Overcoming Strongholds: A Journey to Spiritual Victory

We had community events like love Tuolumne County, not my kid. We’ve had cleanups here. We’ve had so many different things. Conferences, FootHill pregnancy center dinners, all of this stuff that this house has contributed to serving our community, being the church, being the church, being the church. Amen.

The church isn’t about just sitting in this room, right? It is about being the church. Wherever we go, wherever we are sent. Amen, Amen and you know, before Easter, we finished studying a long study of the book of Ephesians. Sorry. What? Oh, yes. Before I get totally going into my message, thank you, Jonathan, for reminding me we have one more announcement that he forgot to make.

First.

And then I forgot to make second. So we’re not going to make it a third mistake. anybody that’s involved in our altar ministry, praying for people here during worship. We’re going to have a meeting right after service. So if you could meet pastor Bob right up front here. so I can’t let this moment go by.

We want to meet with you guys. So thank you so much. okay, so before Easter, we finished a long series on the book of Ephesians, this roadmap on how to live as Christ followers, this this book that is all about the unity of Christ’s church and the walking out of the challenges that life brings us, right?

Especially the challenges that life brings us with doing life together. Maybe it’s just me, okay? The challenges I might face with doing life together. And it ended in Ephesians six with spiritual warfare. And we spent a few weeks talking about spiritual warfare in Ephesians six and the weapons of our warfare and prayer and supplication and what it is.

But I believe that the time that we are in it is imperative that we have an understanding of this spiritual warfare deeper. So we’re going to take a few more weeks to talk about spiritual warfare. I hope that’s okay with you guys. You know, so here we are after weeks and weeks, we did this whole said in Ephesians.

We ended in spiritual warfare. And then we had almost eight weeks of giving and giving and serving and serving and more serving as anybody had some battles. Cool. I did, I have, yes. Then you’re doing something right. Right. If you are having battles, you are doing something right. The enemy is not threatened by you. If you are not doing something right.

I’m saying he’s going to leave you alone when you’re not doing something right. Okay, so let me just say right now, if there has been battles that you have been facing and there are challenges that have been coming up, maybe even unexpectedly, you’re doing something right. You have.

So here we are, spiritual warfare. You know, Pastor Steven Ward spoke last Sunday, and he even mentioned some a few things in his message, calling us into intimacy in sonship, but that we need to understand the reality of spiritual warfare. You see, the enemy seeks to derail us believers from our paths and to hinder our maturity in Christ.

Satan’s job is to try to hinder our growth, to keep us where we are at. To hinder our progress and our transformation and our lives into maturity. You see, God has given us this great invitation not just to salvation, which is the start, but he has given us an invitation to transformation. You know, we’ve spent the last year talking over and over again about revival.

Does anybody remember this? We’ve talking and we’ve talked about revival, what it is we spoke about, and we learned about what revival looked like in the early churches. We went through all of the different letters in the epistles of the Paul speaking to the churches in this time where the world was being turned upside down and revival was happening on a scale that we can’t even comprehend right.

This. And then we started talking about what it looks like for us to continue to walk in this place of revival. And I like one of the things that Pastor Stephen said last week. He says it’s not just about revival because the word itself is on one time event, and that’s why we’ve been talking about this, living in and walking out the revived life that Christ has given us.

And he put it this way. He said, it’s about renewal. It’s about renewal. It’s about the walking. It’s about the journeying. God does not function as a God of transaction. He functions as a God of transformation. That’s a quote from Pastor Stephen Ward last week. God does not function as a God of transaction. It’s not do this and I’ll give you that.

He is a God of transformation. He is a God who doesn’t leave us where we’re at. He says, come as you are, but please don’t stay there because I have something so much better for you than where you are right now. I have something so much greater for you and where you are right now. God is a God of transformation.

Romans 12 two do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed. Be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is good and acceptable and perfect will of God. Go back one the new King James. It says, be not conform not to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. In the NLT it says, don’t copy the behaviors and customs of this world, but let God transform you, transform you into a new person.

Here’s the key by changing the way you think.

This is what transformation is. This is what renewing is. And walking in renewal allow God to transform the way that we think.

Says, then you will learn. Can you put that one back up? Then you will learn to know God’s will for you. I don’t know about any of you, but I spent a lot of my life going, God, what do you have for me? What is my purpose? What is your will for me? I think as a young person, it’s one of the the biggest struggles that we face.

What am I supposed to do? God, I love you. I want to serve you. But what is my purpose?

This scripture tells us when we will learn to know God’s will. He says, this is when you’re going to know, let’s pay this. Pay attention real quick. Here. You’re going to know God’s will for us when we stop copying the behaviors and customs of the world.

