Today, from guest teacher Kyle Eidelman. We take
captive every thought and we make it obedient
to Christ. And so we're in this series called
Every Thought Captive. And what we're learning
together is that we start to interrogate our
thoughts so that we can take them captive. Because
otherwise, our thoughts form these neural pathways
that become strongholds. And that's the word
Paul uses here as a word picture, a stronghold.
There's a thought you've been thinking for so
long, it feels like the truth. But what if it's
a lie? A lie that's been shaping your decisions,
your relationships, your whole life? Well, it's
called a stronghold, and it's time for it to
fall. Today on Living on the Edge, Chip Ingram
invites you to hear pastor and author Kyle Eidelman
for a special lesson about breaking strongholds.
Chip, give us some context for where we're heading
today. Let's face it. Every single person struggles
with managing our thought life. We all deal with
discouragement. temptation, anger, resentment,
thoughts that can overwhelm us. Here's the good
news. God's Spirit was provided to help relieve
us from these unwanted pressures. But we play
a role. It's not just God's Spirit. We have to
cooperate with Him. We have to renew our mind.
And what I love about this series that my friend
Kyle Eidelman is teaching, he's helping us in
very specific, practical ways. Take every thought
captive. That's the beginning of life change.
And you're going to love what he has to share.
Thank you, Chip. Today's message from Kyle Eidelman
is titled Strongholds Must Fall. What I'd love
to do is just challenge you to identify one or
two strongholds in your life. Some lies that
you've believed. Maybe you don't recognize it
as such, but just some things that have been
determining the direction of your life. Some
thoughts that you think subconsciously that you're
going to really pay attention to. I just wanna
talk about where these strongholds come from
as a way to help us identify them in our own
lives. First, they come from early and frequent
thinking, early and often thinking. When you
are young, your brain, my brain, is when it's
the most plastic, it's the most moldable. And
there's some strongholds that were passed down
to us that we never wanted and we didn't intentionally
choose. Second is cognitive reinforcement. This
is how some strongholds in your life have been
formed. It's your instinct and my instinct to
surround ourselves with voices and opinions that
reinforce thoughts that we've had for a while.
Thirdly is emotional association. Our thoughts
are strongly connected to emotions when it comes
to forming lasting patterns. This is why thoughts
that you have during a time of trauma or rejection
or intense loss or intense grief will create
Without you even knowing it will create a stronghold.
Fourth is generational patterns. Some strongholds
are passed down through families, not genetically,
but through repeated patterns of thinking, of
speaking, of believing. And it just gets transmitted
from child to parent, from child to parent. Ezekiel
18 though says that these generational patterns,
these generational strongholds can be broken.
And it's one of my favorite things about being
a pastor in this church is almost every week
I witness it. Of someone saying, by God's grace
and with the help of the Holy Spirit, it stops
with me. It stops with me. A person recognizes
the way their family has operated under a stronghold
of fear. under a stronghold of addiction, under
a stronghold of control or of anger or rejection.
And they say, not anymore. It stops with me.
And part of this is understanding the fifth factor,
and that is it's spiritual warfare at its heart,
spiritual warfare. The Bible calls our enemy
the father of lies in John 8. his job from the
time you were born is to get you to buy into
a few of these lies. Because if he can get you
to believe this lie and establish a stronghold
in your heart by the thoughts you think, then
his job is done. He doesn't really have to do
anything else. The stronghold will do what the
stronghold does. Think about this. If Satan can
get you to think, God doesn't really care about
me. If he can get you to say that out loud and
think that over your own life, then it affects
everything. It keeps you from prayer. It keeps
you from believing God's promises. It keeps you
from having a relationship with God. If he can
just get you to focus on a few failures or inadequacies
or insecurities and convince you to believe this
thought, you're not worthy of love, then he can
create a fortress around your life that will
sabotage you from all the good God wants you
to have and walking with him and sharing life
with others. And so this is why when we talk
about taking our thoughts captive, we're not
so much talking about psychology, we're talking
about spiritual warfare. So what is a stronghold
in your life that needs to fall? Can you identify
it? I was at a men's conference, speaking at
a men's conference a few years ago, and I sat
down at a table with a group of men and we were
focusing on this idea of strongholds and trying
to identify them specifically looking at these.
strongholds that we'd had since we were perhaps
boys that were affecting our lives now as men.
And we just went around the table to share the
strongholds. And so Joe went first and Joe said,
I didn't think it was okay to be sad. And he
grew up in a home where the expectation was to
be happy no matter what, all the time, real men
aren't sad. Being sad is for weak people. And
so when his family dog died and he cried, he
remembers his dad teasing him. And now Joe, because
of the stronghold of it's okay not to be sad,
he deals with lots of loneliness in his life.
