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August 26, 2026 | Camden Nephew continues his Mind Matters series, teaching from 2 Corinthians 10:3-6 how to be strategic in spiritual warfare, emphasizing the battle for the mind through spiritual disciplines like Scripture intake, prayer, evangelism, worship, and fasting.
Bellevue Baptist Church High School Ministry
All right, hey, let's see how many of you remember our rules from last week. If you have your Bible, open them up to 2 Corinthians chapter 10. Woo! Okay, okay, okay, that was all right. I expect as the weeks go on, a little more energy, a little more enthusiasm, because we're excited to open the Word together. Hey, 2 Corinthians chapter 10, we're gonna be in verses three through six this evening, three through six, so we're gonna, we just focused last week on verses three through four, talking about waging war against the flesh, and this week, we're gonna talk more strategy. So we're gonna expand it a little bit, we're gonna revisit three and four, but we're also gonna add five and six to the passage tonight that we're gonna focus on. So let's read it together, it says this. For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of flesh and blood, but have divine power to destroy strongholds. Now, remember last week, we were talking about, hey, if I want to have victory over strongholds in my life, I have to be willing to go to war against my flesh, right? That was the whole idea of what we talked about last week, because again, it says, I'm gonna read it one more time, because repetition is good, in verse three. For though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh. Here's what that means. Hey, listen, we walk just as humans walk, we have flesh, we walk in the flesh, but when it comes to our war against the flesh, we don't fight according to the flesh. So and then he says, hey, let me make that make sense. And he says, for the weapons of our warfare are not of flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds. So he's saying, hey, although we walk in the flesh, we're humans, we have this flesh, although we walk in such a way, the weapons that we use in our war against the flesh are not fleshly, because here's what he's saying. Listen, you can't use your flesh to beat your flesh. That's what he's really saying, that if you're counting on your own strength, your own merit, your ability to be a good person, you are going to fall 10 times out of 10. But if you approach the battle against your flesh in such a way where it's, hey, I'm not relying on myself, but I'm relying on that which the Lord has given me, the Holy Spirit, that's when you find victory. And that's what he's writing here where he says, for though we walk in the flesh, we are not waging war according to the flesh, for the weapons of our warfare are not of flesh and blood, but have divine power to destroy strongholds. So last week we talked about, hey, if I want to have victory over strongholds in my life, I have to be willing to go to war for the sake of my flesh. And then we continue this week in verse five where he says this, we destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God and take every thought captive to obey Christ, being ready to punish every disobedience when your obedience is complete. All right, now I have this question. It's gonna make sense, I promise, okay? Does anyone in here love to bake? Any baker? Okay, really? Okay, or anybody like you love to cook, not just bake, like you love to make things? Okay, like you're really enthusiastic. Ethan, did I get it right? Okay, okay, what is your best dish? Your sourdough, any other sourdough? Okay, so is it just a loaf? Garlic bread sourdough, that sounds fantastic. Who else, who loves to bake? Anybody like pastries or anybody do like sweet treats? Do you really? Like what's your best, what do you like to make? Chocolate chip scones, oh, that sounds delicious. Yes, ma'am, what do you make? Oh, snickerdoodle cookies. Listen, I'm not just saying this because he's my boss. Corey's wife brought some pumpkin spice cookies to the office the other day and they were phenomenal. They were so good. What do you make, man? Banana bread, oh, that's what I'm talking about. Hey, listen, okay, we got some banana bread fans over there, listen, my wife is a phenomenal baker and I'm not just saying this because she's my wife. If you like bagels, she makes the best bagels you have ever had in your life. Like normally you get a bagel and you bite into it and it's like kind of tough, but right, not hers. Like soft and just delicious and delectable. Okay, so I need one more person. I saw one hand over here, like, all right, what do you make? Triple fudge brownie, we're gonna hang out later, okay? Okay, imagine, for all of you who are bakers out there, for all you who like making things, imagine