From His Heart with Jeff Schreve

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Can you live a life unshaken by any struggle that
comes your way? Let's find out today. I'm from His
Heart with Pastor Jeff Shreeve.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
In Psalm fifteen, we read about David talking about what
a life looks like that will stand unshaken because it
is founded upon the Rock, and it is built on
godly principles, and it's built on holy living. So here's
our question for today, what does it take to live

(00:31):
an unshakable life in the lords?

Speaker 1 (00:58):
Welcome to From his Heart with pas Jeff Shreeve. Thank
you for joining us today for a message that's just
for you. If you live a life with worries and
troubles that shake you to the core, you can learn
to live unshaken. This week we're in the series roller Coaster,
facing the ups and downs of life, and today a

(01:19):
message about how to recognize why you're shaken to the core,
and we'll discover that it likely is because of the
devil who has rotten to the core. Pastor tell us
about how to live an unshaken life when trouble comes.

Speaker 2 (01:37):
David shares in Psalm fifteen about an unshakable, unshaken life,
and he sums up all these different things that we
need to have characteristics of a life that is unshaken.
He ends the psalm by saying, he who does these
things will never be shaken. And these things that he
speaks of are the essence of the message that we share,

(01:59):
and they are things that God wants us to have
in our lives, because those make the difference. And when
you have these particular things in your life, you can
have confidence that no matter what may happen, God is
going to see you through and you're not going to
be blown off course as those who build their house
on the sand.

Speaker 1 (02:18):
Well, let's get ready to learn those key traits of
a Christian's daily walk that, when practiced, will lead to
a relationship with God that'll stand up to any foe
and shine brightly when the dark times do come. Open
your bible to Psalm chapter fifteen, and let's learn all
about an unshaken life.

Speaker 2 (02:40):
Now here's the sad reality in our world today. So
many people who call themselves Christians. Whether they are or not,
God knows, I don't know, but you can't tell them
apart from a non Christian because so many people who
call themselves Christians have just fit into the ways of
the world and they act and react just like a
non Christian does, and so it's very hard to tell

(03:01):
does this person really have a relationship with Jesus. I mean,
they don't have standards. You know, they're living with their
boyfriend or living with their girlfriend, or they're just doing
whatever the world does. And the world cheats and they cheat,
and the world lies and they lie, and they're just
the same, and they're going the cheap way, the easy way,
and building with straw or building with sticks. You know,

(03:23):
it's interesting. In First Corinthians chapter three, the Bible tells
us for every Christian there is a judgment coming. It's
called the judgment Seat of Christ, where the Lord will
evaluate our lives as believers, and he tests our lives
through fire. And the Bible even says in First Corinthians
chapter three that be careful how you build upon the foundation,

(03:46):
which is Jesus Christ. Every Christian has to have the
foundation of the Lord Jesus Christ. But then we build
upon that foundation. And some people build, as it says
in First Corinthians chapter three, with wood, hay and straw.
And if you build with wood or hay straw, it
doesn't stand up and it is wiped out. But if
you build with permanent things, then your house can stand.

(04:09):
And as it says in First Corinthians chapter three, when
the Lord tests us with fire, those who built with
gold and silver and precious stone, they stand up to
the fire. And then when the Lord is through testing
you and I, if we have structure left after the fire,
because we built with gold, silver and precious stone, we
receive reward from the Lord. But those who built with wood, hay,

(04:32):
and straw, they suffer loss. Yet they themselves are saved.
Yet so as through fire, it says so David Inn
Psalm fifteen, is going to give us wisdom and insight
how to live a life that stands, that is unshakable
in the face of the big bad wolf, the enemy
of our souls, the devil who comes to steal and

(04:54):
to kill and to destroy. You might be here today,
and you know what you need to be real honest
with yourself, because you might be going the cheap way,
the easy way, the way of the world. You might
be building your life with woods, so to speak, with sticks,
so to speak. Today's the day to make changes, to
start building with the things that last. Psalm fifteen David

(05:19):
writes this psalm, probably after he brought the Ark of
the Covenant into Jerusalem. You remember, here's the background. David
was promised the kingdom, but Saul was king, and so
David is on the run from Saul. Saul spends years
trying to find David and kill David. But when David
is thirty years old, he becomes king of Hebron in

(05:40):
the south. And then when he's thirty seven years old,
he becomes king of all Israel. And the first thing
that David does when he's king of all Israel is
he attacks the city of Jebbis. The Jebuocytes lived in
the city of Jebis and that was kind of an
impenetrable fortress there and attacks that city, and David conquers

(06:02):
that city, and David calls that city Jerusalem. It's the
city of David, and that becomes the capital city of Israel.
And then the next thing David does is he wants
to bring the Ark of the Covenant into the city
of Jerusalem. You remember the Ark of the Covenant. It's
that box of acacia wood that's overlaid with gold where

(06:23):
it represented the presence of God. And you have the
Angel's wings there that formed the Mercy Seat. And so
David wants to take that back from where it was.
It was nine miles away in a place called Kuriath Jerrem,
and he wants to take it from there and bring
it into Jerusalem and set it up on the Holy

(06:44):
Hill of Jerusalem and put it in the tent that
he has prepared there for the Lord. You know, we
didn't have a temple until David's son Solomon built the
temple for the Lord. God had been living in a tent.
And so David does. He goes to carry out Jeream
and he gets the Ark of the Covenant, but he
doesn't move it correctly. He just moves it any old way.

