Good morning, TVC. It's a pleasure to be with you today. My name is Marcus Wilson. I'm here on staff as a church planter, and I have a beautiful, mild chocolate wife. Her name is Shelby. We have been married for 20 years. Thank you. We have this handsome son who kind of looks like his dad. We have his hamster son. He's 18 years old. He's a senior. His name is Marcus Wilson Jr. We have a daughter. She's 13 and in the 7th grade. Her name is Lee April Wilson.
Today, we're going to be diving into 2 Corinthians chapter 10, verses 3 through 5. So please pull out your devices, open up your Bible, or look what's behind me, and you can see the verse. Again, that's 2 Corinthians chapter 10, verses 3 through 5.
All right, let's see what God wants to speak to us today about.
"For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine powers to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God and take every thought captive to obey Christ."
And this is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
Well, I thought you were about to start preaching! I was like, "No, no, it's my week, bro. It's my week."
Hey, if you have your Bibles, do grab those. I do want to show you some things that I think are really, really significant for the day and age in which we live and really for this topic.
In 1 Samuel 17, there's this story of the people of Israel. They're down in the valley, and they're caught up in a bit of a war with the Philistines. Jesse has some boys that are fighting in that army. He knows they're outnumbered; he knows it's not looking good. So he calls his youngest son, David, and gives David some cheese and some bread and some other things and says, "Hey, I want you to take these down and give them to your brothers."
As David is heading down, he gets into the valley where the two armies are set up just in time to see the biggest human being ever walk out into the plain, curse God, curse the people of Israel, and then throw out a challenge that if any one man in Israel could fight and destroy him, the Philistines would flee and the battle would be over.
The Bible tells us that all the army of Israel, when Goliath would come out, would flee from his presence and hide and cower around rocks and trees. You didn't want to be seen by Goliath. But as David walks up with this bread and cheese from Dad, he sees Goliath talking like this, and it provokes him. It provokes him. He's got a problem with this.
He turns, and he's just a kid, man. He starts talking to these other warriors and his brothers, like, "Are we going to let him defile the name of our God, the living God, the only God?"
I don't know if his older brothers appreciated that, and so they made the accusation that David just came to see violence; he wanted to see bloodshed. But David's unmoved. He gives them their little lunchables, and he calls them out again. Word makes its way to the king that someone’s not afraid. Someone’s not afraid.
Now, the king's afraid too. It ain't like Saul ran out there, right? Everybody's afraid. They find out someone’s not, so they take David. I can only imagine Saul's disappointment when David walks into the room, right? Like, finally, we've got a warrior that's willing, and then it's like, you know, maybe he had acne. I mean, I don't know; that's conjecture. But he's just a kid, right?
So David walks in, and Saul makes more accusations. So he's got accusations from his brother, and then even Saul is just like, "Hey, I thought you were going to be a warrior; you're just kind of a kid."
David, who's apparently really self-aware, said, "No, yeah, I am, but I've watched over my father's herd of sheep. I have killed bears and lions." And then he goes on to tell this story of a lion that snatched up a sheep and had run off with it. David tracked the lion down, grabbed it by its beard, and struck it until it died.
So David, like, I know David gets a bad rap because he plays the harp, but I'm saying he ain't the kind of man that you want to trifle with, right? Like, think about it. He tracked the lion down and then grabbed it by its face and then whacked it, right? He didn't text, writing out like a 300 Win Mag from 300 yards away. Dude beat it to death with a club or a staff or something like this.
And so Saul, this convinces Saul. So Saul brings him back into his tent and shows him the king's armor. I don't know much about king's armor; I just got to believe it's legit. You gotta believe it's top-of-the-line stuff. Like, you're going to go into battle; this is the stuff you need. You're going to make it; this is what you got to have.
So David puts it on. He puts on the king's armor, and then he starts to try to walk out to fight, and he realizes somewhere along the way this ain't his armor. This is armor that's made for Saul. It was created for Saul. It fits Saul. He feels hindered in it, bulky in it. It's not his style of fighting.
And so he takes off the armor and goes as he is into battle with Goliath. And whether you're a church person or not, you know how this story ends. Now, I'm not saying you're David, but I am saying you might be wearing Saul's armor. I'm not calling you David, but I'm saying some of you are wearing armor that wasn't built for you.
