well today, as we kick off our new series soundtracks, I want to give you kind of an idea of where we're going today. And so we're gonna have three components. We're gonna start off a little fun, a little fun to start things off. But then we're gonna get real deep. Okay, we're gonna, we're gonna step on some toes a little bit. We'll try not to step on your neighbor's toes, just step on your toes and we'll let you decide if you want to step on their toes or not. Try to refrain from elbowing the person next to you. If I think something applies to them and try to see, okay, what is that? God that you have for me? And we go from there and so we're gonna have some fun. We're gonna go deep, but then we're gonna get real practical at the end. Okay, so what do I mean by fun? Well, the idea of a soundtrack is really, what is the song that represents your childhood or the song that gets Played on your playlist? Over and over again. Studies have shown that your musical taste most likely was formed between the ages of 11 and 16. This means the type of music that you liked at that age probably sticks with you from then until forever more. So that for guys, it's said that our musical tastes are really set when were between the ages of 13 and 16 and ladies. Your musical taste is set between the ages of 11 and 14 and so whatever music you like listening to at that stage in life, you probably still like listening to moving forward. And so it's interesting just looking at the musical culture in our country. And so I was curious. So I looked it up and I was just curious and I just picked a year. So every decade I just picked a year and I was curious what was the number one song at the end of that year? On the billboard charge? And so let's go through this together. If you, if you can guess it, go ahead and and whisper it to your neighbor or if you really feel confident you can start singing, but that's up to you. Um Okay, so 1965 the end of 1965 can you guess the number one song on the billboard charts? It is deep, it is rich in knowledge and meaning it is Wooly Bully, wooly Bully was the number one song from Sam the Shade and the pharaohs. Um And right behind wooly Bully, a little known song of can't get no satisfaction by the Rolling Stones 1965 Is it amazing that the Rolling Stones are still rolling all these years later at some point you would think they would get satisfaction, but apparently not. So We're still going, they can't, they can't get it. So that was 1965 then in 1975. So 10 years later, the number one song by a group there, Captain and Tenille. The song as Love Will Keep Us together. Love will keep us together and I'm gonna sing it for you know, okay, I'm not, I won't do that In the 1985. The band names that hit the top SIS, you know, it just hits you. Just just wham. Right, And it's because wham was the group. And the number one song there at the end was Careless whisper. Careless Whisper by Wham. Their 1985, 1995 uh Coolio topped the charts. Coolio topped the charts with Gangster's Paradise. Gangsters Paradise 1995, 2005, Mariah, Carey We belong together, closely followed by Hollaback girl, Gwen stefani. We have not changed months in society, wooly bully, hollaback girl is just here we are, Okay. And then 2015, number one song, end of the year was uptown funk, Mark Ronson with Bruno mars. And so whether it's a paradise or a whisper, wooly bully or uptown funk, that's apparently where we are as a nation. So pray for us and uh and we'll you know, we'll we'll come back and talk about different decades and then uh the way we play our music that's changed a little bit over the years, right? As we go through this next series here. But the idea behind the music is that what song in your life gets played on repeat? What is the song that comes into your life and stays because that idea also happens to our thought life. And so Jon Acuff actually wrote a book called soundtracks are series is gonna be unique but we did steal that name and this idea as the premise for our series from his book. So I do actually recommend it and a soundtrack can be defined this way a soundtrack is a thought that often gets repeated in your mind and so like a song. But what is the thought that gets repeated in your mind? So Jonah Cuff in his book called Soundtracks. They commissioned a study of 10,000 people and they asked the question, is there an area in your life where you battle or struggle with overthinking and you know what? The response was 99.5% of 10,000 people said Yes, they struggle with overthinking 99.5%. If 99.5% of people all battle something that could be an issue for people, right? And here's here's what I want to say. You think yeah, we do, here's what happened. And if you're sitting there and you had one of two thoughts when I just said that statistic one, you questioned the validity of that statistic like come on, did that really happen or you thought yourself, do I struggle with overthinking you just overthought a statistic about overthinking because we all do that we we play things in our mind over and over again. The person that you most talked to during the day is yourself, you have these ongoing conversations. Some are audible and some most or not, but there are our thought life and no matter how hard you try to run away, you can never run away from yourself. So it's probably good to learn how to have these conversations and what thoughts are put on repeat in your mind and see it in our, in our hearts and in our minds there can be both positive and negative soundtracks just like a brick can be used to build a house or break a window. The soundtrack or thoughts that you place in your mind