I Want to be More Spiritually Minded

Introduction

All right, good evening. Great to see everybody. I especially want to say a special uh thanks to all of you who are uh well carting around children tonight. God bless you. Uh I remember those days very well. I’m an empty nester now, so you can see kind of the freedom in my walk. All right. Life is good. But, but here’s my point. I remember those days well. And you’ve already been at work all day, kids have been at school all day, you’ve had a lot going on all day. You get home, you immediately feed everybody as fast as you can. You jump in the car, you raise the services, you know, you gotta go home tonight, maybe finish some homework and do whatever else. I just want you to know how much I appreciate your faith, your dedication, and I want to say to all the parents out there who have had to make great effort tonight to be here with your families, you will never, ever, ever regret doing what you’re doing.

Never. You’re never gonna regret it. You’re just never going to regret it. So thank you very much. And those of you that are visiting with us tonight, great to have you as well. All right, I want to begin with a question, not a hard question, promise. Who here has seen snow? And I mean a good deep snow. All right, that’s pretty good for Orlando, Florida. That’s real good. All right, who here has seen snow and wintering conditions that were so severe that lakes froze over. All right. Okay, great. Well, we can identify. I grew up in West Texas, and I know Texas isn’t necessarily known as a snow capital, but when you live on the Southern Plains, at least twice a year you could count on a good snow.

In fact, it would snow so much and get so cold that it would close school, which was a great day. And near our house, we had this park. It was just a city park, and it had a lake on it, and it was one of those neat lakes because anything in West Texas is extremely flat. I don’t know if you’ve ever been to the plains. I mean, it’s flat. You can stand on a quarter and see 300 miles away. It’s that kind of flat. But but our our our little park had a lake in it, and the lake, every now and then, because it would rise and low up and down throughout the year, and these little crevices or little canyons. The point was it was a great place for a snowball fight.

And so my best friend Lance and his brother Rod, and then my brother Todd, all of us out of school, everybody’s over at the house. We go down to the park, and we are in one of the greatest snowball fights in the history of the world. And it was really a lot of fun until Rod and I ran out of snowballs. And there’s Todd, my brother, and my best friend Lance, up throwing down into one of us in one of these little ravines, and we had to make a decision do we stay here and get pummeled, or do we take our only way of escape, which was across the frozen lake. Well, you’re 12 years old. You go across the lake, right? So Rod and I took off.

And we were running. And we were running on water. It’s pretty cool. We’re cruising across. As soon as we got to the other side, Lance and Todd are following us. As soon as we got to the other side, I heard the most eerie sound I have ever heard in my life. Cracking ice. And I turned around just in time to see my brother and my best friend go down.

It was a horrible, horrible sight. They immediately start flailing, screaming at the top of their lungs. And I’m immediately seeking what do I do? This is West Texas. It wasn’t like you could go find a tree anywhere and pick off a limb and reach home. I mean, there was nothing. I’m going through all my little Boy Scout, you know, whatever you’re supposed to do in Boy Scouts, and I’m trying to think, and all this is probably taking place in about, you know, a hundredth of a second. What do I do? What do I do? What do I do? And they’re I’m going to watch them die right here. What do I do? What do I do? And then the answer hit me. And so I stood on the edge of that lake and I put my hands up to my mouth and I said, Let’s God.

Stand up. No, seriously. Stand up. And when they finally quit flailing and stood up, the water came to right there on them. It wasn’t even to their knees. Well, now I’m laughing so hard. I’m the one rolling around in the water, just having a blast. And it was at that moment I realized I just experienced the funniest thing I’ll ever see in my life, and I’m only 12.

But isn’t that interesting? I don’t care who you are. When you fall in the ice, it’s over. I mean, that’s just what you understand throughout life. You know, if it’s a frozen lake and you go down, it’s over. It’s a horrible experience. You may not survive unless you’re in West Texas where the lakes are real shallow. But yet, don’t we do that sometimes in our lives? Where we’re all of a sudden in a situation we’ve never been in before, an experience that we think in our mind is unsurvivable. I’ll never be able to go on. I’ll never be able to overcome this. And we start panicking and failing, and we forget, we forget one of the most basic fundamental Christian principles, and that is if we are in Christ, we always have a place to stand.

