Winning the War in Your Mind

ah here we go again another sermon and i never feel ready you'd think after 25 years i'd feel confident that i'm always nervous always insecure i know god's word is powerful i feel so weak pathetic is more accurate no matter how much i work no matter how hard i try i just never feel like i have what it takes okay grow shell game on smile don't suck let's roll so i'm curious does anyone else have an ongoing war in your mind i don't know about you but so often i battle in my mind between thoughts

of faith and thoughts of fear i so often uh want to trust god and yet i also want to control maybe you're like this maybe you can walk in one moment and you feel full of spiritual confidence that god is with you and he's for you and he's called you and the next moment you have this crippling insecurity that paralyzes you and holds you back what i've discovered is that the mind is a battlefield and most of life's battles are won or lost in your minds the more i've studied scripture and the more i've even

looked at what neuroscience would say most of life's battles are won or lost in the minds the good news is who's ready for some good news the good news is that god's word is powerful not just to help you but to transform and to renew your mind with truth and because his word is powerful i would love it if you would today at all of our life church locations if you're watching in your kitchen you could even stand to your feet in honor of the reading of god's word today we're going to be looking from

second corinthians chapter 10 and over the next few weeks we're going to try to get into the mind of the apostle paul it's interesting to look at him have you ever heard of the ultimate warrior before in many ways paul was what i'd call the ultimate thought warrior when you look at his life you'll notice early on we see him become a follower of jesus and then we watch as jesus renews his mind over time romans 7 we looked at that a couple of weeks ago and you see the battle in his mind he says

the things that i want to do i don't do you can probably relate he says the things i don't want to do i end up doing the things i want to do i can't seem to do and he almost sounds crazy with the thoughts in his mind we're going to watch him progress throughout his life and ministry as he learns to wage war against the lies that attack his mind we're going to see him capture wrong thoughts and replace them with truth and win the war in his mind this is what the apostle paul says

he says for though we live in the world we do not wage war as the world does the weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world on the contrary they have divine power the greek word translated as powers the word dunamis it means the explosive miraculous power of god we get our word dynamite from this the weapons that we fight with they have divine power to demolish to destroy strongholds now you may not use the word stronghold in your everyday life what is a stronghold it comes from the greek word ocuroma and

it's a military stronghold it was like a fortress that was often built in the middle of a city this fortress could be surrounded by a wall that would literally be 20 feet deep and it's where the military officials might be kept during battle to keep them safe or where prisoners were kept to guard them from the enemy attacking the devil our spiritual enemy wants to attack your mind and create strongholds of deception so you believe something that's untrue and takes you away from god's healing and calling for your life what does the devil do the

devil tries to shape your thinking one lie at a time until you're a prisoner of deception what does the devil tell you you can't trust people you'll never succeed you're always going to be broke you're never going to have a good marriage god doesn't hear your prayers god doesn't care about you you're never going to make a difference you're never going to amount to anything how do we do battle in our mind well scripture tells us this that we demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of god and what do

we do with god's help we take captive every thought and we make it obedient to christ the title of today's message is winning the war in your mind would you pray with me father we ask that by the power of your living word you would renew our minds with truth set us free god from believing the lies that rob us from joy peace and calling and god may your truth set us free we pray this in jesus name and everybody said amen amen when you look at somebody next to your error five of them and

say get your mind right just tell get your mind right put that in the chat i'm getting my mind right just type it in the chat i'm getting my mind right today we are launching into a new message series and the message series is the same title as my new book winning the war in your mind change your thinking change your life and this book and this message is incredibly personal to me because i've been on honestly a several year journey asking god begging god pleading with god to renew my mind and by the power

of his word i've made so much progress that i thank god for it i want to share with you through god's word the journey that he's taken me on and as i've studied the mind both in scripture and just through science what i've discovered is this that our lives are always moving in the direction of our strongest thoughts our lives are always moving in the direction of our strongest thoughts what we tend to think comes out in our life and both science and scripture agree in fact i've done a lot of research on cognitive behavior

psychology which shows that a lot of problems are actually related to wrong thought processes some relational challenges some eating disorders addictions some forms of anxiety are actually a direct result of toxic thinking that's what science says god's word is true and it says it this way proverbs 23 7 says for as he thinks in his heart as a person thinks so is he what do we know that the life we have so often is a reflection of the thoughts that we think what we think determines who we become in other words if you tend to