if I had a bowl in front of me and I was like, okay, I'm gonna make a cake. Listen, I don't know how to bake, so if I'm getting this wrong, don't hold it against me. Just for the sake of the analogy, just say, okay, Camden, yeah, I get where you're going with this. Imagine I'm building a cake, okay? And I have some ingredients that are correct. I have flour, you put that in a cake, right? I got eggs, you know, I've got milk. Did you put milk in there? I don't know. I've got some correct ingredients, but I also got some ingredients on the table that probably not gonna put in a cake. I got some hot sauce, I got some sardines, I got some pickles, and like, and some of you are like, that's a cake that I would eat. But for most sane people, you're thinking to yourself, I don't, that's not a cake that I'm gonna eat. So imagine if I saw all these ingredients on here and I took the bad ingredients and I threw them in the trash. I got rid of them, that's a good thing, right? You should get rid of the bad ingredients. But then I was like, okay, that's enough, the cake will make itself. But I don't do anything with the good ingredients. Now you say, Cam, that's a dumb analogy, where are you going with this? Here's what I'm trying to say. The passage that we read tonight, specifically where it says, hey, we're gonna take every thought captive. We interpret that as every bad thought that I have, I'm gonna take it and I'm gonna discard it. I'm not gonna dwell on those things. And listen to me, students. I don't want you to hear what I'm not saying. That is a good and a holy thing to do. But that's half of the passage. What the passage commands you and I to do is this, not just to take every bad thought and discard it, but to take every good thought and dwell on it. You're not gonna make a cake just by getting rid of the bad ingredients, you have to be intentional with the good ingredients. Does that make sense? Are you following me? So we take this passage and we say, oh, well, I'm just gonna take the bad ingredients, get rid of them, but here's reality. Taking every thought captive means taking every good thought, every bad thought, taking all of them and dwelling on that which honors the Lord and casting away that which does not. So here's what I want you to write down, if you will. I want you to write this down at the top of your sheet. It's the first blank that's gonna be there. The war against my flesh starts in my mind. The war against my flesh starts in my mind. Now, this raises the question, how do I know if I'm winning the war in my mind? And this, I want you to understand this, students. The metric is not what enters my mind, the metric is what do I allow to stay in my mind? Because a lot of times we will think of ourselves as, oh man, I'm far from the Lord or I'm sinning if some temptation enters my mind. Temptation is not sin, students. But what you choose to dwell on, what you choose to act on, that's when it becomes sin. So what I want us to understand tonight is this, is that when we talk about taking every thought captive and we say, okay, how do I know if I'm winning the war in my mind, that the metric is not, okay, what enters my mind, the metric is what do I allow to stay there? What do I allow myself to dwell on? What do I allow myself, what do I allow to have, how am I gonna say it, real estate in my mind, right? That's the idea. So what ingredients are you allowing into your mind? Well, we're gonna talk about the rest tonight. Okay, what are those correct ingredients? And now listen, we're gonna talk about some spiritual disciplines here. And if you know spiritual disciplines, Bible reading, prayer, fasting, evangelism, like these are all things we're gonna talk about tonight. Here's the deal. How many of you have ever heard in your life, you should read your Bible, right? Most of us in the room, if not all of us. How many of you have ever heard, you should pray, right? How many of you have ever heard something, this is a little more, like maybe not as many of you, how many of you ever heard, hey, you should fast every once in a while, anybody? Okay, now here's the deal. We have all heard sermons on, you should read your Bible, you should pray, you should fast, you should do all these different things. And tonight is going to be one of those, okay? But here's what I'm gonna challenge you on. At some point, you need to move past hearing another sermon about it, you just need to do it. At some point in your spiritual journey, there needs to come a time where you say, okay, I've heard enough sermons on, I should read my Bible, I've heard it said enough, I'm just gonna do it, I'm just gonna read my Bible, I'm just gonna pray, I've never prayed before, I don't know how to pray, but I'm gonna do it, I'm just gonna talk to God just like I would talk to anybody else. I don't know a whole lot about fasting, but I'm just gonna do it, I'm gonna step in, I'm gonna do the thing, right? And here's the deal, Nike has a great slogan. What is it? Just do it. And that's my challenge to you tonight. As we talk about spiritual disciplines, don't overanalyze it, don't overthink it and be like, oh, well, I gotta make sure I do it.
