Thanks to Pastor Pat. I did not know he was going to do that. But I’m grateful for his kind words. Karen, I love you very much. And we do, we do enjoy God’s grace. A shout out to all the dads present here today. We’re so grateful for your ministry in our hearts and our homes. I hope you have a great day with family. And I admit that it’s going to be hard for me not to wear a smile all day because of my affection for this little lady in the front row. So it’s been a great ride, and we have more to come, Lord willing. Just a word of encouragement to those of you who are younger in your marriage. Hang tough. The first 50 years are the hardest. Thanks a lot, Kurt. That’s just what I needed. Obviously, I’m filled with happy thoughts today, but I’m curious about you. What thoughts have you brought to church with you today? As you walk through the door, let’s imagine there was a little thought bubble right over your head that revealed all of your thoughts. Please, no, Kurt. You say, I’m not a morning person. I’m not rise and shine. Most days I just caffeinate and hope for the best. Well, we laugh at that, but I happen to know, and all the counselors on our staff happen to know, that many of you are coming into this room with troubled thoughts and trials and temptations. And I’d like the privilege today of speaking into your thoughts from God’s thoughts as recorded in God’s Word. Experts tell us that we think upwards to 6,200 thoughts every day. Wow. And 90% of them are repetitive. We never stop thinking. We’re created by God as a thinking person. The famous French philosopher, Rene Descartes, said, I think, therefore I am. No, I’m created in the image of God. Therefore, I think, and so do you. Today’s message is the third in our series on real counsel. And my theme this morning is the battle for the mind, your thoughts. It’s foundational to every other message that you’ll hear throughout the remainder of this summer. Because the Bible says, as a man thinks in his heart, so is he. That, my friends, is from Proverbs 23, 7. We are what we think. We become what we think. Here’s what counselor authoress Amy Baker said. We do what we do because we think what we think. And she’s right. Our actions are not accidental. We buy into a premise that prompts our behavior. For example, the late Elizabeth Elliot said this. Fear arises when we think everything depends on us. My text today, 2 Corinthians 10, verses 3 to 5. While this series is necessarily topical, I want to be somewhat expository, at least in part, by wrapping my thoughts around this text and giving you the back story. Just so you know, the Apostle Paul, this is Acts chapter 18, established a church in Corinth. He was the primary evangelist and then teacher in the church. Over 18 months, he established them. Sound Bible doctrine. But after he left, false teachers came in and began to suggest it’s not enough to believe in salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone. You must add to that the keeping of the law, the Mosaic law. In particular, the right of circumcision. You must do something to contribute to your salvation. And believe it or not, some in the church actually apparently were falling prey to believing in a different Jesus. A Jesus different than the one in Scripture. That’s chapter 11 and verse 4. When someone came in like them, they were very impressive in their rhetoric. They were very heady, but they were spiritually lethal. So the apostle went to war with their pattern of thinking. We’re into a war text. Look at verses 3 to 5. Today I’m using the New Living Translation. Paul writes to believers, We are human, we admit, but we don’t wage war with human plans and methods. We use God’s mighty weapons, not mere worldly weapons like missiles, to knock down the devil’s strongholds. These, with these weapons, we break down every proud argument that keeps people from knowing God. With these weapons, we conquer their rebellious ideas. And I, or rather, ESV says, we need to take them captive to the obedience of Christ. We conquer their rebellious ideas and we teach them to obey Christ. Now, a little insight into counseling. This is a counseling series. I’m one of the counselors. And on frequent occasions when someone comes in for the first time, I say to them, if you want counseling, you have to agree to four things before I can sign off in doing that. And what are they? Number one, you have to have a teachable spirit. You can’t both be inviting in the word and pushing back at the same time. You’ve got to give me time. Didn’t happen overnight, whatever you’re in, and it probably is not going to be resolved overnight. Number three, you have to do the homework. You have to have some investment, some skin in the game, some discipline. Train yourself to be godly. And then the last one, number four, probably is most germane to this message. You must be willing to change. Repentance means a change of mind that leads to a change of behavior. It’s not