From His Heart

Speaker 1

Are you satisfied with your life? No. Well, you picked a wonderful day to join us then. Here's Pastor Jeff Shreve.

Speaker 2

Listen, you're never going to find the cure. The answer to your discontentment, to your dissatisfaction, to your "if only I had this, if only I had that." You're never going to find it in external things. You will only find it in Jesus.

And if you are not a follower of Jesus, if you've never been born again, you're not. You will never find it outside of Him. He can heal every scar with real truth, real love, real hope from his heart.

Speaker 1

Welcome to From His Heart with Pastor Jeff Shreve, who today will conclude this message about the giant that is hindering the joy in so many people's lives. And it's called Discontentment. Today's message, the giant of if only. Pastor Jeff is in this series, Land of the Giants.

Yesterday he pointed out this definition of discontentment. It's a combination of sadness, frustration, irritation, and disappointment with your current situation in life. But you know what? God has not saved us to live in a land of if only. He's not coming into our lives through the person of the Holy Spirit, so that we can constantly wish we had something else in life to make us happy.

What he desires is for you and me to be content right now, where we are—not content with all the problems and suffering in the world, but not letting our past mistakes keep us from enjoying our relationship with him and the blessing this life does hold for now and for eternity.

Is contentment possible for you? Yes. Is it likely to happen? Well, that depends. Open your Bible to Philippians 4 and see what has to happen first, as Pastor Jeff teaches us how to defeat the giant of if only.

Speaker 2

So what is the secret of contentment regardless of the circumstances? I want to share with you three insights into this secret insight.

Number one, recognize that God is over every circumstance. How can you be content regardless of the circumstance? Well, recognize that God is over every circumstance in your life. Paul wrote in First Timothy, Chapter 6, speaking of God, he says he's the blessed and only sovereign, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. The blessed. Blessed is the word Makarios. It means happy. God is the happy and only king, only sovereign, only one in control, that is God. And Paul knew that. That God is over everything. And because he knew that God was over everything, even when he was incarcerated in Rome, chained to a Roman guard 24/7, he could rejoice and he could have joy because he knew God was over it all.

See, you remember this: nothing comes into your life unless God allows it. We talk about the Lord being the blessed and only sovereign, that he's King of Kings and Lord of Lords, that he's in control of all things. The sovereign is in control of all things. That means that there's nothing that slips past him. And nothing comes into your life or my life unless God wants to use it. So he's over it all. He lets things come into our lives. He lets the devil. He puts down the hedge, so to speak. He lets the devil come and attack us. But he has a purpose in that. God doesn't waste. He never wastes a trial. He never wastes a tear. He never wastes a period of tribulation. God is using all of those things to teach us and to grow us. Why? Because the testing of your faith produces endurance. And even though you don't like this, you need to consider it all joy. Because it's an opportunity for God. It's an opportunity for you to trust God. It's an opportunity for the Lord to shine through you and to teach you new things.

Hey, how do I learn this thing called contentment regardless of the circumstances? First insight into the secret: recognize that God is over every circumstance.

Second insight: realize what you can experience in Jesus Christ. Paul said that he, in verse 11 in the Good News Bible, "I know what it is to be in need. And I know what it is to have more than enough. I have learned this secret so that anywhere, at any time I am content. Whether I am full or hungry, whether I have too much or too little. I have the strength to face all conditions by the power that Christ gives me." Learn to be content in those difficult times. Learn to be content. Incarcerated in Rome, Paul knew what he had in Jesus. Do you know as a believer what you have in Jesus?

Now, this isn't true for everybody. This is only true for those who really know Christ. The world is trying to find golden eggs. They're trying to find the things that God gives. The Christian says, "I want God." I don't seek God's hand, what he can give me. I seek his face. Because I want God. I want a relationship with God. And when you receive Christ, he comes in. And when he comes in, you have the Creator of the universe living inside of you. And see, Jesus is the source of joy. He's the source of peace. He's the source of contentment. When you have him, you have everything because you have the Source. That's how Paul could be content. He had the Source within him. So external things didn't matter. I mean, if things were bad, they were bad. But you can't take my joy. Why? Because when the Lord came into Paul's life, just like when he comes into your life, he comes in forever. And no one can take that away. No one can take that away.

They can tell you that you can't pray in school. They can say you can't bring your Bible, you can't read your Bible. But they can't take away the Lord Jesus Christ living inside of you. That's never going to go away if you're a believer in Jesus. So when you face the really difficult times of life, you can have the source of joy, the source of peace, the source of love, the source of contentment living within. And it doesn't matter about the externals, because the internal is the thing that makes you go.

I love the story of Annie Johnson Flint. She was born in 1866 and died in 1932. She had a very difficult life. Her mother died when she was 3. Her father couldn't take care of Annie and her sister, so he gave them to someone else to raise, a widow woman. But she couldn't really handle it financially. And so she finally got adopted by the Flint family. She and her sister. They were a godly family. They took her to church and told her about Jesus when she was eight years old. She trusted Christ as Savior and Lord. And Jesus came in to live inside of her. And it was real. She grew in her relationship with him.

But then, when she was just a young girl in her 20s, her adoptive parents both died in a matter of a few short months. Then she contracted rheumatoid arthritis and she couldn't work. She was very destitute. Her disease just got more and more debilitating. She lived for decades of her life in pain, in diapers, and totally helpless. She couldn't do anything for herself. There's a picture of Annie Johnson Flint that someone took. Her fingers were gnarled, but she could still write. She wrote poems, songs, and booklets that people bought to help her financially.

