Lies
Every Thought Captive, part 1
Wildwind Community Church
David Flowers
January 21,2007
What do the following people have in common?
1. A woman who goes to counseling for 26 weeks in a row but never takes any action to actually fix her problem.
2. A man whose wife keeps saying over and over that the marriage is in trouble, but he won’t go with her to counseling.
3. A teenage girl who stays in a relationship with a guy who continually treats her like garbage.
4. A teenage boy who, under the influence of his friends, decides to try methamphetamine.
5. A family that enjoys the good life on credit year after year after year.
What do these things have in common? The answer my friends is that they all involve people who are listening to lies, believing them, and then acting on them. The woman in counseling believes talking about it will make it better. The man who won’t seek marriage counseling believes if he just ignores the problem it will go away. The teenage girl believes her abusive boyfriend will change. The teenage boy believes he can’t find better friends. The family believes they can stay afloat on credit indefinitely.
Lies are a powerful thing. Did you know a type of psychotherapy sprung up in the 60’s that is based on the idea that the #1 cause of dysfunction in human life is the lies we believe? It’s called Rational-Emotive Behavior Therapy – REBT – pioneered by Albert Ellis. If you were to see Albert Ellis for counseling (that is, if you could stand it – he’s an extremely vulgar man), Ellis would begin asking you questions and seek to find out where you are believing lies – or where your beliefs are irrational. He would then confront those irrational beliefs and give you exercises to do during the week that would show you how irrational your beliefs actually are.
For example, a woman says, “I have to keep the house clean.” Ellis would say, “What do you mean “have to.” She would say, “If the house isn’t clean my husband gets angry and I can’t stand that.” Ellis would say, “What do you mean you can’t stand it?” In each of those sentences this woman has said something untrue – repeated a lie she learned somewhere and has come to believe. She HAS TO keep the house clean (she has no choice). And she CAN’T STAND when her husband gets angry (she’s too fragile and weak to deal with it). Ellis confronts, challenges, and works with these lies, these false statements that reflect irrational beliefs that lie underneath. That, in a nutshell, is Rational-Emotive Behavior Therapy. REBT is my favorite approach to counseling – know why? Because even though it was pioneered by Albert Ellis, a vulgar man and a die-hard atheist, REBT I believe is closer than many systems of psychotherapy to spiritual realties we read about in the Bible and that Jesus talked about.
REBT deals with lies, with half-truths, with false statements we accept that affect our feelings and influence our behaviors. It’s almost Biblical. I mean, listen to this:
Jeremiah 17:9 (GW)
9 “The human mind is the most deceitful of all things. It is incurable. No one can understand how deceitful it is.
Yikes – now check this out…
Proverbs 14:12 (NIV)
12 There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death.
Listen to those two passages together again.
These two scriptures, written at different times by different authors, paint a picture for us, don’t they? They show us that 1) the human mind/heart is sick (incurably so), 2) that no one can comprehend how sick it is, and 3) that this sickness affects our perceptions at such a deep level that things that will actually lead to spiritual death can seem perfectly fine, perfectly harmless, to us.
The human mind is sick. So sick no one can comprehend it. So sick that it often cannot even tell the difference between what is in its own best interests and what is killing it.
There are lies we believe that are killing us. Some are killing some of us physically. Some are killing some of us spiritually. Some are sinking some of us financially. Some are choking the life out of our marriages. Lies. Lies kill. Lies keep us from seeing the truth about ourselves and about others. Lies keep us from hearing God’s voice when it whispers inside of us.
Lies originate in our minds. Ellis’s therapy isn’t named REBT on accident. The name Rational-Emotive Behavior Therapy is meant to indicate that our problems begin in our minds, with our rational processes. Our thoughts affect how we feel about ourselves or the circumstances we are in. And our feelings are directly linked to how we behave. Did you know that? It is your feelings, more than your thoughts, that determine your behaviors. But your thoughts determine your feelings!
Ellis, though not a believer, is onto essential spiritual truth. Our problems begin with our minds. We believe lies and half-truths, therefore our feelings are out of whack, therefore the things we do based on our feelings are often counter-productive, and when we do counter-productive things, they often bring us unpleasant results, which feeds perfectly back into the doom-loop of false beliefs, inaccurate feelings, inappropriate behaviors, terrible results, false beliefs, etc. After all, brilliant psychologist Albert Ellis isn’t really telling us anything new.
Jeremiah 17:9 (GW)
9 “The human mind is the most deceitful of all things. It is incurable. No one can understand how deceitful it is.
Proverbs 14:12 (NIV)
12 There is a way that seems right to a man, but in the end it leads to death.
Christian tradition has a lot to say about how evil begins in our minds, how twisted and broken minds are at the root of human misery.
James 1:14-16 (NIV)
14 but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed.
15 Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death.
16 Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers.
Don’t be deceived. Why does James say this? Because the human mind is the most deceitful of all things. Because sin begins with our own evil desires that stem from what? The lusts and drives of our own minds and hearts!
Is there any hope at all for us? Any hope for the human mind? Any hope we can come to think, and therefore feel, and therefore behave, properly, and therefore reap the rewards of proper thinking, feeling, and acting? There is hope, and here it is.
Romans 12:2 (NLT)
2 Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will know what God wants you to do, and you will know how good and pleasing and perfect his will really is.