Always. In Romans chapter 5 and in verses 1 through 2, that’s exactly Paul’s point. You can always stand in grace. The faith that comes in our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ always provides for us a foundation. But the challenge for us as we go through our life is that we often, our mind is on the ice, our mind is on the storm, our mind is on the world, our mind is on our fears, our mind is on our challenges that we forget what is the greatest principle of hope that has ever been given to us. And that is the grace that comes from our Lord Jesus Christ. Tonight, I want to talk to you. I want to talk to you about what may be one of our greatest challenges in the Christian walk, and that’s dealing with our mind.

I want to talk about being more spiritually minded. Because when you go through, when you go through life, the biggest challenge you’re going to deal with is trying to determine what is a real fear, what is a real obstacle, and what is fake. Let me give you an example. If you were to go back to Genesis chapter 2, when Eve was approached by the serpent, and the serpent said, What’d God say? Well, God said we can’t eat of it. Oh, no, no, no. You can eat of that tree. You’re not really going to die. And here’s what the text says. Eve looked to the fruit, and what did she see? She saw it was good. Now, how’d she know? How’d she know? It may have looked good.

You know what something is I didn’t mention this tonight because I saw Deedra preparing this for dinner. She had a bowl of raw tomatoes that was about this big. There is nothing more disgusting in the world than raw tomatoes. I can’t. It’s a near-death experience. If I try to eat one, it’s just not going to happen. But they look so good. That’s fake news. They’re not good. No. No, but it looks good. I want you to go back and think about what took place there in the garden. Eve saw that the fruit was good. Fake news. Fake news. Who made her think it was good? Well, Satan did. Remember when the children of Israel, when the children of Israel came up to the banks of the Jordan, and Joshua sent in the spies, and the spies go and spy out the land, and they saw everything that they saw in the land, and they came back and they said, Oh, man, there’s no way.

No way. They’re all big people. They’re all giants. Oh, we’re nothing but grasshoppers. We can never take it. It’s never going to happen. No, no, no. What was it? Fake news. Fake news. Oh, only Joshua and Caleb saw what was really the truth of the situation. When Jesus was with his disciples, and they’re out there in that boat and they saw all the winds and the waves, what was it? Fake news. That’s not your real fear. Well, it’s no different for us today. But here’s the challenge. If I’m not thinking spiritually, and I don’t have a spiritual mind, what’s the alternative? You ever thought about it? If I don’t have a spiritual mind, I have a what? Well, I have a worldly mind. Oh man, that sounds kind of awful.

I’m a Christian. I don’t really. No, no, no, no, no. Listen to what Scripture tells us. If you’re not really focused on what’s real and solid and truth, you’re simply falling into the trap of the fake news of the world. And so tonight, I want us, I want us to tackle a huge obstacle. Because it’s a challenge for us. We’re all very physical beings. We all have physical needs. We all have physical fears. We live in a very physical world. But God wants us to think spiritually. So we’re not fooled by the deceiver. You have the heavenly library with you. I want you to turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 2. 1 Corinthians chapter 2. In 1 Corinthians chapter 2, Paul is going to describe for us and really define for us what is spirituality.

And what I want you to see and understand right off the bat is that when we simply use the word spiritual or spirituality, that is a Bible word. Now you might be thinking to yourself, well, yeah. No, no, here’s why I have to tell you that. We live in a world that is stealing Bible terms and redefining them. For example, look at what our world is now done with the Bible word marriage. It’s totally redefined, right? Well, spirituality has taken the same path. In fact, if you were to ask somebody today, if I I actually talked to a fellow earlier today, and he said, Well, I’m very spiritually minded, but I don’t go to church. What? Well, how is that possible? Well, in our world today, spirituality can come from a feeling, it can come from an experience, it can come from a location.

But when you look at 1 Corinthians chapter 2, Paul tells us very clearly, spirituality can only come from one place, and that is the Spirit of God. You ever talk to somebody who’s on kind of a spiritual journey? They’re looking, they’re trying to find themselves, or they’re looking for more spirituality. Isn’t it amazing all the places they’ll go and they’ll look? Well, I need to go up to a high mountain, or I need to go to some remote place, or I need to go to some place that may have some ambiance or great feeling to it. Well, Paul would say, you’re not going to find it there. All you’re going to find there is a pretty mountain or a pretty garden or some secluded place. 1 Corinthians chapter 2, verses 11 to 14.