can both build you up and tear you down. Pastor craig rochelle put it this way, he said, our lives are always moving in the direction of our strongest thoughts. Our lives are always moving in the direction of our strongest thoughts as you think, so you think you are and and so we process this and it attaches to our identity and what we believe ultimately determines what we do. And ideas are so powerful. That's why you're taking notes. I want you to write this down that you need to regularly proof your playlist. You need to regularly proof your minds playlists because you might not have put a song in there. Somebody else might have added a song or thought to your playlist, but you actually get to decide if it stays there and not all songs are good songs. And just because it gets to listen too often does not equal a hit case in point. Do you know the number one most watched music video of all time? Baby Shark doo doo doo doo doo baby Shark. Yeah. And for some of you, I apologize, it's just ruin the rest of the service because that's all that's gonna play in your head right now or tomorrow morning you're gonna be on your way to work and just baby shark doo doo doo. 10 billion views with a B. There are seven billion people in the world And baby Shark has 10 billion views. So views does not equal quality. Okay, in the same way just because something that's replayed in your mind doesn't make it true. And so let's take a little bit deeper dive for a moment and see what is it? That is a soundtrack in our mind and our negative soundtracks. The bible actually describes as strongholds in our lives. That's why today's message is entitled soundtracks and strongholds. And so paul is writing to this church in Corinth and he wrote a letter and apparently it didn't stick because he he went to start a church in the city and city of Corinth. And and they and then writes a letter to them and Corinth is pretty messed up. In fact the to say to Corinth a size is the same as committing a sexual act. And so like if you said you were from Corinth. They're like, oh that's just a deplorable city. It's a city that celebrates pagan worship and pagan immorality. It pictures like picture, if you will like a pagan society today or a city that we would paint that is known for and celebrated for people's own sensual desires and and deplorable behavior. So you might think, you know, las Vegas, right? Or old town Scottsdale or okay, maybe joking on old town Scottsdale, but at the same time, if you know, you know, okay, and so there might be an area where like people are known for just doing whatever they want and celebrating self. You bu and what does it even mean anyway, Right. And like we just say these things. And so paul writes plants, a church, writes a letter. They don't get it. He comes back and he writes a second letter and he just is pleading with them. And there's some great passages like in chapter three talking about where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And there's this idea of being freed from the bondage of sin that comes. And we get to chapter 10 and this is where we're picking up our our passage today and here's what we're gonna take a little bit deeper dive. And it's found in second Corinthians chapter 10, verses 3 to 5 and it reads this, it 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 have the 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 since we do not fight flesh with flesh. And the idea of flesh, if you're not familiar with church, that sounds weird. But what that is is saying in your own body and your own choosing, your own desires. Like if you try to live out of your own power, own wisdom, own strength, you're gonna live out of your flesh. And he writes in there that we don't fight flesh with flesh, that as a christian as people who believe in christ, the resurrection of jesus. Like we just celebrated easter last weekend that we don't fight, that we actually fight it the natural with supernatural power that we fight with the Holy Spirit. So you don't defeat flesh with flesh, you defeat flesh or our sinful desires with the spirit. Think about how we've grown in history and how we fight wars that for the longest time. The way you fought a war was you lined everybody up and then they just started hitting each other, right, it was fists, it was rocks, it was sticks, it was swords and then we added things like bow and arrows and stuff there and then we added guns and then we added bigger guns and then now it's like we can hit something from across the world. It's crazy how far we've come. So imagine if you approached warfare as how they used to do it just a couple of 1000 years ago, you're lining up in a straight line and people are just have a whole another level of weaponry as believers. We have a whole nother level of weaponry at our disposal. So you are going up against your own sinful nature and you will not win in a hand to hand combat with your own desires. You cannot win and defeat flesh with flesh. You need spirit. But thankfully we have the spirit of God, the same god that defeated death itself available to us. And so is saying that this spirit, this truth actually defeats strongholds. Now what is a stronghold. Now when you had battles, you had a strong hold in two different ways. The stronghold is what used to fortify a city I think of the city of Jericho from the old testament. The reason they were so protected was because they had this massive wall until God broke down that wall and they went and took the city. And so you have this defensive wall but at the same time if you are a prisoner you were then surrounded by those walls. So it's like