Good morning! How's everybody doing?
You know, to kind of piggyback off what Day and David were saying, I heard a minister say the word "due season" means later than you think. You know, you've got a time in your mind you think it's supposed to come, but it's just gonna be a little bit later. But it'll always be on time. Sometimes we get these time frames in our mind; it's not God's timing.
I'd like to start with a joke. There was an Amish boy and his father, and they went to the mall for the very first time. They walked in and were just amazed by everything, just looking around at the vastness of the mall. But one thing in particular caught their eye: two shiny doors on the wall. They saw them open and close, and the father just stood there and watched them. A few minutes later, he saw this old lady, she was about 75 or 80, in a wheelchair. She rolled up to it, hit the button, the doors opened, she rolled in, and the doors closed. He watched the numbers go up, it stopped, he watched the numbers go down, and the doors opened. A beautiful 24-year-old woman walks out. The father looks at his son and says, "Go get your mom!" [Laughter]
A lot of times, we have these contradicting thoughts that come against us. You know, you might be having thoughts of fear instead of thoughts of faith, but in your heart, you know you shouldn't be thinking that way. There might be times when you have thoughts of worry or anxiety, but you know you shouldn't be thinking that way. There's a battle between what's right and wrong in our thinking, and that's what we're talking about today: winning the battle in our minds.
You know, the mind is a battlefield, and most of life's battles are won and lost in the mind. The more I've studied scripture, science has finally caught up with scripture, and they have said now that the majority of problems come from the mind. The good news is that God's word is powerful, and it's just to help us, but it'll transform us when we renew our mind with the word.
If you spend any time reading in the New Testament, there is a really good chance you're reading something written by the Apostle Paul because he wrote two-thirds of the New Testament. Paul devoted a majority of his writings discussing our identification in Christ. You know, our thoughts identify us. Paul was the ultimate thought warrior. He didn't let things influence his thinking.
Here in Romans chapter 7, we kind of get a glimpse of this struggle that Paul faced early on. A lot of people try to act like this verse here applied to Paul now, but Paul's talking about early on, and this is how he was dealing with things early on. But we will see in a minute how things change.
In verse 15, he says, "For that which I do, I allow not; for what I would, that do I not; but what I hate, that I do." I know that's a little confusing, but this is what Paul said: Paul said what I know I should be doing, I don't do, and what I don't do, I know I should be doing. Sounds like he got his wires crossed.
I remember when I was in high school, you know, the thing was everybody had to get a system put in their car if you wanted to be cool. You had to have those two 15s in the back; you had to have it thumping. You wanted that license plate right when you pulled up in the parking lot of school. I had my two 15s in there, had my tweeters in the front. I mean, I'm surprised we could hear because we just got it as loud as we possibly could.
But there was a boy that I was friends with in Kershaw. He had a truck, and he'd put two 15s in the back, but his radio was terrible. I'm just fat and ready, so he went and bought him a real expensive Alpine stereo. All of his money spent right there; didn't have no more. He tells me, "Man, I'm gonna put this in myself." I said, "I don't know if you should do that or not." He said, "I got it."
So Saturday, he works all day on it. He can't get it ready to come on Sunday. Works all day on it Sunday night, and he's just fed up with it. He's like, "Whatever." He said, "I'm just gonna work, save up some money, and when I get it saved up, I'm gonna get my radio fixed."
Well, he hops in his car, and you know it's Sunday night, so we got to go cruise Kershaw. He hops in his truck, pulls out of the driveway, flips his lights on, and when he does, the radio's like, "Bam!" He thought, "Man, it works!" So he fixes it, rides around all Sunday night, gets something Monday morning to go to school, gets in the truck, turns it on—nothing.
He had a thought: flipped his lights on, radio blast. Somehow he got his wires crossed. I don't know how, but I guess in that truck, when he took all the dash out to put that radio in, he got the wrong wire and he attached it to his lights. So he said, "I'll just ride with my lights on." So from then on, he rode with his lights off, but he had his wires crossed.
You know, in verse 25, Paul says this: "I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then, with the mind, I myself serve the law of God, but with the flesh, the law of sin." But I like what he says in the Passion Translation. He says, "I give all thanks to God for his mighty power has finally provided a way through our Lord Jesus, the Anointed One. So it's left to myself, to flesh, his line with the law, but now my renewed mind is fixed and submitted to God's righteous principles."
See, Paul said how I fixed all that problem: I renewed my mind. I spent time in his word and renewed my mind. You know, turn to Second Corinthians chapter 10. I'm gonna read a lot of this out of the NIV, but it'll be on the screen. You know, there's a battle for the control of our thoughts. He who wins the mind battle wins the person.
In Second Corinthians chapter 10, we'll read verses three and four. Here it 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 to demolish strongholds."
You see, I have a couple words highlighted here. "Wage" means to carry on continually a pattern of behavior. So this ain't just a one-time process. You can't just go in there and read the Bible for 10 minutes and think, "My mind's fixed." No, it's an everyday continual process.