merely crying over your sin. It’s changing your mind and your actions. I also tell counselees the first time around, I’m going to ask a lot of questions. This is an intake session. Proverbs 18, 13 says, I should not speak into an issue until I understand more about it. And I explain to them, using a simple analogy, I want to collect the dots before I connect the dots. In collecting the dots, I’m implying that I need the data points of their backstory, what’s really going on. that helps me to speak intelligently into their issue. Now, using that analogy, I want to give you three steps in the battle for the mind, and here is the first. We must collect the thoughts that are dominating our mind. Dominating. And maybe collect is too mild of a word. Maybe it should be capture or corral, as with wild mustangs in the mountainous west. But the idea is to take them captive. Take them captive. Seemingly involuntary thoughts swirl around in our minds like ping pong balls in an air blower. Like leaves twisting every which way in the wind. And trying to control them may feel to us like trying to herd cats. But if we put our mind to it biblically with discipline of the word and the Holy Spirit and the people of God, we can start to identify what those thoughts are. I was counseling one of the men of our church just very recently, and he said something very insightful to me. I said, let me stop and write that down. And then I said, do you mind if I share that with the people? Because this is so good. This is what he told me. Journaling is the only way to keep my thoughts sorted. Good thought Write it out Write it down I’m curious about your self-awareness I said to you at the outset What are you thinking? I’m curious what you’re thinking right now I know your thoughts go boom, boom, boom It can be hard to listen to a speaker What are your thoughts right now? What have your thoughts been yesterday Or last week or this past month? What is dominating your thoughts? Do you struggle with oppressive thoughts that dominate your head space? Do you find yourself rehearsing them over and over in a looping thought cycle that is obsessively compulsive? If so, you have found that certain kinds of negative self-talk, figuratively speaking, can coagulate into blood clots of emotional or spiritual danger. They can bring on spiritual stroke. They can paralyze you in your spiritual walk. So right now, I want you to think, what are your dominating thoughts? What’s this going around again and again? You say, I don’t know, Kurt. That’s why I’m here. Can you get me some help? Well, you got lots of help. You got the body of Christ. We’re family. And frankly, if you’re struggling, would you screw up the courage to ask them for help and say, can you speak into my life? I mean, maybe it’s your physical family. Maybe it’s your community group, your leader. Maybe a small group if you’re one of our students. Maybe it’s one of our pastoral people or our counselors. Listen to me. People can see what you’re thinking this way because our behavior tells on us. Troublesome thoughts tumble out of our mouths in worrisome words. You can hear it. They take shape in how we behave. And frankly, our relatives and our friends can hear our thoughts and see our thoughts acted out. In a sense, our heart is like the geyser known to us as Old Faithful and Yellowstone National Park. It ought to be one of your bucket list things to see. It’s fun. I’ve been there once or twice. And you can almost imagine it, you know. It’s something that happens beneath the surface. It’s a geothermal action that prompts it to erupt every 60 to 90 minutes to a height of over 100 feet. If you’ve been there, you’ve gathered with the crowds that wait around to see when she’s going to go off. And then you see their reaction. Maybe they clap. Maybe they cheer. Maybe somebody says, oh, there she goes. What a word picture for bubbling negative thought life from beneath the surface that erupts into anxiety and temper and fear and lust and addiction. Where’s it coming from? Our struggle with a specific sin is actually a struggle with a faulty belief system down deep in our heart. We’re believing a lie that’s infecting and affecting our lives. Remember Elizabeth Elliot’s quote, fear arises when we think everything depends on us. So we must collect the thoughts that bubble up. Secondly, we, in the battle for the mind, we must connect our thoughts to their source of origin. I’m assuming now that you’ve identified, you’ve exposed, you’ve named. Now you have to ask those thoughts. Who’s your daddy? Where are they coming from? Well, our text gives three potential sources for believers. Two of them are bad. The other one’s good. And here they are. Number one is human, worldly plans, methods, thoughts that come from within our own heart. That’s depraved by sin. Fleshly, selfish. Then there’s number two, devilish strongholds. That’s mentioned in verse 4b. That’s a direct frontal attack of Satan into our lives