The Battle for your Mind

Introduction

Matthew 22:37 “Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.” It makes sense that God asks us to love Him with our hearts not our minds. This message is meant to be an introduction to the rest of the series we are going to be looking at this week. If I were to tell you that we are in a battle right now, what would come to your mind?

Roe v Wade

Transgenderism

Inflation

Taxes

Most likely politics and culture come to your mind and you would be correct. There is a battle going on between the forces of light and darkness in our world; but the real battle is a battle of the mind. Do you know that every time I get up to speak from the pulpit and almost every message I preach. I struggle with insecurity. I think to myself:

“you are a failure”

“Well, that one was another flop”

“Nobody cared one bit about a thing you just said”

“You don’t have it in you to confidently preach the word of God”

These are the thoughts that plague my mind. Many preachers have said in the past that they write a letter of resignation every Monday morning. Satan would love nothing more than to see us quite and cave. Every day you face a battle of the mind too. The devil whispers in your mind:

“You don’t need to spend any time in god’s word. you’re too busy”

“Just give in and do it. You know you want to”

“Obeying God is just too hard”

“You failed before, you’re just going to fail again.”

All sin can be traced back to a failure to think God’s thoughts about something because the battle starts in the mind. This is why it is so important for us to love the Lord our God with all our minds. To love him with out mind means to reverence Him, respect Him, love Him. The mind is the center of thoughts an we can either serve God with our thoughts or we serve ourselves and the devil. If you aren’t saved, your allegiance is already with the Devil. Let’s take a look at what God’s word says about the lost mind:

I. The State of the Lost Person’s Mind

Jeremiah 17:9 “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?”

Romans 1:16-17 “For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.”

Paul starts off his discussion in the book of Romans by setting up a central contrast between the saved and the lost. The saved which he calls here “the just” shall live which means to “be made alive.” We received eternal life by faith in Jesus Christ.

Romans 1:18 “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness;” God’s wrath is on those who hold down, supress the truth by their unrighteousness.

For those who have not placed their faith in Jesus Christ, the next section is a description of them. Paul starts of saying that God’s wrath is on them. Those who experience God’s wrath are the ungodly and unrighteous. Romans 3:23 “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God;” which includes all of us if we have not had our sins forgiven by faith in Jesus Christ. He further describes them as those who hold the truth in unrighteousness. The word here is “to supress” or you could say they hold it down. The world does not accept the truth of God’s word because it speaks against their lifestyle. They come up with all kinds of reasons to reject the truth. Transgenderism becomes something you are born with because they do not want to accept the thought that God created us male and female. Fornication becomes excused because you should restrain love and you can’t help who you love. They have rejected the truth because they want to live unrighteously.

Romans 1:19 “Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them.”

This verse teaches that what can be naturally known about God is clearly shown to them. Manifest means to be shown.

God has clearly revealed enough of himself to every person. There is not true atheist. The atheist does truly lack a belief in God, they just don’t like the God who does exist.

Romans 1:20-21 “For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse: Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.”

God has clearly revealed Himself as the creator, powerful and God. The end result is that all men are without excuse. In seeing all of this they have rejected it, they refuse to glorify God, they are not thankful; so what is the result their imaginations become worthless and their hearts are darkened or hardened. Even the lost tribesman in Africa who has not heard the name of Jesus has some knowledge of who God is and if he is lost, it is because he has rejected this truth.

Romans 1:23-27 “And changed the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man, and to birds, and fourfooted beasts, and creeping things. Wherefore God also gave them up to uncleanness through the lusts of their own hearts, to dishonour their own bodies between themselves: Who changed the truth of God into a lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen. For this cause God gave them up unto vile affections: for even their women did change the natural use into that which is against nature: And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly, and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.”

All world religions acknowledge a god, but they changed that god to be and act just like them or animals. They made god out to be just like all the other creatures of the earth. God stopped restraining them from evil and they gave in to homosexual desires.