And so here we are in the middle of this series, literally in the middle of this series, and it's about identity, and it's about purpose, and it's about our mission—our mission individually and corporately.
We've covered the reality that everybody in this room has a general identity, and that general identity is tied up in what you do with the person and work of Jesus Christ, right? You are either a child of God or a child of wrath. And if you fit in that child of wrath category, that is on you because Christ has come so that you wouldn't be condemned or rather to save you from that condemnation.
So you can't get upset if you're in the designation of children of wrath if you're the one going, "I'm a better god than God is. I know how better to live my life than the creator of the universe does." That lets the God of the universe then just turn you over to do what you want to do, make a mess of things, right?
And so we're either children of God, true. And then last week, what I wanted to dive into is that you have a specific identity. You and I do. Like, I am not you; you are not me. You are not the word; you are as unique as a snowflake. I know that has derogatory terms in 2021. I'm not trying to say you're soft. I hope you're not. I hope you have fortitude. I hope you have backbone. I hope you have courage.
I am saying not that you lack those things, but rather you are superbly unique. There is only one of you; there will only ever be one of you. And the Bible said this is what we did for 40 minutes last week—that you have been uniquely designed by God from your physical makeup to that unseen or what the Bible calls unformed substance—your personality, your bent, your compulsions, what you were when you came out of the womb.
And then on top of that, you've been uniquely wired and uniquely placed by God. This is huge. I mean, think about what that means about God's involvement in you, God's investment in you, why God would say that he delights in you, that you are fearfully and wonderfully made. Why? Because he did that. He built that. He put you together, and he doesn't make any mistakes.
And I said last week if those things were true, then self-hate, comparison, and ultimately coveting are accusations against God. They're not just something you're doing; they're accusing God of not being good, not being smart, and you being able to get out from under what he says about you, right?
And so what I want to do is I just want to dive into that concept more fully. I want to talk about why it is we have such a hard time kind of living out of that general, unique, specific kind of collision around our lives. Why is it hard for us? Why do we feel jammed up in it? Why do we feel stuck in it at times? Why can't we get to that place where we are who we are, and that's okay?
Well, I think Satan has a vested interest in keeping us from this. Like, if Satan can make you be somebody else, look, I love you; you're a janky version of somebody else. You might think you're a poor version of yourself. I can promise you this: you're a poor version of somebody else, right? But if you can get you stuck in there and get you jammed up in that, man, you were just like no teeth at all. You got to worry about you a bit.
So I want to talk about why it's hard for us. This passage—I love this passage, 2 Corinthians 10:3-5. Some super apostles—that's what they called themselves—were making accusations against Paul. If you've done any kind of historical research, the Apostle Paul was not much to look at. Apparently, he was small; he had a crooked nose; he was not an attractive man. And on top of that, he was always in trouble. He was always in jail, so he was always whipping him; he was always suffering.
And these super apostles were saying of Paul, "This is the guy that speaks for God? This is your apostle? This is your authority? Surely not! Look at him! Look at his stature! Look, if this is God's man, why does he suffer like he does? If this is God's man, why is he hated like he's hated?"
And they were trying to kind of undermine his authority over the church in Corinth. And so Paul writes them, and this is right in the middle of him defending his ministry against them. And what he's building up is this concept, this idea of what the Bible calls strongholds.
And so I want to try to explain strongholds from the text. Look at verse 5: "We destroy." And let me just say this: I love that word here, right? We destroy—not we shove down, not we give a talking to, not we with some discipline walk. Like, we flip and destroy! You know, are you traveling? Like, this is not some sort of passive, "I don't like when you do that." This is, "I am going to rip you to pieces!"
This is, "There ain't no mercy rule in this game," is what this is, right? We destroy what? Arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God and take every thought captive to obey Christ.
Let me define stronghold for you. A stronghold, then, is a mindset, value system, or thought process that hinders your growth. We're not destroying people; we're tearing down lies, right? Did you see it in the text? Like, this is a game of arguments. This is a game of ideas, value systems by which we live our lives based on those things. It's a stubborn disposition in regards to how we think about ourselves and we think about the world around us.
