This Means War

Good morning again, church. Good to see you. I'm feeling a lot better this week, so I'll shake your hand safely. I won't go hide out from you like I did last week, so it's good. It's good to be back. It's good. It's March 1st,

and, you know, we're just going to, like, usher ourselves into spring, whether or not the weather wants to cooperate, because some of us are ready for that, aren't we? Yes.

How about Scripture this morning? We are in the book of 2 Corinthians again. We've been walking through this for several months now, and we are coming near the end of the letter.

We're in chapter 10 today, so if you want to find that, chapter 10. And let me just kind of start off by asking any of you, does anybody here still write letters?

Anybody write letters? Oh, good, good. Anybody under 40 still write letters? There's a few. There's a couple. How about long letters? Long letters.

You know, this is a long letter we're looking at. 2 Corinthians. In a world of emails and DMs and text messages, it's hard for a lot of us to remember what a long letter is like.

There are stories of couples separated by an ocean during a world war where long letters are written, long letters are meaningful. And the thing about writing a long letter, especially one over 6,000 words like this one,

is that you probably don't compose the whole thing in one setting. Meaning that you start to write, you set it aside a little bit, you come back, maybe finish that paragraph, start a new one.

Sometimes it takes maybe hours. Sometimes it takes days. And in this case, we think with the Apostle Paul, maybe even it took weeks to compose this letter.

I want you to bear that in mind because that's going to help us understand what's happening as we open chapter 10, verse 1. There is a lot in this letter.

Paul's talked about a lot of things earlier up to this point. Up through chapter 7, he's told them many positive things. We know the relationship is strained, but he still said, hey, I'm proud of you guys, chapter 7, verse 4.

I rejoice over you, 7, verse 9. He even told them this in chapter 7, verse 16. I've got complete confidence in you. And then he led us into chapters 8 and 9 where it was kind of like this interlude on giving, on money, and the collection.

And he taught them about that topic. Again, positive encouragement. Very hopeful. He's expecting good things from them. And yet as we come to chapter 10, verse 1, we're going to find that the tone dramatically changes.

Why? What's wrong with Paul? Did he forget who he's writing to? Is Paul a little bit schizophrenic or something? Has he forgotten his audience?

And the answer to that question is, of course, no. Paul, we need to realize, is writing to a mixed audience. That is to say, there is, we think at this point, a majority in the church that are responsive to him, that are ready to mend the relationship,

and there is also still a stubborn minority. Those still under the spell of those rascally super apostles. Bear that in mind as we begin reading in verse 1.

Verse 1. I, Paul, myself, entreat you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ, I who am humble when face to face with you, but bold toward you when I am away.

I beg of you that when I am present, I may not have to show boldness with such confidence as I count on showing against some who suspect us of walking according to the flesh.

For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but have divine power to destroy strongholds.

We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God and take every thought captive to obey Christ,

being ready to punish every disobedience when your obedience is complete. Would you pray with me once more? Heavenly Father, we submit ourselves to your word today.

I pray for clarity. I pray that your spirit would speak to us. Help us to understand these words that were written a couple of thousand years ago for a particular church that you, by your Holy Spirit, deemed important for us in the church today to hear.

Teach us. Show us what you want. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. So again, right off the bat, it is a tone shift from a very conciliatory posture to a much more aggressive one.

Now, I think I might have detected a note of sarcasm. Did you? And yes, it's there. Remember, the majority of this congregation, they are repentant, but there is what one scholar calls the recalcitrant minority.

The stubborn faction who are still very much unrepentant and hostile toward Paul and all that he represents. And right off the bat, Paul's like, hey, I know what some of you are saying.

Some of you are saying that when I'm there present, when I'm up close, I ain't much. And I'm a tough guy when I'm far away. When you can't see me, I'm strong.

And when I'm there in your presence, I'm really sweet. Does that sound like somebody you know? Does that phenomenon not still occur today? When you work with someone, right, a co-worker, or you live next to somebody, and you're like, man, they're the nicest person I've ever seen, ever heard.

And then somehow when they're far away, back at home behind their keyboard or on their keypad or whatever it is, they turn into a monster. It's a little bit like this.

Is this what Paul is? That's what his critics are saying. But this is not Paul. This is not Paul. His critics are exaggerating and very much creating a caricature of the man.

