Battlefield" Pt.4 - March 15th, 2026 - Pastor Jono Zantingh

And lying is his native tongue. It's the only language the enemy knows how to speak. That's the enemy. But it's not that the war is about to start. It's already waging and the battle is on real time right now and always, which begs the question, are you a victim? Is it happening to you? Or are you actually engaged in the fight? [00:44:41] (19 seconds)

So the big idea for this whole series is this, as believers, we wage war every day on the battlefield of our mind. And that war is waging. It's currently waging. It's not about to wage. It's not that it's gonna wage one day. It's waging today. And and the question attached to this is, are you aware of it? And if so, how are you responding to that fight? [00:43:55] (21 seconds)

You're not a victim to those belief systems. And the good news is, you are ridiculously in charge of winning or losing this fight. Nobody can do this work for you. Not even God Almighty can do the work of renewing your mind for you. But he has given you the right environment, inside out, and he's given you the right equipment and the right coach, which I wanna talk about today. Our equipment is point two in this fight message, Scripture, prayer, and the community of believers. [00:47:02] (35 seconds)

This is incredible. This is the stuff. Right? And and and so if you think showing up late for a service and leaving early is gonna lead to a transformed life, I just wanna tell you, you're deceived. You've already been lied to. Scripture, a, prayer, b, c, the community of believers. Second Timothy three three sixteen says, all scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true, to make us realize what's wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we're wrong, teaches us to do what's right. [00:52:49] (36 seconds)

Pause for one moment. Did you know that God doesn't wanna leave you hanging? Sometimes, Christians are so hesitant. They're like, I just wanna know the will of God. When we renew our minds, we get to test and discern what it is. And we get to be confident in that, in what what what is his good, acceptable, and perfect will. Come on. This matters. Everybody say, this matters. Everybody say, you're ridiculously in charge. [00:42:50] (36 seconds)

And so we talked about to train for a battle, to train for a fight, we need to recognize that we gotta get in the right environments for that, which was last week. We need the right equipment. And we need the right coaching. We talked about our environment. Our environment works not outside in, but do not be conformed, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind. And and how many of us would rather live transformed by the renewal of our job, or our childhood, or our past, or our spouse, or our bank account, or our kids, [00:45:15] (32 seconds)

or our friendships. All these external outward things that we wish God would just fix, the outer stuff. But this is the fight, inside out. Be transformed from the inside out by the renewing of our minds and acting without taking inventory of our hearts and our inner life and our thoughts leads to destruction and disobedience. Of course, our external things are a hot mess because we haven't dealt with the inside stuff. Modifying our behavior will never be enough. This is all recap, by the way. Last week, I said it's very possible to say that you love Jesus in one breath, [00:45:48] (36 seconds)

and in another breath, have thoughts and belief systems that don't align with God's wisdom and is created best for you. You can say I love Jesus, but believe things that just aren't true in Jesus' kingdom. And if any thought doesn't align with God's wisdom and has created best for you, which the Bible lays out really clearly, then we've got to do the sacrificial work of choosing to replace those thoughts that have worked themselves from the outside in by renewing and transforming those thoughts from the inside out. And it's gonna require that we choose to fight. [00:46:25] (37 seconds)