(07:06):
He puts it on a brand new cart. That's not
how you're supposed to carry it. See it has polls there.
The priests were supposed to carry it. But David doesn't
do it that way, and he starts bringing it towards
Jerusalem and the arc almost falls off the cart, and
a man named Uzzah goes to grab the ark to
keep it from falling, and God kills him just like that,

(07:26):
and he says, though the Lord killed him because he
didn't show reverence to the Lord. You don't mess with
the ark. That's the presence of God. You don't mess
with it like that. You don't just grab it, and
you don't move it any old way you want. And
so David was afraid, and he's like, how can I
bring this arc into the city of David. And so
he said, let's have this arc go with this guy.

(07:48):
His name was obed Edam. So they put the arc
in his house and God blessed the house of obed
Edom and it was there for three months. And they
told David, they say, like, man, that guy's getting blessed.
God's blessing his socks off. We need to bring the
ark into the capital city. And so David this time
brings the ark in and he does it God's way,
and he has the priests bring it in and they

(08:09):
carry it on the poles and they're sacrificing and they're rejoicing,
and there's trumpets and they're shouting, and he brings in
the Ark of the Covenant and places it in the
tent of Meeting, in the place where God dwelt. And
the scripture says, this O Lord, who may dwell in
thy tent, who may dwell on your holy hill. He

(08:31):
who walks with integrity and works righteousness and speaks truth
in his heart. He does not slander with his tongue,
nor does evil to his neighbor, nor takes up a
reproach against his friend, in whose eyes are reprobate, is despised.
But who honors those who fear the Lord. He swears
to his own hurt and does not change. He does

(08:51):
not put out his money at interest, nor does he
take a bribe against the innocent. He who does these
things will never be shaken. He'll always be secure and
stand strong. So here's our question for today. What does
it take to live an unshakable life in the Lord?

(09:13):
What does that take so that we can dwell on
his holy hill? What does it take so that we
can abide in his tent and walk with God and
be close to God and dwell with God in this
life and then in the life to come? What does
it take? I want to share with you five essentials
if you're going to live a life, if I'm going

(09:34):
to live a life that's an unshakable life. Essential number one,
it takes integrity. It takes integrity, O, Lord, who may
abide in your tent who may dwell on your holy hill.
He who walks with integrity. The word integrity means to
be sound, to be complete, to be solid. One who

(10:00):
has integrity is solid. As I've told you before, the
difference between not having integrity and having integrity is a
person who doesn't have integrity, he's kind of like veneer
over particle board. He looks like he's real would but
he's not real solid through and through, he's just a
piece of veneer. And then inside it's just pasted shavings,

(10:22):
just kind of pressed together press board. A person with
integrity is solid. He's the same on the outside as
he is on the inside. He is solid through and through. See,
when you have integrity, you are genuine and sincere through
and through. What you see is what you get because
you have integrity, and you're not a duplicitous person who

(10:47):
presents himself one way but is really another way. No,
you are the same all the way through and now. Paul,
when he wrote to the Philippians, he said to them
that he wanted them to be blameless and sincere upon
the coming of the Lord Jesus Christ. He said, he said,
I want you to be actually sincere and blameless is

(11:10):
the order sincere and blameless upon the coming of the
Lord Jesus Christ. And it's very interesting the words sincere
because sincerity and integrity, those things fit together. A person
who is sincere is a person literally who has been
sun tested. That's what it meant to be sincere. It
meant that you were sun tested, to be judged by

(11:32):
the sun. And this is how they used that word.
When you would go in that ancient day, when you
would go to buy something at the store. You are
going to buy a piece of pottery. Sometimes a piece
of pottery could look really, really good, but it wasn't good,
it wasn't solid. It had a crack in it. And

(11:54):
what an unscrupulous potter would do is he would make
this pot and he'd try and make it the cheap way,
try and make it easy way, try and make it
the fast way. And he wouldn't do it correctly. And
when he would take it out of the kiln, and
then after he cooled, it cracked and he's like, oh, man,
I don't want to throw this away. What can I do?
Because people won't buy it if it's cracked, because it's