Listen, just pray. Just read your Bible. Like, go open up to the book of Matthew, read chapter 1. Tomorrow, read chapter 2. The day after that, read, guess what? Any guesses? Chapter 3. And just start reading. When we talk about spiritual disciplines, there has to come a point in your walk with the Lord where you mature past someone has to tell you over and over and over and over again to do it. And again, we were talking in our staff meeting this week about this content and what we're going to be talking about tonight. And one of the things that Liza brought up was, like, hey, make sure they know that the reason why you do this isn't just because God's boring and He wants you to be boring and He wants you to...but it's because it's a relationship. He wants to talk to you. He wants to hear from you. He wants you to pray and have dialogue and talk with the Lord. He wants you to read His word and to see what His word has to say. He wants you to spend time with Him. There's a relationship aspect there, a communicating with the Father and having that intentional time. And students, so much of this, we can say, okay, I'm going to do it. I'm going to do this spiritual discipline. I'm going to read my Bible more. I'm going to pray more. I'm going to memorize Scripture more. And how many of you know that if you keep it to yourself, that's really not going to go very well? I'll say it this way. My New Year's resolution has still...I haven't broken it yet, which is crazy because it's, like, it's almost 2027, it feels like. My New Year's resolution was no soda, no sweet tea. I know. So, at first, I kind of changed it a little bit. I first said, oh, only water. And I was like, I need some flavor. So, like, the worst I'll do is lemonade now. But it's like no soda, no sweet tea. And I've made it this far. And the whole reason why I've made it this far is because I have brought... She's holding up that Dr. Pepper being like, drink it in front of me. That was so mean. And the only reason why I've made it this far is because I've told people, hey, my New Year's resolution, no soda, no sweet tea. And you know what that means? That means that whenever we go out to eat, if I'm with my wife, she knows no soda, no sweet tea. And I'm like, I really want sweet tea now. She's like, he'll have a water because she's holding me accountable, right? Like, you need people in your life that you say, hey, I'm being serious. I want to memorize Scripture this year. And you need people in your life that are going to say, okay, let's do it together. And then they're going to ask you, hey, did you memorize your passage? You need people in your life who are going to hold you accountable to so many spiritual disciplines. Now, let's talk about them. I got five questions that you need to ask yourself when it comes to spiritual disciplines, when it comes to this idea of, okay, am I winning the war of my mind, am I winning the war of my flesh that starts in my mind? How am I doing? What are those ingredients? This is the first one. Am I taking in Scripture regularly? Am I taking in Scripture regularly? Now, obviously, this includes Scripture reading and Scripture memory. Scripture reading and Scripture memory. Look at what the book of Joshua says. Joshua 1 verse 8 says, this book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night. If you have a Bible, if you have like a pen or a highlighter or whatever it is, I want you to underline day and night. So you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it, for then you will make your way prosperous and then you will have good success. All of these ingredients are important, students. This is one of the most important. Like this is like, if you get this part right, Scripture memory, Scripture reading, a lot of the other ones are just going to fall into place. Because if you're doing it right, if your Scripture intake is healthy, you're going to do all the other ones because Scripture tells you to do all the other ones, right? Listen, the passage doesn't just say, hey, just read the word. What does it say? It says meditate on it day and night. Now, when we think meditate, a lot of times what we think is, you know, sitting crisscross applesauce doing the whole thing. That's not what I'm talking about, okay? That's not meditating. That's not what the Scripture is referring to. What the Scripture is referring to is, hey, are you dwelling on his word day and night? Like when you read the word in the morning, are you thinking about it