Why? Because when he's sad, it doesn't feel like
it's okay to share that with anybody. So he keeps
his sadness to himself. And that's really isolating.
And it's really lonely. And Joe deals with anger
because of this stronghold. Why? Well, because
what he learned as a boy is it's not okay to
be sad. Being sad is a masculine, but it's okay
to be angry. And so every time he's sad, it shows
up as anger and he's been angry a lot. Around
the table we go, Mike identifies his stronghold.
I thought of women as objects. Mike's parents
divorced when he was six and he would stay at
his father's house. He had easy access to his
dad's collection of porn. He was hooked by the
time he was 11. When he got married, he thought
marriage would break that stronghold in his life,
but it didn't. Instead, what he did was, without
meaning to, is he sent his wife down that neural
pathway of objectification. And he looked at
her as someone who existed to satisfy him. He
put pressure on her, was demanding with her.
She became bitter and resentful. They divorced
after three years. Around the table. Scott's
stronghold. I thought my worth was determined
by how much money I made. He grew up thinking
that success in life was determined by the income
he made, the car he drove, the house he lived
in, the vacations he went on. And look, he was
surrounded by kind of real life algorithms, real
life examples that reinforce this thinking that
the measure of his worth was determined by how
much he was worth. And what he could see now
as a man in his mid fifties is that that stronghold
has directed every major decision of his life.
Like every major decision has been filtered through
this lie that my worth is determined by how much
money I can make. He wasn't thinking about legacy
or eternity or God's will or God's kingdom. And
on around the table, we went, the next one that
got identified, the next stronghold that got
identified is, I thought I couldn't ask for help.
And that one was mine. And I've shared this with
you before, but I don't remember ever intentionally
thinking this, but somewhere along the line,
I picked up on this idea and thought it and then
kept thinking it, that it's okay to help people,
but it's not okay to ask for help from people.
My thinking, this stronghold convinced me that
asking for help was the same as admitting failure.
And so if I ask for help, I'm calling myself
a failure. I didn't want to do that. This thinking,
this stronghold convinced me that it's okay to
be someone who rescues. It's okay to be a rescuer,
but you don't want to be somebody who needs rescued.
And that seemed to work okay. Like that stronghold
seemed to work okay until it didn't. And I can
tell you in our early years of marriage and we're
working through some things and trying to figure
some things out, my young wife would say, hey,
why don't we just ask somebody for help as we
navigate this? And in my mind, that wasn't an
option. No, we can't. I got this. I can fix this.
We'll figure this out. I'm not gonna ask somebody
for help. When we're in the thick of parenting
and we're trying things that just clearly aren't
working. And my wife says, why don't you just
ask someone for help? At your job, you're surrounded
by people who can help you with this. Why don't
you just ask someone for help? I'll figure this
out. It's fine. I've got this under control.
And here's what I finally had to recognize is
that this thought, I can't ask someone for help.
It wasn't just holding me captive. It was holding
my wife captive. It was holding my children captive.
It was holding people I lead captive. Around
the table we go. What's yours? What's a stronghold
that has had its grip on your life long enough?
And how do we fight the strongholds? Go back
to 2 Corinthians 10. The weapons we fight against
are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary,
these weapons, divine weapons, have the power,
divine power, to demolish strongholds. Okay,
what are we talking about, God? You got a nuclear
arsenal up there? You've got some weapon that
I don't know about where you just push that button
and this stronghold just explodes once and for
all? What weapons are you talking about? Well,
you keep reading. Weapons he gives us, thoughts
and prayers. Thoughts and prayers. This is the
Almighty's strategy for breaking some strongholds
in your life. Thinking differently. Why? Because
he created your brain. He understands concepts
of neuroplasticity. He knows that if you can
change the way you think, it'll change your brain.
It'll position you to experience his transforming
power. That when you start to take biblical truth
and scriptures and replace the lies with his
truth, transformation happens. You're listening
to Living on the Edge with guest teacher Kyle
Eidelman. There's more just ahead, so stay with
us. Today, we continue our journey through a
fundamental series called God's Dream for Your
Life. And if you've missed any part of this study
or want to find more Bible lessons, just go online
to livingontheedge .org. There, you'll discover
a wide array of teaching content, downloadable
materials, and daily discipleship with Chip Ingram.
Find it all at livingontheedge .org. Well, now
let's get back to our lesson with guest teacher
Kyle Eidelman. So how do we take our thoughts
captive or to borrow a term from... neuroscience,
cognitive repraisal. How does cognitive repraisal
happen? Well, here's how it works. First, you
recognize the lie. You have to identify the lie.
