Opening illustration: A violent battle is raging around us twenty-four hours per day. In 1965, Donald Grey Barnhouse wrote a book about it called The Invisible War. It is the battle for your mind, and that battle is vicious. It is intense. It is unrelenting, and it is unfair because Satan never plays fair. And the reason why it is so intense is that your greatest asset is your mind. “The battle for sin always starts in the mind.”
Introduction: All of us fight battles — for some, it is the battle of the bulge; while for others, it is the battle of the wills in child rearing — and then, for some, the battle of the pocketbook. They seem to be with us always. But, did you know there is a battle much more deadly? It is the battle for the mind — a deadly war between God and Satan on the battleground of your mind. And this could be your call to arms.
1. What are we called to do?
a) Destroying Strongholds (v. 4):
I have seen the face of mental illness. I have seen what it is like when people are unable to hear God because their minds are broken and cannot seem to connect to God even when they want to connect to God. And I know whatever gets your mind gets you. So, one of the most important things we need to learn and teach others is how to guard, strengthen, and renew our minds, because the battle for sin always starts in the mind.
The apostle Paul says here that our job in this battle is to “destroy strongholds.” You know what a stronghold is? It is a mental block. Paul is talking about pretentions, arguments set up against the knowledge of God. This is a mental battle. And he says, “Destroy these strongholds.” A stronghold can be one of two things:
• It can be a worldview, such as materialism, hedonism, Darwinism, secularism, relativism, communism, atheism. All the different-isms are mental strongholds that people set up against the knowledge of God.
• A stronghold can also be a personal attitude. Worry can be a stronghold. Seeking the approval of other people can be a stronghold. Anything that you make an idol in your life can be a stronghold — fear, guilt, resentment, insecurity. All these things can be strongholds in your mind. And the Bible says that we are to tear them down.
b) Taking Every Thought Captive (v. 5):
Now look at the very last phrase in the passage: “take every thought captive to obey Christ.” Take captive every thought. The Greek word aichmaløtizø there means “to control, to conquer, to bring into submission.” We take captive. We make it submit. Every thought obedient to Christ. Make it obedient. Hupakøe means “to bring into submission, to bring under control.”
But how do you do that? And how do you teach other people to do that? How do I make my mind, mind? I have noticed that my mind doesn’t always mind. It is often disobedient. It is often very rebellious. It wants to go in a different direction. When I want to think a certain way, it wants to go another way. When I need to ponder, it wants to wander. When I need to pray, my thoughts want to float away.
Paul talks about this in Romans 7, and he says, “I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing … Wretched man that I am!” (Romans 7:19, 24). The fact is, the reason we have so many ineffective Christians today is that they do not know how to fight the battle of the mind. And I blame pastors like me for that. We must spend more time teaching our people how to fight the battle of the mind.
2. What are the Principles for Winning the Battle for Your Mind?
a) Don’t Believe Everything You Think
We naturally feel that if we think something, it must be true because it comes from within us. But just because you think something does not make it true. As I said above, I have seen the face of mental illness.
The world puts suggestions in our minds that are false, and we are bombarded with those false ideas all the time. And, of course, Satan makes suggestions all the time. But your problem is much deeper than Satan. Everybody has a mental illness. We are all mentally ill. The mental illness is called sin. And the Bible uses at least a dozen different phrases for the condition of our minds under sin. Our minds are:
? confused (Deuteronomy 28:20)
? anxious, closed (Job 17:3–4)
? evil, restless (Ecclesiastes 2:21–23)
? rash, deluded (Leviticus 5:4; Isaiah 32:4 NIV)
The Bible talks about:
? a troubled mind (2 Kings 6:11)
? a depraved mind (1 Timothy 6:5)
? a sinful mind (Romans 8:7 NIV)
? a dull mind (2 Corinthians 3:14 NIV)
? a blinded mind (2 Corinthians 4:4)
? a corrupt mind (2 Timothy 3:8)
I. Our Broken Minds
Our minds are broken by sin. Which means we cannot trust even what we think, ourselves. Jeremiah 17:9 says, “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?” We have an amazing ability to lie to ourselves. You do it all the time. So, do I. We lie.
Just because you get a thought doesn’t mean it’s correct. This is the reason why we have so many fallen Christian leaders, because all sin begins with a lie. The Bible says Satan is “the father of lies” (John 8:44). And if he can get you to believe a lie, he can get you to sin. Anytime you sin, you are thinking that you know better than God. God has said this, but what about that? And so, you have to question what you think. First John 1:8 says, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” We deceive ourselves all the time.
b) Guard Your Mind from Garbage
The second thing to learn in this battle for the mind is guarding your mind from garbage. The old cliché from the early days of the computer — GIGO, garbage in/garbage out — is still true today. If you put bad data into a computer, you will get bad results out. If you put mental garbage into your mind, you will get garbage out in your life. Proverbs 15:14: “A wise person is hungry for knowledge, while the fool feeds on trash” (NLT). That might be a good verse to write on a Post-it note and stick on your television. And remember that the next time you think about going to a movie.
Any nutritionist will tell you that there are three kinds of food for your physical body. (i) There is brain food that makes you smarter (food that makes you smarter). (ii) There is junk food, which is simple calories — it’s not poisons, but it’s just empty calories. (iii) And then there are toxic foods, which are poison.
The same is true in what you see, what you hear, and what you allow into your mind. Some food is brain food. It will make you smarter, more godly, and more mature emotionally. Then there is junk food. There is so much you can fill your mind with that really is just stuffing. It is neither good nor bad, as 1 Corinthians 6:12 says, lawful but not helpful. In other words, some things aren’t necessarily wrong, but they aren’t necessary. The Bible tells us to fill our minds with the right things. If you want to be healthy and “successful” in the Christian life and in ministering to others, successful in your ministry, fix your mind on the right things.
How to Guard Our Minds? (Philippian 4:6-8)
i. The first way you guard your heart and mind is “in everything” to pray. Then Paul says to think about “whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise.” Notice that he says to pray about everything. If you were to pray as much as you worry, you would have a lot less to worry about. Don’t worry about anything but pray about everything. This kind of prayer is like a running conversation — which means we are not on our knees. We don’t close our eyes.
ii. Second, Paul says that we should fix our thoughts. “Meditate on these things.” How do you do that? By concentrated focusing. This is one of the keys to overcoming temptation: don’t merely resist it; replace it. Whatever you merely resist persists. The more you hit a nail, the harder you drive it into the wood. And when people say I don’t want to think about this, what are they doing? They are thinking about it! And whatever gets your focus gets you. James tells us that “sin when it is fully grown brings forth death” (James 1:15). So, don’t merely resist it.
Example: Don’t just resist; replace. Change the channel. Refocus. In the words of Thomas Chalmers, it is “the expulsive power of a new affection” that turns your mind away from the things that the Devil wants you to focus on to the things that God wants you to focus on. Guard your mind from garbage is the second key.
Application: No doubt that we live in a depraved world with broken minds. But we have an opportunity for God to fix that … will we not only surrender our bodies to Him but our minds and our entire being.