You know, when I got saved, I got saved when I was about four years old, and from that point on in my life, it's been a continual process. I've read books, I've read the Bible. I'm constantly, you know, until the day I die and go be with Jesus, I'll constantly be renewing my mind because you can't control the thoughts that come into your mind.
Just think about it: on an average day, how many thoughts do you have? Your mind's bombarded. You work in a high-pressure job; your mind's bombarded. Just in everyday life, you go to school; your mind's bombarded with thoughts constantly.
The next word to look at is the word "power." In its Greek word, "dunamis," it's the explosive power of God. It's where we get the word "dynamite." And the word "demolish" means to destroy, to overwhelm, or to defeat badly.
The last word is "strongholds," and it's the Greek word "achurumo." Picture a stronghold as a fortress or a prison. They're usually built up on a city hill, the highest hill in the city. Now, the purpose of a stronghold is to do two things: number one, to keep things out, and number two, to keep things in.
Say they wanted to keep the enemy out, but they wanted to keep the people in. That's what a stronghold does: it keeps you out of something or it keeps you in something. You know, what does the enemy want to do? He wants to shape our thoughts one thought at a time. We're trapped in a prison of lies, so that we're trapped by believing what's untrue.
You know, when we're dealing with the mind, there are six words that I want us to be familiar with. You know, coaching sports, I've never coached football, but I've coached basketball, baseball, and soccer. As a coach, one thing that you do is you study your opposing team. You know, in football, they watch film.
I remember in high school, I'd go in there and watch film with the football team. You watch film because you want to know how they operate. You want to know their methods. You want to know, you know, this running back here likes to run wide; this dude here runs in the middle. This receiver here likes to run the deep route.
In basketball, I want you to watch their moves. You know, as I'm coaching the game, I'm watching the player, and I see that, you know, every time he catches the ball, he goes left, or every time he goes right. Then at timeout, I say, "Hey, listen, he's going right every time." I'm giving you his game plan. Why? Because I want you to be able to stop him.
It's important that you understand the game plan because if you understand the game plan, you can attack it. You can recognize it. You know, if I see him on the three-point line and every time he drives, he gives me two pumps like this before he drives, I know what he's going to do. I recognize it before he does it, right?
So when I see this and this, I'm already sliding. Why? And he's not going to change. Why? Because it's instilled in him. This is my move. And that's how Satan is. This is his move. I'm gonna give you his game plan, his only game plan, his only means of operation. This is it.
So these six words I want you to know. The first word we already looked at is the word "stronghold," and it tells us what we can and can't do. The next two words come from Ephesians 6:10-11. It says, "Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of his might. Put on the whole armor of God that you'll be able to stand against the wiles of the devil."
You see, the two words "wiles" and "methods" come from two Greek words: "meta," just like your phone app, "meta," it means "with." That's what that word means, "with." The second part of that word is "hodo," and it means "a road."
This is what it means: Satan travels on a road. Now, what is a road for? If I get on this road, what's the purpose of that road? The purpose of that road is to take me somewhere, right? It has a destination. No, there's no road in the country that doesn't have a purpose; it's to take you to a place.
Satan travels on a road to our minds. That's where he's going. His job is to get to our minds. The word "warfare" is used five times in the New Testament, and every time it's dealing with the mind. So this is the place that you need to be concerned about. This is a place that you need to think about. You need to think about what you're thinking about. If he can dominate your mind, he can dominate you.
The next word is "devil." That's the third word. You know, we think of that as his name, and the Greek word is "Diablos," which is also the Spanish word "Diablos." But the Greek word "Diablos" is more than just a name; it's a job description. It describes what he does.
The Greek word is formed from two words: "DIA," which means total penetration, and "Balo," which means to throw, to thrust, or to strike. So this means this: it literally means one who repeatedly throws strikes or thrusts over and over and over again. Imagine taking a ball, sitting on the window, and you just throw it until you bust that window. Eventually, the bus, every hit weakens it.
You know, if you kept on reading in Ephesians 6 earlier, it talks about the fiery darts of the enemy. You know, they used to shoot those fiery darts, but one thing that the people knew were the fiery darts. They actually had people with water pitchers. When they would shoot the fiery dart, they would put the water to put the fire out. But every once in a while, one would catch, and you would see buildings burst up in flames.
That's what Satan wants. He wants one to stick. If he can get one to stick, he's got you. That's what he's looking for.
The fourth word is found in Second Corinthians 2:11, and this word is "devices." It says, "Least Satan should take advantage of us, for we are not ignorant of his devices." The word "devices" actually means mind, intellect, thoughts, perceptions. This is his toolbox. This is what he uses: your mind, your intellect, your thoughts, your perceptions. You can even say your emotions because your thoughts affect your emotions.
The fifth word is the word "deceive." It's found in Genesis 3:13. It says, "And the Lord God said to the woman, 'What is this you have done?' And the woman said, 'The serpent deceived me, and I ate.'" This word has several meanings, but the gist of this word means to take captive. If you're deceived, you've been taken captive.
