The Battle for Your Mind

it's gonna be really good so turn with me in your Bibles if you have them if not it's gonna come up on the screen to the book of second Corinthians chapter ten and I'm going to read verses three through five few short scriptures tonight and we an actually genuinely if you could pray for Judah that would be awesome I know I tease him a lot but I really do like him and love him and want him to be healthy and strong so we loved your prayers but the advantage of him being gone tonight is I am much more concise with my words he's the expander I'm the condenser so three opening verses tonight this is a big deal at church home Judah normally has like 17 so here we go for our three opening verses 2nd Corinthians chapter 10 we're gonna start reading in verse 3 it says this for though we walk in the flesh a little bit of context this is a letter that was written to a church in corinth by the pastor who started it he's now an apostle the Apostle Paul inspired by the holy spirit so he's writing to a group of believers he says this for though we walk in the flesh and by the way he is kind of in a bit of a fight in an in a disagreement with them so he these were some these words have some weight and meaning to them he's not just like skidding giving philosophical thoughts he's saying no I know we're in a fight and I know we have some disagreements but this listen to what he says he says for though we walk in the flesh we are not waging war according to the flesh for the weapons of our wear of our warfare are not carnal but they have divine power they have divine power I lost my place they have divine power here we go to destroy strongholds and we destroy listen to what this these weapons destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God and we take every thought into captivity to obey Jesus Christ and what we're going to talk tonight really truly is we're going to talk about the war that is happening for the minds of men and women who follow Jesus the battle that is taking place for our minds and I know if you're listening to this and you heard me read these verses and you are a Christian you're a follower of Jesus you already know where I'm going right you know I'm going to talk about spiritual warfare that we're not warring against flesh and blood against people but that we are battling against powers and principalities and there is a devil who hates us and you know I'm going to talk about our mind and our thought and our thinking but I want to make this really clear I am NOT saying that the only fight we have to fight is a spiritual fight in fact as I was studying and preparing for this and getting ready to talk I was in feeling such a tension between this I don't want to make it seem like I am belittling the genuine fight that our country is in which is the result of generations of systematic racism I don't want to belittle that fight as a Christian and saying okay so alright guys so all we have to do is I pray and think better and then everything's gonna be taken care of that is not what I'm saying at all that's the furthest thing from my heart I know there are so many natural systems and things specifically in our country in the United States of America but also around the world there are things that need to change and so I want to acknowledge that but my other the other tension I was feeling as I was preparing for this is I don't want this this talk which is about such a powerful real concept as Christian as Christians which is really that we fight against a spiritual battle and that spiritual battle takes place primarily in our mind I don't want you to think that the only application to this is against racism yes it is one of the key applications and I'm gonna be referencing it a few times in the message tonight so just prepare yourself but the wide variety of applications that this has is just as various is the amount of thoughts that you think of in any given day just take a moment and think about your day today how many random things did you think about today how many positive things did you think about how many negative things do to think about how many conversations did you have in your head that never happened how many things did you think about regret about yesterday and worry about tomorrow and all of the variety of thoughts that we think about the application to this is just as broad as all of those thoughts that were ever going to think and I'm really I'm really believing this as I had conversations with God about this message and that tension that I was feeling I really believe this I know who we are as a community of church home I know that we are people who love Jesus and our desire is to serve Him our desire is to do what he wants us to do and so my prayer for all of us is that we would open up our hearts that we would open up our minds and that we would just say okay Holy Spirit apply this to me in whatever way you want whatever areas of my mind and my thinking you want to work on apply this to me in that way and I believe as our hearts are open our minds are open that the Holy Spirit is so faithful I'm glad I'm not the Holy Spirit I'm not in your living room with you telling you what to think he's with you he knows your thoughts and he knows the way that he wants to apply this in all of our lives as individuals so can you agree with me for that for your own life for your house and I'm gonna pray for us and then we are going to dive into this message together join with me in prayer Jesus we thank you so much for your