We ask ourselves, could Paul be warm and encouraging and kind? Yes. Was Paul humble and at times soft-spoken? Definitely. But could Paul also get fired up and be really bold and aggressive and confrontational when he needed to be?

Yeah, he could. And we know that previously he'd left behind a very broken situation. Here in Corinth. We know that he decided that a cooling off period would be a good idea.

And we also know he followed that up with a severe letter where they could really think about, reflect on, ponder what he was saying. You see, there's wisdom in knowing sometimes what's best when.

Right? What's best when. Sometimes, yes, boldness, courage, being outspoken is the best, it's the most appropriate, it's necessary. And we also know that there are other times when maybe words need to be held.

Where somebody or a relationship or a situation needs a cooling off period. And in terms of Paul's troubled relationship with this church, let's not forget that this is a man who is unique.

In the sense that as he is engaging with this church, he is doing it, at least in this letter, under the perfect inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is guiding all of his interactions. Not to mention that after he says, well, I know what some are saying about me in verse 1.

In verse 2, he goes on to remind them, by the way, I am coming. I am coming to you. Verse 2, I beg of you that when I am present, when I'm there, I may not have to show boldness with such confidence as I count on showing against some.

In other words, I'm coming and I expect I'm going to have to be tough. I'm going to have to throw down the gauntlet with some of you people.

My wife, whenever she gets irritated with my son and I, she'll refer to us, just the two of us, as you people. I don't know what's wrong with you people.

And so Paul knows he's going to have to be direct and firm and bold with these people. And he says, I hope that I don't have to. I hope that you guys will take care of the stubborn minority, but realistically, I'm expecting that you won't.

And yet, even as he writes this, it's not the Christlikeness, it's not the quality of Christlikeness as if it goes out the door. It's not like Paul's, like, just kind of hangs up being Christlike at this point.

Because even in his words here in the very first verse, don't overlook the fact that what he writes, it's not a command. Even still here, he's making a request.

It's a plea. What's he say? I, Paul, myself, entreat you. I entreat you. I implore you. By what? By the meekness and gentleness of Christ. That has not been lost on our apostle.

Meekness, the quality of dealing graciously. The quality of being able to self-moderate. Taking a calming, humble approach. A soothing approach.

You ever had to do that when somebody's upset? Maybe a child. Maybe a spouse. Being chill. We might say today, I'm just going to be chill. I'm going to take it down a notch and be mellow.

I like how scholar David Garland puts it. He says that Paul, he packs high-powered, divine weapons, but the meekness and gentleness of Christ governs his use of them.

Governs his use of them. And there's gentleness too. Gentleness is similar to kindness. They're kind of interchangeable. They're kind of a little different.

The sense here with gentleness is leniency, even clemency. And we need to realize that in the culture that Paul writes to in the Greco-Roman culture, these were not highly regarded virtues.

You can pull out the philosophers like Aristotle. He will not speak highly of qualities like meekness and gentleness and humility. These were seen as weakness.

Meekness, meekness is weakness. That's what they thought. Gentleness, well, nobody will respect that.

But Paul had a sovereign Lord and a master who once said different, didn't he? We think about the words of Jesus. What's he say in Matthew? Matthew 11, verse 29.

Matthew 11:29

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. And how powerful this approach would be in contrast to what's been going on lately in the Corinthian church.

You want to know what's been going on? We wonder sometimes like when Paul's away and these other super apostles, these rivals, take over, how did they lead?

Were they gentle and lowly like Christ? As a matter of fact, we have a little bit of a peek, a window into just how proud and how arrogant and self-serving and even abusive these leaders were.

Listen to what Paul's going to say in about one chapter. 2 Corinthians 11, verse 20. What's this, what he says? This is Titus having come back and made report to Paul.

2 Corinthians 11:20

He says, for you bear it, you deal with it, you bear it if someone makes slaves of you or devours you or takes advantage of you or puts on airs or strikes you in the face.

To my shame, I must say, we were too weak for that. Again, sarcasm. That sounds abusive to me, doesn't it? Can you imagine? Sounds like these super apostles in Paul's absence, like they were behaving like a bunch of bullies.

They were bullying the church, literally intimidating them physically, striking them in the face. Can you imagine if one of our elders behaved that way?

You're having a conversation in the back after church and you say something that one of our elders doesn't like, like Matt Bowers, he's quite likely to go off on someone.

And Matt just smacks you in the face. This is crazy what is happening. That's why Paul puts his approach so far above reproach. He takes wisdom.

