... and not God as Supreme being, though he is.

It names God as Father.
Not some distant emperor.
Not a fickle Olympian god.
Not an unfeeling Fate.
He's your Father. The ideal Father.

As Father, He's the source of 'grace' – that unearned, undeserved, absolutely free kindness and love – and 'peace,' a deep wholeness, a rightness that just laughs in the face of a chaotic, fated world.

Could it be that this 'Father,' introduced by a man in chains, sees something entirely different in himself and therefore in you? That He operates completely outside the crushing determinism they knew, that you might feel? Could it be that His act of calling you 'saint' was His very first move, the first essential building block, in patiently, lovingly dismantling all your 'I can'ts,' by giving you an identity not of this world?

An identity that whispers 24/7 of a different kind of power, a different kind of plan for your life?