as he attacked Jesus in the wilderness, Matthew chapter 4. And then there’s the one good one that I’ll come back to in a few moments, God’s mighty weapons, biblical thoughts. Well, let’s talk about the bad sources first. In the military world, there is a French word that is used to identify the location and tactics of the enemy. That word is reconnaissance. We call it recon for short. The Israelis right now are calling it intelligence. They know everything about Iran. They can pinpoint where people are in buildings. They know what’s going on, all the nuclear arms. They’ve got it all figured out. The tactic of our enemy is to attack us in the theater of the mind. We’re daily bombarded in our thought life. And the devil deceives people into thinking. Now get this. Here’s my primary premise. thinking that we are accepted by God based upon our performance. That is a demonic delusion. And to make his point, Paul used an illustration in the text. He talked about the fortress that was obvious in ancient Corinth. You see a picture of it here. There was a necropolis, a high place, a rocky outcropping. And right beneath the rocks, the Corinthians had built a fortress to protect their people from enemy encroachment. But Paul turned this analogy around and he said, no, no, it’s the enemy now who has the high ground. The spiritual enemy. In Ephesians 6, he calls them spiritual wickedness and high places, demonic oppression. They’ve taken the high ground in your life and you’ve got to throw them out and throw them down. in the final analysis there are in this world only two basic belief systems no matter the world religion no matter Christendom with all of its denominations there’s only two basic beliefs and here they are the belief in salvation by human achievement what we do or we contribute or the belief in salvation by divine accomplishment. Jesus paid it all. All to him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain. He washed it white as snow. Which of these two belief systems describes your life? So you say, Kurt, can you get on to the good weapons and help me understand what Paul is talking about here? What are these weapons? Well, I’ll list some of them for you very quickly. There’s the power of the word of God. There’s the power of the gospel, which we must constantly preach to ourselves. All the pieces of armor from Ephesians 6. Christ is our salvation. He’s our righteousness. He’s our truth. He’s our peace. He’s the sword of the spirit, the word of God. He’s the shield of faith by which we quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. Jesus is our source. He’s our strength. And then there’s the power of prayer. Oh, we need to pray. The power of accountability, people speaking into your life and even calling you out. The power of praise and thanksgiving. You can’t stay in the doldrums if you praise the Lord and give him thanks. The Bible says rejoice always, pray continually, and everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. Don’t quench the spirit. Do not despise prophecies. That is, don’t put off preaching and say, eh. The Apostle Paul told the Colossians, this is Colossians 3, he said, set your mind on things above, not on the things of the earth, for you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When the Lord handed the keys to the car of leadership in ancient Israel after Moses passed on, gave him lots of encouragement in Joshua 1. Be strong and have a good courage. I’m going to be with you. I’ll be with you. And then he gave him an instruction in verse 8. He said, this book of the law, we’re talking about the Torah, the first five books of the Tanakh, the Old Testament of the Jews. This book of the law, you’ve got to memorize it, shall not depart out of your mouth, but you will meditate therein day and night that you may observe to do everything that’s written therein, for then you’ll make your way prosperous and then you’ll have good success. And I want to connect the first phrase with a later phrase when he says, don’t let this word leave, depart from your mouth. The word meditate means to mutter or to mumble. So throughout the day, Joshua was supposed to, we’re supposed to not only know the word, but talk about it. And speak the word out loud to those temptations that we’re feeling, those oppressions. I grew up on a farm in northwest Iowa. You’ve heard some farm illustrations from me over the years. When I was a kid, high school, I helped dad out by cultivating the corn out on the field. Right now, the middle of June, that’s what I would be doing. These are pre-modern technology days. We didn’t have a GPS on our tractor. I had to pay attention. I was supposed to get rid of the weeds, not the corn. And I’d do that hour after hour. and then I’d go to bed at night and close my eyes and what do you suppose I saw? You got it. Why? Because that’s what I’d been thinking about all afternoon, paying attention to plowing corn and getting rid of the weeds. We’re supposed