1 Corinthians 2, verses 11 to 14. For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we may impart this in words, not taught by human wisdom, but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him. And he’s not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one.

And let me read through verse 16. For who has understand the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him, but we have the mind of Christ.

Paul said a lot.

Hence, spirituality. It’s the Spirit of God. In other words, if you’re on a spiritual journey, there is really only one place that you can go to find truth in that journey. There’s really only one place you can go to truly find yourself. You’ve got to get into the Spirit of God. For it is the Spirit that reveals not just the Spirit, but more importantly, look back in verse 11. It is the Spirit that reveals for us the mind of God. Let me ask you.

Have any of you ladies been married to a husband that would try to find things that please you, but he didn’t ask you. Anybody running one of those? All right. Don’t think less of me. But I had one of these marital moments just a couple of years ago, where I was, you know, I do a lot of premarriage counseling and this, that, and the other. And it’s almost like every single time I get home from one of my premarital counseling sessions with somebody, I am ready to be the model husband. It’s like I’m rejuvenated. I’ve learned some great things. And I remember I came home one night and I was telling Cheryl, she goes, What did you talk about? Oh, I talked about this, that, and the other.

And she goes, Oh, really? I’m like, yeah. Well, that’s me, isn’t it? She goes, Oh, is it? I’m like, oh, I probably shouldn’t have gone this direction. Can you explain? What do you mean? I’m not fulfilling something. She goes, Well, what kind of flowers do you give me? And I went, Well, coronations. You love carnations. She goes, No, I don’t. We’ve been married 25 years. Yes, you like carnations. I get you carnations every year. That’s what you like. She goes, No, I don’t. I said, Well, then where did the carnations come from? She goes, You like them. Because they last longer. And I went, Well, they do. I said, That’s not the right answer, is it? She goes, No. What kind of flowers do you like?

She went, Daisies. I went, get out. She goes, yeah. Have you told me that before? She goes, Yeah. When was it? She goes, a long time ago, but you kept getting carnations. Cheryl gets all the daisies in the world now. But you see, you understand that point, don’t you? You look at me and you go, what an idiot. He was giving her what he liked. That’s not going to please her. And the sad part, how many cuffles did I counsel the whole time that I’m giving my wife carnations? But nonetheless. Listen to what Paul is saying. If you want to be more spiritual and you’re looking to be spiritually minded, then you’ve got to go to the mind of God Himself. And God reveals his mind through His will, through the Spirit, through the Word.

And here’s the point. It’s free to all of us. It’s not some challenging journey that you’ve really got to work your way through, or you’ve got to find the right moment in time, or you’ve got to have some epiphany that hit you one day. No, no, no, no. Paul says it’s free to all of us. All men can receive it. It’s been given to all men, freely given to us. But here’s the deal. You’re not going to find it through the world. If you think that maybe just going up into the high mountains where it really is pretty, it really is scenic. It really is blissful. It really is peaceful. If you think just going up there is going to draw you closer to God, you’re fooling yourself.

All you’re going to find is cold air. That’s all you’re going to get. The fact of the matter was, look at how many times in Scripture people found God in the most unlikeliest of places. Remember the jailer in Philippi? Where was he? He was in a dungeon. That’s not a judge. Hey, go find yourself in a dungeon. Were you ready to kill yourself? Because you’re so scared. Well, that’s where he found the word of God because Paul was there. Look at what, look at what Paul is trying to get us all to see. You find the Lord not in the world, but you find him in the word, and you become a person who looks at the world through the lens of God, not the lens of the world.

In other words, you see the world differently.

You see opportunities differently. Kids, all the teens that are here. Have you ever had this great idea that you thought was just rocking? And you went and you tried to sell it to your parents, and they went, no, not gonna happen. You went, no, no, no, no, I’ve really thought this through, and they go, not gonna happen. No, no, you understand. I did it. No, I don’t care. It’s not gonna happen. Well, why do they sell us that? Because parents are just born with incredible wisdom or they’re just trying to irritate us? No. They’re looking at your life through a different lens. They’re looking at it through the lens of a parent who can understand this could be bad. This could be a warning. This could lead to this, this.

This could lead to this. Where generally, when we’re wanting to do something, all we see is all the victory. We can’t see all the possible defeat and evil.