Now look, what most of us do is we identify the
behavior rather than the lie that's led to the
behavior. Like even as I've tried to ask you
to identify a stronghold in your life, likely,
and this is what I would do too, likely what
you've done is you've tried to identify a behavior,
a way you react, a way that you respond to people,
an addiction that you've been struggling with,
and you think the stronghold is the behavior.
But the Bible would say the stronghold isn't
the behavior. The stronghold is the lie that's
led to the behavior. to the behavior. It's identifying
the lie. Secondly, replace with truth. You find
God's truth that directly contradicts the lie.
It's not about positive thinking. It's about
identifying a scripture that speaks truth into
that lie and then aligning your thoughts with
God's thoughts. Recognize the lie, replace with
truth. Number three, you reinforce the truth
with community and content. Strongholds are reinforced
in isolation. The moment you share your struggle
with a trusted Christian friend or in a small
group, the moment that stronghold will lose some
of its grip on your life. So you reinforce the
truth with community and then with content. You
pay attention to what you're thinking about,
to what you're exposing your mind to, to the
algorithms that are establishing these pathways
in your brain. And so I just wanted to end by
getting real practical. I don't know what stronghold
you've identified, but I tried to pick a few
common ones and walk through what this looks
like. So let's just start with the stronghold
of control. If you're not in control of something,
you feel anxious, you feel overwhelmed, you're
constantly concerned with the what if and what
might happen and all these things you know you
don't have control over, whether it's circumstances
in life or global events or whether it's the
emotions of the person sitting next to you. It's
a stronghold of control. So recognize the lie.
Don't pay attention to the behavior as much as
you pay attention to the lie. I believe the lie
that I have to manage every outcome or everything
will fall apart. And if I don't control it, it
won't work out. And I don't know where that lie
came from. Maybe because of some people who've
let you down and you just recognize that unless
I'm in charge of it, it's gonna fall apart, but
that's a lie. And so you recognize the lie and
then you replace it with truth. You find a scripture
and whenever that, thought starts to take root,
you replace it with scripture. Proverbs 3, 5,
trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean
not on your own understanding. First Peter 5,
7, cast all your anxiety on God because he cares
for you. Romans 8, 28, God works all things together
for good for those who love him and are called
according to his purpose. And then you reinforce
that with community and with content. What's
that look like? Well, it means that you share
your struggle with control, your anxiety with
a trusted friend who can, can call you on it.
When you start spiraling or you start micromanaging,
it means that you're gonna limit the content
that reinforces the idea of all these things
that might happen, reinforced with community
and with content. Second, stronghold, as an example,
would be one that I think almost all of us have,
although we're often unaware of it. It's the
stronghold of shame. And so you recognize the
lie. I believe the lie that my past mistakes
define my worth and that I'm too broken for God
to use me or to love me fully. You recognize
the lie that says, I'm too broken. And then you
replace it with truth. Romans 8, 1, there's no
condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
1 John 1, 9, if we confess our sins, he's faithful
and just to forgive us our sins. Isaiah 53, he
took our shame upon himself. As I told, Many
people who were baptized a few weeks ago, the
shame that you've been carrying stays in this
water. You don't walk out of here carrying the
same shame that you came in here with. Jesus
has taken it upon himself. 2 Corinthians 5, I'm
a new creation in Christ. The old is gone, the
new has come. And then you reinforce that with
community and with content. That means that you
find safe Christian community where you can be
honest about your struggles without feeling fear
of judgment or condemnation. And then it means
that you, Pay attention maybe to some testimonies.
You listen to testimonies of how God has redeemed
people's shame and guilt and brought good. And
his grace has been demonstrated in the lives
of others. Let me give you one more. It's the
stronghold of victimhood where you're at the
mercy of your thoughts that says, look what somebody
else has done to me. And you recognize the lie.
I believe the lie that I'm powerless to change
my circumstances or my responses because of what
happened to me. I have no choice but to stay
stuck because of what this person did to me or
because of life circumstances. And you replace
it with truth. Philippians 4, 13, I can do all
things through Christ who strengthens me. 2 Peter
1, he has given us everything we need for life
and godliness. 1 John 4, verse 4, greater is
he that is in you than he that is in the world.
And again, Romans 8, 28, God causes all things
to work together for good. And you reinforce
that with community and content. You surround
yourself with people who will encourage you and
your growth rather than enable your excuses.