word God even as we are a part of a nation who is facing extreme pain and brokenness and confusion Jesus we know that you are there in the midst of every ounce of pain every midst of brokenness every bit of confusion and Jesus we pray that you would come and you would continue to bring healing to our nation that you would give us wisdom that is so far beyond ourselves and what we could think and Load we pray for these next few moments we are going to spend together as a community Jesus I ask that your word would be life to us we ask that your word would speak directly to our heart and Lord right now all of us as individuals we say Holy Spirit we give you permission to come and speak to our hearts exactly how you want to speak to us exactly what you apply what to apply to our hearts and our thinking in our life Thank You Holy Spirit that you are faithful to do that in Jesus name Amen so I'm going to tell you a little bit about the dynamics of the Smith household so for those of you who don't know I'm married to Judah the guy who I've been talking about has slight lights on his hand we've been married for 20 years Plus now and we have three kids our oldest is going to turn 16 in three weeks I can't believe it he's to love you say if you're watching he's doing push-ups every day he's trying so hard to get strong he's so cute I love him so much and then our second son is 13 and he is always been stronger than Zion probably about the time they were 2 and 4 I'm not gonna lie sorry if you're watching this I Elliot our middle son has been able to beat up Zion Elliot is just a strong kid and he has a gift of passion and he is not afraid to use it and then we have our daughter Grace so in the Smith household as you can imagine in the life of quarantine there have been many many competitions that have taken place ping pong competitions what's it called when you bump right bump I used to play that was my favorite game at recess bump competitions the two basketballs and I will say it I used to win that back in the day but my boys will not believe me if I say that competitions around the Smith household like we're making competitions out of throwing garbage in the garbage can like whatever it can take right to survive quarantine and make a competition and for me I'm like trying to figure out a way to get this testosterone burned out of the boy's head like run it off so so much competition well here is that a dynamics of our family one of our sons loves to win he loves it so much and when he wins he will rub it in your face he is not exactly a gracious winner quite yet we're still working on that here's the problem our other son I'm not gonna tell you who's who our other son hates to lose he doesn't love to win nearly as much as he hates to lose if he loses it ignites something on the inside of him and he cannot stand it and unfortunately he also is not a very good loser so as our sons are competing I know it is going to explode one way or the other and I feel like as human beings we all either fit into one category or the other right do you hate to lose or do you love to win which are you we're all something and here's the thing that is how passionate my boys get about a competition to get garbage in a garbage can during quarantine how much more important is it for us to win this battle that Paul is talking about here in the verses that he read What did he say he said hey we are in a fight and our fight is not against flesh and blood our fight is not against that fellow the people around us our fight is a spiritual fight and I know we love Jesus and we talk about him so much and he is the champion of the ages but we do have an opponent that we don't actually talk about very often at church home because he is in so many ways so weak and so wimpy and he is already defeated he is a dog on a leash in fact Judas dad pastor Windell who started the church used to say I have a feeling when we get to heaven we're going to look and see how big and powerful and majestic God is and then see how little the devil is and be like really he was the one who did all this warfare against us she's not that big he's not that powerful so he really isn't that big isn't that powerful compared to the power of Jesus but there is a real devil there is a real Satan who hates us he does not like what we are doing as the church as Christians as believers of people who believe in Jesus in fact the Bible calls them our adversary our accuser our fighter he does not want us to live peaceful lives that are declaring the good news of Jesus and so we are in this fight and it is a spiritual fight how important is it for us to win this fight so we're gonna just spend the next few moments and talk about the reality of this war and this fight that we are in that is not a war in a fight against people even though there are natural fights that need to be fought the people we are fighting against are not our enemies our enemy is the devil who hates us and who opposes everything that Jesus stands for which is love and equality and reconciliation and the value of every single human being that is the fight we are fighting so we're going to talk about how to how do we win this fight but before we talk about how to win it first we have to understand where is this fight happening okay if our fight isn't natural if I'm not fighting against the people around me if I'm not just fighting the systems of the world I'm living in Who am I fighting I'm fighting the devil where is this fight actually taking place let me read you these sentences