throughout the day? Or the Scriptures that you memorize, do they come to mind and do you repeat them throughout your day? Like when you arise in situations, are you recalling Scriptures that you have been memorizing or are you just dwelling on it? Are you thinking about it throughout the day? Meditating on the word when? Day and night. Means I don't take a break from it, but all throughout my day, all throughout my night, I'm thinking about the word. I'm meditating on it. I'm considering it. Or even you might be in a waiting room or something, I'm just going to read the word a little bit. I'm just going to do some reading or something like that. Whatever that looks like, are you meditating on it day and night? What do you think would happen if we started treating the Bible app kind of like we treat some of these social media? So I don't have time to read all that much. Well, what's your screen time? And what apps are you on most often? Like what if you replace that time and you're just reading the word? Or what if you replace that time? Let's not even say, oh, you're just reading and reading and reading. What if you replace that time and you worked on one verse to memorize this week? How long do you think it would take you to memorize it? A day, probably? Probably less than that? Meditating on it day and night. Am I taking in scripture regularly? And I'll say it this way, if you want to have success in your quiet time, here's what you got to have. You got to have a plan. So like what's your plan? Here's what that includes. Like not just opening up your word and saying, oh, I'm just going to open up random, I'll read here. Like do you know what you're going to be reading tomorrow morning? Tomorrow morning, I'm reading 2 Chronicles 24. It's been a lot of genealogies, lots like that. But hey, listen, I know where I'm going because I have a plan. Do you have a plan? Like do you know where you're going to be reading tomorrow morning when you open up your Bible? And if you don't, that's totally fine. Start a plan today. There are so many plans online. You can go Google Bible reading plan. You can chat GPT, give me a good Bible reading plan. You know, do whatever it looks like. You can get a Bible reading plan or you can say, how much are you going to read through the book of James this week? One chapter a week and just read through the book of James. Whatever it looks like, have a plan. You have a plan, you have a place. Place, here's what I mean by that. Where do you have your quiet time? Like physically, where are you? Mine goes from one of two spots. I'm either sitting on the couch or I'm at our table because sometimes I like to journal while I have my quiet time. My wife is way better about that than I am. But sometimes I like to journal while I have my quiet time and I like to do it at the table so it's laying down in front of me. I can't write when something's like on my lap. It's just hard for me. So, my places vary. Sometimes I'm on the couch, sometimes I'm at the table. But do you have a spot where it's, hey, this is where I spend time with the Lord every morning? And then do you have a time? Like, hey, every morning, here's what time I have my quiet time. Now, for some of you that are like, hey, I have school in the morning, that's tough. Listen, I had friends that went to Arlington growing up and their quiet time was right there in their car. They would get to school early, they would park and they would sit there and they would read the Word together. You can make time for it. You'll make time for those things that are important. Scripture intake, I need to move quickly. Number two is this, is am I praying earnestly? Am I praying earnestly? Now, I chose some of these adjectives on purpose, earnestly. I love what Brother Steve used to say where he would say, are you praying like it matters? Like, when I think earnestly, what I mean is like, hey, let me ask you this way, whose eternity would change because of your prayers for them today? Like, whose eternity would look completely different? Like, if they were to die tonight, whose eternity would be like, who's going from hell to heaven? Like, who has eternal life because of the prayers that you prayed for them today? Do you approach God's throne in prayer with an earnesty, like this earnest heart saying, like, Lord, I can't do anything without you? I can't go to school well, I can't be a light in my school, I can't be a light in my family, I can't be a light at the place where I work without you, Lord. When was the last time you went to the Lord and like with an earnest heart saying, Lord, I can't do this on my own, I need you? Are you praying earnestly? Students, you need to understand something. Prayer is not an option for the life of a believer. I want you to look at Matthew 6, verse 5 through 8. If you have time, you can turn