Replacing Lies with Truth | Powerful Thoughts | 5.3.26

Welcome to the Journey Christian Church podcast.

This week's episode is called Replacing Lies with Truth.

Good morning, everybody.

Welcome to Journey.

I'm so glad that you're here worshiping with us today.

I love the song, the second song we sang about remembering.

Remembering what God has done.

We spend a lot of time remembering.

And the quality of our lives is determined by whether or not we spend more time remembering positive events or negative events.

If we spend most of our time thinking about the bad things that have happened, chances are we're going to be very, very unhappy people.

If we remember good things, we're going to be happy people.

It is amazing the difference that our thoughts make.

There are a lot of things that I would like to forget.

There's something that happened this morning that I would like to forget.

I was having my morning cup of coffee and something went in my mouth.

I thought maybe it was just a chunk of cream, and so I bit down on it and it crunched.

And I pulled it out and it was a giant fly.

And I got the peroxide out and washed my mouth out with peroxide.

So gross.

So I'm going to take you through in the next four weeks a book by Craig Grischel called Winning the War of Your Mind.

And it is such a powerful book.

I encourage you to get it, because he he goes through years and years and years of scientific study and modern psychology, and of course brings it back to the foundation of God's word.

Modern psychology is starting to catch up with the truth of God's word.

You know, for a while, uh the belief was if you just go back in time and think about all the bad things that have happened to you, you'll get better.

But thinking about all the bad things that have happened to us, they don't make us better unless we do something to change our thought process.

And so CBT has become very popular, cognitive behavioral therapy.

And it works because it is about shifting our thinking.

And these ideas are not new.

Paul said in Philippians chapter 4, verse 8: whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is right, whatever is good, whatever is worthy of praise, think about such things.

Philippians 4 · chapter mention

Paul's saying, your thoughts matter.

Now, I'm going through this book, and I want to tell you that today's sermon is pretty much straight plagiarism.

But if you say it, it's okay.

But I am just scratching the surface of the good things that can be found in this book.

So Harry Houdini would go from town to town, and one of the first things he would do was find the local jail and ask to be locked into a jail cell, and then he would break out.

City after city, town after town, jail after jail, same thing.

He would break out of the jail cell.

But there was a sheriff that knew he was coming and knew his routine.

And so he decided to play a trick on him.

He put Harry Houdini in the jail cell and then turned the key, but instead of locking it, he unlocked it.

And so he watched in amusement as Houdini locked himself into the jail cell again and again and again.

He couldn't get out because he believed a lie.

We get trapped in our minds, trapped in our thoughts, trapped in life because we believe lies.

Satan is constantly telling us lies about ourselves, about the world, and he traps us, but the Holy Spirit desires to give us freedom.

In 2 Corinthians 3, verse 17, it says, Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

2 Corinthians 3:17

The Holy Spirit desires to free us from the entrapment that we are in, the bondage to lies that are believed.

He wants to free us from the lies that we have been told.

So I know that men are not supposed to talk about what they struggle with.

We're supposed to keep a stiff upper lip and lead lives of quiet desperation.

You know, that's just the great, the great life, you know, that we are supposed to have.

But I believe that we are only as sick as our secrets.

And that it is healthy for us to discuss what we are struggling with.

A lot of times, when we just say something out loud, it takes the fear away.

You know, it's like a child that comes to you about a nightmare.

And then you ask, okay, what happened in the nightmare?

And they tell you, and it's some ridiculous story.

And the more they think about how ridiculous it is, the power of the nightmare goes away.

And so I struggle with and have struggled all my life with worry and with fear and anxiety, with imposter syndrome.

You know, uh started preaching the word of God at 21 years of age and and uh, you know, trying to convince myself that I was up to that task was an unbelievable battle of the mind constantly.

And um, I have struggled with all of these things.

I also know that in my mind I struggle with negative thinking.

I see things in the world more negatively than they actually are.

And I assign negative motives to things that people say and the things that people do.

And I know this about myself, and I am committed to changing.

And my prayer is that we can change together.

The good news is we don't have to do it by ourselves.

Our Heavenly Father wants to partner with us.

He wants to free us from the prisons of our minds.

Let's pray together and ask Him to do that, okay?

Lord, thank you for offering us freedom.

Thank you for unlocking the cell.

Please give us the courage to step out.

Lord, help us to see the war that is being waged in our minds, to be aware of it all the time, that we can fight back.

Thank you for giving us all the resources that we need to do so.