again and I know I kind of gave it away in my intro so bear with me but I'm going to read you this first again and you decide for yourself where the fight is taking place and verse 5 it says this we destroy arguments every lofty opinion that is raised against the knowledge of God and take every thought captive to obey Christ all of those words opinion argument knowledge thought where do all of those things take place they all take place right here right here in the little space that is our mind what do they say it weighs 8 pounds I can't remember and let's go with that all in this 8 pounds right up here in our head the thoughts that we think is the place where this spiritual battle that we are fighting takes place if the devil wants to accuse us where does that happen in our mind if we have wrong perceptions where does that happen in our mind and here's what I find so interesting about this verse as I mentioned this verse is written in the context of a letter that is written by the Apostle Paul the pastor Paul to a church in Corinth and he is writing this not to a group of unbelievers not to a group of people who know Jesus have known him for just a little bit of time know he is writing this to a group of mature believers people who have been in a relationship with Jesus for a lot of years and he is telling them the battle is in your mind and so where is the battle that we are fighting right now currently it's not in the mind of our politicians it's not even in the mind of our police officers the battle is in my mind the battle is in your mind the battle is in the mind of every believer every person who would call themselves a follower of Jesus there is a battle that is taking place over our thoughts our thinking our minds and the way we process things and that my friends is where we have got to win this fight it is in the thoughts we think in our mind so how do i how do we witness what do we do with the thoughts in our mind how do we actually win this battle we're gonna flip over and look at one last verse I know it's so crazy guys the whole sermon we're going over a total of like four verses when I gave my scriptures from the team they're like really this is a this is all the verses we got like yep four verses tonight folks four verses you're gonna read flip over to Romans chapter 12 and verse 2 and we're going to read the scripture to find out how do we win this battle that is taking place in our mind says this this is again written by the same author the Apostle Paul written to a different church but written to a church in Rome and he says this do not be conformed to this world in other words don't just be smashed into the image of the world don't just do everything that the world says you should do and just you know just be like everybody else don't be conformed to this world it says but be transformed transform needs to be changed consistently and slowly be changed how by the renewal of your mind that by testing you may discern what is the will of God good perfect and acceptable believe it or not this verse gives us some really key insights into how we fight this battle in our mind but first I want to make this comment as I read this verse I love it when modern science confirms what the ancient scriptures tell us this verse tells us the way that we truly change the way that we win this battle is by renewing our mind renewing is like rebuilding remodeling have you ever we remodeled something you have to tear down some old things before you build up some new things right so this verse says if you want to change if you want to be transformed you have to tear down some old things and build up some new things and here is where modern science comes in that I find so fascinating about a year and a half ago on our start we had do staff development days here for the staff at church home and we had a guest speaker come in and she is an amazing woman she in fact she's the head of diversity inclusion for a major tech company or she was at the time and so she came in just to do some training for our staff and some things that we can learn and she started talking about the power of our unconscious mind unconscious oh that's one those words I say right and wrong half the time so we just forgive me if I say it wrong I literally practice I'm like unconscious unconscious unconscious but I still said unconscious so he just forgave me thanks we got it she talked about the power of our unconscious mind and here is what science has taught us lately that in in any given moment there are 11 million bits of information that is happening all around us 11 million bits of information but our conscious mind is only able to process 40 of those bits of information at once so I mean I could tell you all the things that are happening in this room that I haven't even noticed until I tried to but there's no way I can take in and process all of the things that are happening at the same time so that means that 99.999% of our thinking of our thought processes of the things that happen in our mind happen at the unconscious level things that we never actually consciously decide to see or think about or believe they just happen because we are seeing them and taking them all in such a rapid rate that our conscious brains can't process it's like this growing up were there any things that your family did that you would they never talk to you about they never told you to do things this way you just assumed that was the way it was done because that was the way your family did it I'll never forget it