The sixth word is "oppression," and it's found in Acts 10:38. This is how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. The word "oppression" or "oppressed" means to be ruled by a wicked tyrant.
If you think back through Roman history, a lot of those rulers were considered wicked tyrants. You know, one thing they loved to do was chop heads off. When you become oppressed, it's like your head's gone. You're ruled by a wicked tyrant. That's what he wants: your head. He wants your thoughts. He wants your imaginations. He wants your head because if he can get your head, he has what you think, which determines what you have. It determines your emotions. It determines your self-image. It determines what becomes your reality.
Now, let's look at Second Corinthians 10:5. Now, we just read the first part there, three and four, but this is what he goes on to say here. Paul says, "We demolish arguments in every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ."
So our lives are always moving in the direction of our most dominant thoughts. Now, what we think comes into our lives. That's why the devil is fighting us for our thoughts. You know, science and the Bible agree: cognitive behavior psychology, which studies the behavior of people, shows a lot of problems that people face come from their thinking, such as relationship challenges, eating disorders, certain addictions, forms of anxiety—they all result from toxic thinking.
We all know this scripture here: Proverbs 23:7. It says, "For as a man thinketh in his heart, so is he." The life that we have is a reflection of the thoughts we think. What we think determines who we become. If you constantly think you can't, guess what? You won't. If you constantly think you can, you will. If you dwell on problems, you'll be overwhelmed. If you dwell on solutions, you'll find them.
You know, if you focus on victimhood, guess what? You'll always be a victim. But if you focus on overcoming, you'll overcome. You know, I've told you before in coaching, a lot of times that's one of the main things you're up against. It's not physical talent because that plays a huge part, but from the very get-go, one of the biggest things is their mental toughness, their mental attitude.
Because if a team walks on a field and they're already beat here, they'll be beat there. Every day, you got to have your mind made up that when you walk on that field, you're gonna win. It don't matter. I mean, you've all, you know, most of y'all played sports at some point, but you've all come across a time in your life where, in the natural, you looked at the team across the line, across the field, and you thought, "There's no way." But you win! Come on!
Why? Because you're just a little bit mentally tougher than they were. You were willing to do the things they weren't willing to do. You were willing to get dirty, to get down, and you know, slug it out. But in the natural, it was a David and Goliath situation.
But you know, all of Israel saw Goliath, and that's how they saw it. David looked at him a different way. He has no cover. He didn't look at his size; he never addressed his size. He never addressed who he was. To him, he just didn't have a covenant. That's all he saw.
You know, a lot of times when you face things, if you face that problem and that's all you look at is the problem, that's all you're going to have is the problem. You know, our life is the reflection of the thoughts we think.
So for a few minutes, I want us to think about what we think. You know, a thought on it: are your thoughts more worried, or are they more peaceful? So if you had to rate your thoughts right now on a scale of one to ten, where would you rate them? Would they lean more towards worry or more towards peace?
You know, do your thoughts—are you constantly thinking about, you know, are you worried about your kids, worried about the future, worried about money, worried about your job, worried about your health? Or are your thoughts more peaceful? Do you think about God's faithfulness, his promises, how his word never fails? Which way do you lean?
Maybe you fall into this category: maybe your thoughts are more negative, or are they more positive? Which way? Rate them. And then, are you critical of people? Do you find fault? Are you discontent? Are you hard? Are you busy? Are you positive, or do you believe the best of people? Do you believe life is good? Are you optimistic?
You know, this area here is one that I have to deal with because my natural mind wants to go negative. You can tell me your situation right now; it don't matter what it is. I can never heard about it before, and you tell me, and my mind automatically tells you something negative about it. I can give you a negative thought: "Why is it gonna work? Why you shouldn't do it?" My mind just goes that way. I constantly fight that pattern of negative thinking.
And you know what? Because I know it, a lot of you don't hear it. I mean, it slips out every now and then. My wife, T, says, "Why can't you just be positive?" But for the majority of the time, I catch it here before it gets here because I recognize it, because I think about what I think about.
There's a place in physics, and it's called a superposition. A superposition is where you think about what you think about. Have you ever been talking, and while you're talking, you're thinking about what you're saying? Like in your mind, you're saying it before it gets here? Or maybe you can feel the emotions of what you're saying? That's a superposition because you're thinking about what you're thinking about.
And that's where we have to get. We have to get in that position where before it comes from here to there, it's filtered. It's, "Hey, no, this ain't right. Let's change that."
Our third category you may fall into is worldly or eternal. Is your mind consumed with possessions? Is it consumed with being liked by people? Is it eternal? Are you thinking about how God has blessed you and what you can do with what God has blessed you with? How you can invest that money or talent to reach people? You're consumed with filling the calling that God has for your life.