Let me tell you kind of how they're formed. They're almost always formed with doubts of God's goodness or ability. Strongholds are almost always formed by doubts of God's goodness or his ability. And I love the way John 8:44 kind of lets us into what's going on.
In John 8:44, Jesus is addressing the religious rulers of the day, and he says, "You are of your father the devil." So Jesus is not impressed, and your will is to do your father's desires. He was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.
So a stronghold is born of a mindset or value system that we have adopted. It's important to note that a stronghold isn't just something that has a hold of you; it's something you have a hold of because you feel safe hanging on to it. It works both ways, right?
So a stronghold is a mindset or value system that you've grabbed a hold of, and it is in turn grabbed a hold of you, and it's rooted in the lies of the devil. It's rooted. So if the enemy can lie to you enough to form or shape a mindset or value system that hinders your growth and takes you out of the game, then he's won.
Now, I want to talk about the three ways strongholds form. The first one is through words and wounds.
When I was five or six years old, there was something that was brought to light that was happening in my family of origin. And because it came to light, we either went or were ordered to go to family counseling—all of us, all five of us. And I always thought that was just about me. I was like wild and frenetic and always in trouble, and I had nothing to do with why we were there. But my little five or six-year-old brain—friggin' Satan—I'm giving you a picture of why I want to, as often as I can, just bash his mouth in.
He whispers into my tiny little heart, "Gosh, man, you're a lot. Your parents don't even know what to do with you. Look what you've done to your family. You've got your entire family in counseling." And that haunted me for the next 30 years. I found evidence for that everywhere. I found evidence in any slight, any rejection, any quasi-hardship. I would reiterate, without knowing I was doing it, "See, you're too much. See, you make messes."
See, this becomes the driving force of every pursuit of success, every conquest, every victory, every hiding of frailty, every hiding of fear. It becomes this operating system that I'm operating out of, and I have no idea I'm doing it.
And by the way, that life plan thing that I'm trying to talk you into doing—that starts—you can still sign up on our—I know these things about my life because I did the hard work. Remember, you can't spiritually bypass sorrow and pain. You can't go around it; you got to go through it. And the good news is Jesus will walk with you, right?
So this is what happens to me. I'm telling you, I'm five or six years old. It's got nothing to do with me, and Satan just whispers, "Hey, look at you. You're always going to be like this. You're always going to be too much. You're always going to make a mess of things. You're always going to hurt people."
Look at this. I mean, it was like the things that were stolen from me for 30 years.
So here's a—I love this quote. It says, "Jesus may live in your heart, but your grandpa's in your bones." The author that said that is trying to get across that we might very much have Christ in our heart and be guaranteed victory, and yet there were some things that have occurred. There were some words; there were some wounds. And in their occurrence, we have bought into the lies surrounding those words or wounds that aren't true, but we have embraced them.
And since they start when we're little, as we get older, they just kind of weave themselves into us, so we don't even know any different. We're just operating like we operate. We don't even know why we're angry. We don't even know why we're depressed. We don't know why we're sad. And it's this word, this wound.
Trevor Joy, if you've ever heard his story, I've got permission to say there was a coach that just said something about his worthlessness on a football field that just cut him so deep. Like, they just driven him his whole life—a word or a wound.
Now, let me give you some content warning here. I want to say some difficult things, and so if you feel something flushing up in you because this is tied to you in a real experiential way, I meant breathe, ground, just do whatever you need to do.
Whereas for me, it didn't have anything to do with me, and yet I found a bunch of evidence to support it, even though there were some pretty terrible things in my home. But right, there are some of you this did happen to you. Some of you were neglected. Some of you were abandoned. Some of you were molested. Others of you were raped. Some of you were physically beaten. This is evil, demonic, horrific, and it happened, and it's awful.
I never want to take away from how awful it is. I never want to take—in fact, you learning to lament and be sad about that rather than armoring up with theology or trying to bypass it around with holy ghost language—like, you can't heal that way. Like, what a terrible thing happened to you.
And so I want you—let's look at each other. I want to say this, but I want to say it in a way that I hope is helpful. It is not noble for you to hate yourself. And look at me: you are not what happened to you. Can I say that? Like, you're not what happened. Like, what other sinful, broken people have done to you does not define you. It doesn't get to define you.