(12:14):
not going to be any good, it's got this weak spot,
and people say, forget that, I don't want to buy that.
So he would take paraffin wax and he would put
the wax in the crack, and then you couldn't see
the crack. And so you would go to the potter shop,
and if it was a little bit dark in that
potter shop, you would just look at this and say, well,
that's a pretty good pot and you would buy it

(12:36):
and you would take it home and you would find
out once you put things in it that it had
a weak spot and it broke, it had a crack
in it. You didn't see it because when you bought
it it was kind of dark in there. So what
they would do to test the pottery, they would take
it out into the sun and they would test it
by the sun, and when the sun hit it, it
would reveal if there were any cracks in it. It

(12:58):
would reveal if somebody had to put wax in there.
And then once it passed the test of the sun,
you could say this pottery is sincere. It has been
sun tested. God wants us to be Christians like that.
He wants us to walk in integrity, to be sun tested.
Now all of us have cracks. I have cracks. You

(13:20):
have cracks. We have faults, we have failings, we have
weak spots. But here's the thing the Lord says. Hey,
he's not saying, well, you can't come before me if
you have any cracks, any faults, any failings, any weak spots.
He's saying, put away your wax. Put away your wax.
You come before me with warts and all. You come

(13:41):
before me with all your failings and all your cracks.
You be honest with God, and you say, God, here
I am, and I have this weakness, and I have
that weakness, and oh God help me. But you don't
try and cover it up and cover it over. That's
what the Pharisees did. And Jesus said, they're white washed tombs.
They look good on the outside, but on the inside

(14:02):
they're rotten. And Jesus had nothing but rebuke for people
like that. Hey, what does it take. It takes integrity.
You're genuine and sincere, and you're a person of integrity
who keeps his word. Look what it says in verse four.
It says he swears to his own hurt and does
not change, as it says in the CEV. And they

(14:27):
keep their promises no matter what the cost, person of
integrity keeps his word. If a person of integrity tells
you they will do something, you can count on that
they're gonna do something. And even if they make a
bad promise, they're gonna follow through on that promise. He
swears to his own hurt and does not change. He
follows through on that promise, even when the promise gets tough. Hey,

(14:51):
person of integrity, a person of sincerity. When they make
a pledge, they follow through on the pledge. When they
make a promise, they follow through on that promise. When
they tells somebody at work they're going to do something,
they do it. When they tell their kids they're going
to take them somewhere, they do it. When they tell
their bride, I'm going to love you and honor you

(15:12):
and cherish you and be faithful to you until death,
they follow through on that promise because they have integrity.
As someone has well said, if you lose your integrity,
what do you have left? All you are is who

(15:33):
you are in terms of a person of integrity, And
if your word means nothing, then your life really means nothing,
and no one can count on you. And God, says Hey,
if you want to build a life that lasts, if
you want to have an unshakable life and not have
the straw house or the stickhouse, you have to be
a person of integrity. Secondly, second essential. Not only does

(15:57):
it take integrity, it takes righteousness. He who walks with
integrity and works righteousness. What does it mean to work righteousness?
It means you practice living right. You have a righteous life,

(16:17):
and the practice of your life is to do right
and to obey God, to do what he says. You
have a desire in your heart. Lord, I want to
please you. I don't want to displease you. I want
to obey you. I don't want to disobey you. And
what is God doing and working in our lives? It
says in the Book of Isaiah, so that we may

(16:39):
be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord,
that he may be glorified. Remember we said that it
doesn't take God any time at all to raise up
a mushroom. Mushrooms can come up overnight. Oaks don't come
up overnight. It takes time for an acorn to grow
into a mighty oak tree. And God is looking for
mighty oak tree. Christians of righteousness. He said in his word,

(17:06):
you shall be holy, for I am holy. The question, O, Lord,
who may abide in your tent, Who may dwell on
your holy hill? Those who are holy, those who are
set apart, not those who are perfect, because that would
be known none of us could. It's those who are
set apart, and those who are sacred, and those who
are saying, Lord, I am coming out from among the
crowd to be separate to you, and I want to

(17:29):
live a life that is a righteous life that is
pleasing to you. Now, I think we get confused when
we talk about living righteously. We have a generation today
of people who call themselves Christians and they just want
to pass everything off as don't judge me, can't judge me.