You know, if you really take time to do this, you can really judge where your thoughts are and see, you know, "Hey, I may need to check up here. I need to change this." Because what comes into your mind comes into your life. You can't have a positive life and have a negative mind because your life's always moving in the direction of your strongest thoughts.
So, you know, when you do children's church and you do it for years, you do youth, one thing that, if you take any classes about that, they tell you is that you should have a big question. Like, this is the question this whole message should answer. And I want to give you a big question this morning, and the big question is this: Are you excited about the direction that your thoughts are taking your life?
You know, I asked myself that question several years ago, and I do it quite often. But several years ago, I asked myself that question, and my answer was no because I noticed that I was angry. I was mad at the world. I mean, just to be honest, I just about hated people. I mean, I thought everybody was stupid.
I went to God about it. I said, "God, why am I thinking like this?" I mean, I was reading my Bible; I was still praying. But what had happened is I was spending a lot of time on the road, and I was listening to talk radio. I listened to it a lot. I mean, there were times I was riding and praying, but in the background, talk radio was whispering.
He said, "Look at what you're putting in." And I was putting in anger. I was putting in hate. I was being judgmental. And you know, at that moment, I said, "Thank you, God. I'll fix it." I turned it off. I haven't listened to talk radio since. I don't even watch the news. I refuse to watch it. I read it so I can be informed, but I read it because I can control what I'm reading. I can just flip it; I can scroll it. I don't have to read every word. I can get the highlights and be done with it.
But it was consuming. It was so embedded in my mind that every person I looked at, I viewed them through those lenses. I mean, you asked my wife; I was just mad. I mean, I'd rather fight anything. It didn't matter. He said something, and I was ready to go with you. And it was just because of what I was consuming.
But my number one spiritual goal, and yours too, is to renew my mind, to change my thinking, to align it with His. You know, that's what being a Christian is all about. We spend all of our time renewing our mind because I was talking to Rebecca, and I said, "You know, we're a three-part being: we're a spirit, we're a soul, and we're a body." Amen?
Our spirit knows the things of God, and our flesh is over here. Our mind is the bridge that gets things from the spiritual to the natural. It can stop things on that bridge that didn't ever get in your life, or it can tell it to come on through. We have to renew our mind constantly to keep that bridge open for the things of God.
You know, because a person with amnesia, they have no memories, and they have no thoughts, and they have no identity because they have no thoughts. So if your thoughts become Christ's thoughts, then your identity will line up with His identity because you're thinking just like He thinks.
But if your thoughts are your thoughts, if you're going to align them with Adam every day, it's going to line up with the flesh constantly. So we got to make sure we're thinking His thoughts.
We all know this scripture here in Romans 12:2. It says, "And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God."
The Passion Translation says, "Stop imitating the ideals and opinions of the culture around you, but be inwardly transformed by the Holy Spirit through a total reformation of how you think. This will empower you to discern God's will as you live a beautiful life, satisfying and perfect in His eyes."
So, you know, "conformed," if you think about the word "conformed" real quick here, it literally means to press. When I used to talk about this with youth, I always gave the example of a mold in Play-Doh. I would bring in Play-Doh, and you know, you take the Play-Doh out of the cup, and it looks like a little cylinder. But you take it and you lay it on the mold, and what do you do? You press, and you keep pressing, and you keep pressing until what? The Play-Doh looks like the mold.
That's what the world's doing. Your mind's conformed. It's constantly being bombarded: thoughts, thoughts, thoughts, thoughts. What's it doing? It's pressing, it's pressing, it's pressing you until what? Until you look like them.
But it says that we should be transformed. I always brought a transformer because it went from a robot to a car or a robot to an animal or a robot to a construction vehicle. Well, it was something totally different. When you're transformed, you're not like you used to be; you're a totally different person.
And that's what I think. So let's talk about renewing our minds. You know, notice I said the process. It's a process. We live in a society where everything wants to be instant. You know, you cook grits on the stove; that wasn't fast enough. Then they got five-minute grits; that went fast enough. Now you stick them in a microwave. I know it says a minute, but I like 45 seconds. Hey, really, I'm locking too hot; that way I can just instant.
You know, it used to be you had to put the coffee pot on the stove, heat the water up, let it percolate. Now you can just get some hot water, tear a little thing off, throw it in, stir it up, and you got instant coffee. Instant! You know, everybody loves the event of making a baby, but nobody likes the process of the nine months. It's a process.
So I want to give you four steps to renew your mind. The first step in renewing your mind is you have to identify the stronghold that is holding you back. Our thoughts actually change the chemical makeup of our brains. Every thought creates a neurochemical change in our body. Positive thoughts release neurotransmitters. This is a legal feel-good drug called dopamine.
We've all experienced it. You know, maybe you posted something on social media, and somebody you respected commented or liked it, and you felt good. You felt this surge of just goodness. Maybe you got your hair done, and somebody comes and says, "Girl, I love your hair," and you're like, "Thank you!" and you feel good. That's dopamine.