prison walls also. So on one hand if if you if it's for you it keeps the bad guys out but in this case in our case it keeps you locked in and so if you are stuck in your own head, if you are stuck in your negative thoughts, if you are stuck in this mindset it's so much deeper than that. And what is it that imprisons you and christ has come to set you free Galatians 51 says for freedom's sake, christ died to set you free john eight talks about how if the son sets you free, you are free. Indeed Second Corinthians three verse 17 that where the spirit of the Lord is there is freedom and so these walls that get put up by us and sometimes by others can be taken down not by our flesh but by the spirit eric mason pastor eric mason to find a stronghold is this way he said a stronghold is a mindset value system or thought process that hinders your growth in christ A stronghold is a mindset. We often think of strongholds as sinful actions that we do. Maybe it's pornography or greed or lying or stealing. It is something that we do. But what we learned in this passage is that the stronghold is actually the thing beneath the thing and that's tougher to defeat because what happens is if we change the outside but we don't actually heal it from the inside, then it just gets replaced with another sin. It's like the difference between pulling weeds and then actually killing the root of the sin. So we have our sinful action but then a stronghold is where Satan actually gives you an accusation underneath that led to that sinful action for example in the garden the first sin. What did Adam and Eve do they took the bite of the fruit? Okay. In a sense, Adam's first mistake was actually being passive. Oh, that'll preach guys in the room right? Like he didn't step up and lead where he was supposed to right? And they and they took the fruit and they ate of the fruit. And so the action was that. But what was behind that? What was before that Satan got them to doubt the very character and nature of God. And so when Satan came through and got them to doubt God, it led to that sinful action. So the question today is not just do you look at pornography or do you steal or do you have poor language or do you do this or that? The question is what is not just the symptom but what is the disease underneath? What is the belief that you have that triggers that action? Because until you get to that belief, things aren't gonna change. You're just going to change behavior for an amount of time. But you can't beat flesh. You can't you can't have victory over the sins in your life with just willpower. You actually have to have the spirit of God and the word of God. Break down the stronghold to change the belief of who you are. That then changes the action because that is lasting change. And so right now where you're sitting, I want you to either write it down or at least think about it in your head. What is a stronghold in your life right now? What is a stronghold in your life? What is something a belief that you hold or a belief that you find yourself sane? And yes, there is spiritual warfare going on. Sometimes satan comes in with a lie and just feeds it to you. But what is that? Is it a mistake you've made in the past that you think that you can never recover from? Is it a sin that somebody else did to you that now you think I'm never gonna be good enough Because what did Adam and Eve do when they sinned? They ran and they hid. So we get stuck in this cycle of shame and guilt and issues and struggled. We think I'm not pretty enough, I'm not strong enough. God can't use me, I'll never get better. I thought I was supposed to be further and now I still have this or we think you know what, I've been beat up so bad. You know, I deserve this, I want this and we choose something lesser because of a belief that goes on in our head and our heart when God says I've come to break that stronghold to give you a change that you've been longing for that you can't produce on your own. And see in this passage, we see that there are two types of strongholds in the life of a christian. The first stronghold actually comes from the outside and that is opposing worldview. Let's reread that passage again, and I want you to take note of that first part, it says in verse five a second Corinthians 10, it says for we destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God. See everything in your world preaches not just some weird guy on the stage, Everything in your world preaches your social media, feed, preaches netflix, preaches your news channel. Whatever side of the aisle you're on, preaches your school system, preaches your workplace, preaches the entertainment culture, the sports culture, whatever it is around you, surround you, preach us and for the most part they're preaching a message that is opposed to the word of God, where we start to question everything, sexuality, What is truth? What is relative, what is objective you do you how do you define you? How do you define do right? We start to question literally everything and then nothing makes sense. And we are surrounded and being bombarded. Buy more messages than any point in history. It's crazy. There's another passage, same writer, paul writing a different church in colossians, He writes this in Colossians two verse eight, he says, see to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental elemental spirits of the world and not according to christ I've shared this illustration before but we have a lot of new people in recent months. And so I want to share this again that for those that specialize and identifying counterfeit bills, I work for the government. They don't