And start letting God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. The Passion Translation says it like this. Stop imitating the ideals and opinions of our culture around you. But be inwardly transformed by the Holy Spirit through a total reformation of how you think. This will empower you to discern God’s will as you live a beautiful life, satisfying and perfect in his eyes.

Stop imitating the ideals and opinions of our culture. If we want to know if we’ve been transformed, this is a good place to check. Are we imitating the culture that is surrounding us? Are we copying the behavior and the customs of our world? Are we allowing the things that our world says is okay to change the way I think?

To change my opinions about matters of scripture? Come on. Am I allowing what the world says is right and

wrong to skew what I am willing to get up on a platform and say, am I allowing the cultural influence is to shut my mouth in my school or in my job, to not speak the truth of God in love?

If we want to understand God’s will. We have to allow him to transform us. This is where it’s at, guys. This is where the battle is. It is in our minds. This is where it is. Okay, we talk about spiritual warfare and I know I want to be really clear in the scriptures are says it clear it’s not people really clear.

We are not worrying against people even when it feels like it sometimes we are not warring against people. We are worrying against powers and principalities. And it is a war that is won or lost in our minds. This is where it’s at. God is expanding people. God is moving. God is fulfilling His Word, and he’s taking us to places that he’s called us, and he’s taking us into deeper, deeper places with him.

Yes, God is moving, but as he does, we have an enemy at work as well, and he needs to be exposed. Our enemy and his tactics need to be exposed, and we need to recognize the weapons that we have to defeat him. You know, he is a defeated foe. The only thing that he can do is convince you to quit, to convince you to back off, to convince you to let go.

That is the only tactic he has. He does it in a lot of ways, and he comes at it from all different perspectives. The only way he wins is to convince us otherwise, because the Word of God says that he wins, God wins, and greater is he that is in me than he that is in the world. So no weapon formed against me is going to prosper because greater is he that is in me.

I have everything that I need to walk in godliness. I have everything that I need inside of me to walk. An overcoming life free from influences of depression, free from influences of our culture, free from confusion and torment. I can live a life of peace and love and joy in the Holy Spirit, because that is who he made me, and he made you.

And he’s calling us to this place to say, Will you let me transform your mind? So you really believe that? Yes. Here’s the deal. We can read scriptures all day long and we can quote it over and over again. But until we actually have a revelation inside of us, and we truly believe who God says that we are just here, we will keep going back.

We will keep going back into the cycle. But God has come today to break off the cycle, to break off the places that have been on repeat and repeat and repeat. Who’s tired of the repeat? Who’s tired of the same old thoughts? Who’s tired of the same old battle? I am but he is a defeated foe. He is a defeated foe.

And we must recognize this. Our story says the reason why many fail in the battle is because they wait until the hour of the battle.

The reason why others succeed is because they have gained their victory on their knees, long before the battle ever came.

He’s calling us to a place of preparation, to understand the battle that we are in, to understand the time that we are in, to understand what God is doing in the earth and the opposing forces that are there, so that we are not ignorant, but that we are ready. All right, second Corinthians chapter ten. If you want to turn in your Bibles, you can follow with us on the screen.

We’re going to be talking about spiritual warfare. As you probably haven’t guessed already. Thoughts?

Right. Second Corinthians ten verses three through six. For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments, and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ and being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled.

Now, this is a very familiar scripture to some of us, and it may be a very new scripture for others of us. So I want to take a couple minutes and break a few things down in this scripture, because this is a really important scripture for us to understand in this hour, for us to find out the heart of God and be able to walk into our purposes.

Like I said.

Like I mentioned, we do not. War in the flesh says our weapons of warfare are not carnal, which means fleshly things I can touch, okay, but they’re mighty in God. They’re spiritual for pulling down strongholds. So pulling down there, it means to demolish. Now, I don’t know about you, but if you demolish some things, there’s really nothing left but rubble, right?

Demolishing doesn’t mean like we’re going to just put this over here and we’re going to put a hole in this wall, right? If I’m going to demolish a wall, the whole thing is gone. Putting a hole in a wall does not demolish it right? Demolishing destruction. Destruction. That’s what this means to pull down strongholds. Strongholds. This is this is great strongholds.

Often are a castle or a prison. Amen.

It’s to fortify through the idea of holding safely.

Yeah, I thought that was very interesting. Stronghold. I’m going to just say it again to fortify through the idea of holding safety. You know, we have strongholds in our lives. We have strongholds that we’ve built up in our mind. These can be belief systems that we have set up oftentimes based on lies from our enemy. That can I just say, when the enemy brings lies, there’s usually an element of truth that he uses first.