was so embarrassing so I grew up in a family I have one sister and a mom and dad and I don't know why it turned out why it worked out this way in our house but in my house me and my sister of my mom all took showers well my dad the bath guy he grew up every morning took a bath that was just in fact his his bathroom I don't know why he had his own bathroom by the way and my mom had our bathroom maybe it was because the bath shower thing I'm not too sure of it his bath room didn't even have a shower it just had a bath tub so I knew that my dad just took a bath so I did not even realize that I grew up thinking that all girls took showers and all men took baths I absolutely 100% Philippe and because it wasn't like when I was 12 that I figured this out I was a freshman in college living in college dorms all on my own away from my family at this point and one of my one of my guy friends like yeah I just took a shower I was like a shower don't men take the house and I realized never had a lesson I just saw the way my family did this and somehow my unconscious mind put together girls take showers boys take cuz even though I was totally wrong it's just how I saw the world and I added up two and two and got five the power of our unconscious mind and thinking you know if you grew up in America think about it how many commercials are we influenced by how many things have we seen a commercial for and all of a sudden you think oh if only I had this it would really make me happy actually you aren't even thinking it but somewhere in your unconscious mind something is telling you this that'll make you happy that chocolate bar who that's gonna relieve that pressure oh if I could only buy that house then I would have that life that that commercial told me about her if I could just go on that bake or you know think about all of the images that we are inundated with that are telling us you need this you need this you need this our brain our conscious brain I got it wrong again our conscious brain never processes it but somewhere on the inside those unconscious things that we are seeing are informing our desires our opinions our stereotypes think about this I was talking I've been talking to my friends about late about this lately how for decades in our country black people have been portrayed in such a stereotypical one-sided way right we've seen the drug dealers and the rappers and the violence not seeing the loving families and the incredible scientists and lawyers and professors that make up this incredible community in our country just think about that alone what all of those images in our brain in a dating inundating our brains just think of what that does to our to our unconscious thinking and that can so easily create in us an unconscious bias it can create in us wrong thinking it can create in us wrong desires and thinking I need this material thing to be happy or I'm suspicious of this person because they look a certain way of images that I've seen on television and we aren't even trying to think that even though we know nope lasting joy it comes from Jesus even though we don't know all humans are made in the image of God and that is my brother and sister it is crazy what can happen in the unconscious seat of our brain that we don't even know about that informs our desires and our thought processes and our in our judgments and our stereotypes so where does this science leave us I think in ok Chelse that was a little discipline around us are we just victims to put the culture has to tell us and we can't even process these things and so we just believe them because we see them and that is a really valid question and that is why this verse is so powerful and so prophetic because it was written thousands of years before science told us what this means let me read it one more time for you in that context says this do not be conformed to this world don't just believe everything in every image that is thrown at you but be transformed by the renewal of your mind be transformed by the renewal of your mind and I end with this that word renewal that the Holy Spirit inspired Paul to wrote he wrote it in a very unique way in the Greek in the original language that means this it is consistent and deliberate but we are transformed by the consistent and deliberate tearing down and rebuilding of our mind the consistent and deliberate renovation of our mind the consistent and deliberate renewal of our minds there should be in our lives as followers of Jesus a consistent and deliberate oh I used to think that tearing that old thing down but now I think that hmm that's what I believe now who I used to think it this way because that was how my mom did it but I don't think that anymore now I see that God says this about it and God does it this way about there should be a consistent and deliberate renewal of our mind can I ask you this when is the last time you changed your mind about something when is the last time you'd say I used to think this way but now I think differently as followers of Jesus as people with the Spirit of Jesus living on the inside of us empowering us to win this fight that is happening for our mind that is should be part of our lifestyle we should have a consistent and deliberate tearing down and rebuilding of our mind so how do we do that what's the reality cuz I know you are all are very smart people and you're thinking so do I just think about what I think about and am I just supposed to tell myself to think differently because if my brain is telling my brain to think