The wickedness of another forced upon you from a parent who was checked out or one that was so checked in it was a meshing—you felt strangled—or one, God, I mean, I meant I passed for this church for 18 years. Parents who were addicted so they couldn't see us in pain because of this thing that happened that nobody knew about. We never told anybody, and it's been this kind of the way we've defined ourselves.
It's the enemy; it's a lie; it's not true. It is not noble for you to hate yourself, and you are not what happened to you. You tracking with me?
Listen, I'm sorry. You're not what happened to you. Next week, we'll talk a little bit more about this. If you'll own what happened to you as though it's you, the path of bitterness and anger, it's terrifying.
So I'm trying to love you. I'm so sorry. It's awful. Shouldn't have happened. Somebody should have been there. That shouldn't have happened the way it did. Somebody should have intervened. You are not that moment. You are not that thing. You trust God with justice. The Bible tells us vengeance is the Lord's. You don't have to carry that. You can trust that the Lord will redeem; he will heal. You are not that moment.
So that's the first thing. That's how strongholds happen, right? It's how strongholds get built. There's a wound; there's a word; there's something we own. The demon spirits begin to whisper, "Yeah, you're never gonna be enough. Yeah, you’re kind of a—you are a feminine man. Yeah, you really are kind of a masculine woman. Yeah, you really are. Yeah, you never will measure up. I mean, try that if you want, but you're probably gonna fail."
Like, just saying the cruelest things imaginable to us. Remember what I said? A stronghold, though, doesn't just have a hold of you; you have a hold of it. In the twistedness of a fallen world, there's something about that that kind of medicates us. Like, God help us, we'll feel safe in it, simultaneously feeling stuck. We just don't know how to define ourselves.
So that's the first one: words and wounds. Here's the second way strongholds are built: comparison, or I would use the biblical word coveting.
Several years ago—and this is going to sound like a crazy story, like I'm just completely making it up. Like, it's going to really challenge your plausibility structures. Like, you're going to be like, "I think that's a lie."
Several years ago, my oldest daughter and some of her friends were having teenage girl drama. I know, it's crazy, right? Like, there's just no way, right? So they—like teenage girls, they're just—I love all of you, but they're just so mean. And is that uncalled for? My experience—like, guys will just punch each other and then be best friends. We ain't trying to hit a brother in his soul. Teenage girls, man, they ain't for the physical stuff. They're like, "I'm gonna destroy your personhood."
So there's a little bit of teenage drama, and this girl says to Audrey, "You're just a Walmart version of this other girl." Right? That's dirty, man. And I'm sad I even said that to you because I think you'll file that, and in a weak, fleshly moment, you might pull it out.
And I'm saying the ripple effects for that are terrible. Now, here's what's crazy: one, if you know Audrey, that's laughable. Two, if Audrey was trying to be this girl, she would be a Walmart version of her because she's not that girl, right?
So here's the thing about comparison: comparison is so insidious because it will rob from you the gratitude that you should walk in. And if you don't have gratitude, then you don't have joy. Like, if you're constantly going, "I'm meant to look like this," aren't you putting on Saul's armor? My life's supposed to look like this. Let me look at this and put—like, this kills you.
Like, I said a little bit of this last week, man. I read a book on preaching from one of my heroes, and it jammed me up for three years. Like, you should never make a joke in your preaching. And I was at the time, I was like, "Oh gosh." But now I know he shouldn't make a joke in preaching; he ain't funny, right?
But here's—can you imagine? You see all this? You imagine me for a couple of years with a manuscript trying not to move? Good Lord! I don't even work that way. I'm like a fish. Like, I got these—like gills. If these aren't moving, I can't breathe, right?
But what happened to me? Like, I saw somebody I admired who God was using profoundly, who had things that I would like. And instead of just trying to figure out how those things work with what God’s done here, I instead tried to step in and be that, and it was suffocating.
And I'm wondering how many of you—you can't—you're not walking in any joy because you can't be grateful because you're looking at somebody else all the time. And let me tell you, I am talking about personhood, not possessions. I'm talking about personhood, not possessions.