Anybody ever fall into the trap of trying to convince your parents that a party at two in the morning was a good thing? Ever tried that one? Oh no, no, you understand, understand. No, it’s all the good kids are going to be there. Yeah, all the good kids. Yeah. Yeah, and then you get that classic, well, nothing happens good after midnight. Well, yeah, it can. Really? It can. When? Well, I’m sure it can. It’s a different lens. Let me show you how this works. Hold your place here. Go to Hebrews 11. If you’ve ever really been in Bible study long, you’ve probably read Hebrews 11. If this is your first time really getting into the Word of God, or if you’re new to the Bible, Hebrews chapter 11 is one of the great chapters in Scripture because in it you really kind of find what some call the hall of fame of faith.

And what you find here is you find a list of wonderful men and women who were great spiritual warriors in their day, and they overcame incredible obstacles. What I want you to see is what they saw. And what they saw in circumstances was totally different from what others saw. In Hebrews chapter 11, verses 1 through 3, you find simply a definition of faith. And faith is not just the concept of what is not seen, but faith is made visible by the invisible. Kind of a weird line. But that’s the way the Hebrew writer describes it there. Faith is made visible by the invisible. Well, how does that work? Well, in Hebrews chapter 11, verse 7, you look at the life of Noah. And here’s what the faith writer tells us about Noah’s faith.

Noah was able to see what nobody else could see. And here’s how it’s described.

Now that’s kind of a weird thing. Yeah. We just had a little hurricane a couple months ago. In fact, it canceled this meeting the first time around, didn’t it? Alright. Were y’all like me? Were y’all watching? Were y’all watching every day the tracking? You know? What if? What if there was no radar? There was no satellite imaging. There was nothing but a meteorologist said, you know, I’m kind of feeling like a hurricane’s coming. You people need to board up your homes. Well, let’s look at the image. Ah, it’s not going to be there yet. But it could be here tomorrow. Well, we would probably all be going. Come on, man. Show me something. Show me something, and then I’ll get ready. But here’s the deal. God came to Noah, didn’t show him anything.

He just said, I’m going to destroy the world with a flood. Here’s what’s crazy about that. It had never flooded before. Here’s what’s even crazier about that. It had never what before. Probably had never rained. There’s never been a mention of rain in Scripture until the flood. But Noah believed it, didn’t he? He believed it. And he prepared for it. In Hebrews chapter 11 and verse 27, what does it say about Moses? Moses was able to see the invisible. In fact, what Moses was able to do, Moses was able to see beyond the pleasures of Egypt. Have you ever thought about what it was like to be Moses? Anybody here have a grandparent? Anybody have a grandparent? You have a grandparent? Are grandparents not the greatest in the world?

They spoil you rotten, right? Moses’ granddaddy is Pharaoh. You ever thought about what his life was like? This guy literally probably had the Rolls-Royce chariot at the age of 16 with literally 150 horses out in front of it. It goes zero to sixty as fast as he wanted. But what Scripture tells us is that Moses was able to see the reproaches of Christ as greater riches. It’s quite the eyesight. In fact, you could say that about every single one of these great men and women of faith. In verses 13 to 16, here’s what it says about all of them. They could see. And what they saw was another world. They saw a city whose builder and maker was God. If they wanted to return to this world, if they wanted to return to the things that they could physically see, they could easily have done it.

But they saw something different. Go back to what Paul is telling us here. This is what spirituality is. It’s being able to see what is really real. And it’s different. It’s different from what the world sees. It has a different accountability. It has a different desire. It has a different purpose. Why? Because it’s established on the truths of God’s word. And then at the end of the passage, here’s what Paul tells us. He says, this is what gives us the mind of Christ. The natural man cannot discern this. Only the spiritual man can discern this. And this is the mind of Christ. Past summer at summer camp, we had a theme. Called it SEAL training. Spirituality, edification, attitude, and leadership in the Lord training. That was kind of our acronym.

But we did get the kids up real early in the morning for an obstacle course. You’ll be very proud of all of them. Six o’clock in the morning. They were all there, ready to roll. It was fun, wasn’t it? Getting in the bud? Yeah, say yes. Say yes. Yeah, camp was great. Yes, yes, that’s what I want to hear. Bumby boys were right. But the point of the whole week was to get the kids to see that to be one of God’s warriors, you have a different mind and mindset. And so we talk to them about what Navy SEALs do. And we talk to them a little bit about their training. Mark Devine in his book, The Mind of a SIEL, talks about the unbeatable mind.