think i can't do something i'll never be able to do something i don't have what it takes if you think you can't you probably won't if you think you can by the grace of god you probably will if you dwell on your problems the world is bad it's getting worse your problems are going to overwhelm you but instead if you look for some solutions if you believe you can have faith you'll find some solutions and you'll see faith arise if you always feel like you're a victim you will likely become a victim if instead you

believe that you can overcome by the power of christ within you you can overcome in so many cases the life we have is a reflection of the thoughts we think and what i want to do today is i want to encourage you for a moment just to stop and think about what you think about we're going to pause and just kind of go through our minds and i'm going to encourage you to do what i call a thought audit we're going to audit our thoughts and think about what we think about i'm going to show

you three different categories to try to determine where you actually would fall on this list the first scale i want to look at is contrasting your mindset are you characterized by worried thoughts panic anxiety fear or would you say that your thoughts are typically characterized by being full of peace we'll start uh on the left side do you tend to wake up and have your mind drift toward fear uh what could go wrong i'm worried about my kids i'm worried about my health i'm worried about the economy i'm worried about the state of the world

in the direction that our world is heading in our country's out of control do you find yourself more typified and characterized your mind by worried thoughts or even if things are bad and complicated do you find yourself casting your cares upon god and recognizing there is a peace that goes beyond all human ability to understand and you sense his presence and his goodness and his spirit with you even when things aren't the way you want what would you say if you're auditing your thoughts are you more characterized by worry or by peaceful thoughts a second

category would be this do your thoughts drift toward the negative or do they drift toward the positive do you wake up and find yourself like negative and critical of people and assuming the worst instead of believing the best do you look at your day and say oh it's going to be hard and it's going to be bad and times are tough and i'm always so busy and there's not enough of me to go around and the world's going to hell in a hand basket or do you wake up and with positive faith and again even

if things are difficult you say you know what christ is with me he helps me overcome and things may be difficult in the world but i'm thankful for a god who is working in all things to bring about good to those who are called according to his purpose what what would typify your thoughts let's look at a third category and ask yourself when it comes to what you think about are your thoughts more worldly toward the things of this world that which is temporary or do they drift toward that which lasts forever your thoughts may

be more worldly where you're just consumed with what you have and what you wear and what you look like and who liked your post and how many followers you have and about what everybody thinks about you or they drift toward more eternal which is god has given you a life to steward and spiritual gifts to use and what you have is actually to be invested and given to make a difference in the lives of the people around you so when everything else burns away your life will count eternally what would you say characterizes your thoughts

what we think about matters more than you can imagine what comes into your mind comes out in your life no matter what you do or what you have or who you know or what you buy or where you live or where you travel you cannot have a positive life when you have a negative mind why because your life is always moving in the direction of your your strongest thoughts the question i want you to ask yourself is this if your life is always moving in the direction of your strongest thoughts are you excited about the

direction your thoughts are taking you i asked myself that very question several years ago and my answer was no if my thoughts are directing my life and i looked specifically at my thoughts i did not like the direction they were taking me in they were consumed with negativity and fear and self-doubt and my inner dialogue would often be discouraging and talking myself down over and over again so several years ago and through this period my number one top personal spiritual priority was to invite god to renew my mind with truth and i've been on a

passion for it so much so that i got consumed with it and had to get it out in the form of a book hopefully to help other people the way god's word has been helping me god i need your help to renew my mind replace all the lies that replay in my mind with your spiritual truth and so over the next few weeks we're going to go on the journey and we're going to look at the apostle paul and we're going to ask god to renew our minds with truth and today we're going to lay

a foundation that will build upon in the weeks to come so we can win the war and our mind and change our thinking so god can change our life are you ready for it if you're ready say i'm ready are you ready type it in the chat if you want to i'm ready two foundational thoughts that we're going to build upon the first one is this what i want to do is just encourage you to identify the biggest stronghold that's holding you back remember the stronghold it's a you're a prisoner locked by a lie what