How does God change us? How does God bring transformation? By changing the way we do things? Nope, not at first. By changing what we are attached to? Nope, not at first. It’s not by changing how we feel or what we do, but God brings transformation into our lives by changing the way we think. And don’t miss the important point here. If this is going to take place, it must happen with your cooperation. LET GOD transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Ellis is right. It does begin with the mind. Our mind is the problem. It’s our mind that needs to change, because we are lie-believing, lie-telling, lie-embracing, lie-loving people. We believe whatever lie happens to fit our impression of ourselves. We believe any lie that will make us feel that we are the people we want to believe we are. We believe any lie that will allow us to not have to face truth, when truth is ugly. We struggle to see ourselves clearly, don’t we? Jesus asked:
Matthew 7:3-5 (NLT)
3 And why worry about a speck in your friend’s eye when you have a log in your own?
4 How can you think of saying, `Let me help you get rid of that speck in your eye,’ when you can’t see past the log in your own eye?
5 Hypocrite! First get rid of the log from your own eye; then perhaps you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend’s eye.
Jesus knew how easy it is for us to see others clearly, but have a totally distorted picture of ourselves. My friends it is reasonably likely that many of the people in this room, at this moment, are believing lies about themselves, about their spouses, about their marriages, about their finances, about their spiritual condition, about the reason they are here this morning, about that situation at work and who caused it and who should be responsible for getting it fixed. We are lie-lovers. Heck, why do sermons so often make people uncomfortable, and get people angry at the one who preached the message? Because (hopefully) they speak truth. They make it harder, at least for 30 minutes, to believe the lies we live on.
Lies protect us. At least they feel like they protect us. Lies are darkness that hides us from the sunlight of truth that burns. Lies are blankets that shield us from the often bitter winds of truth that freeze. Lies are pills that take away the pain that comes from swallowing reality. The woman going to counseling doesn’t WANT to actually do anything to fix her problem – it’s too hard. The married man doesn’t WANT to admit there are problems in his marriage because he’s half of that equation. The teenage girl in the bad relationship doesn’t WANT to break up with the boy who’s abusing her because frankly she’d rather be beaten up than be alone. And she doesn’t want to admit that either. The teenage boy doesn’t WANT to say no to methamphetamine, because he’s comfortable with the friends he has. The family doesn’t want to stop living on credit because then the toys and cars would dry up.
Young girls are out having sex because they believe lies. Young boys are out bullying people because they believe lies. People are refusing to get into shape because they believe lies. Churches are ineffective and unproductive because they believe lies. Voters are disappointed and frustrated because they believe lies. Consumers are buying cars and boats and beer and cigarettes because they believe lies. If right now at this instant people stopped believing lies, stopped acting on emotions that come from lies, and refused to be part of industries that tell and sell lies, many of the problems in the world would disappear.
I want to talk to you over the next few weeks about some popular lies we often tell ourselves. These are lies about the Christian life, lies that derail people and throw them into confusion. Here are the lies we’ll be covering:
Week 2: “Am I Imagining This?” This is the lie that what is happening to you spiritually is all in your head.
Week 3: “I’m So Weak” The lie that we are too weak, too flawed, too sinful to serve God.
Week 4: “God Can’t Really Expect” This is the lie that God’s standards are too high for us to actually be expected to follow them.
Week 5: “I’m Missing Out” The lie that life without God is better than life with God.
We have scripture for each of these weeks that goes along with the particular lie we’re dealing with, but underneath all of this will be one passage I want to introduce to you right now, because I named the series based on that passage. The series is called “Every Thought Captive,” and the title comes from this theme passage:
2 Corinthians 10:3-5 (NIV)
3 For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does.
4 The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.
5 We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.
What would it look like if we did that? How would your life change if you took that as a theme verse for living? What if today you began asking yourself, “What lies, what foolish arguments, what pretension have I set up in my life that is keeping me from knowing God?” See, God is always on the side of truth, so the lies you believe are keeping you away from God. If the truth is that your marriage is in trouble, and you refuse to see it, then you are rejecting a piece of God. If the truth is that you are financially irresponsible, then you close yourself off to God by not admitting it and doing something about it. If the truth is that your anger is eating you alive, but you keep blowing it off and saying, “Everybody gets angry sometimes,” then you are limiting how much God can do with you.
Why is all this true? Because we read in Romans that you are to:
Romans 12:2 (NLT)
2 … let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will know what God wants you to do, and you will know how good and pleasing and perfect his will really is.
What happens if you don’t let God transform the way you think? That’s easy. Then you will not know what God wants you to do, and you will not know how good and pleasing and perfect his will really is. It’s as simple as that. As long as you continue to believe lies, you keep God from transforming you. And if God cannot transform you, you will never know how good and pleasing and perfect his will is. In other words, you will never experience the joy and freedom of following and serving him, but will always experience life with God as oppressive and difficult and bitter.
Over the next few weeks, we will look at these lies one by one. We’ll expose them, shine the light of truth on them. And through it all, I’ll continue to ask you to answer the tough question that is just so obvious – what lies are you telling yourself? What particular state of denial are you living in? And I’ll continue reminding you that when you answer that question, you answer another far more important question: How are you limiting God and keeping him from changing your mind?
I will encourage you in this series, because chances are good that if you are a Christ-follower, you believe at least one of these things, or at least struggle with not believing it. I will challenge you to look closely at your life. I will urge you to ruthlessly root out the lies you are telling yourself, to drop your denial, to get more real with yourself than you have ever been before. And I’ll keep reminding you that God is always found not in denial, half-truths, and lies, but in clean, clear truth.
