Freedom in Christ Session 6: Demolishing strongholds

The following sermon is taken from the Freedom in Christ Discipleship Course by Neil Anderson & Steve Goss.

Introduction

Over the past couple of months, as part of our Freedom in Christ preaching series, we have been thinking about the important question of who we are in Christ.

Get Volunteer and put on t-shirt

This is who we are in Christ. You probably can’t read what’s on the t-shirt so I’ll read it to you.

o We are God’s child, we belong to God, we are his family
o We are loved
o We are God’s masterpiece
o We are Significant
o We are Holy
o We are Beautiful
o We are Forgiven
o We are Unique
o We are Accepted
o We are Free

We are all of these things. Isn’t this incredible!

But I have a question for you when you woke up this morning and stood in front of the bathroom mirror, did you feel like God’s masterpiece?

Ladies, when you go shopping, and try on a pair of trousers or a new dress, and turn round and look in the mirror, do you think ‘beautiful!’

Men, when you are passed over for a promotion again, perhaps again, do you feel significant? These are all the things that the Bible says we are in Christ. But today we are going to think about something a bit different.

I have another t-shirt that ?????? will probably not enjoy wearing quite as much.

This is a different t-shirt, and I wonder if you can relate to some of the words written on here.

o Alone
o Rejected
o Useless
o Smelly
o A waste of space
o Unlovable
o Too quiet
o Too loud
o Ugly
o Stupid
o Worthless
o Fat

These are all things that perhaps you can relate to. They do something that the t-shirt illustrates quite well, they cover up all of the things that God says about us. Can you for example see that ????? is loved? No, because it’s covered by the word ‘Unlovable’. The Bible says that we’re all beautiful, but that is covered up, because some how, by some way we can think that we’re not beautiful.

Thank volunteer, ask them to sit down, but keep the t-shirt on.

Just think for a moment what is the most horrible thing someone has ever said to you? There are all kinds of things in our lives that have been said about us, most of which is untrue. We are all that first t-shirt, that’s what the Bible says: we are loved, fearfully and wonderfully made, God’s masterpiece, we are not what the second t-shirt says. But most of our lives we walk around believing what the second t-shirt says rather than what the first t-shirt says. And in fact that covers up everything that we are in Christ. So rather than believing we’re loved, we believe we’re unlovable. And that is what the first reading from Corinthians was about, it says that these things are strongholds.

This is a definition of a stronghold: “A mind-set impregnated with hopelessness that causes us to accept as unchangeable situations that we know are contrary to the will of God.” That is what that t-shirt illustration demonstrates. We believe the things that are on the outside t-shirt rather than the things on the inside t-shirt.

One of the reasons this happens, is that rather than believing what God says about us, we believe what others say about us. So for example, maybe as children someone said something negative about us, like “You’re useless”, “You’re a failure”, “You’re ugly”, and we go about believing that untruth.

Neil Anderson puts it like this: Strongholds are mental habit patterns of thought that are not consistent with God’s word. They are all the things we believe that just don’t match with the things God says about us. What God wants is for us to believe who we really are, he wants us to believe in the truth, and walk in the freedom he has given us. But all these strongholds, the things written on the outside t-shirt hide the truth.

I think for many of us, our self image of who we are, has been shaped by wrong information. These things the Bible calls strongholds.

How Strongholds Are Established

Our Environment

We can develop ways of thinking from our environment, our family, community, schools and friends, all have an effect upon us. In our early years of life, we learn all sorts of things. I find it fascinating watching Tomek & Adam growing up as they explore the world, and learn about who they are and the environment in which they live. The people we meet, the friends we make, our first job, all these things shape who we are and teach us things, but not always positive things. Our families and communities can make a huge difference in our patterns of behaviour.

Just to give you an example, I want to tell you the story of a family of three boys, whose father is an alcoholic and is violent towards them. When their father comes home drunk these three children develop different ways of coping. The eldest one feels he can stand up to his dad: “lay one hand on me and you’ll regret it!” The middle one accommodates: “Hi dad, can I get you something?” The third runs away and hides in the wardrobe. Twenty years later, their father is long gone and these three children are adults. When they are confronted by a hostile situation, how do they respond? The chances are that the eldest one will fight, the middle one will accommodate and the youngest one will run away.

The environment will live in and grow up in can create the strongholds in our lives.

Traumatic Experiences

Traumatic experiences can also set up strongholds because of their intensity: for example death in a home or a divorce, and so forth.

These traumatic experiences in themselves don’t produce strongholds, but the lies we believe as a result of it.

These traumatic experiences can really make these strongholds take hold of our lives.

For example, if someone is in an abusive relationship, they can end up believing the lies that they are helpless, useless, and always the victim. None of these things are true about that person, but they believe that they are, and they shape not only the present but also the future, their personality, how they cope with life.

A mental stronghold is a lie based on past experiences that can be torn down in Christ.