You know, maybe Rebecca texts me and says, "I'm thinking about you. Come home." That's dopamine; I feel good. But it's a chemical process, and science has proven that the more often you think a thought, the easier it is to think that thought again. If I think it one time, I can think it again.
You know, some of you may remember from Club Timothy, some of you men, but when you think a thought, you actually create a neural pathway in your brain. We have billions of neural pathways in our brain constantly firing. So the more often we think a thought, a connection is formed from one point to another. It's easier to think that thought until it becomes a stronghold. You begin to live in a rut.
You know, if I come out my door and I walk across my yard every day in the same place, I create what? A path. I'll eventually wear the grass down, and it'll become dirt, and it'd be noticeable.
Go to that next picture. This is at Ohio State University. The first picture was the courtyard, and what they did was they decided instead of making their own, they took the paths that the students made and they paved them. That's what our mind does. How we walk, how we think, it becomes set. Eventually, it becomes like stone; it's cemented in our thinking patterns.
You know, because of the neural pathways, psychologists call this cognitive bias. We have cognitive biases, or in everyday language, this is mental filters. A cognitive bias is a mistake in reasoning based on personal experience or premises, and it's mental filters.
We've all seen filters. I started to show y'all a picture of meat and show y'all a Snapchat picture of me where I look like a monkey. But you've all seen filters. You know, you scroll through Facebook and go, "Who is that?" And then you look at their name, and you're like, "They don't look like that! If they get lost, nobody's gonna find them!" Why? Because somebody used the filter.
Filters change how we see things. They even change the emotion of something. You know, you can take a regular picture, and it can be drab, but you can put a filter on it, make it vivid, and you look at it, and you feel happy because it's brighter; it's more engaging.
So filters are like that. That's why two people can respond to a different situation, to the same situation, but in a different way. Yeah, maybe at work, you go in, you and a co-worker, and the boss gives you some critique. One co-worker, he goes off, "Who does he think he is? I've given my life to this company!" Blah, blah, blah, blah. The other person goes, "Thank you! Now I know what to fix."
Same situation, same words, but a different response. Why? It was filtered. Our process was filtered. We're pre-wired to interpret the situation, and we find this in the scripture in Numbers 13 and 14.
We have the 12 spies. The 12 spies, they both go into the same situation. Ten come out, and they're like, "We can't do this! We are in our own sight grasshoppers, and in their sight!" That's what they said. "We see ourselves as grasshoppers, as how they see us." The other two are like, "We're able! We're able! We can do this! Let's take it now, right this second! Let's go!"
That's how—but they both saw the same thing. Joshua and Caleb were with the other ten when they saw the giants. The ten were with Joshua and Caleb when they saw the grapes. They had to take two men to carry out. They saw the exact same thing, but it was filtered in how they responded.
You know, when we were buying our house, we came up against a lot of stuff, and I won't go into all that. But you know, we had sold our other house, we were living with a pastor, and it was like every time we thought we were right there at it, the door was closed. We had to fight to stay in faith. We had to fight our thoughts.
And you know, the scripture that I clung to was that all things work together for my good. No matter what they told me, that it worked for my good. I don't care; it works for my good. You can't have this house; it works for my good. You know, you need six thousand dollars as a down payment; it don't matter; it works for my good. Amen?
It didn't matter what they said; it worked for my good. I knew that I was going to come out on top, and we got the house for a steal. I mean, we got a new roof. I mean, we got a lot of things. And what I had to do was I was reframing how I was looking at something.
And Paul was the master reframer. Paul's in a prison here, and you know, this is in Philippians chapter one. He's in prison; he's chained up to a guard. You know, Paul could have wrote this. He could have said, "Now I want you to know, brothers and sisters, I'm not reading the Bible now. I'm reading this is what Paul could have said. He said, 'I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that what has happened to me really sucks, and as a result of all the hell I've gone through, I'm quitting children's church, and I'm never going back to church again.'"
That's what he could have said. I mean, he's in prison. But this is what he said: "I want you to know, brothers and sisters, that what has happened to me has actually served to advance the gospel, and as a result, it has become clear throughout the whole palace guard and everyone else that I am chained for Christ."
That's reframing the situation. Paul's like, "Hey, this guy, he's with me for eight hours a day. I get to preach to him. And when he gets done, another guy's chained to me, and I got eight hours to preach to him. And when he gets done, somebody else is chained to me. Now all the palace guards have had a turn with me, and they all know the gospel."
Paul flipped it. I mean, you read Paul's writings. He said this man's in prison; he's been flogged; he's been beaten; he's in the bottom of the prison, and Paul's like, "Rejoice! And again, I say rejoice! Count it all joy!" Oh joy! Your back's exposed to rats, and you're talking about joy? He reframed the situation.
What about Joseph? He's betrayed by his own family, sold into slavery, accused of rape, put in prison, but he reframed it. Genesis 50:20, here this is how the Good News Translation says: "You plotted evil against me, but God turned it into good in order to preserve the lives of many people who are alive today."