He uses wisdom and combines a loving boldness with a tender gentleness. He has the patience to hold words, hold confrontation until the time is right.

And as we've said, by the time we get to chapter 10 here in his letter, he knows the time's right. The time is now. Because as he reveals at the end of verse 2, his opponents have been accusing him of a lot of things, including this, of walking according to the flesh.

Walking according to the flesh? Really? You're going to accuse the Apostle Paul of having a worldly, carnal lifestyle? I mean, what is he doing as he's in the prison?

Is he engaging in a lavish lifestyle in his dungeon? What do you mean he's walking according to the flesh? Last time I checked, this man's flesh don't look so good.

He's got lashes all over his back. Beaten. Shipwrecked. Weak. He looks pretty austere. I mean, there have been comments made about that in this very letter.

What an absolutely ridiculous accusation. And watch how Paul goes on to turn their own words against them. He goes on in verse 3, and look what he says.

He says, yeah, we are human. We do walk in the flesh. Wink, wink. We live as human beings, but we are not waging war according to the flesh.

What he means is, we don't engage in ministry in ways that make sense according to a human point of view. We don't do it like you super apostles.

We don't worry about mere human things, appearances, impressive credentials, exceptional speaking ability. We aren't all about being in with the world.

As he says in his very first letter to them, he says back in 1 Corinthians chapter 2 verse 1, we don't preach with lofty speech or with plausible words of wisdom according to how the world sees wisdom.

1 Corinthians 2:1

we don't wage war with merely human weapons. And just like that, we get to that verse and we hear that word war and we're like, what? What? War?

Wait a second. How do we get here, Paul? His critics must have wondered, what are you talking about? But yeah, in the blink of an eye, Paul draws everybody back to what it's all about, a spiritual war that we're in.

We know he's written about this in other places like Ephesians chapter 6 and he wants to remind this church and even his opponents that yes, this is more than just a human squabble we're having.

Ephesians 6 · chapter mention

There are spiritual implications. This is not just a ministry philosophy difference. Paul's like, this is war. War that we're waging. Paul actually employs this military metaphor and the experts, the scholars say, you know, pretty good one to reach to

because right now in the Mediterranean world, everywhere you turn is a Roman soldier. Remember, they're occupied even in Greece, the Roman Empire, Roman soldiers stationed everywhere and we realize what an effective analogy this is.

Paul knows this. Vestiges of war are everywhere. Why not use it when you're actually in a spiritual battle? When there actually is an enemy coming for the minds and hearts of God's people in the church.

And this is a good reminder even for us. You know, we don't often think about war until maybe yesterday. We live in a world where there are geopolitical conflicts and they come and they go.

Jesus himself said there will be wars and rumors of war. And we have to remember that behind conflicts on this earth between human powers, there is an ongoing, continuous, cosmic, millennia-lasting spiritual war going on

against principalities and powers. A war that, again, Ephesians 6 reminds us is not against flesh and blood. It's not over nuclear capability or anything else.

it's a spiritual war against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms, Paul says. And the question is, what are we going to fight with?

Paul's saying, hey, you got some leaders there in Corinth that want to fight with their good looks, with their impressive credentials, their pedigree, their reputation in society that is so high, so strong.

But is Satan going to be intimidated by any of that? Is Satan intimidated by how slick you are, how trendy you are, how cool you are? And listen, that applies to today.

Is Satan intimidated by how slick and how cool and how big the church is? Or how big our buildings are? Or how cool the preacher's tennis shoes are?

I thought I'd use that one. That's pretty safe for me. I got really cool tennis shoes at home. They're, what's the ones all the old people wear?

New Balance, thanks, yeah.

Satan is not going to be defeated with cool tennis shoes or with a cool worship band or some slick program, some amazing hot youth ministry.

Programs don't intimidate the enemy. Buildings don't intimidate the enemy. Eloquence doesn't intimidate the enemy. And Paul reminds us of this.

He says this in verse 4. What kind of weapons do we fight with? For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, not of the material world, but they have divine power to destroy strongholds.

Strongholds. Again, Satan's not going to be defeated by your rhetoric, super apostles. The enemy's not going to be defeated by your charisma or your large personality or your showmanship.

The weapons we've got to take into the spiritual battle must have spiritual power. And we ask ourselves, what kind of weapons are those? Paul actually names them in a couple of other letters.