Romans 1:28 “And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind, to do those things which are not convenient;” In the end God gives them over to a reprobate mind.

Summary:

They don’t glorify God

They do not give him the thanks He is due

They supress the truth

vain in their imaginations

heart is darkened

God gives them up

Replaced God’s truth with a lie

Reprobate mind

I used to think that this was kind of a spectrum and all men fell somewhere along here at some point but the really bad cases were those who had a reprobate mind. I have come to see that this description applies to all of mankind. All of them are guilt of not glorifying God, all of them don’t give him the thanks He deserves, all of them supress the truth, all of them are vain in their imaginations, all them have darkened hearts, and all are reprobate. They may not all be homosexual but they are all given over to vile affections which Paul defines even more in vs 29-32.

unrighteous

fornication

wickedness- unjust violence

coveteousness

maliciousness

full of envy- resentment

murder

debate

proud

boasters

inventors of evil- looking for new was to do wrong

disobedient to parents

without moral discernment

covenant breakers

without natural affection- no family ties

unpleasable

unmerciful

taking pleasure in getting others to sin

This entire list does not mean man is as bad as he can be, but we are all given over to vile affections in some way. If you do not know the Lord Jesus Christ as your saviour this is you. This is your mind now.

Regeneration is a necessary condition for loving God with your mind

Transition 1 Cor 2:11-16 “For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God. Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man receiveth not the things of the Spirit of God: for they are foolishness unto him: neither can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he that is spiritual judgeth all things, yet he himself is judged of no man. For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ.”

The natural man does not receive the things of God- he cannot accept them, they are foolish to Him because he is an enemy of God. In fact he does not even have the ability to understand the things of God. Why can’t he understand them? because he does not have the Spirit of God.

1 Cor 2:12 “Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the spirit which is of God; that we might know the things that are freely given to us of God.”

1 Cor 2:11 “For what man knoweth the things of a man, save the spirit of man which is in him? even so the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God.”

1 Cor 2:16 “For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ.”

II. The believers Mind

1 Cor 2:16 “For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? But we have the mind of Christ.”

When we are saved we are given the Spirit of God living inside of us to guide us, strengthen us, encourage us, convict us of sin. But it is this Spirit that allows us also to say, we have the mind of Christ. but just like the Corinthian church we often do not live according to what we know because we do not love the Lord with our minds. The corinthians church was known for carnality, for divisions, for pride, for incest, for hypocrisy, for fornication. Satan wants nothing more than to destroy your walk as a believer by getting you to live just like the rest of the world around you.

2 Cor 5:17 “Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new.”

Hebrews 8:10-13 “For this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people: And they shall not teach every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest. For I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their iniquities will I remember no more. In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away.”

III. The Battle for your Mind

Proverbs 4:23 “Keep thy heart with all diligence; For out of it are the issues of life.”

1 Peter 5:8 “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour:”

John 8:44 “Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and abode not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father of it.”

Gen 3:1 “Now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?” Satan began his very first attack on Eve by attacking the mind. The devil began by getting Eve to doubt what God had said. Once he was successful at getting her to doubt God’s truth, he replaced it with a lie Gen 3:4 “And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:” He told her an outright lie.

Satans method of attack is to get us to doubt God and then to replace the truth with a lie.

Examples of the battle for you mind:

Spiritual Depression- while there may be physical causes affiliated with depression, Spiritual depression is a battle of the mind. Satan comes along and plants thoughts in our mind such as “God doesn’t love you” “You are too far gone” “God can’t forgive that” “Your not good enough” “You are going to fail at anything you do”

Sexual sin- “As long as you love one another, there is nothing wrong with it” “Nobody knows what I am doing” “I am going to marry this person anyways”

Stealing- “I deserve to have this” “I won’t get caught” “Its not really that big of a deal”

Conclusion:

The next few nights we will be focusing on how to fight this battle. We need to train ourselves to be soldiers who can fight against the lies of the devil, but to do that you need to know what your weapons are.