I praise you and pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Number one, believing lies will hold you captive in a self-made prison.

They will rob you of your freedom, of your joy, of your sense of adventure, of your purpose in life.

I have a vivid memory of two of my uncles when I was a kid.

One of them was using grandpa's hedge trimmers to trim the hedges out front, and the other one was hiding in the screened in front porch where it was plugged in.

And the one trimming, all of a sudden the hedge trimmers would stop working because uh my uncle Sky was unplugging the plug.

And so Uncle Scott would beat on the hedge trimmers for a while and get real frustrated and angry, and then Sky would plug it back in.

After about a minute or two, he'd unplug it, beat on the hedge trimmers, and get real angry and frustrated.

The more frustrated Scott got, the harder Skye laughed.

My Uncle Scott was in a battle with his brother that he was completely unaware of.

And the same is often true of us.

We are in a war, and a lot of times we don't even know there's a war being fought.

But it is a war for your thoughts.

Your mind is the goal.

Your mind is the target.

The devil is constantly waging war against our minds.

Leadership guru John Maxwell writes: the difference between successful and unsuccessful people is in the way we think.

So do you ever feel like you're in a battle for your thoughts every moment of the day?

Do you realize this?

Are you aware of the war?

Are you aware that we have an enemy waging war with our minds?

This is the hope.

This is the promise.

2 Timothy 1, verse 7 of the New King James Version says, God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of sound mind.

2 Timothy 1:7

This is the hope.

This is the opportunity we have.

This is the jail cell that has been already opened up for us, that we have available to us a spirit not of fear, but of power and of love and a sound mind.

Do we live like that?

Or do we believe the lie that we are too weak?

Do we believe the lie that we can never fully give ourselves in love for other people because either it won't be returned or we just can't trust people with our hearts?

Are our minds weighed down with worry and anxiety and depression?

Are we living in a cage of fear and spiritual lethargy, not realizing that the cage is unlocked?

And we don't have to be there.

How do we get in such a cage?

The devil lies to us.

Jesus said this about Satan in John chapter 8, verse 44.

John 8:44

It says, He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth.

For there is no truth in him.

When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies.

You are being lied to every day, over and over and over again.

What kinds of lies does he tell us?

Craig Rochelle writes, if you see succeed at something, maybe he can convince you that you don't need God.

If you fail, he'll try to brainwash you into thinking you'll always be a failure.

You have a great first date, he will suggest that romance is the only thing that will ever make you happy.

Your first date was a disaster, he'll whisper that you'll never have anyone love you for who you are.

If you do nice things for a difficult person, he'll murmur that you're a pretty great person yourself and you really don't need God's grace.

If instead you speak harshly to someone, he'll whisper that you're an awful, hateful person whom God could never love.

If you're trying to stay away from pornography, he will tell you everybody else is doing it.

But if you give in to pornography, he'll make you feel like you're the only person sick enough to do such a disgusting thing.

He will lie and lie and lie and lie to keep you locked in a mental prison.

This is his tactic.

He is waging war against us.

The first step is to realize that a battle is being waged and our minds are the target.

The second step is this make war.

Make war against the lies that are holding you back.

You are not without recourse.

You are not a victim.

You have everything you need, it says in 2 Peter, for life and uh godliness and the ability to participate in the divine nature.

You have everything you need.

Everything you need.

And so wage war.

How do we win this war?

Ephesians chapter 1, verses 19 through 20, and the NLT says, I also pray that you will understand the incredible greatness of God's power for us.

Ephesians 1:19–20

The power of God is for us who believe in him.

This is the same mighty power that raised Christ from the dead.

And so, how do we win this fight?

2 Corinthians 10, 3 through 5, as we've gone through series through the Holy Spirit this year, this is a passage I've returned to often.

I'm going to come at it from a little bit different angle today.

2 Corinthians chapter 10, verses 3 through 5.

2 Corinthians 10:3–5

This is how we win the war.

It says, For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does.

We don't fight like the world, but we do wage war.

The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world.

On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.

Circle that word, strongholds.

What are the strongholds?

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.

First takeaway from this passage is we are called to wage war.

We are called to fight and not just let our thoughts control us, but learn to control our thoughts.

It is possible.

And the second takeaway is that we have the power to demolish strongholds.

Now, what is a stronghold?

In ancient times, when an ancient city was built, the highest point of the city, they would build a fortress, and it was extremely strong.

That's where they kept the kings, the nobly, the royalty, the decision makers, the government.

If the city was attacked, they would put them in the stronghold.