I ain't talking about, "Oh, they got a nicer car than me." I'm talking about, "I wish I was like that." Like, how—why would you ever? Gosh, you would make such a terrible version of that person that you're trying to be like.
What I'm talking about is gratitude. I'm talking about being grateful for what God’s done here. Like, this is crazy what he's done here. Like, to have a moment of praise that God made you good at that, right? You know that's okay. That's not arrogance. If anything, it's humility to go, "I don't know how he's pulling us off through this, but God is at work here doing something crazy."
Like, if you're an intercessor, that's crazy! Like, God put in your heart an earnest zeal to see God move in the lives of others. That's unbelievable! You—yeah, I mean, those gifts and abilities, that right? You were made for the day, and the day was for you.
Comparison kills that. It's gonna be trying to be some poor version of somebody else. Matt, come on! God says, "You are uniquely—you are fearfully and wonderfully made." That's amazing! That you have been uniquely wired, uniquely placed.
It is a lie for you to think that you're supposed to look like that and to not have some gratitude for what God’s done. Goodness sakes! Like, you're killing it! Like, nobody else has endured what you've endured to get to this moment.
Like, how wicked would I be not knowing your background, not knowing what you've been through, trying to figure out—like, here's what's funny about people: there are people that will come across me and think, "Man, I'm way farther than they thought I would ever get." And then there are some people that would come across me and go, "Is that all?"
And here's what I mean by that: only God has the perspective—look at me, look at me—of what you survived. Only God has that perspective. I don't have it. Gosh, who knows what you endured? Who knows what happened to you? Who knows what good and evil has befallen you to get you to this moment?
You're here; you're singing to Jesus; you're hanging in there, man. I'm just saying, good job, man! But if you continually try to find somebody you think's varsity and mimic their lives rather than learn from them how to take those abilities and skills that God has given them that are common to all children of God and incorporate them well—like, I probably study different than you do. You probably study different than I do. It'd be a great conversation. I might learn some things; you might learn some things; we might both be stronger.
But I can tell you this: if you're a night owl, I ain't studying like you do. You know what I'm saying? If you're like, "About 10:15, I'd like to break out," about 10:15, I better not be breaking out nothing but my pillow. Like, that's somewhat—I need—I'm wired a certain way; you're wired a certain way. We can learn from each other, but I ain't never gonna try to be you. You shouldn't try to be like—we're different people.
I'd be playing out of position if I tried to be you. You'd be playing out of position if you're trying to be me, right? This is comparison, and it's deadly. Watch what happens to your spirit as you scroll. That's all I'm going to say.
Okay, I'll tell them seriously. Like, you're letting—you are letting into your soul other people's highlight reels. That's tough.
So I missed the game last night. I'm not gonna—that's all I'll say. I missed it. I had a thing I had to do. I'm gonna try to watch it on YouTube this Saturday. I just—I have noticed a lot of maroon.
And so I went home last night. I had to go to bed preaching this morning. I'll watch it. This happened. So I missed all of that, and that was a new illustration I forgot in the middle of it, so I'm just going to keep on moving.
So, oh, this is what I wanted to say: the number of people, even last night, they were just perpetually looking at other people's highlights. So yesterday was a highlight reel day for me. It was—I mean, this week's been a highlight reel. I went to Los Angeles with my oldest daughter. I was teaching out at Biola. Aud came with me. We had a blast.
And I got home, watched, played football on Friday night, and then hung out with some great friends Saturday morning. And then Saturday night, we went to this great tasting outdoor music thing out in Bridgeport.
And then, okay, it was a highlight reel day for me, but they ain't all like that. And if we're constantly putting in our souls everyone else's highlight reel—listen, you're not ever gonna be able to convince me that doesn't cause damage. It makes the world look not normal.
So you try to square up what you're scrolling at and looking at in TikTok, Snap, whatever you do—Instagram, Facebook, whatever. I think Facebook's almost dead now, but I don't know. I don't get on that thing. I've got enough to worry about.
But like in these—I gotta hurry; this isn't even my notes. Like, you perpetually look at other people's curated perfect view of life into the messiness of real life. You try to square for me how this is the most medicated generation the world's ever known, the most depressed, anxious, afraid generation we've ever seen.