to meditate on the word of God and when we close our eyes, we’ll see the Lord’s will for us because we have understood it. You’ve probably seen the hand illustration before. I’ve used it before, made known by the navigators, the hand illustration of how to take the word of God in. The little finger represents hearing what you’re doing right now. We remember 5% of what we hear. The next one is reading the word of God. We remember 15% of what we read. Then there’s studying the word of God, where you go in depth and use your study Bible and you dig in deeper. I mean, don’t use a rake, use a shovel. Get in there and go deep into the Word of God. This is kind of a lost art in Christianity today, frankly. And then the fourth one is you’ve got to memorize the Word of God because you remember 100% of what you memorized. And then watch this in the illustration. The thumb, meditation, is the only one that has access to the rest of the fingers. The only one that can touch the other four. That’s meditation. that leads me to the third step in fighting the battle for our thoughts we collect our thoughts we connect our thoughts and now we must correct the thoughts that threaten our faith back to our text verses four and five we believers use god’s mighty weapons not mere worldly weapons to knock down the devil’s strongholds. With these weapons, God’s weapons, we break down every proud argument, our own thoughts that keep people from knowing God. And with these weapons, God’s weapons, we conquer their rebellious ideas. We’re talking human and demonic, and we teach them to obey Christ. You say, Kurt, how do I climb up the walls of the fortress and throw these enemy thoughts down? Well, contrary to what you might think physically with using human weapons, ours is a battle of the heart. Everything involves the heart, the core of your being, how you think, your emotions, your will. And God goes after the heart, and we’re trying to see change from the heart. And Paul David Tripp talks about this in this quote. This war is a battle for the control of your heart. Whatever functionally rules your heart will then shape the way you see life and your desires. It will control your words and behavior. We’re talking from the inside out, not from the outside in. I could give you a list of legalistic do’s and don’ts, but that would just be behavior modification. There has to be a change in your heart that then comes out in your behavior. And the late David Powelson gives us some help into asking ourselves questions about where our heart is. And I’ll pass them along to you. It’s from his book, Seeing With New Eyes. Try these on for size right now. Here’s where you got to concentrate. Stay with me. What do you love? What do you hate? What do you fear? What do you organize your life around? It’s your first priority because you spend most of your time doing it. Where do you find refuge and comfort and escape and pleasure and security? What do you think about most often? What does your mind drift to when you have discretionary time? What do you pray for and what do you long for? Most of us, speaker included, we struggle with the four C’s. I’m talking about comparison, competition, control, and a desire for credit. I want to compare. We want to compare with each other. We want to compete with each other. We want to control each other, even in marriage. And then finally, really, we want credit for what we do from others. And that includes those of us who are pastors. I’ve talked to enough pastors in my ministry life to know that we struggle with these comparisons. How am I doing? Am I coming across well? Are people well receiving what I’m saying? Are they being helped? What am I in comparison to these other guys that seem to be knocking them dead? And wow, they just have a lot of swagger, these guys that bring in the people by the thousands. And they’re so impressive. And you know what these false teachers said about Paul? This is 1010. His letters are weighty, but his physical presence is weak. And his public speaking amounts to nothing. Paul did not try to impress people. I like this quote from Jared Wilson who’s spoken in our church before. He said, the church needs pastors who’ve had the swagger gospeled out of them. I like that. Hey, all of us, pastors included, when we recognize how great was our sin, then we realize how great is our Savior. And it humbles us in the giving of God’s grace to enable us to be a part of his family and to serve however he wishes. It’s not about us, it’s about him. It’s not about us, it’s about them. I’ll just bear my heart to you. One of the major things I counsel people about is what I commonly call performance-based acceptance. You think you’re accepted by God or by others based on what you do or how well you do it. And it leads to depression and discouragement and potentially even to death. Some of you are outside the family of God and you’ve been all your life thinking, well, surely I have to do this or this. And, you know, I have at least a C plus in what I’ve done in life until you realize that God doesn’t grade on the curve. Everybody gets an F grade in life because we’re sinners. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. But here’s the good news. God demonstrates his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. He rose again to prove he’d conquered sin. And if you will put aside any attempt to try to impress him, to obtain your salvation by self-effort, put it all aside, put all your trust in Jesus, you will be forever saved. Will you do that? Jesus declared on the cross, it is finished. So, if you’re doing, it’s not done. And if it’s done, you can’t still be doing. My dear wife down here, again, we’re grateful for Pastor’s kind remarks and many of you. She recently had heart surgery. She had a valve replacement, aortic valve replacement. She’s doing well. Many of you were very kind to us. Karen shared with me after they put her on the gurney and she left the room, in the surgery center, she said, before I went under, they tied down my hands and my feet. It wasn’t mean. It was soft cloth. But they told me, we don’t want you helping with the surgery. Not even unconsciously. Now, unconsciously, we keep trying to prove that we’re worth something to God. Am I doing good enough, God? I know blessing is based upon how good I do. Stop it already. It’s all of grace. We want to help God out in the surgery of our soul. He says, enough already. Let me give you some final insights from the book of Galatians, that parallel of 2 Corinthians, about where Christians live and what we struggle with and how to overcome them by grace. Here they are quickly. One from each of the chapters. Chapter one, don’t live for the approval of others. You are not defined by your past. Some of your thoughts are just so polarized and paralyzed by what you’ve done with your past sins, and that’s all you can think about. Hey, if you’ve trusted Christ, your sins are gone. Their sins and iniquities I will remember no more. Past, present, and future. Hebrews chapter 10 verse 17. Oh, here’s a biggie, number three. Your worth is in Christ, not in your appearance. Do I look good? Not in your job. Not in your status of life. We’re trying to impress others and God. And he says, enough. You need my son. You need to humble yourself and experience my grace. And then number four, you’re no longer a slave. You’re now a child of God. Number five, don’t be led by feelings and emotions. Be led by the Spirit. I tell you, emotions, if they start controlling, they’ll yell at you, they’ll scream at you, and they will lie to you. And you’ve got to choose, despite how you feel, to believe the truth, even though you feel differently. And then finally, number six, grace gives all glory to God. Boast only in the cross of Christ by which you’ve been crucified to self. Again, you’ve been very kind to us as a couple. We’re thankful a number of people ministered. Folks gave cards to Karen before and after. One lady in our church gave a card to Karen before the surgery, and I’m holding it in my hands. It’s printed by Precept. Their leader recently went to heaven. Very sound organization. And on the front are the listing of some of the names of God, including Yahweh Shalom, which means the Lord is our peace. And based on that, this lady wrote to Karen. Karen, may the Lord fill your mind with this peace. As he floods your mind with, and she lists some things that we need to do, put off the old man, put on the new man, our mind of Christ, this is what we need to think. She said, Karen, think of thoughts of who he is, God is. Thoughts of what he has done, and thoughts of his unending chesed love, that steadfast, loyal love that he has for you. Love and prayers, and she signs her name. That was so beautifully written, And it reminds me of a verse of scripture that helps us in choosing what to think about. You will keep him in perfect peace whose mind has stayed on you because he trusts in you. Would you pray with me? Father, help us. Help us. Right now, I don’t know where the thoughts of so many people are going. They may have already left the room. Would you bring them back to consider whether or not they’ve truly trusted Christ with no self-effort, no trust in what they’ve done, church rites or rituals or otherwise? Would you bring them face-to-face with Christ as their only hope? And would you, by your Spirit, draw them to Jesus right now to believe? and then for Christians I beg Lord this is such a biggie my burden is here passion is here as a counselor so many people are given to performance based acceptance God only loves me because I fill in the blank and it wrecks us and it ruins us and destroys our joy and our peace no it’s all our grace which means all glory goes to you Lord I thank you that as we set our minds on you, you give us peace and we can say it is well with our soul. In Jesus’ name, amen. Would you stand with me and let’s sing. Thank you.