Battlefield

The mind is a powerful thing. You know, what we believe will control how we behave. I've seen this true in my life personally. You know, I grew up just always having a lot of negative thoughts. I really be became a victim. To the way I was raised. I looked at everything through the lens of nothing's ever gonna go right for me, or God doesn't see me and God doesn't love me.

My mind was a battle. And Christian, you're going to have to fight. Here's how...

Show Notes

Have you ever thought your life is beyond repair or wondered if God could use your brokenness for good?

We all tend to look and search for purpose in our pain and suffering. In this Bible study, Noe Garcia takes participants on a journey through Romans 8, which many scholars believe is the greatest chapter in the Bible. Noe shares his life story and experiences of abuse, depression, and overwhelming hopelessness. He reveals how God redeemed, repaired, and restored him.

Through Romans 8, Dr. Noe Garcia will help you understand Christ's transformative power to repurpose hurt and brokenness for your good and His glory.

Session topics:

• Shame
• Battlefield
• Philophobia
• Suffering
• Purpose
• Trust
• Separation Anxiety
• Conquer

Dr. Noe Garcia is the senior pastor at North Phoenix Baptist Church in Phoenix, Arizona. He and his wife have four children. Noe holds a Doctorate of Ministry and Executive Leadership from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Noe is an adjunct professor at Gateway Seminary and a writer for Lifeway Voices. He is passionate about reaching and equipping people with the gospel of Jesus Christ, in Phoenix and around the world.

To learn about the full study including workbooks and videos, visit https://www.lifeway.com/en/product-family/romans-8-bible-study

And to find more great studies and small group curriculum just search "lumivoz" in your favorite podcast app or go to https://lumivoz.com

Creators & Guests

Host

Dr. Noe Garcia

Dr. Noe Garcia is the senior pastor at North Phoenix Baptist Church in Phoenix, Arizona. He and his wife have four children. Noe holds a Doctorate of Ministry and Executive Leadership from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. Noe is an adjunct professor at Gateway Seminary and a writer for Lifeway Voices. He is passionate about reaching and equipping people with the gospel of Jesus Christ, in Phoenix and around the world.

What is Romans 8: From Broken To Belonging - Noe Garcia?

Is there purpose in your pain?

Have you ever thought your life is beyond repair or wondered if God could use your brokenness for good? We all tend to look and search for purpose in our pain and suffering. Depression, anxiety, hurting relationships, and unmet expectations can cause us to question God. In this study, Noe Garcia takes participants on a journey through Romans 8, which many scholars believe is the greatest chapter in the Bible. Noe shares his life story and experiences of abuse, depression, and overwhelming hopelessness. He reveals how God redeemed, repaired, and restored him. Through Romans 8, he'll help you understand Christ's transformative power to repurpose hurt and brokenness for your good and His glory.

The mind is a powerful thing. You know, what we believe will control how we behave. I've seen this true in my life personally. You know, I grew up just always having a lot of negative thoughts. I really be became a victim. To the way I was raised. I looked at everything through the lens of nothing's ever gonna go right for me, or God doesn't see me and God doesn't love me.

And therefore for a large portion of my life, I just live that way. I live thinking, what does it matter? And these thoughts controlled everything about me. In fact, these thoughts tortured me. This absolutely destroyed how I viewed God, how I viewed. And how I viewed other people and, and here's what happened throughout my life, I began to live a life of destruction.

And, and to be honest, it didn't stop when I became a Christian because it was still hard to control this powerful force of these powerful thoughts. It was still hard to read scripture, and although I knew what God was saying about. I didn't believe it to be true. My mind wouldn't allow it to be. It almost felt like lies had had taken up residency in my head, and I didn't know how to kick them out.

I didn't know how to evict them. So I let them set up post and just take over my mind so much so that it, it led to a very dark, dark place. You know, I always heard that, uh, when you're a Christian, you shouldn't deal with mental. How could we, we have the creator as our father. How could we deal with mental illness?

I never forget, I found myself in a deep, dark place and I was ashamed, and I was embarrassed, and I didn't wanna tell anybody. So I, I hid it and to the point to where I couldn't hide it anymore, there was a, a suicide attempt, and then all of a sudden I had to figure out what was going on in my life. And sooner than.

I got to the place where, man, I didn't care whether God took me, whether I lived another day. The truth is I just wanted to go home with him. I was sick of being tortured. I was sick of fasting and praying. I was sick of doing these things and never being healed, and, and I even thought, I'm a pastor, God, please heal me.

Please. I confessed all the sin that I could, but yet mentally it wasn't being fixed. And so finally, I, I humbled myself and I'll never forget going into the doctor's office and they had me take this test. It was a 10 question test, and I was 10 for 10, and the doctor comes back and says, you have depression?