Because the city might be burned, but strongholds could be nearly impossible to get into.

In order to really win, you had to get in and uh get the decision makers out, capture them or kill them.

And what the Bible is teaching us here is that there are strongholds in our minds.

Satan tells us a lie, and then he builds a wall around that lie.

And every time we repeat that lie in our minds, we're adding another concrete to the walls of that stronghold.

You know, if you had parents that told you you'd never amount to anything and you mess up and you say in your mind, see, they said I'd never amount to anything.

It's true.

What they said's true.

Or somebody when you're a kid told you you're lazy and uh you you miss an assignment, or you know, you you're late on a project and you say, See, I I'm lazy.

I've always been told I was lazy.

And every time we repeat those lies in our minds, we're adding concrete to the stronghold.

And and for most of us, we have probably been repeating the same lies in our minds for 20, 30, 40, 50, 60 years.

Those walls are thick.

Is there any hope that we can tear those strongholds down?

Proverbs chapter 1, verse 22 says, A wise man attacks the city of the mighty and pulls down the stronghold in which they trust.

Proverbs 1:22

There is absolutely hope to take down these strongholds.

We can do it.

And the amazing thing is it's really not as hard as we think.

Because we have the resurrection power of God available to us.

It is nuclear power.

We're not knocking knocking down these strongholds with pitch at pickaxes and sledgehammers.

It's the power of God.

One stronghold in in my mind, it's funny, sometimes somebody will say an offhand comment, and at the time it doesn't even seem like it carries that much weight.

But through the years, I I found myself repeating it.

And I can't tell you how many times that statement has replayed in my mind.

You know, anytime I say the wrong thing, or anytime I say something I find out later, wait a minute, uh, that wasn't accurate, it's just you just don't really know what you're talking about.

And every time I've repeated that, I have put on another layer of concrete.

But the truth from God's word is found in Romans.

This is one of the most amazing passages in the book of Romans, chapter 15, verse 14.

Romans 15:14

It's so incredible because Paul he had never met the Romans, the Christians in Rome.

He had never been to that church.

He always wanted to go.

He was not the one that personally trained them.

He didn't know their giftedness or or uh how the Holy Spirit was working in them, except through dis reports that came from a distance.

And yet, this is what he says about the Roman church.

Romans chapter 15, verse 14, he says, I myself am convinced, my brothers, that you yourselves are full of goodness, complete in knowledge, and competent to instruct one another.

Romans 15:14

How could he know that?

He could know that because he knew that the Christians there had the Holy Spirit.

And if you have the Holy Spirit, you are full of goodness, complete in knowledge, the Holy Spirit who wants to teach you all things, and competent to instruct one another.

And so in my mind, when I think Dusty, it's obvious, you just don't know what you're talking about.

This is the truth I have to replace it with.

You are full of goodness, complete in knowledge, and competent to instruct in the scripture.

We first have to realize that there is this war that is going on.

And that we are believing lies.

And so, what I want you to do right now, there are sheets of paper all around.

If you don't have a sheet of paper, there are several up front here.

Everybody grab one of these pieces of paper, okay?

This is an exercise.

I'm going to give you a little bit of time to do right now.

Now, I don't need you to fill out the entire sheet of paper right now.

All I want you to do is write down lies.

What lies do you believe?

Chances are most of us have about four or five things that we repeat in our minds.

Minds over and over again, negative things about ourselves, negative things about our relationships, negative things about our world.

And I want you to take some time to write down those lines.

If you can't think of them, ask the person sitting next to you if they know you really well.

They will probably be able to point it out very easily.

And if you don't have anybody that knows you really well sitting next to you, take out your phone and text your parents, text your siblings, text your spouse, text somebody that knows you and they will tell you this is your negative thought pattern.

These are the negative things you say about yourself, these are the negative things that you believe about yourself, these are the negative things that you believe about the world.

And so take take a minute, write this down.

Again, there are papers up here if you don't have enough papers where you're sitting.

What lies do you believe?

What hurtful things did someone say that you repeat?

You're not good enough.

God couldn't forgive you of this.

God doesn't love you.

You're not really saved.

It's just a matter of time till people find out that you're an imposter.

What are your biggest insecurities?

What are your biggest fears and anxieties?

These are all undergirded by a lie of some kind that you've believed.

How does it happen?

Again, Grischel writes, the enemy has arranged enough hurtful circumstances in key places in your life in which you got just enough jolt, a bit of a shock, a sting of pain in your heart, that you have decided trying even one more time is just not worth the risk.