There is an element of truth that he uses. And then what he does is he twists it into a complete lie. One of my dad, one of my favorite teachings my dad did when I was young, and he was talking about these things, some of these things. He used the example of rat poisoning. 97% of rat poisoning is corn.

3% is strychnine. The enemy can use truth, but because he brings a lie in it, it is poisonous. And the enemy comes and he brings lies into our minds. Like I said, usually based in some sort of truth twisted enough that all of a sudden we see everything through that lens. This is what a stronghold is, okay? A belief system that we’ve set up based on a lie, that we see everything through that lens.

We start believing that this is truth and we set up our lives around it.

When I was about 20 years old, the Lord delivered me from a lying spirit, giving me ideals and standards that I could never live up to.

But I based my life around this truth that I had to be excellent in all things. A good thing right? Not a bad thing. The Bible tells us to do things in excellence. But the enemy came in and he took my insecurities. And he inserted a lie that said, your value is based on these standards. And then he put the standards up there. God didn’t put the standards up there. He put the standards in my in my mind and said, these are the standards. And they were so unrealistic and I would work so hard and I would never, ever, ever be able to measure up again.

And I tried. I remember when I got delivered from that, the Lord brought me all the way back, and when it started, I was in third grade, was in third grade, and my whole childhood I lived this lie that my worth and my value was based on my performance.

And it wasn’t. It wasn’t something that my parents said to me. It was something that the enemy said to me. And then I began to put a stronghold in my life and built my life around it. Like, guys, I’m not kidding you. I was not happy with an A, I had to have the highest A in the class.

I’m not kidding you. This is who I was. And I’m not saying it’s always bad. The problem is, it was based on a lie of the enemy that my identity was attached to something other than Christ. And when he brings a lie that your identity is attached to anything other than God and Christ himself, it is not from God.

It’s from the pit of hell. And he’s get he’s doing that to cycle us into this place where we are working for work’s sake. We are doing good just to do good. We are not doing it to serve the Lord. We are doing it to serve ourselves and the ideals and the standards that we have now put in our lives.

This is a stronghold. This was a stronghold for me that God broke in my life when I was 20 years old. I wish I could say I’ve never struggled with it again.

It’s something that I battle that I have to constantly be tearing down. That’s a lie. That is not God. That’s a lie. That is not God. It’s a stronghold, a belief system. A stronghold can also be a defensive place that we’ve built around us to keep us safe.

To keep us safe from places of pain.

I’m not going to be hurt there again. Never again. Fool me once. Shame on you. Fool me twice. Shame on me. That is a defensive place. That we build up to protect us. The problem with that is that we keep everybody out. And the enemy can isolate us as we push people away. And we push people away, and we push people away because I’m never again again going to put myself in a place to be hurt.

So sooner than later, Harry, I’m all by myself, completely isolated. Nobody. Nobody’s there. Everybody’s at an arm distance. Nobody’s close. Everybody’s surface.

These are strongholds. Cathy prophesied it today. What do we have that we need to cast down? What do we have that we think is keeping us safe? Ken, reality is not that we need to cast down. What are the places that I’m believing a lie about who I am that needs to be cast down?

Casting down means to lower with violence. I’m sorry. There’s nothing pretty about casting down to lower with violence. To destroy. What is it that we have to lower to make low, to destroy and demolish in our lives? God is asking us today. He’s given us everything that we need. Jerusalem did an amazing job of talking about and preaching about the weapons of our warfare.

And I encourage you to go back, to the beginning of March and listen to those. There was three messages. It was Jeremiah Tasker, Drew Welty and Pastor Pastor Jonathan. And they talked about the spiritual warfare. And they did an amazing job of breaking this down. And our weapons, this is what our weapons are supposed to break down.

We use those weapons. We use the belt of truth. We have to speak truth over the places of lies. You know, for me, the only thing that has kept me free from that lie is speaking truth. It is my foundation. I have to use the sword of the spirit, the Word of God. I gotta cover my head with the helmet of salvation, knowing who I am and whom I belong to.

Those are the places these are the weapons. And this is where we get to demolish the strongholds that the enemy has come into. Set up the places of defense, the places, the mindsets that we believe a lie. These are the weapons. And this is what we use them for.

So the rest of the Scripture says casting down arguments. So our weapons are for the pulling down of strongholds. Therefore the casting down of arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God. Now that casting down, I said, it means to lower violently arguments. And the King James says imaginations. So some of you may know that scripture casting down imaginations in the new King James it says arguments that word means reasonings and thoughts.