And those words, it's almost like I knew it before she said it, and I knew it before I walked in there. But hearing the words. And I just internally just slumped. I felt like, to be honest, I went into an even deeper drought in my life. I left the doctor's office and, and I called my wife and I didn't wanna utter the words out.

I have depression. And then what was even worse is, is now I, I had to be on antidepressants and I just thought, God, are you kidding me? After all I've been through God, why can't you at least just heal me? God, I'll be a better father. If I didn't have depression. God, I'd be a better husband. If I didn't have depression, God, I'd be a better pastor, a better friend.

I'd be a better man of God if I didn't have to have depression. But he never took it away. He never took away the battle and the mental illness that I walk in. It's still there. It's still. I still have to fight to fight every single day. But the truth is you don't even have to have depression or mental illness to understand the battle of our minds, because the truth is we have an enemy that's continuing to place lies in our minds to remind us of past failures.

And his goal and his target is to take our minds off the. Is, take our minds off of Christ and to take our minds off of truth so that we can put our minds on the things of the flesh. See these things, when we set our minds on the things of the flesh, these things bring discouragement. They bring hopelessness.

They bring frustration, and that's where the enemy wants us to set our minds. But the spirit, the spirit of. He doesn't want us to set our minds on things of the past. He doesn't want us to set our minds on our failures. The spirit wants us to set our minds on the cross of Christ, on the power of Christ.

See, when we set our minds on the things of Christ, that's where we'll find life, and that's where we'll find a peace that surpasses all under. So Christian, it's gonna be a battle. You're gonna have to fight. You're gonna have to memorize scripture. You're gonna have to tell yourself truth over and over again, and that's how you'll win this battle.

That's how we can walk in confidence. That's how we can walk in the life that Christ has intended us to walk in, and that's how we'll walk in peace, see, to live according to the flesh. It's to set your minds on the thing of the flesh, and for those who live according to the spirit, set their minds on the spirit.

To set your mind on the flesh brings death, but to set your mind on the spirit brings life in peace. Paul is bringing out today, really two powerful things. He has shown us that when our mind is set on the flesh, it brings death and destruction. But when our minds are set on the. It brings life in peace.

Now, Paul is speaking about the Christian and non-Christian to live in the fleshes who he used to be before the spirit of Christ dwells in us. But let's be honest today, we all know that although we are believers walking with Christ, that the flesh is still alive. It's real, and it's powerful. It's hungry to take over and it doesn't wanna submit to the.

In fact, Paul gives us this truth in Romans chapter seven, he tells us that there is a war within us. There are two principles. There is good and evil. And in fact, he says every time he wants to do good, evil is there. There is this powerful force that's never going to sleep. So for the Christian, what does that mean today for us?

That there is this battle going on and Paul lets us know that this is not only a. There is a powerful battle in our minds. See, the truth is our minds are a battlefield. It's where hopes and dreams live or die, and the truth struggles to stay alive. And so when Paul is letting us know the importance of where we set our mind, I think we can all understand this.

There's a study that reveals the average person thinks between 12,000 and 60,000 thoughts. 80% of those thoughts are negative, and 95% of those thoughts are repeated negative thoughts. What does that mean? There are a lot of people who are losing the battle. Now, I want you to think about this. Throw mental illness on top of this.

Let's be honest now, it feels like we're absolutely defeated. We can't discern what's true. What's a lie? We can't discern. What's the voice of God? What's our voice? What's from the. And we're exhausted, and it's probably easier to go ahead and wade the flag of surrender and no longer fight this battle.

Here's the truth. Second Corinthians chapter 10, verse five. Paul says, to take every single thought captive. Do you know what that means? It means that when a thought comes in, we are to take this thought captive. It means that we should have control of this thought, but then bring it to submission to. This is how we can discern the truth from a lie.

See, here's the truth. That is a very difficult thing to do, and instead of taking our thoughts captive, we have allowed our thoughts to take us captive and we have become prisoners in our own minds, and this is the battle that many of us are losing. But let me challenge you. You don't have to be a prisoner in your own mind.

You don't have to let the thoughts of. And the thoughts of today torture you. There's a way to break free, and there's a way to be a free man and to live free in Christ. What is this way? Well, Paul gives us the way to break free from being a prisoner of our own thoughts. See the phrase that he uses over and over again set their minds.

And the Greek is actually one word. It means to focus or to be absorbed by something. So here's. You wanna win the battle. You want to be free. You want to walk in power. Here's the key. It lies in where you set your mind. There is a battle to be won. And Christians, it's time to start winning battle.