Series 2
Episode 4
The New Christian Podcast
Title:
Defeating Strongholds
1.
Greetings
We all have strongholds in our lives, some deal with
then in constructive ways and some deal with them destructively. The key is to
have a plan for how to deal with your strongholds.
First, let define
what a stronghold: A stronghold is
a defensive structure: Psalms 9:9 The LORD is a refuge for the oppressed, a
stronghold in times of trouble.
Max Lucado says, does one prevailing problem stalk
your life? Where does Satan have a hook in you?
Some are prone to cheat. Others are quick to doubt. Maybe
you worry. Yes, everyone worries some – but you own the national
distributorship of anxiety. Perhaps you are judgmental. Sure, everybody can be
critical, but you pass more judgments than the Supreme Court.
What is that one weakness, bad habit, rotten attitude?
Where does the devil have a stronghold on you? Ahh, there is the word that
fits–stronghold–fortress, citadel, thick walls, tall gates. It’s as if the
devil has fenced in one negative attribute, one bad habit, one weakness and constructed
a rampart around it. “You ain’t touching this flaw,” he defies to heaven and he
places himself squarely between God’s help and your:
HOW DO WE BATTLE
THESE STRONGHOLDS???
2 Corinthians
10:1-6 Paul’s Defense of His Ministry
Warning Against
Walking According to the Flesh (10:1-2)
What is stunning is that the Corinthian church has
mistaken Paul’s lack of boldness and power as a lack of strength and ability.
Paul says in verse 2 that he does not want to have to come there and show them
boldness. But there are those who are walking according to the flesh. The irony
is that those who are charging Paul with “walking according to the flesh” are
actually themselves the ones walking according to the flesh.
Listen to verse 1. “I, Paul, myself entreat you, by
the meekness and gentleness of Christ….” What Paul has done for them is not
walk according to the flesh. Rather, Paul is exhibiting the meekness and
gentleness of Christ when he is with them. Here is a church with all kinds of
problems and yet when he is with them he shows the meekness and gentleness of
Christ. He does so to such a degree that he is actually criticized for his
humility. When it comes to understanding how we live our lives and deal with
one another, these are the characteristics people should see in us.
So often what Christians think they are to do is be loud
and cantankerous. It is almost as if the louder we get and the more stubborn we
get, then that shows how right we are. We think that we can loud or rude or
boisterous and in this way we can force others into yielding our way. Is
this how Jesus acted when he was challenged? Is this how Jesus acted when
people resisted and rejected him? Where do we ever see Jesus being loud,
boisterous, cantankerous, rude, pushy, or bully people around? The whole idea
of the word “meekness” is a person who has power but that power remains
constrained and under control. Listen to this description of Jesus:
It is worldly thinking and walking according to the
flesh when we quarrel, cry aloud, make noise, draw attention to ourselves, be
bold and loud, and run over others. This is not what we see in Jesus. This is
not what we see in Paul who is having to defend the gospel and his own
ministry.
We Do Not Wage War
Like The World (10:3)
The apostle Paul drives this point further in verse 3.
We live in the world but we do not wage the battle the way the world does. We
are human but we do not wage the war as humans do. Just because we are human
does not mean that we act like worldly people. Think about this: how we handle
disagreements and issues is not to be like how the world handles such things.
We are not to handle these things with anger, clamor, malice, egotism, withdrawal,
and the like. Friends, it is so easy to watch these behaviors on television and
watch these behaviors in our workplace and bring them into the assembly and
handle each other that way. We think that we need to be pushy and exert
ourselves. But Paul says that we do not wage war like the world does.
However, before we leave this verse we must consider
something else. We must acknowledge that the Christian life is described as a
battle. What Paul is not going to say is that we do not engage other people at
all. Paul is not going to say that we do nothing. This is easy for us to do,
isn’t it? When someone who claims to be a Christian and draws attention to
himself by being loud or pushy or intimidating, what do we so often do? We are
tempted to recoil and do nothing. I have seen this when it comes to elders,
preachers, leaders in the church, and Christians in general. Someone makes a
lot of noise so that they can try to look like they are right. Someone
intimidates another person by how they act, by using anger, egotism, malice,
fear, and the like. So what do we want to do? We want to just avoid the person.
But friends, Paul does not leave the Corinthians in that condition though they
have people who are acting this way. We are in a war but we do not wage war
like worldly people.
Fight Right
(10:4-6)
Now it is easy to read verses 4-6 as to how we fight the
thinking of the world. While we can make applications to this, this is not the
context of what Paul is talking about. The context is the worldly thinking of
these Christians in Corinth. Paul explains how we are to fight right. Paul
already told us that we are to maintain the meekness and gentleness of Christ
as we have relationships with one another. Look at verses 4-6 and notice what
else Paul points out that we are doing.
Notice that the goal is to get us and others to change
the way we think. Paul says that we are destroying arguments and lofty opinions
that are raised against the knowledge of God. We are taking every thought
captive to make it obey Christ. The battle begins with the way we think, not
what we do. We should know this truth because of how often Jesus taught this
very principle. Our actions follow our hearts. So bringing the war to our
actions is going to fail. Friends, this is why we fail in trying to conquer
weaknesses, temptations, and sins. What we do is we try to change the behavior.
But trying to change the behavior alone is never going to work because the
behavior comes from the overflow of our minds and hearts. Obedience to the Lord
does not come by trying harder. We have all tried to try harder and it does not
work. One of the purposes of the Law of Moses was to show that trying harder
is going to cause every person to fail.
So what has to happen? We need to change the mind. We
need to transform the heart. We need to change the way we think. This is what
Paul is describing here. We need to change the way we think. We need to take
every thought captive. Now what we like to do is believe that everyone else’s
thinking is wrong and ours is right. But we need to accept what the scriptures
teach us. The scriptures teach us that our thinking is broken. Your mind and
the way you think is just as broken as my mind and the way I think. Look at
Ephesians 4:17-24.
This is the only way we can change people. You realize
that you cannot change people, right? How many people enter into marriage
thinking they can change the other person! You cannot change them. But God can.
God changes people with the gospel. This is what Paul has that possesses divine
power (2 Corinthians 10:4). We are going to be compassionate, patient, gentle,
humble, and meek.
But this does not mean that we ignore sin. We see this
in 2 Corinthians 10:6. Paul says that after they have become fully obedient, he
will punish everyone who remains disobedient. At some point, disobedience must
be exposed. Paul is giving the Corinthians a chance to deal with these who are
walking according to the flesh before he gets there. Paul gives people the
opportunity for correction. We need to give people time to change. We need to
give people time to obey. But we cannot ignore sin. We cannot ignore sin in our
lives nor in the lives of others. We are not helping ourselves and we are not
helping others by ignoring sin because our souls are eternally lost if we do
that. We need the truth. We need the sin to be exposed. We will need to be
corrected and admonished. But we can do so with meekness and gentleness just as
Jesus did.
Conclusion
We are in a spiritual battle but the weapons we use
are not to be fleshly worldly weapons. We will use the message of the gospel
and show the love of Christ toward others as we go to war against the
strongholds and thoughts that stand against Christ.
We have a world whose thoughts stand in direct
rebellion to the Lord. We must be ready to use the gospel to change the way
people think about life, culture, values, truth, and their worldview. We will
show people in the world the love of Christ with all humility and gentleness
while still declaring sin to be a sin.
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