God's Word Translation says, "You planned evil against me, but God planned good to come out of it." The Message Translation is, "Don't you see? You planned evil against me, but God used those same plans for my good."
The facts were the same; the filter was different. You know, when you're in a situation that looks like that, just think about it: is there a different way I can look at it?
So there was this girl. She came home from college, and her parents said there was something wrong. So she said, "I need to tell y'all something. I want you to sit down." And she said, "I don't want you to say anything until I'm done talking."
So she sets them down, and she says, "I met a guy at a bar. We hooked up. I got pregnant. But there's good news: his probation will be over in a year, and once he gets out of rehab, he'll start looking for a job. He's considering marrying me, but in reality, we can't afford anything, so we're probably going to move in."
And she's looking at her parents, and they're kind of like, "What?" And she says, "Everything I just said is not true. I made a D in chemistry." See? It's not that bad! [Laughter]
See, she was reframing the situation.
So once you've created these paths in your mind, or you've created this path in your yard, and I was thinking about that path, I was thinking about growing up. I'd go spend time with my cousin, and they had sand spurs in the backyard. But there was this path that went to the next house, and you had to stay on the path.
We'd be running, and Austin, one of us would knock each other off the path, and you hit the ground, you'd come up, you'd be covered in sand spurs. You'd be picking them out. But if you stayed on that path, you could run it barefoot. But you better stay on that path.
But if you quit walking on the same path, what happens? The grass starts growing back up, and eventually, that path is not there anymore because you got off of it. And that's what we have to do. We have to get off that path. We have to forge a new path. The more you walk a path, the easier it is to travel on. If you move off of it, it becomes harder to travel on.
The second thing that we have to do in renewing our mind is we have to name the truth that demolishes that stronghold. In John 8:31-32, he says, "Then Jesus said to the Jews who believed in him, 'If you abide in my word, you are my disciples indeed, and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.'"
You know, if you know the truth, you can be free. But if you don't know the truth, you can't be free. And it reminds me of a story. This was told to me by a youth pastor. His wife worked at his church, and this church—this sounds fun—but this church had a bunch of men who played capture the flag at work all day long.
And she said she told her husband, "These men, they actually hurt each other playing capture the flag. They're like—she's like, 'There's office injuries, like dislocated bones and joints and twisted ankles playing capture the flag.'"
So they made up some rules that you couldn't capture the flag before eight o'clock. And so the pastor comes in at seven o'clock, and I'm going to tell you like he said. He said, "I had this spiritual sense that something was afoot in our capture the flag game."
And he said, "I just had this thought: look in the closet." And he looked in the closet, and there was a man in the closet waiting on eight o'clock to capture that flag. He said, "I don't know what time he got there. He said he was waiting in the closet."
He said, "I slammed that door, and I grabbed a chair, and I slid it to the door, and I said, 'You're trapped! I'm not letting you out all day! You're trapped!'"
He's like, "You're trying to cheat, and I'm going to be the judge, and you're not getting out of this closet all day long." But what he didn't tell the guy was the chair wouldn't fit. There was not a chair there.
But the guy thought there was a chair there. He said, "Eight o'clock rolled around." He said, "I could hear the guy in the closet skirmishing around." He said, "8:30, I had a counseling meeting." He said, "I was sitting there, and all of a sudden, I heard something in the ceiling tiles, and he said, 'Hey, get back in that closet!'"
He said that guy went and got back in that closet. He said, "I kept him right there all day." He said, "About to all day to lunch." He said, "At lunchtime, I walked over there, and I just pulled the door. I let him up, and I looked at him and said, 'You weren't trapped! That door was unlocked the whole time!'"
But see, in his mind, he was trapped. If he would have known the truth, he would have been free. He could have walked out of that closet anytime he wanted to, but because he didn't know the truth, he was trapped.
And it was like a person playing poker. You know, you watch like Texas Hold'em on TV. They're sitting around the table, and you can see the cards. You know, they make the flip, the flop, the river, whatever they're called, and they're betting.
And there's one guy over there, you know, they got their glasses on, looking all cool, trying not to make any emotions. And you see the cards, you look, and you're like, "That guy's got the greatest hand in the world!" You look at a guy over there, and he has just a two and a seven. I mean, it's the worst possible card you could have.
And they're like, "There's no way this guy can win." So he's like, "I raised the bet." You're like, "What is he doing?" And you see the guy with the perfect hand; he's panicking a little bit. The guy with the terrible hand, I'm all in.
The guy with the winning hand, he's got the winning hand at the whole table, and what does he do? He folds. Why? He got bluffed. You have the winning hand. You always have the winning hand. No matter what, no matter what the Satan has in store for you, God is gonna make something good out of it. God's gonna turn every situation around. You have the winning hand all the time.
Don't be bluffed. He's an illusionist. He's trying to fool you with a trick, sleight of hand, a quick thought. But guess what? You have to any hand every time.