is the biggest mental stronghold that's holding you back you might think over and over again i'm not good enough or my past is too bad for god to use me or i can't trust the people around me or i'm always going to battle with my weight or i'm never going to be good with money or i can never be close to god or i'll never be in a job that is fulfilling something that i love or all of my relationships are always going to be break break down i only date psychos whatever it is okay

if you find yourself identifying your negative thoughts what i want you to do is embrace the reality that your negative thoughts they are changing the chemical makeup of your brain the reason is because every thought creates a neurochemical change in your body when you think a positive thought you get a surge of rewarding neurotransmitters releasing a very legal and exciting drug called dopamine it's legal and it's powerful and every time your brain drops some dopamine you get this hit this buzz this thrill someone you like and respect comments on your latest instagram posts you get

some dopamine someone says oh girl your hair looks so good dopamine amy texts me and says thinking about you come home soon dopamine okay it's it's that positive surge of release in your brain and what's so interesting is the more often you think a thought science tells us it's easier to think that thought again once you think a thought you're creating neural pathways in your brain and literally we have billions of neural pathways in our brain the more often we think that thought the more the connection is there and it's easier to think that thought

again and before long whatever we have been thinking becomes our default fault stronghold if you believe a lie for long enough you start to be impacted as if that lie were true you get stuck in a rut imagine this if i walked out um in my front yard and i walked across the lawn for a hundred days straight if i walked across that what would i do i would create a path in my yard in my mind if we're a hundred days straight i think on a lie i start to believe the lie and i

create a neural pathway through my brain with god's help what we're going to do is renew our minds we're going to stay off that old path and if i say off that path for 100 days what happens the grass grows back there's more resistance it's not as easy to walk and i forge a new pathway in my brain toward the truth and the truth ultimately sets me free this is science and it's godly because god created science romans 12 2 paul said it this way he said don't be conformed to the patterns of this world

we could be say this way don't be conformed to the wrong ways of thinking he said but be transformed how by the renewing of your mind we're staying off the destructive negative paths and we're creating new paths of truth i don't know how this will play out in your life but maybe your path is this it's a frustrating day at work and you come home and it's been crazy at home because it's always crazy when you homeschool it's a spiritual principle and all of you are homeschooling or to some degree of that and you walk

in and your old path says yell at your spouse and what you do is you stay off that path you capture that thought and you might count to three or 10 or 110 in your case and you say a prayer and instead you walk a different road and you come up and say i'm sorry it's been a difficult day and you hug and you change the tone by changing the path or maybe you feel bad about yourself and so when you feel bad about yourself there's a very direct path to the freezer and you eat

ice cream when you feel bad and then you feel worse because you ate the whole thing what you're going to do is create a new path instead of walking to the freezer you walk to the front yard and you take a little walk and you exercise and when you exercise you get some dopamine and some adrenaline and you feel better about yourself and you create a new path when you're bored what do you do you pick up your phone you look at instagram you scroll through with all your friends and you hate them because their

life seems better than yours and you're not there why weren't you there and you feel like a loser and so what you might do is create a new path you open up the youversion bible app and you put something different in your brain that renews your mind to think in a different way we're going to forge a new path in our brain because the more you walk that path the easier it becomes to travel and the more you stay off the old one the more it weakens and it's harder to think those same thoughts again

here's your assignment identify the biggest stronghold that's holding you back just one just one we're not going to attack all 73 what we're going to do is we're going to start with one what is it for you you might battle with the with identity and you might feel like i'm just not lovable that's your one or you might wrongly believe because you've said it for thousands of days i'll just never be good enough or i don't deserve anything good or i'll always be broke there's the haves and the have-nots and i'm just a have-not okay

you feel helpless hopeless worthless like life is pointless identify that one stronghold name it because you cannot defeat what you don't define identify that biggest stronghold and then the second part of your assignment is this name the truth that demolishes that stronghold name the truth that demolishes that stronghold why does the truth matter jesus said this jesus said you'll know the truth john 8 32. he said you'll know the truth and what does the truth do the truth it sets you free the lie puts you into spiritual bondage and some of you you're living a

life based on a lie and you'll know the truth and the truth will set you free i'll illustrate it with um one of my favorite stories from the history of our church staff family i'll show you an old photograph this is these are the directional leaders of our church that have been together for years this is an old photograph back when we had style we're not as stylish today but you've got um on the left pastor jerry hurley who's been with me for about 23 years pastor bobby created the u virgin bible app over 20