(17:49):
You know. It's like nobody's judging you here. We're just
pointing out to you that here is the standard that
God has set. And so people are like, you know, well,
I'm not perfect, so I'll just live anywhere I want.
Had a lady tell me, well, I'm jealous. That's just
the way I am. It's like, what does that mean
you got to pass? I mean? God says, well, you know,

(18:10):
she's jealous. So we don't talk about that with her.
It's not like that right. Well, you know there's there's
that little song country and Western song when I was
in high school said this, I've got wandering eyes. Yes,
it's true. I love the ladies. Can't deny this feeling
the Good Lord put down in my bones. Guy's filled
with lusting. Blames it on God's God, it's your fault,

(18:31):
So I can't be held responsible for that. First John
chapter three scripture says this, little children, let no one
deceive you. The one who practices righteousness is righteous, just
as he is righteous. The one who practices sin is

(18:52):
of the devil. For the devil has sinned from the beginning.
The son of God appeared for this purpose, that he
might destroy the works of the day. No one who
is born of God practices sin, because his seat abides
in him, and he cannot sin, cannot sin as a
practice because he is born of God. By this we
know the children of God and the children of the devil.

(19:13):
By this, the children of God and the children of
the devil are obvious. Anyone who does not practice righteousness
is not of God. Nor the one who does not
love his brother. John is writing in the Epistle of
First John to separate out the truth from the false,
because there are many people in his day when he
wrote that letter who were claiming to be Christians, who

(19:35):
are living like the world. And John says, hey, wait, ho,
time out. If you're really a believer in the Lord
Jesus Christ, your life is going to reflect that. And
if your life looks just like the lost person's life,
and if you are filled with sin just like they're
filled with sin and living a lifestyle of sin, don't

(19:55):
be deceived. You're not of God. Because when a person
comes to know Christ, and Jesus Christ, by his spirit,
comes into your life, invades your life, so to speak,
by invitation. That's the only way he comes in. He
doesn't overtake you if you don't want him. But when
you invite him in and he comes in, he comes

(20:16):
in the Holy God of the universe, and your life
begins to change. Doesn't mean everything's perfect, doesn't mean you
don't ever mess up, but it means he's inside. And
as one preacher said, you know, when you get saved,
that doesn't mean that you can't sin anymore. But what
it means is you can't sin and enjoy it. Anymore.
That's what it means, because the Lord will start convicting

(20:38):
your heart. I can attest to that. When Christ came
into my life as a seventeen year old high school senior,
I didn't fully understand what all that meant, but I
knew the next time I sinned. Man, it was like
a knife in my heart, and the Lord was saying,
you belong to me. I don't want you to do that,
And there was conviction of sin that I'd never had before. Listen,

(21:04):
don't deceive yourself. If there's not a desire in your
heart to please God, to live righteously, to be holy
as He himself is holy, something seriously wrong. And what
may be wrong is you have never really put your
faith and trust in Jesus Christ. You don't have a
personal relationship with him, and he doesn't live inside of you.

(21:27):
When you really know him, you begin to practice righteousness
and live rightly.

Speaker 1 (21:38):
Perhaps you realize right now that you are far from God,
that you've never had your sins forgiven by him. It
could be that you've stumbled into this program and the
Holy Spirit is convincing you of sin and calling you
to receive Christ. If you want God's forgiveness. It is
available to you. God tells us in his word. Admit

(22:00):
your sin. Say I am a sinner. Be willing to
turn from your sin. That means repent of your sin.
Believe that Jesus Christ died for you on the cross
and rose from the grave. Be saved by faith and
through prayer. Invite Jesus to control your life, to come
in to you and let the Holy Spirit fill you.

(22:21):
That means receive him as Lord and savior. You can
say a prayer like this from your heart. Say, Dear God,
I know that I'm a sinner and I ask for
your forgiveness. I believe Jesus Christ is your son. I
believe he lived and he died for my sin, and
that you raised him to life. I want to trust

(22:43):
him as my savior and follow him as Lord from
this day forward. Guide my life and help me to
do your will. I pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen. Now,
if you did that and you meant it from your heart,
you are now a child of God and he will
never let you go never. We invite you to go

(23:05):
to frumisheart dot org click the Wide Jesus link, where
you'll discover what is next for you in your new
life with Christ. Plus some free materials for you to
listen to and download there to help you to get
started in your new journey. Today's message was just part
one of the lesson called Unshaken, and we'll have part
two tomorrow. This is also the fifth lesson in the

(23:28):
eight message series roller Coaster Facing the ups and downs
of life. You can get this in multiple formats when
you go online to from his Heart dot org or
call eight six six four zero Bible eight sixty six
four zero Bible. Thank you for helping share the truth
in love to a lost and a hurting world. Thank

(23:51):
you for joining us today. I'm Larry Nobles and we
trust that you'll be with us tomorrow. As Pastor Jeff,
we'll have the life changing part two of this lesson
called Unshaken, that's on Wednesday, when Pastor Jeff Shreeve will
open up God's word and share real truth, real love,
and real hope from God's Heart here on, from his

(24:12):
Heart always, From his Heart is the listener supported broadcast

(24:39):
ministry of doctor Jeff Shreeve speaking the truth in love
to a lost and a hurting world. Remember, no matter
what God loves you and has a wonderful plan for
your life. Find out more about that when you go
to Fromhishart dot org