The problem with strongholds is that if what you believe does not reflect truth, then what you feel will not reflect reality. You may feel rejection when you are not rejected. You may feel helpless to change when actually you’re not.

Temptation

Strongholds are also formed or reinforced when we repeatedly give into temptation. Every temptation is an attempt to get you to live your life that is not relying on God. Temptations come from different kinds of places, but ultimately the Bible tells us very clearly that Satan is a tempter. The thing about Satan is that he has observed us, and he knows those weak areas of our lives where we are most tempted, whatever that may be. We are all vulnerable in different places. But the Bible says this, “No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it.” (1 Corinthians 10:13).

So where is that way of escape when we are tempted? The answer is right at the beginning.- when the tempting thought first comes into your mind, that is when we should say no to it. In our reading from 2 Corinthians 10:5 Paul writes that we are to “take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ,” in other words, to ask God when thoughts come into our head, Lord is this true?

To give an example, suppose you area of weakness was pornography. And as you are sitting at home at night, you remember you don’t have any milk for your cereal tomorrow morning. There are two places you could go: a corner shop or a petrol station that sells milk and pornography. Which one are you going to go to? Your chance to make the right choice comes right at the beginning. As soon as you decide to go to the garage rather than the corner shop, you are on a slippery slope. Take every thought captive, that’s what the Bible says. But if you start not doing that, it becomes much harder to break the temptation, God always gives us a way of escape.

You mind is like an airport and you are the air traffic controller. A lot of thoughts ask for permission to land. But you have complete control over which will land and which will be turned away. You have to decide right at the outset. The moment you give a tempting thought permission to land, the chances of your being able to turn it away reduce significantly. Take every thought captive and turn it over to God.

Tempting thoughts that are not dealt with straight away lead on to actions. Repeating the action will result in a habit. Exercising the habit long enough produces a stronghold.

Effects of strongholds

Faulty view of reality

Strongholds affect the way we view the world. Things become not what we know to be true but how we feel they should be. But that’s not what the Bible wants us to do. For example in Isaiah 55:9 the Lord declares, “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than you ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.”

God really knows better than we do, he knows infinitely more than we do. And his view on reality is much clearer than our view on reality. And therefore we need to “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding.” (Proverbs 3:5) We don’t lean on our own understanding because it is false, we are always tempted to do this, and try and live life the way we think God wants us to. But actually we need to know the reality God wants us to live.

Bad Choices

Strongholds also affect the choices we make. How we live. If we are trying to make decisions, how do we make them? Do we make them in the light of what God says about who we are and the way we should live, or do we make them in the light of the way we perceive life?

Strongholds often push us to make bad choices, because they are always based on false information. A stronghold will predispose us to ignore the “Danger” signs that God has posted, making us think that we know best what choices to make.

Every day we have an opportunity to live the way God wants us to, but often we ignore than because of the affect strongholds have on our lives.

So what do we do about these strongholds? If they are affecting our view of reality and our choices what can we do about them?

Demolishing Strongholds

The truth is that we don’t have to put up with strongholds in our lives. Paul writes, “For though we live in the world we do not wage war as the world does. The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take every thought captive to make it obedient to Christ.” (2 Corinthians 10:3-5)

The world we are living in is waging war at us, and usually it is our own strongholds that are waging war at us. The Bible gives us a few clear ways we can sort this out.

If you have a computer, chances are you also have a virus checker on the computer. One of the first things my computer does when I start it up, is that it checks for viruses. We need to do that too – we need to uncover and deal with any footholds the enemy may have in our lives. We need to open up ourselves to the Lord, and ask him to show us what strongholds there are in our lives, and to ask for the Holy Spirit to bring these things before God, so that he can deal with these corrupting influences in our lives, and so we can see life his way.

The Holy Spirit helps us to realise that the things that have happened to us in our lives, do not have to shape us in the way that they have been. The Holy Spirit helps us to check these viruses, to realise why these strongholds exist, and what they are.

The next thing we need to do is re-programme our mind. Once we have checked for viruses, we need to live in the way that we know is true, rather than the way we often feel. So instead of believing that we are useless, we have to believe that we are God’s workmanship, that we are fearfully and wonderfully made. Re-programming our minds may mean dealing with some habits, having to face things that have always been temptations for us.

Finally, we need to take every thought captive. When we are tempted to believe a lie, we need to confront it with the truth. When we are tempted to believe I am unloved, we need to believe that we are loved. When we are tempted to feel angry, we need to ask, “God fill me with peace.” When we are tempted to do something that we know is wrong, we need to ask for God’s help in that moment.

The reality is that we all have strongholds in our lives. Invite person with t-shirt to front of church.

What God wants us to do, through checking for viruses, reprogramming our minds, and taking every thought captive, is he wants us to get rid of the outside t-shirt, and he wants us to believe the things on the first t-shirt. This is the way you were created, this is who you really are. Are we going to believe those things, or the other things, because if we believe the truth of God our lives become very, very different.