And something about seeing everybody's highlight reel against real life—not having something to do with that. So I'm saying you got to pay attention, and I think your soul will tell you. I think your soul will tell you.
You start feeling sorry about your life; you start feeling sorry about yourself. It's sneaky. Satan's sneaky. He doesn't like you. You don't want to come full out. I mean, you're not going to notice him, so he's going to be underlying. He's just going to erode gratitude.
You're like, "Oh man, I wish I—man, I would like—gosh, I hate this about me," right? And I wish I was—I wish I had a different gift set than I did. I wish I was—but all those are accusations.
Comparison—here's the third one. So you've got wounds and words; you've got comparison. And then lastly, perfectionism. Don't think I didn't make some of you really nervous right there.
So let's talk about perfectionism. Perfectionism and perfectionists—your life will be marked by faith or fear, not faith. If you're a perfectionist, your life is ruled by fear because it's got to be perfect. And look at me: you can't pull that off.
I mean, I love you; you're doing great work, but fear is toxic to flourishing Christian faith, by the way. It is faith, not outcomes, that please God. God's not—God's not pleased with your perfection because he doesn't see you that way in regards to what you do. He's pleased with faith, and faith is risky, and it's messy, and sometimes we fail.
And here's what's great: God never, when we fail, is there with the spoon, thinking to himself, "I knew it! I knew it! When I got on the cross, this guy was going to do that!"
That is not—let me say this to you: it is Satan who accuses. God doesn't accuse. God bestows. He does not accuse. So if you're like, "I hate—I’m worthless. I'm not—that is not the voice of God in your life. That's not how he works. He appoints; he bestows; he never accuses.
So if you hear accusation, you hear the enemy. Perfectionism is a denial of being human. And then let me—because I know it's scary. If you're a perfectionist, my guess is your perfectionism got you where you are, and you think people love you at work and love you at the house and love you because you do it right.
You just—so to let that go? Do you see how—why these are called strongholds? Why bondage is a word to talk about these? What happens if you're not perfect anymore?
Okay, so I'll let you hear. We all know—we already know we can appreciate your work, and you can appreciate your work without trying to be a real crummy version of Jesus.
So perfectionism is a way that we get stuck. Now, here's what I want to talk about. That's my intro. Three ways—three ways. That's right. I'm kidding. Three ways that strongholds are formed: words and wounds. Maybe you see yourself there. Comparison—maybe you see yourself there. Perfectionism—maybe you see yourself there.
All three work in a similar way: Satan lying to you, you believing it, and you living out of it as a mindset. Now, how are we to fight?
Now, I love this. So let's go back and look at the text. "For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to what? Give me that word—destroy strongholds."
So you see what I'm saying? Like, we're not passive towards these strongholds. We don't think these are no big deal. With divine power—not human power, not human ingenuity—but with divine power, we have the power to destroy, tear down, destroy these strongholds, these lies, these mindsets, these value systems that keep us stuck and broken and lying to ourselves, demonically tormented.
So here's how—here's our weapons. You ready? Here's the first one: repentance. Come on, guys! You've made some really nasty accusations against your creator. Like, he says, "You are my beloved," and you're like, "I think I'm kind of trash. I think you're wrong. I think you don't know what you're talking about."
He says, "You are fearfully and wonderfully made." "Really? Because I think I'm awkward and dumb." But like, see, you think that's nobody. You are making an accusation against the one who made you, and he's like—here he is. He's like crazy about you! Like, he just thinks you're amazing! It's like, "Look at my work! I killed that!"
I'm not trying to give you self-esteem. I said what you did; you just were born. You get to take credit for that. But God is marveling at what God does. God is marveling at what God did, what God built, what God put in you.
And we'll talk about next week how he used your story to put some of those things in here. Right now, that's how we're talking—no, about strongholds. Like, you got to repent, friend, brother. You got to repent, man. You've said some things about you. You've made accusations against God that aren't true.
Man, I know what it might have been like to live with a dad like that, with a mom like that, with that thing that happened when nobody was looking around you. You felt weak. You still think about it sometimes. You got that rage in your heart. He knows. He knows it's scary to be you, bro.
You just got to repent. You got to seek his forgiveness for how you've called him a liar. The second thing we have to do—and this might be new for some of you—is the idea or concept of renouncing.