there in your Bible because I want to point something out to you. If you turn there in your Bible, here's what I want to ask you to do. In Matthew 6, verse 5 through 8, every time you see the phrase, when, I want you to underline it. Look at what it says. And when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites, for they love to stand and pray in the synagogues, at the street corners, that they may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward. But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your father who is in secret, and your father who sees in secret will reward you. And when you pray, do not heap up empty phrases as the Gentiles do, for they think that they will be heard for their many words. Do not be like them, for your father knows what you need before you ask him. Now, that's a lot that we just read.
And there's a whole lot that we can unpack from that. I want you to see just one thing. What does he say? He say, hey, if you pray, don't be like the hypocrites. Is that what he says? What does he say? Say it loud. When prayer is not an option for the life of the believer. Christ never presented it as, hey, like when you have time, if it's cool with you, and when you got a big test coming up, just before dinner is fine. When you pray, because you are going to pray as a believer, it's not an option. So the question is, hey, do I pray like it matters? Do I pray fervently? Am I praying earnestly? I think sometimes we don't pray earnestly because we treat prayer like an option, not like a necessity. We'll sprinkle it in here and there if I need it. Or if I got like a test that I'm really nervous about, I'll throw it in there. I'll sprinkle it in right before dinner because I'm supposed to. Not when I'm by myself though. Like, why would I pray when I'm by myself? I'll do it when I'm like with my family and stuff. And we don't pray like it matters. We pray like, you know, it's just, we pray at church and we'll pray when we need to, other than that, nah, I'm good. I'm gonna ask that question again as soon as, whose eternity would change because of your prayers for them today? And third one is this. Am I evangelizing organically? We'll go through this very quickly. Am I evangelizing organically? Here's what I mean by that. When I say organically, what I mean is this. When you have conversations with your coworkers, with your family members, with your friends, are you so about the things of God that to bring up the gospel is not like some crazy thing for you? To talk about Jesus is just a part of your everyday vocabulary. Hey, you know why I talk about my wife so much? I love my wife. Simple as that. Like in every conversation I have, I'll probably sprinkle in, oh yeah, my wife and I, one time we did this thing. Or one time, like my wife said this and it was so good. Oh yeah, I remember that one time when me and my wife did, you know, because I love her. In your conversations, you talk about the things that you love. So when I say do you evangelize organically, what I mean is this. Is do you love the Lord so much that in your conversations and everyday, your everyday conversations, is to bring up the gospel like, oh, that's just, that's who he is. He loves the Lord. He's going to talk about him. Or it's like, oh, I need to talk about Jesus, but like, what are they going to say about me? I never talk about Jesus. Do they even know that I'm a Christian? I had a student once who gave a speech at their school and in their speech, they said something about, you know, oh, we love, I love the Lord. I want to thank Jesus, did all this stuff. You know, I was talking about the Lord and one of her classmates came up and was like, I didn't know you were a Christian. And I was like, man, how sad. I will do that. I want to thank God for, you know, this, the win that we got, you know, athletes do that all the time. I want to thank God for it. How sad if you go your whole time through high school and your classmates are like, you're a believer? I had no idea. And I'm not saying that you beat them over the head with it and you're like, you cram it down somebody's throat, but what I'm saying is this, is in your everyday conversations, can people tell there's something different about you in such a way that when you bring up the gospel and the Lord opens the door to have a conversation to share the gospel with your words, comes natural because you talk about what you love and you love the Lord and people say, hey, that's who they are. Like they love Jesus. Next thing is this. Am I worshiping wholeheartedly? I defined worship for you last week very briefly and I'll give it to you again in case you weren't here, but worship is setting our mind's attention, our heart's affection upon the Lord. Our mind's attention and our heart's affection upon the Lord. Romans 12, one, this one