The Battle For Your Mind

This is from a transcript of a sermon preached by Dr. Jack Graham on October 2, 2011

You know, one of the seniors was saying, “Shout unto God with a voice of triumph!” Amen! Thank you so very much! You know, worship is a powerful tool in this invisible war… a weapon in this invisible war as we defeat the enemy because we know Jesus never fails!

I want to welcome all of you here today in Plano and at our other campuses in Dallas and up in Prosper/Celina region. And all of you who are watching by television or online. We do have three campuses and if you’re ever in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area those of you watching us by television or online, please come and join us and worship with us at one of our three locations. You can find out where we meet, when we meet on Prestonwood.org.

Well, we are in a series of messages called INVISIBLE—THERE’S MORE TO LIFE THAN WHAT YOU SEE, and there truly is. We need to learn how to live above “see-level”; just what we see, just what we feel. Beyond our physical senses there is a world… a real world… a realm of life beyond what is seen. What… Beyond what you would consider perhaps normal or even natural. The supernatural or the spiritual! And as believers in Jesus Christ we understand that we are engaged in a spiritual battle. We’ve been talking about that the last several weeks, and we have a very real enemy. And we also have equipment, the armor of God, and we put on each piece with prayer. And with the armor of God, with the sword of the Spirit in our hand we can defeat the enemy because Jesus never fails. In all these things we are more than conquerors. We are super-conquerors! He always causes us to live in triumphant processional because of what Christ has done for us.

But if we talk about winning and victory, you, of course, must talk about battles. And the battle is a good thing. Satan is a defeated foe. We know that… we’ve learned that. He has no authority. Any authority he has been given to him. He is a usurper. He has no right or authority in your life as a follower of Christ. But that does not mean that we don’t have skirmishes and struggles because the Bible teaches us that life is a battleground. And life can be extremely hard. But the battle is good; the battle is a good thing. It means that we are alive in Christ. It means that we have raised the rancor of the enemy.

Somebody said, “Well, I don’t have too much trouble with the devil.” Well, that could be because you’re going the same direction he is! You turn around and go another way and live for Christ, you’ll meet him face to face, along with his fiends and forces from hell, the demon spirit.

So the battle is good; it is the fact that you are alive in Christ! And you are engaging the enemy. I like what Bible teacher John McArthur has said, “The greatest joys come in the greatest victories, and the greatest victories come from the greatest battles when they are fought in the power and with the armor of the Lord!”

Where do we fight this battle? What is this battle? Let me talk about battles. There are battles of different kinds, of course, but primarily the battle that we fight… the battle that we face is between the ears. That’s why I’m calling this message “The Battle for Your Mind.” Satan desires to create doubt, confusion, even despair in the pathways of your brain in your mind, and to control the way you think. We know the Bible tells us [Proverbs 23:7] “As a man thinks in his heart so is he.” We are what we think. You may not be what YOU think you are, but what you are is what you think. You think what you are! And it is the brain that becomes the control force of our very lives. Of course, we’re to protect the brain against the onslaught, the onslaught of Satan himself.

I’ve got, I brought a prop. Ephesians 5:17 says that we are to put on look at it, Ephesians 5:17 that we are to “Put on the helmet of salvation and take up the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God.” Now I’ve got a Prestonwood Academy Lions helmet here and I want to congratulate both Trinity and Prestonwood for putting on an unbelievable football game last Friday night. The final score was 64 to 59. Now that’s an offensive battle right there! And it was quite a show. Congratulations to all who participated.