So we repent, but we also renounce. So if repentance is, "Please forgive me, Father," renouncing is formally declaring one's abandonment of. So I'm repenting, and now I'm going, "Not doing that again. Not living that way anymore."
And the way I've seen this work quite a bit is when you kind of come to terms with, "Oh my gosh, this is what happened. This is what I've been believing. I've been living my whole life out of this." And I realize you're having a car, and they'll pray—people pray with you, man. And they'll pray stuff off of you. It gets weird. They start naming stuff like, "We rebuke that lie in the name of Jesus right now."
Yeah, we just break the jaw of the enemy. And that's the process of renouncing—us agreeing with that. I am breaking with that. I am no longer being allegiant to that.
And now we've done some spiritual work. We've repented before God. We've broken loose, kind of churned up the soil. Now we need to finish him off.
And so, as Will was saying in the video, he talked about how in May I was in Romans 8, and I was talking about strongholds, and I was trying to introduce similar concepts. Why Romans 8 for me is like a baseball bat that you could take to the mouth of Satan over and over and over again.
Like, it's not—you ain't got to be friendly with the devil. You ain't gotta—you just rock it. And so, like, Romans 8 just won't stop with—if it's a prize fight, it's the title fight. He's like, "Bam! Bam! Bam!" And he just breaks the teeth out of the enemy.
So let me walk you there because here's the process, right? We repent, renounce, maybe get some prayer. Some of this stuff's deep, man. I'm telling you, I started when I was 5. And you hit 38; you've been living out of something since you were 5.
So now you are going to need—and praise God, he has not left you without weapons. And our strongholds have occurred because we have believed lies, and the primary weapon against lies is actually the truth, right?
So let's do Romans 8. I'm giving you Romans 8 because you're gonna walk out. I'm gonna ask you to get prayed for today, but you're gonna walk out there. He's waiting to whisper you in the car. I swear he's probably whispering to you right now. He doesn't mean you now, not you, right?
Romans 8:1: "There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus." How about that one? None! You look that up in the Greek; it literally means none. There's no—none!
So hey, look at me. You got something behind you that still makes you feel dirty. You're part of something that when you think back on it, you still—you can almost feel nauseous. Something you want anybody to know about? Maybe at this moment, nobody does know about it.
By hiding in the dark like that, by the way, you're giving the enemy all sorts of space to play. That's why confession is such a good thing because at least when you know, he goes, "People are going to find out you're a fake." You're like, "Bro, I am a fake! I'm following Jesus the best I know how!"
Right? I mean, you just take—so no condemnation for you!
How about this one? 31-32: "What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?"
Now let me—how many of you let something terrible happen to you, and you think you're being punished by God, right? Like, I mean, I hear people say some crazy nonsense, right?
Like, think how often you think that happened because you didn't do this, this, or this. Like, that's the lie. That's how—that's stronghold stuff, right? Because what did this just say? That God is for me, not against me, which means the lens by which I have to see even the most difficult days of my life—so I'm not being punished here, and God is not wrathful towards me.
I'm not under wrath; I'm under mercy. So whatever this is that I don't understand and I don't like, it ain't his wrath. Whatever this is, it ain't his wrath. It's something I don't like; I don't want it. There's something at work here.
We're gonna talk more about that next week. Verse 33: "Who shall bring a charge against God's elect?" Like, he—okay, gosh, doesn't he already know everything about you, right?
So when Satan's like, "And that thing is really going to bother the Lord," he already knows it! It is God who justifies is the back half of that verse, right? You want to talk about shutting somebody up?
How about verse 34: "Who is it to condemn?" So not only can nobody bring a charge against you, but you won't be condemned. "Who is it to condemn? Because Christ Jesus is the one who died. More than that, he was raised."
Verse 35: "Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?"
Here, look at me. You have been uniquely wired by God, placed by God. Look at me: he will never leave you; he will never abandon you. Even in this, one, you have not been forgotten. I don't know what else is going on; you have not—he has not forgotten you.
He will not! He delights, rejoices in—gosh, Stephanie sings over you, calls you the apple of his eye. How hard is that to believe? I'm saying harder on a scale of one to ten—a 42, right? Delight? Certainly, he's just patiently waiting for me to get a better version of what I am now. That's not what the book says, though.