A logical conclusion.

Sometimes our logical conclusion is contrary to the Word of God.

And we have to cast it down. This is a criteria it goes under, though we make this clear, the arguments that we need to cast down are anything that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, anything that rises up against anything that is being held above that is arrogant enough to put itself above the Word of God. Those are the logical conclusions that we have to cast down.

You see, the weapons that we have are more than capable to destroy and demolish and demolish every place that we have built up for our own safety, and that keeps us prisoner. The weapons that we have are more than capable to destroy and demolish any thought, logical or illogical, real or imagined, that is being held above or is contrary to the Word of God, who God is and who I am, and God.

That is what we are getting to do with this scripture. That is the permission that God has given us, the authority that we get to walk in. He’s like, I’ve given it all to you so you can walk in this. Use your weapons wisely, cast it down, destroy every place that exalts itself above God, that exalts itself, that is being held above or contrary to who God is and who God says you are.

In the NLT. Second Corinthians ten verses three through six says, we are humans. We don’t wage war as humans do. We use God’s mighty weapons, not worldly weapons, to knock down strongholds of human reasoning and to destroy false arguments. We destroy every proud obstacle that keeps people from knowing God. We capture their rebellious thoughts and teach them to obey Christ and then passions.

Translation it says, for although we live in the natural realm, we don’t wage a military campaign employing human weapons. Listen to this. This is also a description of a human effort. Human weapon, using manipulation to achieve our aims.

We have to understand that we are fighting a spiritual battle, and when we try to fight a spiritual battle with human weapons, we have a problem. Using manipulation to achieve our aim is not a spiritual weapon.

Our spiritual weapons are energized with divine power to effectively dismantle the defenses behind which people hide. We can demolish every deceptive fantasy that opposes God, and break through every arrogant attitude that is raised up in defiance of the true knowledge of God. We capture, like prisoners of war, every thought and insist that it bow in obedience to the Anointed One.

We capture every thought and insist that it bow to the obedience of Christ, to the obedience of the Anointed One. We have got to take our thoughts captive, which means we have to actually recognize what is God and what is not. And as soon as we recognize the lie, as soon as we recognize the deception, we have to capture it, which means we’ve got to stop it.

Amen. It’s not good enough to call it out. We have to stop it. It says, take it captive like a prisoner of war. Every thought bringing it in to the obedience of Christ. Every thought and insist that it bow to the obedience of the Anointed One.

You see, taking thoughts captive is the beginning of the transforming of our mind. It is the beginning of having spiritual clarity and understanding to the purposes and will of God. We need to understand what these thoughts are. You know, thoughts are defined, as the propositions of the heart.

The heart is a man’s organ. The propositions are his activities. That’s from Watchman Knee and Authority and submission book.

You see, we will build our lives on what we think. What we allow to have residence in our mind is what we build our lives on.

We will build our lives based on the thoughts. And those thoughts are the very ideas that we reason with. When we make decisions through reasonings of the mind, we establish strongholds that lock us behind those thoughts and cause captivity. Captivity shows up in every area of struggle that we have in our lives, and this leads us to dealing with our thoughts.

Using a spiritual perspective. We have to deal with our thoughts. We have to recognize that we need to identify the places in our lives, that our thoughts are not those of God. And, you know, sometimes they’re small, sometimes they’re big, sometimes they’re easy to identify and sometimes they’re not. But God is challenging us today to expose the thoughts that have created strongholds and that have kept us captive.

He’s challenging us today to identify God’s thoughts in our lives so that we can speak that truth over that place of lies. We have everything that we need to walk this out, and he’s challenging us today. Will we recognize his?

Will we recognize? And take prisoner the thoughts and require them to bow to the authority of Christ? Will we recognize the strongholds that we’ve built up in our lives? The defenses, the belief systems, and make them bow? To the knowledge of Christ. To demolish them so they have no more strength and no more hold. You are able. Because he is in you.

Amen. It’s not something that we have to be good enough. Try hard enough. White knuckle it enough. No. He put it in you. He’s given you everything. He’s given us everything that we need. Every weapon at our disposal. Will we use them? Well, we use them. Amen. Amen. Church.

And then when I invite you guys over to fellowship, we have food for everybody. So please come and join us. If we have a couple people that are willing to help us get some things set up, that would be great. pastor Selena Michelle could use a few hands. but if you guys are. Just be patient, or you can take us a few minutes to get the food out, but let’s go and fellowship.

Amen. And then also, if you’re a part of the altar ministry, please go ahead and come on up and meet us. Pastor Bob.