There are a lot of actions that are the result of lies.

I knew a lady who was married to a very abusive husband, and she finally got freed from that very controlling relationship.

And then for years and years and years and years and years, she went to every garage sale in town and bought all kinds of stuff that she didn't need and filled her house with all of this stuff.

She was believing that this stuff would fix this.

And she convinced you that the key to every sadness, the key to every hurt in your heart was food.

And that was the answer when what you really needed was Jesus.

Maybe you're addicted to alcohol or drugs.

Maybe you self-sabotage your relationships.

You know people are eventually going to reject you, and so you push them away before they can.

You're going to prove that you matter.

Whatever your problem is, your negative habits, your negative thoughts, it's important to ask, why are we doing what we're doing?

What do we hope to get out of it?

Like what need is this are we attempting to fill with this?

When did we start doing it?

How does it make us feel before we do it, while we're doing it, and after we're doing it?

Is it really satisfying?

Does it really provide for us what we think we need?

And especially what lie are we believing?

That this action can make things okay.

When chances are if it's sinful, all it does is make us feel worse, make us feel guilty.

How do we overcome?

Second Corinthians chapter 10, verse 5.

2 Corinthians 10:5

Says we demolish arguments and make every and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

How do we overcome?

How did Jesus overcome temptation?

When he was tempted in the wilderness by the devil, what did Jesus do?

Every temptation, what was that?

Yeah, he quoted the Bible.

Every temptation.

Every temptation that Satan threw at him, Jesus had a scripture verse to combat that temptation, that lie that Satan was telling him.

He is the example.

This is how we overcome.

This is cognitive behavioral therapy.

Jesus was an early adopter.

So I uh I thought about sharing this about myself, but I really didn't want to because it it exposes a weakness that I have.

And I talked to Elizabeth and she said, uh no, I'm making you share it.

You have no choice.

I was like, yes, dear.

So um when I was a kid, I had extreme separation anxiety, undiagnosed because nobody really knew what that was at that point.

They just thought I was the weird kid that um sobbed uncontrollably when he was separated from his parents, you know.

Uh anytime.

I I would start crying on Sunday evening, knowing that I would be at school the next morning.

Uh, and it wasn't that I didn't like school or I didn't want to be with my friends.

The thought of being separated from my mom and dad was just very, very overwhelming.

And um this lasted.

Um, cried every day in school until about halfway through the first grade, and then, you know, kind of just got over it.

Now, I still would deal with when we would visit it, visit relatives a long ways away, um, when we would have to leave them, it would break my heart.

When we would have friends come and visit and they would leave, it would break my heart.

And I was just in tears a lot as a kid.

Um and by junior high, it was not a factor.

You know, I'd just toughened up and it was not an issue anymore.

And uh went 35 years without it being an issue, just didn't deal with it.

And then my first wife died, and I was a five-year-old kid again.

I mean, it all came back, all of it.

And when my kids leave for college, it hurts.

And I feel panic when I can't be with the people that I love.

And um I realize that there is a lie underneath that has to be dealt with.

And the lie is everyone's gonna leave.

I have a recurring nightmare over and over again that I stand up to preach and everybody walks out the minute I stand up.

I mean, I'm messed up, I'm gonna tell you.

Kind of a freak.

We all probably need a checkup from the neck up.

But um identifying this lie and combating it with God's truth has been very, very valuable to me because God's truth is, the Lord said, never will I leave you, never will I forsake you.

And so I've written a declaration, and this is my declaration based on scripture for this particular lie.

My declaration is that God is a relational God who cares about my relationships more than I do.

He will preserve his relationship with me and my relationship with others according to his good, perfect, and pleasing will.

And what that forces me to do is let go.

Um when you try to keep people too close, I mean you you push them away, don't you?

I just have to let go.

And every time that lie comes up, and every time I feel that panic, you know, um, I state that declaration.

It's life-changing.

The funny thing is, most of us, there are only about four or five lies that that we believe that we've been repeating over and over again.

And most of the time, we just don't fight back.

Satan's lobbing these missiles at us.

And instead of quoting the scripture to him, and instead of making a declaration of truth, we reinforce the lie that he's telling us.

And we repeat it, we start doing his work for him.

When all we have to do is open up that cell and walk free.

And so I encourage you, work on this this week.

It will change your life.

It will, it will, you will go from being in a one sided battle to actually realizing I have the resources to fight and the promise that I will win.

We have everything we need.

Let's pray.