differently how does my brain know what to think differently about you are a smart person and that leads me to this verse in the message translation let me read it for you here I'm gonna close out this is what it says in the message translation Romans chapter 12 and verse 2 says don't become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit in without even thinking instead fix your attention on God and you will be changed from the inside out so what do we do with our thoughts we fix our attention on God we fix our attention on the creator of the universe we fix our attention on his son Jesus who came down to earth and lived so that he could die so that he could forgive us for our sins we fix our attention on Jesus and we look at the life that he lived and I honestly believe as we do that according to this verse something so miraculous happens in our minds that those biases that we have created those unconscious pattern of patterns of thought that we have built that we don't even know are there God will miraculously renew them he will miraculously reshape them all we have to do is have a open heart before God and say God my mind is yours come do what you want to do and then we don't think about our thoughts we don't think about ourselves we fix our attention on God and God will do a miracle in our minds I absolutely believe that for every one of us and let me just leave you with a super practical takeaway if you'd say okay I want a miracle in my mind how do I fix my attention on God this is super practical and I probably could sound a little self-promoting but at church home we one of the things that we do is every day there is a daily guide in prayer and the foundation of each one of those prayers is a scripture in the scripture that focuses primarily on God and at some point during the prayer there was a thought about God if you really want to get a hold of your thinking if you really want to say I want a miracle in my mind I want to fix my attention on God can I encourage you to do this listen to that prayer every morning pray it every morning and then throughout the day when you find your mind wandering to worry or you find your mind wandering to judgment or you find your mind doing nothing at all saying no I'm gonna take my mind this space right here where this battle is happening and I'm going to use that verse I'm going to fix my attention on God and let him consume my thoughts and it is incredible the miracle that can happen so if you need a super practical takeaway there you have it can I pray for you I really believe that God has something significant he wants to do in our minds in this unsettled world that we're living in right now but it feels like there is a battle happening all around us and sometimes we feel like we don't know where to fight we can start right here and we can allow God to do this miracle in our mind so we let me pray for you can close your eyes wherever we're at Jesus I thank you so much that you love us God you see every one of our thoughts and you are not disgusted by them you were not ashamed by them you do not bring us condemnation based on what our thoughts are instead you lovingly come and you want to do a miracle in our minds Father I pray for each one of my brothers and sisters tonight but I pray together as a church home we open up our hearts we open up our minds and say Jesus our minds are yours whatever you want to tear down and whatever you want to build back up in our thinking our minds are yours thank you for that Jesus one last prayer as we conclude and I hand this back over to Carla if you're joining us for church tonight and you're saying Chelsea you're hearing about you're talking about this Jesus I'm hearing about and I want to know him more this is what I know about Jesus He loves you and he willingly went through a painful death so that he could take all of the punishment for all of the wrong you would ever commit and that he could freely give you his right living and give you it's called a free gift of righteousness and forgive you completely the Bible says that in one moment as far as the East is from the West God will take away every wrong thing we have ever done and remove it from us and all he sees is pure and spotless if you want that forgiveness from Jesus right now I'm going to count to three and wherever you are you can just slip up your hand and that just does something for you so that you can't wonder did I really pray that said I really accept that note when your hand goes up talking about your mind your mind sees your hand going up so I'm gonna count to three and you can just lift your hand up one two three put your hand up right back down Jesus I'm gonna pray for you now Jesus I thank you that you see each one of these individuals and Lord we want to thank you for your free gift of forgiveness we thank you for your perfect love and we thank you for the life that you give us that is free of shame or guilt or condemnation Jesus we love you so much we thank you for what you're doing in Jesus name amen [Music]

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Keywords: Churchome, Judah, Judah smith, church, message, anxiety, depression, how to, elevation, Steven, Hillsong, oceans, sermon, the city church, church home, Chelsea smith, bobby Houston, td jakes, pastor, pastor preaching, carl lentz, Jesus, conference, guest speaker, sermon jam, worship, Justin Bieber, la Hillsong, Selena, preaching, Judah message, performance

Id: el1-ZZxzWDk

Length: 30min 7sec (1807 seconds)

Published: Thu Jun 04 2020