The Battle of Heart and Mind
Ephesians 6:10-13
Read Romans 7:14-25 at the beginning of service
A number of years ago, I was invited to preach a revival in Zwolle, LA. Anybody know where that is? It’s right by Many, LA. Hope that clarifies it for you. I had to leave right after church to make it there before the Sunday night service. When I got there, I realized I had left with my Bible. Now who goes to preach a revival without their Bible! This is the Bible I have preached from for 23 years so it’s kind of like a security blanket for me. I regained my composure and preached that night from a loaner. The second day, I was getting ready in the morning and rubbed my eye and my contact disappeared. I searched and searched but couldn’t find it. So then I had to wear an old pair of glasses, another unnerving thing. We got to the church that night and just as I stood up to preach, there was a huge explosion and the power went out because a transformer had blown. I had never experienced anything like this. If you think these were three coincidences, as I was driving out of the pastor’s driveway to head home on Wednesday, my right eye got blurry. I took my glasses off only to be able to see perfectly out of that eye. My contact had been up above my eyelid the whole time. I learned a lesson that week: any time we try to advance the kingdom of God, there will be pushback, roadblocks and issues that arise seeking to derail our efforts or at least sidetrack us. There is a much larger spiritual battle going on around us and you and I, whether we believe it or not, are caught up in it.
The enemy's strategy is to be invisible, so we have to always be on guard. Mike Slaughter tells the story of his mission trip back to Darfur and traveling from their compound in Ed Daein to Adilla Town, which is a six-hour round trip over rough desert terrain. On this particular road, there are frequent bandit and rebel attacks. In fact, one of the local staff was kidnapped on that road and in another incident, one was shot and two vehicles were lost. Because of the threat of attacks from bandits or rebels, there are no potty breaks or rest stops. Mike asked a UN security officer about the area, and he said, "Do not trust your eyes. What you see with your eyes can be deceiving. It will look like calm, but the real danger lies in what you can't see. It is the unseen enemy lurking in the barren brush that blends in with the crowd, who represents the grave danger."
In this sermon series, we’re going to be talking about the unseen enemy and the dangers of living for Jesus. We’re caught up in the spiritual battle between good and evil, and so it’s important to take proactive measures in regard to the unseen opposition. That starts with the battle of the mind. Your mind is what determines everything else in life. The mind is the doorway to the heart. So you need to guard and protect your mind. The force that is working against us is not the Taliban. There is a deeper force, a stealth force we can't see or defeat but God can. It's in God's mighty power that we will win this battle. Make no mistake, this is a war.
How do we deal with this unseen reality, especially intellectually? Through our worldview. A worldview is like a set of lenses which influences the way we understand and perceive the world around us. Our worldview is formed by our education, our upbringing, the culture we live in, the books we read, the media and movies we absorb, etc. For many people, their worldview is simply something they have absorbed by osmosis from their surrounding cultural influences. The problem is that in the West, our world view has been influenced by the Enlightenment. The Enlightenment was a move by intellectuals in 18th century Europe and the American colonies to reform society using reason rather than tradition, faith and revelation. It’s goal is to advance knowledge, life and society through science. It promoted science and intellectual interchange and opposed faith and revelation. As a result, in the world today, there are two worldviews. We've been raised and immersed with a rationalistic worldview that rejects a spiritual interpretation of life. A rational worldview sees reality as only what can be measured scientifically. If you can't measure it, it's not real.
Much of the rest of the world does not have a rational view of the universe. Their worldview is an open world view and says reality cannot be determined just by science and the material dimension. There's also another dimension to life, and it's the spiritual. In an open worldview, people believe what you see, experience and measure scientifically isn't enough. There is a spiritual side of life that cannot be measured which accounts for much of what science cannot test, prove or explain. There is this material dimension, made up of matter, that you and I are a part of, but there is also a spiritual realm.
Part of that spiritual realm is angelic beings. Angels are mentioned all throughout scripture at least 108 times in the Old Testament and 165 times in the New Testament. For example, Daniel survived the night when he was thrown into the lion's den because God sent “an angel, who closed the mouths of the lions." Angels ministered to Jesus after his temptation in the wilderness. When they came to arrest Jesus, and Peter drew the sword and cut off the slave's ear, Jesus said to Peter, "Put that thing away. Don't you know, I could ask the Father, and I would have more than 12 legions of angels at my command?" After the resurrection, angels were at the tomb. And when the Son of Man returns, we’re told he's going to return with angels.
The word angel means messenger but just as humans have names, angels have names like Gabriel who is the angel who made John the Baptist's birth announcement to Elizabeth and six months later to Mary about Jesus' birth. Another angel whose name we're given in both the Old and New Testaments is Michael. Michael is an archangel, who is a commanding angel. A third angel that we're given the name is Lucifer whose name in Hebrew means "bright, shining star of the morning." Many think this angel was the supreme commander.