One he wrote just before this. One he wrote right after this. Let's go to the one he wrote after this. Romans. Romans 1.16. What's he say there?

He says, For I am not ashamed of the gospel. For it, the gospel, is the power of God for salvation for everyone who believes. The gospel is a weapon.

Or from his first letter, 1 Corinthians 1.18. He says this, For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God.

Now, the gospel, the word of the cross, Paul's telling us that's where the power is and it's with these weapons and only these weapons that we are ever able to destroy the defensive fortifications of the enemy.

We bring them down. We demolish these enemy strongholds. That's how one translation puts it. We destroy them. And of course, we know he's not talking about literal physical strongholds.

Again, no. It's military language. Paul's referring to the walls of thinking in people's minds. The walls put up in the human heart of rebellion.

Sinful thought patterns, mental structures that are in rebellion against God and his truth. Maybe you know someone like this who's very far from God.

Maybe you turn on a channel or watch a video from someone who has a very different worldview and you can just see it. The mental walls put up to faith.

The mental structures that are constructed against belief and submission to God. That's what he's talking about. And if the only way to take a city in the ancient world and it was true was to pull down its walls, the same will be true in the battle

for hearts and minds. And Paul knows this. He knows that the fortresses of Satan by which he holds people are in the presence of their hearts and minds.

That's why Paul says this. Verse 5. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God. He's talking about the entrenched power of unbelief unbelief as it's all wrapped up tight in human pride.

Lofty opinions. These are the enemy walls, he says, that must be torn down in order for a human heart to be brought to repentance. Think about people you know.

Think about people I know. I was thinking about them this past week. Unsaved people. I think about most unsaved people and unless it's a terminal illness, maybe at a funeral, otherwise, most people that I know who are far from Christ do not walk around fearing death.

They don't. Most people apart from Christ do not act like they're in a prison. They think they are quite free. They probably feel quite enlightened in their minds, not darkened, although the scripture says that they're darkened.

They probably feel pretty decent about life, ignorant of the fact that judgment is coming someday. The Bible says that. But listen, folks, that is a prison.

That is a stronghold that the enemy has put a person in.

The enemy will tell us things like, don't worry about any of that, you're fine. Just keep that outside. Keep furthering your goals. Keep pursuing your education, getting those degrees.

Keep climbing the corporate ladder. Keep making money at your job. Get the kids in whatever sport you want them to be in, whatever art that they're good at, and just keep pouring yourself into that.

And if you're retired, then live the good retired life. That's what the enemy says. Keep those walls up. Don't think about eternity. Don't think about Jesus, God.

You're fine. Do what you want. You should feel fine. But you're not if you don't have Jesus. You're imprisoned by your own sin. You're under a curse of judgment without a Savior.

And you are, I'm sorry to tell you, destined for destruction after what is relatively speaking from eternity's perspective, a very short life.

But in comes Paul with the weapon of the gospel, right? The weapon of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Verse 5 again. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God.

And we take captive every thought to obey Christ. Take captive every thought. How do you do that? I don't know about you, but I've read this scripture a lot of times throughout my life.

And I don't know that I've really sat down until recently and thought deeply about how do we actually do that? does Paul mean simply read a lot of scriptures?

Well, yeah, that's a good place to start. But he did more than that because he understood that the best way to destroy arguments is to take the weapons of God's word and God's truth and use them to reason with the human mind.

Listen, Paul preached, he proclaimed, but he also used reasoning to remove barriers to urge his listeners to persuade them to reconsider their wrong-headed ideas.

He preached at first to a lot of Jews, Peter did too, and he had to take the first idea that was wrong-headed which was you crucified Jesus.

That was a bad idea. That was a pretty big whoops. You crucified the man who came to give his life for you.

Even when Paul first showed up here in the city of Corinth, the book of Acts records it back in chapter 18 of the book of Acts. Acts 18 verse 4 tells us that he reasoned, reasoned in the synagogues every Sabbath and tried to persuade Jews and Greeks.

Acts 18:4

That's more than just reading scripture. He did that. I'm sure he did. I'm sure he was pulling out the Old Testament, pulling out the prophecies, looking to Isaiah and saying, look, this all has fulfillment in Jesus Christ.

Look at the patterns how your ancestors rejected all the prophets and murdered them. You just did the same thing with the ultimate prophet, the Son of God.

