Psalm 139:23-24 [NLTse]

Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. Point out anything in me that offends You, and lead me along the path of everlasting life.

Sermon – “Winning the War of the Mind”

Anybody recognize this? Yeah, it’s a sonogram. It’s just a picture I took off the internet, but I remember Amy and I going in for her whatever week sonogram all excited to see what our son, Caleb, was doing, making sure he was healthy, and hoping to get a glimpse of what he was going to look like… We didn’t want the technician to show us his private parts because – like with all three of our kids – we wanted to be surprised and wait until they were born to find out whether they were a boy or a girl. But I remember it was exciting…

Have you seen the new 3-D sonograms? Yeah, it’s like you’re right in there with the little guy or gal…

First we had X-rays, and then CT scans, and now MRIs. We had sonograms and now 3-D sonograms, and even (what they’re calling) 4-D sonograms – a 3-D movie of your unborn child skipping and dancing and sticking out their tongue in the womb! Science is constantly improving the ways of showing us what we can’t – on our own – see. What’s going on out there in space and the far corners of the universe; what’s going on at the molecular, atomic, and subatomic levels; what’s going on inside of our bodies, and even inside our various organs and cells themselves! Right inside a mom’s womb!

And yet, to see inside a persons’ heart – to see the condition of one’s soul – that remains a mystery…

Two Sunday’s ago we started talking about the spiritual battle that’s going on in every Christian’s mind: The battle that would distract us from God’s things (if we would let it); the battle that would make us luke-warm about Jesus (if we were to ignore it); the battle that could keep us from growing in Christ (if we weren’t to fight it); the battle that could make our lives no different than if we had never believed (if we were to lose it).

We talked about how this battle is waged around different lies we’ve believed: The lies that, perhaps, we believed before we gave our lives to Christ and that our hopes and fears are built upon; or the lies that, perhaps, we’ve come to believe through the effectiveness of the devil’s propaganda around us in our culture; lies that we’ve believed so thoroughly that we’ve built our values, our relationships, set our priorities, and developed our ways of living upon them. (Or been strongly influenced by them.)

To engage in the battle we need to be able to identify these lies. But how can a person see inside his or her own heart? O, if we could only see inside our souls as readily as we can see inside a mother’s womb!

But God has given us a way: In our families; in the Body of Christ.

Many of us are surrounded by family members and Christian friends who love us enough to tell us the truth about those idols we’ve unknowingly put our trust in, those lies of the world we’ve at different times believed, those twisted or misapplied truths that we’ve built our lifestyles and set our dreams upon. Usually we hear about these things from them when we’re in an argument, but here’s an opportunity to ask them for ourselves: To get their help against these battles we’re fighting in our minds.

Insecurity, jealousy, money, arrogance, rage, appearances… are all among the replies we should prepare ourselves to hear. But let’s try to receive them in love, asking clarifying questions if we need to, but perhaps just accepting the list as it is given to seek the Lord more about in our prayers.

Scott Thomas, one of the pastors of the online Acts 29 Network, has put together a listing of 35 questions a person who wants to know the truths of these hidden things might ask themselves. If you’ll look in your bulletins you’ll find it there… The questions are intended to help us see what our fears are based on, the focus of our dreams, where we’ve truly placed our hopes. Answer the questions honestly. Again, I would encourage you to bounce the results off a family member or Christian friend who knows us well and loves us enough to do the difficult things. The Lord teaches us that “just as you can identify a tree by its fruit, so you can identify people by their actions.” (Matthew 7:20) And so you and I can trust that those closest to us will know the truth of these things.

All the while, of course, let’s be asking God to reveal these secrets to us. God knows our hearts. Acts 1:24 tells us God knows every heart. Psalm 44:21 makes clear He knows the secrets of every heart. And Psalm 139:4 shows us that He indeed does since He knows what we’re going to say even before we’ve said it. We can count on Him helping us to know our hearts and reveal to us these secrets of our souls.

(This may all sound very psycho-babbly, and this part kind of is. But if we want to defeat our enemy it helps to know the weapons the enemie’s using to try and defeat us. And once we have an idea what it is that we’ve believed that is not true or what we’ve put our hope and trust in that are not God, we can begin training and equipping ourselves to believe and trust rightly and win the fight!)

Now that we know we have an enemy and know some of the lies and twisted truths he may be using against us, we can start fighting back. And, as we’ve been talking about these past two weeks, that’s where the Bible comes in.

Last week Pete Chapin from The Gideon’s International ministry came and shared story after story about the ways that simply reading and believing the Bible have transformed peoples’ thinking and lives around the world. Hebrews 4:12 says, “The Word of God is alive and powerful. It is sharper than the sharpest two-edged sword, cutting between soul and spirit, between joint and marrow. It exposes our innermost thoughts and desires.” Just what we need – now that we have some insight into some of those innermost thoughts and desires that might be keeping us from growing in Christ – just what we need to begin getting them out of us!

So, with “money” and “appearances” in mind, (two of the most prominent deceptions and twisted truths around our culture) how can I find out what God says is the truth about these things that are keeping me from fully giving Jesus my heart?

[Pick up the concordance.] Well, this is a concordance. Every single word that’s found in the Bible can be found in a concordance. (And many Bibles have little concordances in the backs of them, as well.) So I can look up “money” in my concordance and find every instance where the word “money” is used across the Scriptures. [Pick up the topical bible.] Or, this is a topical bible. Since looking up the word “appearances” may not take me to helpful passages or truth I can look up “appearances” and see what I can find, but I can also look up “vanity” since that’s related to it, or “beauty”. And it will show me the different teachings across the Bible about these things.

Of course, the computer makes it so easy. Bible Gateway is the most used Bible tool on the internet. Type in biblegateway.com; click on “Topical Index” in the left-hand column; and type “money” into the Search box. Depending on how often the Bible speaks about your topic – money’s a biggie – you might get a handful or you might get pages of listings. With “money” typed in the search bar you can see listings ranging from what the money referred to in the Bible was made from as well as examples of those who were covetous in wanting the money others had, and, as you can see, a lot more.

Now, when I typed “appearances” into the Search box I got a bunch of hits about “angel appearances” and “miraculous appearances” and the like. But when I typed in “vanity” and “beauty” I came up with all sorts of examples and truths to help put my twisted thoughts right again.

The goal of using these concordances and topical bibles is to equip us with Scripture passages that we can read again and again, meditating upon them, asking the Father to reveal to us how our lives would be different if we truly believed these things. To write these truths, to recite these truths, to pray asking the Lord to make these truths – His truth – the bases for the ways we live, for our deepest and innermost desires and dreams. We’ll talk more about that next week.

John Calvin wrote in his Institutes of the Christian Religion, “The human heart is a factory of idols… Everyone of us is, from his mother’s womb, expert in inventing idols.” You and I can know that something or someone is an idol in our hearts if it gives us worth, value, identity, peace, satisfaction, meaning or fulfillment because only the gospel can truly provide these things. Salvation, satisfaction, significance and pleasure are ultimately only found in Jesus: Only Jesus will never disappoint us. And if we ask Him and seek Him He will work with us and help us to uncover and get rid of every counterfeit!

So with the Holy Spirit’s help, search out the appropriate scriptures that address your issues. These scriptures will tell you what God is saying about that issue and will also give you your weapons of warfare to meditate and act upon on against them.

We’ll talk more next Sunday about some daily disciplines and a “training regimen” we can implement to win this “battle of our minds”.

Come! Bring your friends! And grow in the freedom we have in Christ. Jesus is the truth. And the truth will set us free!