spend their time on all the different ways that it can be counterfeit money. They spend a majority of their time studying what is an actual bill. And the reason they do that is because you can't know every lie that's gonna come your way today, tomorrow next week, next year. But by studying what is true, you can recognize what is a lie and so the first thing you can do to destroy strongholds in your life is to know what is true and if you know what is true in the word of God, if you know what is true in the person of God, then you understand that your identity doesn't come from the world, from your news feed from the social media platform, from a video, from what somebody else tells you. Your word comes from the God who made you and the God who saved you. And so you're not being taken captive by the next idea or thought of the world, but instead you have an anchor for your soul and who God is and who you are as a child of God. So there are forces at play on the outside. Now the second stronghold is a lot sneakier. Well, let me know what, let me pause one thing real quick on that. Yes, I know strongholds and beliefs and ideas are difficult because ideas are hard to kill. This is why war on terrorism around the world is so difficult because it's not just a physical war, it is an ideological war. And so when somebody, it's not just it's not just about who has better weapons, but it's somebody's belief directly opposes you and thinks they're call from God is to kill someone or to do this. Like how do you? It's much more difficult to kill because it is a belief system. This is why our beliefs are so crucial to who we are and that unbelief in God is the core root of every single sin that we are choosing self over God. Or we play something like if God is here and we come over here and we have a question about God. And so we put something in between us and God. And then rather than seeking the truth, we think, well, I don't know why this happens. So I'm gonna do what I want, right, God, How is there evil in the world? And yes, it's a genuine question, but the reality, if you're honest is like, well, I just want to sleep with who I want and if I can question one thing about God, I don't have to trust anything about God. And then it's about me and at the core of it and below the action is actually an unhealthy belief that has a stronghold in our lives. And so there's outside belief and here's the thing, this is the sneakier one, we're gonna go to the second one, the second one is inward and it's a personal belief or personal attitude. This is much tougher. Why? Because you are always with you. And so if you have negative conversations with yourself, you cannot go in the other room from yourself. You cannot escape yourself, no matter what drink drug or numb media, you choose to consume. Then when you go to lay your head down at night, if you're battling a belief that I'm not good enough, that I'm not pretty enough, they haven't worked hard enough that I don't have this, how do you recover? You know that there's no english equivalent opposite of the word trauma. No one word is equal to trauma, but on the positive side, because trauma, when it happens to you, stays with you. And so then how do you move forward? Alright, Somebody breaks your trust. How do you ever trust again? Somebody hurts you? How do you move forward? And it's so hard, but see this is where paul comes in and says you don't have to sit back on this one, he says, you can actually take action to this, you can change the playlist. Our original passage today go back to second Corinthians chapter 10 verse five, that second part first we destroy arguments of the world, but second it says we take every thought captive to obey christ. That is a personal ability and responsibility to own your thought life. Anyone in here have a truck, okay. Um you don't have to raise your hand. You know why? Because we all know you have a truck because you tell people right? And a couple of things happen. If you own a truck, you will get asked to move furniture or pull a trailer at some point and you you will complain about it. Then secretly you love it, right? Like if you drive a Prius, that's cool, but you don't want to help anybody at that point, you want to help the world charge your car, but don't ask me to move your furniture. Okay? And so and the thing is and and the truck, you know, I'm not, I don't have a truck, but like I know that the type of truck matters like when we were in Mexico and and somebody's truck got stuck and then the other guy who had a different brand of truck got to pull his truck out that made this whole trip. You know, it's kind of like how do you know if someone goes to crossfit because they tell you, right? Like, you know, if you've got a truck and you love it, right? And you and you're like, oh man, I always get asked okay, right, okay. So picture for a moment though, you have a truck and then you have a trailer which pulls what the truck always pulled the trailer. Here's the thing, you should be driving your truck and your thought life is all the things in your trailer, but you get to drive it. How often do we flip it? And then we find ourselves trapped in the trailer and then our thoughts are actually driving us. Well then you have no control where it goes, right? That's not. You don't wanna be like, wait who's driving this thing? Here's how you know it's true. We can be going along having a great day. one person says something to us and we're done for the day what I'm talking about or one person says something that could mean a couple of things and now you're not sure. And what do you what do you think about the