I'm sure he was doing that. But he was also trying to persuade them. He was reasoning with them. There was probably some back and forth in the synagogues.

And he did it. He tried to persuade the Jews and the Greeks that Jesus is king. Jesus is Lord. And then he went on to the city of Ephesus in the very next chapter and we read it again.

Here's what Acts chapter 19 verse 8 says. And he entered the synagogue of Ephesus and for three months spoke boldly, reasoning and persuading them about the kingdom of God.

Acts 19:8

And he must have been pretty effective because they didn't like him doing it. After three months they said, that's enough. They kicked him out of the synagogue and what Paul did is he walked right next door to a secular lecture hall and he started doing it again.

Acts 19.9 He reasoned daily in the hall of Tyrannus. See, Paul understood that the mind is a spiritual battleground. That's why he writes about the renewing of your mind in Romans 10.

12. He knows you can win a heart easy enough. Let me just kind of separate those two for a minute. I mean, sometimes minds and hearts we mean the same thing like your inner being but the mind and the heart are different faculties.

There's different words to describe them but there is a person's reasoning capability and then there's their emotive capability. The heart. Let's talk about the heart.

Do you realize it's not very hard to win the heart? Some of you have kids. You could jump on an airplane or take a really long drive in a few weeks on spring break and you can win their heart at an amusement park.

Disney. They'll win their heart. They'll tell you it's the happiest place on earth and probably for the day it feels like it is. It's not hard to win a heart.

We get a peak of sunshine and I'm like, yes! I have visions of a summer day, right? Taking walks, an outdoor concert, at a park. You can win the heart pretty easy.

But for lasting change you have to win the mind. You have to win the mind. That's why we take the approach that we do to what we're doing right now in preaching.

That's why we take the approach that we do to children's ministry, to youth ministry. We're not out there to simply wow and win a heart. We're there to win the mind.

Paul's in the mind business. He's in the battle business of winning the mind in battle. Of taking every thought captive to obey Christ.

Listen to what he says just again in the next chapter. 2 Corinthians 11, verse 3. This is what he says. He says, But I'm afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning that your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ.

2 Corinthians 11:3

Your thoughts. The battleground of the mind. That's why he says earlier in this letter that the God of this age has done what to the minds of unbelievers?

Blinded it. Blinded the minds of unbelievers. And sometimes he even tries to deceive and re-blind even believers. And by saying that he's going to take captive thoughts, Paul says, I'm prepared to fight for you guys.

I'm prepared to fight for you to liberate you. It's kind of an interesting thing. I'm going to take every thought captive to obey Christ, but it's actually an act of liberation.

Because we know there's only true freedom in Jesus. And so, is the church thing that the super apostles are doing with you, is it really about being liked by everybody in the community?

No. Is it about material success? No. Is it about living triumphantly like a real winner there in Corinth? Like the super apostles say? They were saying things like, Paul suffers.

Suffering is for the weak. Suffering's dumb. They were saying things like, go ahead and participate in the idol feasts because your neighbors want you to.

Your co-workers, your business associates in the trade guilds want you to. So go ahead and advance and protect your standing in society by doing what everybody does.

Well, by the time we come down to verse 6, we can see that Paul's hopeful. He's hopeful. He's hopeful for the church's full obedience. Even if he doesn't get it from everyone.

But he hopes that the majority, he says, when your obedience is complete, I'm hoping that you will reject those false apostles and you'll be ready to join me in the appropriate discipline that is needed.

And even in this statement, again, Paul can't give up hope even on his detractors. Notice how he says, ready to punish. As if he's prepared to do it and still, he's hoping, he's praying that it won't be necessary.

Today, I want to finish by making a very practical turn with you. So if you want to take some notes this morning, I want to ask the question, if this is true, if it's true that life is war, that spiritual warfare is our reality, and if it's true that we need to wage

a war, wage the battle not according to the flesh, how are we supposed to wage it? I want to very quickly highlight the four ways I think Paul's shown us.

Four ways to engage in this war. The first one is this. Number one, lead with Christ-like humility and wisdom. Whether you're a leader of yourself as a single, whether you've got a family or a spouse or just some neighbors or some family members

that you have a role, whatever it is, lead yourself, lead others with Christ-like humility and wisdom. Yes, this is Paul's default. That's why he starts off with an entreaty rather than a command in verse one.