In James 1:23-25, it says, "For anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer. He is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror. For he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the word, this one will be blessed in what he does."
So the word is a reflection of who we are, and we have to look into it. But it says, "It's like if you walk away from a mirror, you forget what you look like." Why? If I'm in front of the mirror, I can see what needs to be corrected. I can see this hair is this way, and this hair is this way. My eyebrows, I got this long blonde one there.
But if I walk away and I'm standing in front of a wall, I have nothing to compare it to. There's nothing telling me what I look like; it's just a wall. So if I start trying to fix stuff, guess what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna make a mess.
But if I get over here, and instead of trying to fix it myself, I fix it with this, then it says it's the perfect law of liberty. I'll look perfect every time as long as I fix it with this. You'll come out perfect.
In the Passion Translation, it says, "If you listen to the word and don't live out the message you hear, you become like the person who looks in the mirror, the word, to discover the reflection of his face. In the beginning, he perceives how God sees you in the mirror of the word. But then you go out and forget, and I love this word here, you forget your divine origin."
But those who sit, gaze deeper into the perfecting law of liberty and are fascinated by and respond to the truth they hear and are strengthened by, they experience God's blessing in all they do.
And if you look at the little footnote there, when it says "divine origin," it says your identification with Adam before he fell in perfection. That's how you identify yourself.
So let's look back at Second Corinthians 10:5 again. It says, "We demolish arguments in every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ."
And to the Lord, the word "take captive" is a military term. It means to attack with a sword or a spear. And we all know in Ephesians 6:17 that the word of God is the sword of the Spirit. So we take the truth of God's word, and we attack those strongholds.
We train our minds. We have to train our minds to think what we think. You know, our thoughts are what we're putting into our minds.
And flip it. Turn to Philippians 4:8. I'm gonna read this from the New Living Translation. Here's another letter Paul wrote in prison. He said, "And now, dear brothers and sisters, one final thing: fix your thoughts on what is true and honorable and right and pure and lovely and admirable. Think about things that are excellent and worthy of praise."
It says, "Fix your thoughts." The Good News Translation says, "Fill your minds." The Passion Translation says, "Continually fix, fasten your thoughts." God's word says, "Keep your thoughts." The message says, "Filling your minds and meditating on." The New King James says, "Meditate on these things."
And that brings us to number three: think it. You know, the discipline of meditation—a simple definition is to engage in mental exercise to focus one's thoughts. You know, a lot of people have this negative view of meditation because we have this Eastern version of meditation where you empty your mind.
In Eastern religions, to meditate, you have to get all the thoughts out of your mind. It has to become empty. Our meditation is totally opposite. In our meditation, we fill our minds. You fill your minds with as much of the word of God as possible.
Joshua 1:8 says, "Meditate therein day and night." The word "meditate" means to murmur, to ponder, to imagine, to mutter, to roar, to speak, to study, to talk, and to utter. Psalms 119:15 says, "Meditate on your precepts and consider your ways." Psalms 143:5 says, "I meditate on all your works and consider what your hands have done."
Meditation is thinking deeply on every word of the promise of God. You're dwelling on it and every word of it. Every problem we face, there's a promise to face it. But knowing God's word is not enough. We got to meditate on it till we believe it.
Meditation is the process of converting truth into spiritual fuel. It turns head knowledge into heart knowledge, which is faith. You know, in Hebrews 4:2, it says, "For unto us was the gospel preached as well as unto them, but the word preached did not profit them because it was not mixed with faith when they heard it."
So we have to train our mind to focus. Focus is a skill. Now, I'm gonna quote a great theologian here: Jackie Chan from the remake of The Karate Kid, which was not as good as the first one. But Jackie Chan said this: "You have to focus on your focus."
So you have to focus on what you're focusing on. Hebrews 2:1 had the Passion Translation say, "This is why it is so crucial that we be all more engaged and attentive to the truths that we have heard so that we don't drift off course."
Focus on what you're thinking about. You have to focus on what you're focusing on. Part of meditating, I told you, is the word "study." But when you study something, what do you do? You write it down.
So when you write it down, it makes your mind slow down because I don't know if you notice, when you write something, your mind actually slows down because you're thinking about what you're writing. You're processing it, so you're more intentional with the scripture when you write something down.
It actually clears your mind because you have to think about it. That's all you can think about is what you're writing. You know, when you're trying to take notes, if you're thinking about other things, you won't write the right words; you'll miss stuff. You got to think about it.
And it also triggers areas of our brain for optimal memory.
So let's review the steps so far. We have identified the stronghold, named the truth, thought it, meditated on it, and this brings us to number four: you have to confess it.
Confession in the Christian world has a bad rap because they refer to us as the, you know, "name it, claim it," the "blab it, grab it," all that stuff. But—and that's by other Christians. And this is what's crazy: do you know that Christianity is called the Great Confession? That's what it's called: the Great Confession.
And if confession ain't real, we're all in trouble because we're all going to hell if confession don't work. We're going to hell because that's how Romans says again you get saved: by confessing it. So if that don't work, we're in trouble.