And in their training, that is really horrific and challenging beyond the imagination. They are put in scenarios in which many will probably think at one time or another, they’re going to die. Or they’re not going to be able to make it. And they’re and they’re and they’re putting in situations where they are challenged mentally, and the challenge isn’t so much physical as it is mental. And they’re trained by their instructors to use fear wisely. So that there is not a panic button, but there is an adrenaline button that is learning how to use this emotion in a way that can be highly productive. In fact, if you go and read the unbeatable mind of the seal, you’ll understand that in any situation, no matter how chaotic it may be, that the first thing that the seal is taught to do is to set a goal.

And then visually and mentally look for the way of escape. And then there is that reminder, that self-talk, I have done this, I have been trained for this, here’s how I’m going to go. And then there is that control and that ability to reel in emotion, to reel in fear, to reel in the negative thoughts and proceed with the mission at hand. Because you’ve got a different mind.

Have you ever thought about how often in Scripture. Our heavenly Father is pleading and seeking to mold our minds. To change the way we think. Remember when Jesus sent out his disciples on the limited commission? He said, All right, you guys are going to go out and preach. You know what the first thing a preacher does when he knows he’s going to go preach? He starts packing a suitcase. All right, I need a suit and tie, gonna be there three nights, gonna need a couple changes of clothes, gonna need this, that, and the other. Jesus goes, No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, you’re not taking any clothes with you. All right, okay. So it’s one of those weeks. That’s great. Hanging out with the guys, we’ll just think.

No money. Don’t take any money. Well, where am I going? Just go. What do you mean? If they accept you, keep preaching. If they don’t accept you, leave. Where am I going to eat? Don’t worry about it. Don’t take any extra food with you. You just go. Trust me. What was the point of all that? To make them miserable? To scare them. No, he was molding their mind. The Lord was molding their mind so that they would learn truly what it meant when he said, I got this. Seek first the kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added to you. I am molding your mind. And do you remember what happened when they came back? Remember what happened when they came back? They were going on and on and on about all the great things that had happened?

1. Learn How to Meditate

Why were they so excited? Because it changed them. It changed them. And they would eventually change the world. So here’s what I want us to see as a take home tonight in that desire that we all need, and that is to be more spiritually minded, that we also may have the unbeatable mind, but not just any unbeatable mind, but we can have the unbeatable spiritual mind. What’s the first thing we need to do? We gotta learn how to meditate. Now, this is going to sound weird. Because we don’t talk about this a lot. Generally, the first thing we’ll do, and any time anybody’s in any situation or any kind of pickle or any kind of scenario in which they may need some spiritual help, the very first thing we want to do is we want to crack out our Bibles and we say, All right, let’s study this.

Let’s study this. Well, let me just say, as a preacher, I am definitely not opposed to studying. But do you know what God tells us over and over and over again in Scripture? Meditate on what I’ve already told you. Remember when Joshua was being commissioned to now be leader of the people? Joshua 1, verses 6 through 9. And the Lord gives him that very powerful and invigorating command, be strong and courageous, for you shall cause this people to inherit the land that I swore to their fathers to give them. Do you remember what he said to them? He said to him, You be strong and courageous. And where did he tell him to go? You go to my word. And it wasn’t God pleading with Joshua to study more.

He goes, No, you meditate on it. And you meditate on it day and night. Now, granted, you’ve got to know the word if you’re going to meditate on the word. Got that. But the part we sometimes fail to grasp is the meditation, the meditation of really letting it sink into our mind to sink to let those truths sink in so that we can see exactly what God wants us to see. I want to do something here, and this may be a challenging thing to do. It was it, 8 15, all right, and you’ve already had a long day. But roll with me here. Play along, alright? I want you to close your eyes. Could you not close them. Close them. I promise nobody’s gonna come up and hit you or anything.