That's why he starts off by saying, I entreat you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ. His default was to be meek and gentle, to be gentle and lowly like Jesus was.

Of course, that might have been the default with Christ, but we know that Jesus, even while he was on earth, there were times that he was not gentle and lowly.

There were times he was quite willing to confront and engage and to do it boldly. And that's exactly the turn Paul makes right here. From humble and gentle as a default disposition, he now turns to showing proper boldness with such confidence, he says in verse two.

And the key, of course, to know which is needed when, gentleness or boldness, meekness or confrontation, the key is wisdom. We need Christ's wisdom.

You need Christ's wisdom. Think about your own life. Think about a situation that you're in where you're trying to maybe engage someone in a spiritual matter.

Maybe it is raising a child. Maybe it's handling a teenager. Maybe it's engaging with your college student or a young adult. Or even just trying to interact with your adult children.

You know they write books on this now? How senior adults can interact with their adult children because we still can't figure it out? You know they write books about things we haven't figured out.

And they keep writing them. What about that situation? Is Christ-like humility your default?

While it should be your default, it can't always be, you can't always stay defaulted or in a defaulted position. We know that in the Spirit's wisdom, which we all need, there will come a time for you to speak up.

Maybe be bold. A time to join in the fight. Moms and dads, parents of adult children, you don't want to fight with your adult children all the time, but sometimes you do have to speak up.

And when that time comes, well, our next point, number two. Number two, decide to fight with the right weapons. See, there's a choice we all get to make.

We get to reach into an arsenal for weapons. We can reach for the human ones or we can reach for God's divine weapons. We can reach for, well, I'm your parent, I know better, I've lived longer than you, or I have authority over you.

We can reach for guilt, we can reach for manipulation, or we can reach for the right weapons.

The right weapons aren't being intimidating, or in this case in Corinth, being flashy and highly thought of. they're weapons with divine power, Paul says.

What has divine power? The gospel. The gospel does. The cross does. Sharing with our friends and our children and our family members and neighbors that Jesus came to this earth, he died in our place, he took upon himself the sins of all the world,

he gives us his righteousness that we are now supposed to walk in, it enables us to live a new life, to walk in newness of life. You say, really?

I'm not sure that's going to be all that convincing. And I'd say, you're right. Humanly speaking, it may not be. You're going to need the Holy Spirit's convicting power.

And it applies to the church too. Listen, like I've said, having a, our worship band's really cool, so don't get me wrong, but having a cooler worship band, having a more accommodating theology, or having a, let's say, taller, slicker, better hair,

better shoes, pastor. You guys are like, why are you talking about Matt?

I don't know about the shoes part. Flashy buildings, cool programs, pizazz, latest music, those are not going to change hearts. They're not the right weapons.

If we want to engage the battle spiritually, either in our churches or in our homes, we have to fight with the right weapons, the gospel, the cross.

Next point, number three. Number three, destroy the strongholds of every argument and every lofty opinion raised against truth. I know that's a mouthful.

Destroy the strongholds of every argument, every lofty opinion raised against the truth.

We ask ourselves, are there strongholds? Are there false beliefs? Are there walls of wrong attitudes around us and in us that need to be torn down in our minds?

Are there lies beliefs that we're tempted to believe?

They come in all different forms. I can't name all of them. Sometimes it's the lie of, well, I'm a young person. I don't want to be alone forever.

I guess I have to lower my standards for a relationship. Or at other stations in life, it's, well, I've got to skip gathering with God's people to be successful in my work or in my studies.

I've heard this one. I've got to protect my family's health at all costs. But at the cost of their spiritual health? Destroying strongholds means that we have to identify the lies that our enemy would like us to believe

and replace them with God's truth. Replace them with God's truth. Sinful habits, mental patterns, wherever you know that the enemy has basically taken up residence in your mind and built a stronghold.

And they may be different for all of us.

Lofty opinions. Paul says, in the ancient world they talked about, you know, if you're going to assault a city, every city had walls, yes, but they also had towers.

What held up the walls? In between the, the walls were in between the towers. The towers were where the real strength was. You bring down a tower, you're going to get the city.

We ask ourselves, are there some lofty towers in our minds that need to be stormed and torn down?

We just heard Paul talk about giving the last two weeks and some of you were like, whew, glad that's over. Well, I don't think we've ever at Redeemer talked about giving as much as we did in the last two or three weeks.