years there's me there's pastor sam over 20 years who's over all the campuses pastor kevin pastor kevin didn't get the memo of how you're supposed to hold your hands on that day he was always a little rebellious and kevin was with us for 20 years before retiring we used to play a game years ago called capture the flag and it was a violent game we had lots of injuries and such so we had to come up with some rules for safety and one of the rules was you couldn't go attack an enemy's flag until 8

a.m because you know it just wasn't fair and so one day i came into our offices about 7 a.m and my um my spiritual spidey senses told me something was amiss and i it was capture the flag gaming and so i just thought i'm gonna go it's weirdest thing i'm gonna go look in the closet and that's what i did i opened up the closet and sure enough pastor kevin had been waiting in the closet who knows since 4am waiting for the 8 o'clock bells of sound so he could go and capture my flag and

so i thought well god prompted me to lock you in here all day long and immediately just slammed the door and put my foot up against the door and grabbed an office chair and slammed it under the door to make him pay because you reap what you sow and there are spiritual consequences and god is the one who brings justice he just chose me to bring justice on that day so i tried to lock him in but the chair didn't fit so in love and war everything is fair so i just lied and confessed my

sin to god and god forgave my sin and i said kevin you're locked in by a chair it wasn't true the chair didn't fit but i told him with all pastoral confidence you're locked in and you'll spend the day locked in this closet god is my witness pastor kevin never tried to open the door he just started whining let me out this isn't fair and i sat there and laughed for several minutes when he never tried to open the door 8 o'clock came around i had a premarital counseling appointment i was sitting in my desk

while kevin was in an unlocked door and 20 minutes or so later god is my witness i heard something in the ceiling tile above me pastor kevin had scaled the shelves in the closet gotten up in the ceiling tile and was trying to make his escape because he believed a lie that an unlocked door held him prisoner some of you right now do not have what god wants you to have and are not living the life that god wants you to live because you're stuck behind an unlocked door and you will know the truth that

jesus has set you free scripture says this and i want to look at it again this is what the apostle paul says whatever that stronghold is that's holding you prisoner in your mind what do we do we demolish it we demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of god and here's what we do we take captive we are not prisoner to our thoughts we take our thoughts captive and we make them obedient to christ we take our thoughts captive whatever it is we take it captive in fact the greek term

that's translated as take captive it's a it's a term that means to attack with a sword or with a spear and i love this when you talk about the weapons we fight with or not the weapons of this world ephesians 6 tells us that we have spiritual armor what do we have we have the helmet of salvation the breastplate of righteous the shield of the faith the belt of truth the shoes prepared with the gospel of the readiness of peace all of those are defensive weapons we have one offensive weapon and you know what the

weapon of offense is it is the sword of the spirit which is the word of god it is the word of god that sets us free it's his powerful living word of god that is sharper than any double-edged sword and it cuts away the lies of the enemy we let god's word take captive any lies that have held us hostage what's your stronghold what's the dominant lie that your spiritual enemy has tried to use to destroy your faith kill your relationships rob you of the intimacy that god wants you to have with him what's your

stronghold [Music] mine the one i've been attacking with god's word is the one that's haunted me since i was a little kid the lie that i've always believed is that i am never enough i'm never enough i'll never preach a good enough sermon i'll never be righteous enough to lead the church if i give my best to the church i feel amy and my six kids and 43 grandkids or however many we have now i don't i can't treat you know or if i bring my best at home then i fail in leading the church

that god has entrusted me i can't live up to your expectation today no way i mean i le i can't meet with everybody and i can't deliver and i can't i can't get it all done i am not enough and the challenge with that lie is that there is some truth in it i mean there's some truth which makes it easy to believe because of my sinfulness and because of my limitations there's a lot of me that never will be enough but thankfully i don't have to rely only on what's inside of me but there

is a power greater than me that absolutely and completely is more than enough so here's my truth and it's from the word of god ii peter 1 3 says that god's divine power his divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life i'm going to personalize it god's divine power has given me everything i need to do he's given me the time to do what he's called me to do he's given me the strength to do what he's called me to do when i'm weak his strength is made perfect in me i've