Sit down, Ken. Ken. No. Close your eyes. Seriously, close them. Do you know what you see right now? You’re looking at everything that is real. And here’s what I mean by that. You’re looking at everything that will last forever. What do you see? Well, nothing. Nothing. You can open your eyes now. Here’s the point. Everything that you can see, yeah, it’s physical. It’s concrete, but it isn’t real. From the standpoint, it ain’t gonna last forever. It isn’t gonna endure. In fact, what’s interesting, I’ve lived long enough now. It’s really weird. I’m turning into my parents. Because I’ll go back to old neighborhoods or everybody to go a place where I used to be here and I go, oh, something else used to be there. Oh, that’s not there anymore.

Oh, they used to be this. It all changes. Because nothing stays the same. Nothing. It all decays. It all withers. It all vanishes away. What’s the point? It’s not real. What is real? Well, what’s real are the things that pertain to our spirit, our souls, the things that pertain to the will of God. These things are real. And that’s what God wants us to grasp and understand. That’s why he pleads with us to meditate so that we’ll see what is real. You think back to those great men and women of faith in Hebrews chapter 11. They were the only ones who were able to see what was real. Joshua and Caleb, when they got up to the promised land, and everybody else saw giants. Everybody else saw defeat.

What did they see? They saw what the human eye couldn’t see, and that is the working power of God. They saw opportunity. What was it that Moses saw? He didn’t look upon those riches and say, Well, I’ve got it made the rest of my life. No. He saw deception. He saw temptation. He saw things that were going to pull him away for God. He saw the truth that Jesus would teach later, how hard it is for a rich man to go to heaven. He would see how riches were captivating. And they were also his captor. And so he then turned and put his eyes on the reproaches of Christ. Here’s what’s amazing about that. Had Christ even been here yet?

2. Initiate Spiritual Action

Had Isaiah even talked about the Christ in the missing and prophecies? No. All he had were the promises that were given to Abraham and his father’s fathers. That’s all he had. But he knew it was real. Why? Because he meditated on it. David, over and over again in the Psalms, will implore us to meditate. Psalms 119, verse 15, meditate and help me fix my eyes on you. In fact, in that wonderful Psalm, Psalms 119, eight times, eight times will David implore us to meditate on God’s word. The second thing, to have the unbeatable spiritual mind, is you have to initiate spiritual action. Alright. Here’s how this works. I want you to think back. I want you to think back to the last time somebody really ticked you off and point at them right now.

No, no, no, don’t do that. That’s a joke. That’s a joke. Just think that the last time somebody really frustrated you, that probably hadn’t been too long ago, has it? It hasn’t. Because that happens to us all the time. I mean, it’s like every single day you’ll have a conversation with somebody who’s close to you, and they go, Oh, I am so frustrated.

How did you respond? No, seriously, how did you respond? Have you ever noticed when somebody really irritates us or gets under our skin or does something that we feel like, insulted us or demeaned us? It almost invariably our first initial action is to what? Get them back. See, when you when you grow up my size, alright, you can’t beat them up, but I can outsmart talk them. And it was a great way to live your life. I could cut down anybody so fast, and it’s the way I lived my life until I got slow. It was great when I was fast and as a young kid, but now that I’ve pulled a few hamstrings, I’ve got to learn to keep my mouth shut. But those kind of responses are what?

Well, they’re worldly, right?

I want you to go to 1 Peter chapter 2 real quick.

Peter is going to give us an example to follow. And not just any example. He gives us the example of our Lord Jesus Christ. And I want you to notice the example. I want you to notice how this is a different mind. He says in verse 21, for to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example that you might follow in his steps, who committed no sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth. But notice this.

If you go over to Philippians chapter 2, Paul will also speak to us about having the mind of Christ. And the mind of Christ is esteeming others better than himself. And here’s the point I want to make to you with that. When you have to eat it. When somebody really lets you have it and you don’t give it back, and you decide to bless them in return, does that make you feel real good on the inside? Does it feel like one of those great moments that you want to just raise your hand and go, oh, I won, oh, I want. No. Generally, more often than not, sometimes doing the right things is one of those things that makes you have to grit your teeth, bart your lip, and go.

Have a nice day. I hope a bust doesn’t hit you. Peace.

