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Mills River SDA Church

Overcomer Series

Cory Reeves

01 The Disconnect: Brokenness in Christianity

02 The Deception: Identity Theft in Conflict

03 The Advocate: Bull’s Eye

Last week we started our journey into our Overcomer series.

We had what I called an honest family meeting about the disconnect, the gap between the Christianity we profess and the brokenness we often experience in private.

I pray that if you weren't here, you got to watch it later, and if you didn't, I would encourage you to catch up so we can go through this journey as a church family.

Even if you're visiting, if you catch up, I think it will be a wonderful experience in your life.

Here's the map of where we were last week and where we're headed.

We talked about, if you remember last week, the Israelites repeating the same mistakes.

And we talked about, we just want to yell out, come on, don't be so stupid.

And I said, kids, you can't say that word.

But we want to say that word when it comes to the Israelites.

Yet, We often repeat those same mistakes in our lives today We looked at Paul in Romans 7 crying out the good I want to do I don't do We discussed it by looking at toothpaste and I brought poor Austin up here, more for moral support if you remember, and asked him if we squeeze the toothpaste, what comes out?

And if I write Nutella on the outside, does Nutella magically come out?

We can dress up, we can do put on a smile, but when we allow Satan and his lies in us, when we're squeezed, when we're pressed, those are the same lies that are going to come out.

And just because you change the outside doesn't change the inside.

Satan has spent years filling you with lies and garbage, and thus we learned we cannot just pick the bad fruit off the branches of our lives.

We have to allow God to dig up the bad roots, the Satan's lies in our lives, and allow Jesus to fill us with the Holy Spirit and the truth.

Today, we're talking about the deception.

And I believe there is a crucial question.

Where did these lies come from in the first place?

How did they get inside our heads and how do we allow it to happen and more importantly how do we stop it.

To understand the brokenness today we have to go all the way back to the beginning.

The great controversy didn't start here on earth it started in heaven.

Revelation 12 7 says and war broke out in heaven.

Michael and his angels fought with the dragon.

He didn't start a physical war right away, but how did he deceive a third of the angels?

That God was unfair, restrictive, and keeping something good from them.

When Satan was cast down to the earth, he took the weapon of lies to the Garden of Eden with him.

He approaches Eve, and in the very first, he used this very first tactic.

Genesis 3, I'm gonna summarize, I'm gonna read some quotes from verse 1 and 4 through 5, but Satan says, "'Has God indeed said, "'you shall not eat of every tree of the garden?

She tells him they can eat but all but 1 tree, remember?

And if you touch or eat of it you will surely die.

Satan follows it up by saying you will not surely die.

For God knows that the day you eat of it, your eyes will be opened.

You see, Satan's first attack on humanity was an attack on God's character.

He lyingly whispered, God doesn't really love you.

You have to take matters into your own hands Eve.

And Eve sadly listened to the lie and Adam followed.

And the perfect blueprint, the perfect blueprint of humanity was shattered.

Sin didn't start with a bad action, it started with believing a bad lie.

And the question always is, do we believe what Satan tells us or do we believe what God tells us?

Friends, what lies are you believing in your life?

Satan has been using the exact same strategy of identity theft ever since.

Removing who you are in Christ, lying about your relationship in Christ, that we need to do something more.

We need to do something more than what Christ can give us.

Satan tells us we have to fix our own problems.

There's an old magazine article, and it's by a favorite author of mine, and she perfectly captures it in Signs of the Times, May 12, 1890.

Satan represented God as a deceiver, as 1 who would debar his creatures from the benefit of his highest gift.

Satan convinced Eve that God was holding out on her.

Thus, she was an orphan who needed to provide something more for herself.

He lied, but rather we know we are beloved children fully provided for by our their creator reflect on that for a minute Has Satan been using the exact same strategy of identity theft ever since?

Satan wants you to feel lost, alone, like you need to save yourself, like there is something better out there than what God can provide.

Satan has been using the same lie over and over, the same strategy from the beginning.

The Apostle Paul warns of this in Ephesians 6 and thank you 11 and 12, put on the whole armor of God that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil for we do not wrestle against flesh and blood but against principalities against powers against the rulers of darkness of this age against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places." Notice it doesn't say the power of the devil, right?

Interestingly, I believe the Greek that was still up there when I opened up my computer, is it can mean, that same word for wiles can mean schemes or strategies.

A scheme is a calculated strategic deception.

He's not just going out there and randomly doing things.

He has a planned out attack against you and he loves to fill you with these lies.

Today I want to introduce you to Lindsey.

And if you looked at Lindsey from the outside, she was the picture of success.

She was a straight A student, highly involved and driven, and seemed to have everything put together.

She was the kind of person you hoped your kid would be, or will be, or is.

Underneath that perfect exterior was the crushing weight of depression.

She isolated herself and became so overwhelmed with pain, she attempted to take her own life.

How does a good Christian kid with a 4.0 GPA end up in such a dark and hopeless place?

It happened because of a slow, steady deception.

It happened because of Satan's trick of identity theft.

John 8, 44 tells us, and Jesus is speaking of Satan, he was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in the truth because there is no, because there is no truth in him, because when he speaks a lie, he speaks from his own resources, for he is a...

Jesus tells us that lying isn't just something Satan does, it's his native tongue.

He is the father of lies, he's the inventor of lies.

He comes at you with a whisper, just as he did Eve.

When Lindsay was a little girl, she experienced deep emotional wounds and a sense of an abandonment in her family.

In those moments of pain, Satan was right there planting a seed.

Lindsay's straight A's weren't about being a good student.

They were about a survival mechanism for her.

Her fruit of this lie was she was trying to be a perfection.

Series

Overcomer Series

02 The Deception: Identity Theft in Conflict

Transcript

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

Lord, Teach Us to Pray: The Science of Prayer

1. What’s Hindering You?

47m

Teen Girls’ Retreat

The Outward Look

33m

ECYC 2012: Plenary Sessions

A Special Work of Reform

54m

Ordinary to Extraordinary

1h 29m

Plenary

The Need to Know

1h

Present Truth is Practical

1h 11m

Restore the Glory!

2. Chosen and Blessed to Restore the Glory

38m

Overcomer Series

01 The Disconnect: Brokenness in Christianity

32m

Plenary

Nothing It Says

1h 36m

OYC 2011 Morning Devotional: The Throne Room Under Siege

The Physiology of Sin

54m

What If It's Better?

The Silence of God

46m

Plenary

Why Do I Love Evil?

1h

Sound Doctrine