isn't going to be on the screen, but it says this. I appeal to you therefore brothers by the mercies of God to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. By the mercies of God to present your bodies as a living sacrifice. Lord, as I live, as I breathe Lord, everything that I do, I'm doing it for your glory and your glory alone. My mind's attention and my heart's affection is placed solely on you, Lord. So listen, here's what that means. That means that you can worship the Lord through the way that you work at Chick-fil-A. I was talking to somebody who works at Chick-fil-A earlier. If you are setting your mind's attention, your heart's affection upon the Lord, Lord, I'm doing this as a living sacrifice to you. That is your spiritual act of worship. How you can be sitting in your classroom where I'm doing it as an act of worship to you. I'm a living sacrifice. My mind's attention, my heart's affection is on you, Lord. How can I honor and glorify you? That's worship. But here's what that also means. That means you can come into this room, you can sing some songs, you can raise your hands, but if your mind's attention is, hey, what do people think of me? Oh, do people think I'm a really good Christian because I have my hands raised? And your heart's affection is, oh man, I wonder if my crush is looking at me right now. And that's what your heart's affection is going towards? That's not worship. What is your mind's attention and your heart's affection geared towards? Am I worshiping wholeheartedly? And the last thing is this, and then we'll wrap up, is am I fasting intentionally? Am I fasting intentionally? I mentioned fasting last week and I had a lot of great questions about it. So I just want to talk about this just for a second and then we'll wrap up together. I want to give you a definition of fasting, okay? And it's this. Fasting is abstaining from something for the purpose of seeking and pursuing God. Fasting is abstaining from something for the purpose of seeking and pursuing God. Now, I want to make something very clear. A biblical fast is from food and any, is from food and any drink that's not water. If you want to fast from social media or fast from your Xbox or fast from anything like that, from Snapchat, whatever it is, I am all for it, okay? Listen, I'm encouraging you though. Accept the challenge to fast from food. Here's why. When you fast from things like social media or your PlayStation or whatever it is, over time that gets easier. Oh, you fast from social media. Like my wife and I are on social media and it's glorious. We got off and it was like, oh, this is kind of like, I miss reels. No, I miss memes, I miss that kind of stuff. But then all of a sudden it was, oh man, I can't imagine ever going back just because it's so much nicer. Here's the deal, students. When we talk about fasting, when you fast from food, the longer you go, the harder it gets. Therefore, you depend on the Lord more. Now, here's what I want to do. I want to give you like a 30,000 foot, hey, here's what fasting is, okay? It's this. Fasting is not a test of endurance. It's a call to dependence. I'm gonna say it again. Fasting is not a test of endurance. It's a call to dependence. Here's what I mean by that. Fasting is not how long can I go without eating, okay? Fasting is not just, okay, how long can I go without my favorite snack or how long can I go not eating lunch? Fasting is, okay, I'm not just abstaining from something, but I'm running towards something. So here's what it looks like. I'm gonna not eat lunch every day for the next week, and instead of eating lunch, I'm gonna read my Bible. That's what that looks like. It's not just saying, okay, it's not a test of endurance. I heard a pastor say it this way recently. A social media fast is a lazy man's fast. And I believe that. Your body doesn't need social media, doesn't need your Xbox, doesn't need your PlayStation, doesn't need Snapchat. Your body doesn't need these things. So when you fast from anything that your body doesn't actually need, it becomes a test of endurance and not a call to dependence, which is what fasting should be, is a call to dependence. And then the next thing I want you to understand is this. Is fasting is telling your body, hey, I have control over my cravings. My cravings don't have control over me. And that's an important one. To be able to say, hey, when my body has cravings, I tell it how to respond, not the other way around. Because then what that turns into is this, is hey, when you have temptation, you say, hey, I tell my body what to give into, not the other way around. Those five things, those are the ingredients, the ingredients you're looking for. Am I taking in scripture regularly? Am I praying earnestly? Am I evangelizing organically? Am I worshiping wholeheartedly? Am I fasting intentionally?