Because sometimes spiritual action isn’t easy. The reason people are always looking for spirituality is they’re looking for a path that is easy. And comfortable. Well, the fact of the matter is, sometimes spirituality isn’t comfortable or easy at all. In fact, you know why those great men and women of faith are listed in Hebrews chapter 11? Because their lives were hard. Not easy. And they initiated the spiritual action of one who had an unbeatable mind because they were willing to do what needed to be done. And sometimes, sometimes it’s not rewarding as you would want it to be. It’s not as fulfilling spiritually. And sometimes you do things for people, and you know it was the best thing in the world for them, but they never say thank you, but you do it anyhow.

Because you’re following in the steps of your Lord. In Colossians chapter 1. I’m sorry, Colossians chapter 3, and in verses 1 to 17, Paul just lays it out for us. In fact, what he talks to us about is he sucks about set your mind on things above, not on things of this world. Why? For your life is hidden with Christ. And he goes on to list a lifestyle that really, that really is not easy.

3. Negate the Worldly Fears

You’re going to deny the things of the world, the things that are ungodly, but you’re going to embrace the things that are spiritual. And the world’s not going to applaud you. The world’s not going to go, you go there. Oh, man, you’re killing it. You are fantastic. Oh, man. No, there’s going to be no trophies. There’s going to be no rewards in that respect. But it’s the action of a spiritually minded person. Then what you’re going to do, then what you’re going to do after you go with the action, you’re going to try to get rid of all the worldly fears. Generally, what keeps us from acting and living like we should is that for some reason we’re living in fear. Every single one of us are in fear of something.

Why does the athlete practice and train so hard? A fear of losing. Why does the person put locks on their door? A fear of safety. We always are going to have some sort of fear. What we’ve got to learn to do is kick out the fears. Kick out the fears that are worldly. Kick out the fears that really are not an inhibitor to our faith at all. In the world that we live in, we all live in fear of the three D’s. You know what the three D’s are? Disease, divorce, death. Disease, divorce, death. They scare us to death. I don’t want to be alone. I don’t want to lose someone. I am scared of death. But the fact of the matter is, some of these things at times can be almost unavoidable.

Sometimes there are separations. Sometimes there are diseases in our lives. And sometimes we just can’t help it. Death knocks on every door. But what Scripture tells us is that these aren’t our big fears. In fact. In fact, the Christian looks at the world so differently that even on death’s door, we respond differently. Some of you may know the name Clyding Love Lady. How many of y’all know her from Par Avenue? She passed away just a few weeks ago. For the past few years, she’s been living with us up in Gainesville with Mary and Mark taking care of her, and just one of the most godliest women you would ever imagine. And y’all know that, right?

Two days before she passed away, she’s in the hospital, and her son Wiley came into her room to visit her. And he led a prayer before he left.

I’m told he prayed one of the most beautiful prayers you could ever pray for your mom. But his prayer had one big point in it. Dear Lord, help her to get well. Dear Lord, give her her strength. Dear Lord, help her so she can stay with us longer. Dear Lord, extend her life. And da-da-da-da-da-da. When he said amen, Sister Lovelady said, Wiley, thank you for the prayer, but don’t ever pray that prayer again. Because I am ready to go now. And he got the message. Now, from the world’s point of view, that’s weird.

But a person who can see beyond this world, who can see beyond the physical, who has a spiritual mind, oh, that’s reality. In fact, Paul will say in 1 Corinthians 15, Death, where’s your sting? Why? For God did not give us a spirit, not of fear, but he gave us a spirit and an action of power, love, and self-control. And what do we find if you have the King James Version? 2 Timothy 1 7 actually uses this phrase, that of a sound mind, a healthy mind. This is how a healthy person faints. They’re not scared about Wall Street. They’re not scared about North Korea. They’re not scared about the world. They’re not scared about everything taking place around us that makes everybody else’s knees quake. No, that’s not their fear.

4. Detonate the Worldly Strongholds

In fact, you can take all those things out of the way tomorrow, and what’s going to happen the very next day? There’s going to be other elements that take their place. Right? Right? It never ends. But the spiritual person negates those fears. Casts them aside. And then they literally detonate the worldly strongholds. In 2 Corinthians 10, verses 3 through 5, Paul says, For though we walk in the flesh, we’re not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but they have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and we take every thought captive to obey Christ. Listen to what he’s saying. We destroy the strongholds of the world.

In other worlds, the world’s fears, the world’s obstacles, the world’s challenges, the child of God bless right through them.