Blame Paul. Maybe that's a tower. I can't, I can't give the way Paul's been talking about. That's, that's out of reach for me. Or not just giving, maybe it's just serving.

I, I can't, I can't serve my fellow believer. I can't serve in the church in a consistent basis. I mean, do you see what the calendar says? The weather's about to get nice.

I got a lot of stuff I want to do. I can't be tied down. I need to be free. Whatever the stronghold, whatever the lofty opinion that's been holding you hostage from Jesus being Lord over it, realize this is an important part of the battle

of being a Christian. Remember, the serpent still comes at us even when we're a Christian. What was it again that Paul said or is going to say in chapter 11, verse 3, 2 Corinthians 11, 3, I'm afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts

will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ.

So what are the ways for you as a Christian to engage in spiritual war? Number one, by leading with the humility and wisdom of Christ. Number two, by deciding to fight with the right weapons.

Thirdly, by destroying arguments, strongholds of every argument and every lofty opinion. raised against the truth. And finally, by doing this.

Number four is this. Capture every thought to obey Christ. Capture every thought to obey Christ. You know, sometimes, sometimes it's a big tower that's got to come down.

Sometimes it's a huge lie that the enemy has built walls around us and we can't see it and it's in the way of us breaking out and being able to grow spiritually.

But you know what? A lot of other times, day in, day out, hour in and hour out, we simply need to capture the next thought. The next thought.

The next craving of our eyes before it becomes the lust of our flesh. How do we do that? How do we take thoughts captive to obey Christ? Well, it helps when you've developed a good filter first.

I would call it a Bible-trained filter. That's a pretty good analogy. We use filters, don't we, on our furnaces, on our air conditioning. We use filters, some of us, with the water that we drink.

Listen, your thoughts are going to come. You can't control that. I can't control my thoughts. I know for me, like right about now, this time of year, I start jumping on the internet, looking about, looking for vacation places and I got to get out of here and if I allow my thoughts to win,

rest, which is what vacation is for me, and escape, and a little bit of ease can quickly become idols in my mind.

The Bible reminds me of the principle of hard work and self-discipline. God's Word teaches me that restraint is important. I need to study to show myself approved as a workman so I don't stand up here ashamed in front of all of you as the Bible says I would be if I didn't study.

I have developed these filters in my mind and heart through the study of God's Word and you can and should too. A filter. The best way to capture every thought is to have a well-developed biblical filter.

Well, how do you develop that? Well, it's probably by spending time in God's Word. We don't develop the biblical filter by osmosis, by sleeping next to it, do we?

We don't develop the biblical filter by just being around God's people. They can help, they can reinforce the filter, but we have to really take in God's Word as we tear down those walls of lies and wrong thoughts and replace them with truth.

We have to do that for ourselves and for those of us with people under our influence, we have to help them. If you're a teacher, if you're a parent, if you're a grandparent, you have a responsibility to not only develop your own scriptural filter, you have the responsibility

and privilege to help develop the filter of someone else or someone else.

This morning, Paul reminds us that it is a spiritual battle. We are at war in our hearts and in our minds. And our enemy is real. So let's lead with the humility and wisdom of Christ.

Let's decide to fight with the right weapons. Let's destroy the strongholds of every argument and every lofty opinion raised against the truth.

And there are a lot of them out there. And let's work to build that filter, that scriptural filter, and capture every thought to make it obey Christ.

Why don't you join me as we pray over this? Let me have you stand and the team's going to come.

Jesus, you are, as you say, gentle and lowly. You say, take my yoke upon you yourself and learn from me. You tell us that we'll find rest for our souls.

And Lord, we know that to walk in obedience, to live by your word, that there is a rest for the human soul that is available in that, in you, that we find nowhere else.

As a great church father once said, our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you.

And so Lord, even as we seek that rest, which we know ultimately is not ours until we are with you, for eternity, help us now in the fight, in the battle.

Lord, some of us may have been convinced or duped by our enemy that we're not in a fight, that the world is neutral. Others of us, Lord, might have grown weary in the fight.

Help us, Lord, to fight with wisdom, with humility, with the boldness that we will need when we need it. Lord, help us to guard our hearts and minds to take down strongholds of lies.

And Lord, equip us, equip us through your spirit and with your holy word to build the filter that we can capture every thought and make it obey you.

We need your help. We can't do it in our own power. And so we ask this together in the name of Jesus. Amen. Amen.