So who—who's telling the truth? Who's telling the truth? I'm gonna build my life on the Scriptures and the creator God of the universe.
Now, I've been thinking about this idea—this idea of a demonic judo. Here's what I mean by that: because the enemy is so good at lying, how is he gonna take what I'm saying to you right now and try to twist it and use the momentum to body slam you on the other side of this thing?
And so I thought, after praying, that I might have an idea—a lie that we're prone to believe when you start looking at this kind of content is kind of a surrender to parts of you that Jesus is actually trying to sanctify out of you so you can become your true self.
Remember what we said last week? The more we see him, the more clearly we see who we are. And the more we know him, the more we will know our true selves, right?
And so I think one of the ways that you might, if you're not careful today, be sold a different version of these lies with the same result is for you to just kind of do something like this: you got to pretty it up. You can't say what it actually is.
So you have to say, "Well, I guess just God made me a passionate person." No, that's anger; it needs to be repented of, right? "Well, you know, I guess I'm just naturally sensual." No, that's lust. "You know, I'm just kind of steady." I'm even—no, that's being lazy.
Like, when Jesus says to deny yourself, to take up your cross and follow him, he's talking about those parts that are not you and that keep you from following him being put to death violently and destroyed completely.
He's not giving you permission to go, "Well, since I'm naturally passionate, aggressive, I guess I can just be me, and people got to adjust." Absolutely not! No! Like, Christ died to save us from those things, not to give them over.
And you're not naturally that state. Did you know that anger is not a primary emotion? It's a secondary emotion, which means if you struggle with anger, you're probably struggling with sadness.
That's certainly not very masculine. We don't talk about that stuff. We don't talk about that time that they forgot about us. I want to talk about that—how indifferent they were towards us. We don't talk about how we were abandoned and address that stuff.
Stuff—flipping men! Grow a backbone! Get a spine! Quit crying! Get up! Like, men, Christ died so you didn't have to be that ridiculous caricature of masculinity.
Do me a favor: won't you bow your heads, close your eyes? You were made for the day, and the day was made for you. You—not future version of you, not you when you pick up on some other people's skills, not the cheap version of you that maybe you're living in right now because you thought that's what you were supposed to do.
Let me ask you this: how many—just as we did some work today—how many of you, it's like it occurred to you by the grace of God, you're like, "Oh man, I've got some pretty significant strongholds in my life." I don't need to work through the three ways it happens. Just if you would, if it's you and you would just be like, "Man, I've got them," would you just lift your hand? It's like, "Man, I've got some mindset issues. I've got some value system issues."
Oh man, see, this is why I'm preaching this, guys. There's so many of us just jammed up. Somebody that's been lied to. Go ahead and put your hands down. I'm going to pray for us. I'm going to pray over you, and we're going to sing.
And while we're singing, I would love for you to spend some time repenting. Guys, God is so quick to forgive, slow to anger, abounding in love. And then renounce. Just be like, "No, I'm not doing that anymore. I'm not doing that anymore."
Maybe, guys, maybe after the service is over today, come and grab the hands of one of these men or women here. Just go, "Man, I need to pray. I need somebody—somebody to break up this hard ground in my soul. I know this is happening. I feel stuck. Will you pray for me?"
And then, man, I'm giving you Romans 8 this week because I'm telling you that voice is waiting for you outside this room. No, no, not—it's not that he's just whispering now, but he's waiting for you big time in that car.
So let's weapon up and get ready. Father, bless these men and women. So many hands, so much hurt, so much living out of the wrong place. Holy Spirit, will you fall in a unique way on us today? You break these things; destroy them. We want them destroyed. We want to participate in their destruction.
We thank you that it's divine power that brings that about, so it's not about us doing this or doing that. It's prayer, weaponizing what's true and saying it to ourselves a thousand times a day. Pray against the work of the enemy.
I just pray that his hooks that have been in some of these men and women since they were little boys and girls, they would walk in a kind of free. I just pray we just pummel the plans of the enemy today in the souls and lives of these men and women. It's for your beautiful name I pray. Amen.
on Nov 05, 2023