rest of the day? Or maybe you are just minding your own business, you're at work, you're answering emails or you're in the grocery store or you're at home fixing something, doing dishes, doing this in the yard, whatever. And all of a sudden something someone said to you a decade ago clicks in because our thoughts are so powerful. Same writer, different books, different church Paul writes to the Romans and Romans 85-6, it says this, it says for those who are living according to the Flesh, set their minds on the things of the Flesh. But those who live according to the spirits of their mind, on the things of the spirit. Now I used to read verse six as like a threat, not a threat but more like a disappointment like Oh that's a test I'm not passing. Ah now I'm coming to realize that this isn't a standard that we keep missing. It is actually a way out. It is the answer key that unlocks things. This is how if you feel stuck and overthinking if you feel stuck in your stronghold, if you feel stuck and what people have said or thought about you or maybe they didn't even say something? Maybe you're stuck on the thought that someone didn't say to you that you wish they had or that you said or shouldn't have said to somebody a week ago, a year ago, 10 years ago that now you're stuck Here's the key you ready for over six for to set the mind on the flush is death. But to set the mind on the spirit is life and peace and who who doesn't want more life and peace. Now. If you're stuck in something, if something's come to your mind, I want to just offer you a little bit of help. How do we get out of this? Let's get practical here. How is it that we can break the strongholds in our lives. How is it that God can break the strongholds in our lives. I don't want to stay with you three things. Number one the first thing we can do is to identify name it, name what is in your life. This is to retire. Old broken soundtracks. You don't like baby shark in your life, change it for me. And there wasn't like one situation but there was something that I just built up in me over time. But at some point I connected my performance with how much God loves me and whether it's been overlooked for this team or that thing I got to a point where if I work hard and I just grind my teeth and go harder, oh God will be so proud of me and I realized no God's love is not based on my performance and you've got to retire. That you gotta, you gotta understand and put that to the side. So I'm 23 Jesus. The good shepherd is said to have prepared a table for you in the midst of your enemies. This means that you get to choose who sits at your table. You might be surrounded by enemies but you don't have to give satan a seat. Can you imagine going into a restaurant with friends and family and then some stranger comes down, sits next to you like oh that looks good, it just takes your burger and starts eating it. Now some of you opposed the conflict was like, well I guess he's hungry. I guess this is this is what's gonna be. But if you got a sense of justice, you're like, no, this is what are you doing? Some of you need to have that, what do you do in satan conversation be like, get, get up, get out of my table like you're not welcome here, right? Someone might have put a song on your playlist, you get to proof it, you get to edit it said no, I'm not gonna listen to that anymore. So you got to retire. Its number two then is to clarify, is to clarify place, you have to replace the old with the new one that is based on the word of God in my case is that I'm not loved based on my performance, but I'm loved based on who got it. And you know what that allows me to do, breathe, I'm not love based on my role as a pastor, on how much I'm reading my bible, how much I'm doing these things that I'm loved because I'm a child of God. It's so freeing. The last thing here, once you clarify it then is to multiply repeat the new soundtracks until they make your playlist. That's why it's so important to come to church on a sunday, to connect with people in community, to read the word of God, to pray take a walk in nature to have a conversation to play that worship song. Maybe you need to play that song before you enter the workplace or before you come home. Maybe you have a post it note on your mirror or you you label an alarm on your phone to ring at a certain time of day. Give yourself set yourself up with different ways to hear the promises of God. So for me I'll set an alarm on my phone to say romans 8 31 which says that if God is for us who can be against us and I'll have it ring my phone. I just looked down and like okay not today satan right multiplied enough put new songs, better songs in your life and I understand that you can take ownership over your thought life, you're in the driver's seat, you're not in the trailer but the driver's seat is done because of who God is and who God says you are, you don't have to be stuck in a stronghold. Christ has come to set you free. Let's pray dearly father just thank you for giving us new and better soundtracks. God whatever song is on repeat in people's minds right now I pray that you would break those strongholds but beyond just sinful actions. God I pray that you will remove the accusation that satan is placed in our minds that we can replace shame and guilt and struggle with joy and grace and purpose and freedom. God that joy comes from knowing you and trusting you as Lord and savior. So give us a new and better soundtrack today. Give us your son, jesus, break these strongholds and let us walk in light of who you say we are, We love you God, and we give this day to you and your son's name. We pray. Amen.