But confessing and saying something out loud literally means to say the same thing. We're not just saying random thoughts; that's not confession. That's what the world says is confession. Our confession is we're saying the same thing as God.
And you know, in Matthew 10, I'm sure we've all heard this scripture quoted at the end of a service. It says, "Therefore, whoever confesses me before men, him I will also confess before my Father who is in heaven. But whoever denies me before men, him will I also deny before my Father who is in heaven."
We've all heard that scripture when altar calls are given. You're like, "You know, you got to come down here." That's true, but it also applies here. And when I'm dealing with a situation, I got to confess what He says about the situation.
And if I confess what He says, guess what? He's doing up in heaven. He's saying the same thing. He's saying, "Hey, this is what he said right here: the blood of Jesus, the word of the testimony." He's telling me, he's saying it. But guess what? If I deal with a situation, and there's a pain in my body, and I start saying, "Oh, I'm sick," guess what I'm doing? I am denying Him because I'm denying His finished work.
You know what He's up in heaven doing? "There's nothing I can do." Yeah, my hands are tied. Well, because I've denied Him before God, I've denied Him before men. And it may not be—I might broadcast it, but I'm telling you, you know, I'm on the phone. You know, the doctor said, or you see somebody, "I'm just feeling terrible." By repeating wrong thoughts, we're giving voice to it.
So I want to give you real quick here, we got just a couple minutes, I'm going to give you some practical examples of how to do this.
So the first one is this: maybe you struggle—and this is a big one. I used to get in youth all the time to know the will of God for your life. So this is what I would do dealing with this situation. I would find some scriptures. So I found a couple for you.
Psalms 37:23 says, "The steps of a good man are ordered by the Lord, and He delights in his way." John 10:4 and 5 says, "And when he brings out his own sheep, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. Yet they will not follow a stranger, but will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers."
And this will be my confession: "My life belongs to God. Daily I seek Him, and daily He directs my steps. I know the will of God for my life. I know His voice, and He leads me to His perfect will."
See, I would write that down on a note card, and I would put it in my house. I'd put it in front of me where I constantly see it. I'd write it on several cards. I would constantly read it.
Maybe you struggle with confidence. Philippians 4:13 says, "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." Psalms 139:14 says, "I will praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Marvelous are your works, and that my soul knows very well."
Philippians 4—let me see—Galatians 6:4 says, "Let everyone be devoted to fulfill the work God has given them to do with excellence, and their joy will be in doing what's right and being themselves."
I love this part: "And not in being affirmed by others."
"My confidence is in Christ, in Christ alone. I am fearfully and wonderfully made. I do not find my value in the opinions of others but in Him. Because His Spirit lives within me, I can do everything He calls me to do."
Maybe you have trouble with lust. Second Timothy 2:22 says, "Flee youthful lusts; pursue righteousness, faith, love, peace, who call on the Lord with a pure heart."
First Corinthians 10:13 says, "No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man. But God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you're able, but with the temptation will always make a way of escape that you'll be able to bear it."
Colossians 3:2 says, "Set your mind on things above, not on things of the earth." First Corinthians 2:16 says, "For who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ."
My confession will be: "I'm not a slave to lustful thoughts because I have the mind of Christ. I will set my mind on things above. I will honor Him with my eyes and thoughts. Even if I'm tempted, He always gives me a way out."
And maybe it's worry. Philippians 4:6-7 says, "Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your request be known to God, and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus."
I would confess: "Because of Christ, I'm not anxious about anything. I cast all my cares on God because He cares for me. I have the peace of God dwelling in my heart and ruling in my mind."
Now, that's just four practical examples of how you can renew your mind. Identify the problem, find the truth to combat it, write it down, think about it, and meditate on it.
So all day long, I'm gonna go through those scriptures, and I'm gonna think about them in my mind. You know, I have the mind of Christ, or God is not giving me a spirit of fear but of a sound mind. I'm thinking about those thoughts all day long.
And then what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna speak them out. I'm confessing them over and over again.
So in closing, I want to challenge you to do something. I want to challenge you to take a thought out and answer the big question I asked earlier: Do you like the direction your thoughts are taking you?
And then I want you to make renewing your mind a priority. Find the stronghold, find the truth, destroy it, think on it, meditate on it, and confess it.
Let's pray.
Dear Father, we thank you for today, Lord, and we thank you for this time. Lord, I thank you that this word didn't fall on deaf ears, Lord. And I thank you, Father God, that you give us the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of you, Lord, and that the eyes of our understanding will be enlightened, and we'll know the hope of your calling, Father.
We'll know how vast the love you have for us is, and I thank you, Father, that as we embark on renewing our minds, you'll open our eyes and give us eyes to see and ears to hear, Father. And we thank you that your word is sharper than any two-edged sword and destroys every stronghold in our lives.
And we thank you for it now, in Jesus' name. Amen.
on Nov 05, 2023