So, where do angels and demons come from? From God. Everything that exists, God has created. But God only creates good. God didn't create evil. Colossians 1:16-17 explains: “For by Him all things were created, both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things have been created by Him and for Him.” God created two forms of spiritual beings: human beings and angelic beings. The Scripture speaks about being created in the image of God which means we're created in goodness. But we also have been given free will. God gave us the ability to choose to believe in Him or not, to love God or not and to serve him or not. Angels are given free will too. Demons are angels who chose to serve self rather than God. In Jude 1:6, it says, "And the angels who did not keep their positions of authority but abandoned their proper dwelling, these he has kept in darkness, bound with everlasting chains for judgment on the great day.” So demons are angels who voluntarily, out of their own free will, rebelled against God by choosing their will over His. And the result is they were expelled from heaven and now fight God and His plan of salvation.
There is a war going on right now and we're not fighting powers of the flesh. The enemy's not the Democrats or the Republicans, or even the Taliban. It's the unseen principalities and powers between two forces, those for God and those against. Revelation says Michael and his angels are fighting against Satan and His angels and they’re fighting back. These two opposing forces are in a battle. One is a force that dignifies life and understands all of life is holy and sacred, and sees every single person on Planet Earth as created in the image of God. The other disregards life. It's hedonistic. It lives by the mantra of “eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die.” Life is all about you and your desires. It's destructive. And whether we like it or not, we’re caught up in the battle. The devil’s goal is division, to separate you from God and His will and to separate us from one another so we’ll fight each another and accomplish nothing.
But, not only is this, it is also personal. There's a war that goes on in each of us, as a consequence of sin. Couldn't you relate to the Romans passage read at the beginning of worship, where Paul said, "I know what's right; I believe in what's right; I want to do what's right, and I keep doing what's wrong." Is that the experience of everybody in the house? Here's the problem with all of us: we realize that we're powerless over these areas, whatever they are, so then we begin to accept the compromise instead of calling it what it is. It’s sin. I don't care what area it is in our life. If it's not under God's absolute, it is sin. We don't need to accept that or rationalize that, we need to confront that. How?
How do we have lasting change in our life when we're powerless against it? First, we need to realize we can’t. We need to get really serious in your commitment in 2013 to God, who can. To realize that you are powerless and these areas that you've been rationalizing are sins. God wants to do a bigger thing in your life and transform you into the image of his Son. It begins in the new birth.
The problem in the church is that many people have been born again, but they've never left the spiritual state of perpetual babyhood. We've got to grow up spiritually, church. That starts with learning to live under authority. Why is it so hard to learn to live under authority? But, it's only in the authority of Jesus Christ that we have the power to stand against darkness, which means we've got to put ourselves under his commands, not our wants or feelings. We've got to grow up. It is so fun being a child because your parents do everything for you. The problem in the church is that so many people who are born again are living in this perpetual state of spiritual childhood. Why angels and demons? Because we are dealing with unseen principalities and powers that would have you for lunch, and we need to take proactive measures. How? Travel together. You cannot do this life journey by yourself. You got to travel with people who are experienced in the terrain and know the road. Church is not a worship event, it's a community. You haven't been to church if all you do is come in here every week. It's a commitment to be connected to community. If you're not in a cell group, if you're not hanging with people who know the terrain, you're not going to make it.
Fourth, we have to maintain constant radio contact. You've got to learn to distinguish the voice of God from all other noise that's going on around you. I want to tell you something: there are all kinds of voices, and most of them aren't God's voice. You'll say it's God's voice, but it's the voice of the world. Or, you'll think it's God's voice, and it's really the voice of your appetite, your flesh. We're going to talk about how to distinguish these in the next three weeks. I want to show you what it says about radio contact. Ephesians 6:17-19, "…pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord's people. Pray also for me, whenever I speak …" I want to tell you this: commitment to daily be in the word of God and prayer is absolutely essential to win this battle of the mind.
Fifth, look for alternative routes. What is that old saying? If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you always got. It is so easy to get used to traveling in the well-worn ruts that we know so well. If we're going to experience change in our life, we've got to make a commitment to do a new thing, to get out of the well-worn rut. You need new habits. That’s why we’re challenging you to take “The Great Methodist Challenge” to incorporate the Means of Grace into your life: worship and communion, prayer, personal Bible study, fasting and small groups. Here’s something else: stop watching so much TV or surfing the internet and instead read some good spiritual books. Another is to make a commitment to go on a mission trip. Don't rationalize or procrastinate. Just go! It changed my life and it will change yours.
Are you praying for me? Before we leave, we're going to pray together. There are lay pastors here who are going to pray with people who have special needs. Some of you are dealing with areas of resistance or temptation or struggle and the Bible tells us to have elders pray for us. We invite yo to come to the altar and have them pray for you, especially if you're dealing with a repeated area of resistance. It's going to be your own personal prayer, but I'm going to direct you in it.