Because our total allegiance is to the obedience of Christ. We’re not waging a war with the flesh, folks. So we’ve got to quit allowing the flesh to control our lives.

I tell you, if there’s anything I could really just plead with parents to see. And I have the privilege of working with all the kids at camp every summer. We’ve got winter camp coming up, by the way, January 19th through 21st, just throwing out there to you. Teen weekends I get to go and I get to spend a lot of time with a lot of kids. But if there’s anything I could get across to parents, it would be just this one plea. Be careful of training your children to be worldly and live with the fear of the world. And here’s what I mean by that. Too often we’re planting in their hearts double seeds. And here’s the way that works.

But throughout the week, we’re planning baseball and gymnastics and volleyball and this and that and the other. And these things become so dominant, so important that the rest of the good stuff sometimes just gets squeezed out. And don’t misunderstand me. I love sports, I love extracurriculars, and I think kids gotta be in them. But invariably, what we do sometimes is we plant thorns in their garden instead of the seeds inadvertently, and those thorns grow up and choke them out. And that’s scary.

What we need to be doing is detonating these worldly strongholds. Detonating the way the world thinks about parenting, detonating the way the world thinks about the family, detonating what the world thinks about what is childhood. I mentioned at the very beginning of my lesson, I know some of you have gone to great lengths to bring your children tonight. You know what that makes you in the eyes of the world? Weird. What were you thinking? And the sad part about it is if you’ve got really small children, you’re going to leave here when this is all over. And you’ll go, I didn’t get to hear a word of that. I hope they got it recorded on tape. Because all I did was sit here and fight the whole time.

I don’t know why I’m doing this. And the husband’s going, that seemed pretty good to me. What? You missed it? Well, I don’t know what’s going on. No, no, no, no, no.

But you’re establishing a foundation. Because you’re destroying a stronghold of Satan in the heart of your child.

Conclusion

Jim McGuigan in one of his writings had this to say. If you know anything about Brother McGuigan, he had to take care of his wife at the end of her life for many, many years. She was very frail and suffering. He took care of her in their home. And she eventually passed away. The love of his life. Here’s what he says. The raging fever is real. The gasping for air is real. The incubators, the straps, the tubes, the needles, the pumps, the drips, they’re all real. The silent screaming, the wide open mouth, the toothless gums, the jerking, the twisting, the crying, the silent panting. It’s all real. There’s no point in denying the reality of it all. But what if what we see is not all there is to see?

What if there’s more to what we see than what we see? One day outside Jerusalem, there was a young man hanging on the public gallows, the spit, the sweat, the blood, the jeers, the taunts, the treachery, the hypocrisy, the hatred. It was all real. The thirst, the loneliness, the sense of abandonment, the grief, the injustice, the evil, all real. But there was more. Much more. In fact, when you take a closer look, what you see when you see the cross is the only thing that is real beyond our imagination. And that is Satan being kicked out of this world by the love of God. I think it’s a powerful thought, don’t you? The point is there’s more than what you see. In fact, what we see right now is really a mirage.

It can be a deceiver. Be careful. Don’t get drawn in. Close your eyes. Meditate. Initiate. Negate. And detonate. And see what is real. What can only be seen through spiritual eyes. You know, when you go back and you think about that ice, that was a scary day. We laugh about it now. But that could have been bad. And often in our lives, when we go through situations, we look back on things and we go, how did I make it through that? Well, I know why. I know why. Because we found our footing where it needs to be. And that footing’s always there. That foundation is always there. If we’ll just take our stand in it. Grace. You want to find what is real, you want to see what is real.

I implore you to look at the grace of your Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To see his love. To see his passion. That you close your eyes and see his truths. That’s what he wants us to see. And tonight, if you’re a person who’s been deceived by this world, you’ve been looking at everything totally wrong, and you realize that you’ve been deceived, just like Eve in the garden. Now’s the time to come to what is real. Because you’re not alone. All of us have been deceived. And sometimes are deceived daily. That’s why we’re here to be reminded of what is real. And so if we can help you on your spiritual journey, go to where spirituality is found in Jesus Christ Himself. If you need to have your sins washed away through his blood tonight through baptism, we want you to come.

If you need to be restored and strengthened in your faith and have the saints here pray with you to help you strengthen your faith, please come. Whatever your need, whatever your desire, we invite you to come while we stand and sing.