got the same spirit that raised christ from the dead dwelling inside of me his living word does a work that i cannot do his power is there for me when i don't have what it takes he has given me everything i need for life and godliness and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free what's the driving lie that has held you back and what's the truth that will set you free maybe you think i can't get it all done i never can get it all done and your truth is i

can do all things through my savior jesus christ who gives me strength when i'm weak he's makes me strong maybe you feel like i'm i'm never going to be attractive enough i don't like the way i look no no you are fearfully and wonderfully made by the grace of god he's given you gifts to make a difference in this world maybe you feel like i'm always going to be miserable i'm always going to be depressed no the joy of the lord is your strength the moment the lie tells you you're going to always be alone

no my god is with me he's never going to leave me he's never going to forsake me oh but you're just nothing but a victim no no no no no god's word tells me i am an overcomer by the blood of the lamb and by the words of my testimony i am not who others say that i am i'm not even who the lies in my own mind say that i am i am who god says that i am and you will know the truth and the truth will set you free your life in so

many ways is moving in the direction of your strongest thoughts what comes into your mind comes out in your life you cannot have a positive faith-filled life when you have a negative fear-filled mind so what are we going to do we're going to capture those lies name it we're gonna replace it with truth and by the power of god you will not stay locked in a prison when jesus holds the key that sets you free and you will know the truth and truth isn't just a concept truth is a person his name is jesus he'll

set you free so father today we ask that by the power of your word you would renew our minds with truth and all of our churches or those of you watching online who say i i need god's help there's a war going on in my mind i want to name that one stronghold and i want god's truth to set me free if that's you would you just lift up your hand you can type it in the chat i need his truth this type in the chat i need his truth father i pray right now that

you would begin a work of renewing our minds and god in the same way that it may take years and years to have a lie ingrained in our neural pathways we recognize it may take some time for you to renew our minds god give us the faith to walk this journey with you to stay off the old paths of lies and destruction and god create a new path of truth renew our minds god i pray that over the next few weeks as we look at your word and as we discuss in small groups in our

life groups that you would use your body and use your word to help renew our minds god change our thinking and change our lives as you keep praying today at all of our churches or maybe you're watching online there's some of you that perhaps the biggest lie that's impacting you right now is a distorted view of who god is maybe for years you've had a wrong view of god you thought peace angry at you he's mad at you he could never love you after what you've done you just used up goods you've been too bad

let me try to help you replace those lies with truth let me tell you about who god is and how he sees you our god is a loving heavenly father and he loves you more than you could ever imagine even if you've done some really shameful things there's nothing that you could do that would make god love you any less or even if you're trying your best to be perfect there's nothing you could do to make god love you even more he simply loves you and he loves you so much that he became like you

in the person of his son jesus who is jesus jesus is the son of god jesus was perfect in every way jesus said i am the way i am the truth jesus is the truth if you want to know who god is look at jesus jesus i'm around centers really pathetic people and he loved them and he gave his life as the perfect gift the innocent sacrifice and god raised him from the dead so that all of our sins could be forgiven that's how much god loves you that's how much god loves you no matter

what you've done he loves you and he wants you to know that love at all of our churches or those of you watching online there's some of you you felt distant from god and today guess what you're creating a new path it's directly to god it's one prayer that opens up heaven and gives you access to a relationship with god it's turning it's getting off that old path that old sinful path and we're going to turn toward jesus and surrender our life to him and when you do god will hear this prayer he'll forgive every

sin you've ever committed he's gonna open up heaven and show you his love and you'll be completely new today in all of our churches those of you online who say yeah i want to get off that old path i need his love i need his forgiveness i want his grace today i'm repenting of my sinfulness i'm turning toward jesus and by faith i'm giving it all to him those who say yes i want his forgiveness today i surrender my life to you that's your prayer lift your hands high right now all over the place and

say yes jesus i surrender my life to you as we've got hands going up in all of our different churches those of you online just type in the chat i'm giving my life to jesus i'm giving my life to jesus and i would love it if all of you would pray with those around you just pray aloud pray heavenly father forgive all of my sins jesus save me make me brand new fill me with your spirit and fill my mind with truth renew my mind so i can follow you and live for you and all

i do my life is not my own i give it to you thank you for new life now you have mine in jesus name i pray because somebody celebrate big welcome those born into god's family today you