They'll challenge you when they hear you start
making excuses. And you seek out stories of people
who've overcome difficult circumstances because
of God's strength. And you remind yourself, that's
true for me too. Scripture through the power
of the Holy Spirit will bring down strongholds
in your life that seem impossible to tear down.
Strongholds are built through repeated exposure
to lies. They are demolished through repeated
exposure to truth. Dr. Caroline Leaf, a Christian
neuroscientist, talks about how it takes 21 days
-ish to begin breaking down a toxic thought pattern.
And it takes about 63 days to establish a new
healthy pattern. God can tear down some strongholds
in your life supernaturally. And then in the
days ahead, as you take your thoughts captive,
he replaces them. with new life -giving truths.
I believe God is calling some people in this
room to say, it stops with me, to be a generation
that breaks strongholds. Some of you right now,
you don't know it, but you are sitting on the
edge of either passing down some strongholds
or breaking them. The lies that have held you
or held your family captive for generations must
fall. Patterns of anger and addiction and anxiety
and control. They don't have to be true for you
and they don't have to define the next generation.
So I just wanna challenge you in the next few
minutes to identify a stronghold that needs to
fall. Write it down, not the behavior, the lie
that you've been believing that's led to it.
Find one scripture verse that speaks truth against
that lie. Share it with a trusted friend who'll
help you fight the battle because that stronghold
has had enough time to rule your life. And this
morning, by the power of Jesus and the power
of the Holy Spirit, it's time for that stronghold
to fall once and for all. Let's pray. Jesus,
this is not a message about the power of positive
thinking or it's a message about surrendering
our thoughts to you, of recognizing how the enemy
has set up camp. And built these strongholds
maybe over the years, maybe since before we can
even remember that has had so much control over
our lives and over your plan for who you want
us to be. So Jesus, would you give us the humility
and the courage? Would you give us the eyes to
see these strongholds that have been built? God,
if we hear some of this and we're immediately
defensive and we're immediately feeling threatened
and the things that you've brought to the surface,
In our minds over the last few minutes, we don't
wanna think about, would you help us to recognize
that that's all the more likely that it's a stronghold
that needs to be dealt with. And so Jesus, I
just ask you that you would work supernaturally
in this room over the next few minutes, that
we would experience your power as you break strongholds
that have been passed down and that we find freedom
in you, supernatural freedom. We fight with your
divine weapons. And we do it together. We help
one another along the way. Would you work in
that way through the power of your son, Jesus?
In his name we pray. Amen. You're listening to
Living on the Edge with guest teacher Kyle Eidelman
and a message titled Strongholds Must Fall. Chip
Ingram has more to share on this important topic
in just a moment. Today, Kyle gave us practical
tools for breaking down our own strongholds.
Recognize the lie, replace it with truth, reinforce
that truth with community and content. Maybe
you're the one God is calling to say, it stops
with me. The anger, the shame, the fear, it doesn't
have to pass to the next generation. And by the
power of Jesus and the Holy Spirit, it can fall.
Well, that's the kind of life -changing teaching
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Chip Ingram Sermon Podcast. Find these episodes
right alongside our regular broadcasts on your
podcast app. Now, here's Chip with some final
thoughts. Today, Kyle gave us a practical battle
plan for tearing down strongholds. I want you
to pause for just a moment and think about what
you heard in the teaching. Because we're going
to talk about where the rubber meets the road.
I want you to really grab hold of this. Number
one, recognize the lie. Don't just identify the
behavior. Identify the lie that is driving it.
The stronghold isn't your anger, your anxiety,
or your addiction. It's the lie underneath it.
Number two, replace it with the truth. Find a
scripture that directly contradicts the lie.
When that surfaces, replace it with God's Word.
And third, reinforce it with community and content.
Strongholds lose their grip when you share them
with trusted Christian friends and pay attention
to what you're exposing your mind to. God can
work supernaturally, but transformation takes
partnership with the Holy Spirit. I shared in
our last broadcast that pleasing people was a
stronghold in my life. I memorized Proverbs 29,
25. It says, the fear of man is a snare, but
blessed is he who trusts in the Lord. I wrote
it on a card. On the other side of the card,
I wrote about the lie of pleasing people. And
then I put a stop sign and said it's a lie. And
I turned over the card. And every time I felt
that or thought that, I quoted Proverbs 29, 25.
Bam! The stronghold got broken over time. What's
your stronghold? What's the lie? What's the passage
you need to go to and go into training? God will
change your life. I'm your host, Dave Drury.
Join us as we continue this special study from
guest teacher Kyle Heidelman next time right
here on Living on the Edge. Today's program is
produced and sponsored by Living on the Edge.