Probably the most famous song that she ever wrote expressed her own life and how Jesus was the source for her. The song is called "He Giveth More Grace." It says this:

"He giveth more grace when the burdens grow greater;

He sendeth more strength when the labors increase.

To added afflictions, He addeth His mercy;

To multiplied trials, His multiplied peace.

When we have exhausted our store of endurance,

When our strength has failed ere the day is half done,

When we reach the end of our hoarded resources,

Our Father's full giving is only begun.

Fear not that thy need shall exceed His provision;

Our God ever yearns His resources to share.

Lean hard on the arm, everlasting, availing;

The Father both Thee and Thy load will upbear.

His love has no limits, His grace has no measure,

His power no boundary known unto men.

For out of His infinite riches in Jesus,

He giveth and giveth and giveth again."

Listen, you're never gonna find the cure, the answer to your discontentment, to your dissatisfaction, to your "if only I had this, if only I had that." You're never gonna find it in external things. You will only find it in Jesus. And if you are not a follower of Jesus, if you've never been born again, you will never find it outside of him.

I remember Adrian Rogers told a story about going witnessing down this street. He went to see this, knocked on the door of this one house. The man was out front in the front yard, and he just saw him and started talking to him. He was talking to him about the Lord Jesus. The man said, "Hey, wait a minute, time out, I don't need that. You see this beautiful house? I own that. Inside the house is a beautiful wife, two beautiful kids, that's all mine. You see in the garage, I have two cars, they're paid for. I have everything I need, so why do I need Jesus?"

Adrian said to him, "Sir, can I ask you one question?" He said, "Do you have peace in your heart right now?" The man looked at him, and his eyes began to fill with tears. He said to Adrian Rogers, "How did you know I didn't have peace?" Adrian replied, "Because the scripture says there is no peace, says my God, for the wicked. There's no peace. You're never going to find it."

And so I don't care how big your house is, I don't care how many houses you have, I don't care how many things that you attract for yourself. If you don't have a relationship with Jesus Christ, and if you're not tapping into the resource that is within you in Jesus, you never have peace, you'll never have contentment.

Hey, recognize that God is over every circumstance. Realize what you can experience in Jesus Christ. And then insight number three: revive your faith by putting it into practice. The Bible says in the book of Psalms, "God, will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you?" We need to be revived because many of us, although we start out with the Lord and we start out on fire with the Lord and we want to just get everything we can with the Lord. We want to be in church all the time. Why? Because we want to be with God's people. We want to sing the praises, we want to learn, we want to grow, we want to be in small groups, want to do all that stuff.

And then what happens to many of us? We start to drift away, we start to cool. And then you kind of start going through the motions of your Christian life and it's not like it used to be. There was an old song that I love. It said this: "Bring back the new again. I want to see you again. Bring back the way it was when we first began."

What do you do here so that you can experience contentment like Paul did? You need to revive your faith by putting your faith into practice. Look at verse 4. "Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice."

Fourfold action plan right here to put your faith into practice: recognize that God is over all things and realize what you have in Jesus Christ. Now let's see, how do you tap into it? What is the practical outflow of that?

Number one, you rejoice in the Lord. Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice. Paul, in prison, is saying, "Rejoice in the Lord." Now listen, you don't rejoice in your difficulty. You give thanks in all things, but you rejoice in the Lord, in the Lord who never changes. "I am the God, I change not." He says, "Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and forever." So I can rejoice in him regardless of what's going on externally. I rejoice in the Lord always. And in case you didn't hear it, he said, "Again I will say rejoice."

Then the second part of the fourfold action plan: stop worrying and start praying and praising. He says, "Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice. Let your forbearing spirit be known to all men. The Lord is near. The Lord is at hand. The Lord is as near to you as your right hand. Be anxious for nothing, worry about nothing." Worry is a big problem for a lot of people. That's a big giant. And the Lord, through Paul, is saying, "Be anxious for nothing, worry about nothing. But in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God."

And what happens when you do that? "The peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, which doesn't make sense, how you could have peace in the midst of a storm, the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, shall guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus."

Stop worrying and start praying and praising. You say, "That's easy to say. It's hard to do." Yeah, it is hard to do. I was talking to a friend the other day, and I use this illustration a lot when people come to see me and are struggling with an issue. I have this big book on my coffee table. It's a book about Egypt. And it's heavy. That thing probably weighs 10 or 15 pounds. I found it at a bookstore for 20 bucks. It probably cost 150 to produce it. But this is a big, heavy book.

And so I say, "You know, you have a big burden." And I said, "This big burden? We'll just pretend the Bible is a big burden. I said, this big burden's weighing you down. You have this on, and it's just weighing you down. It's on your back. And I said, the Bible says, 'Cast your burden on the Lord, and he will sustain you.' And I said, 'You need to do that.' And here's the problem we all have. We cast our burden on the Lord when we pray. And before we get up off our knees, we take our burden back. So we say, 'Lord, I got this big problem. I'm leaving it with you because it's too big for me to carry. So thank you, Lord, for taking my problem. Amen.' And we got it back. The Lord's like, 'Well, leave it with me. Cast it there and leave it there.'

And so what I told this dear lady, I said, "You need to take this problem, cast it on the Lord, and leave it with him. And every time you are worried and bothered about this problem, just know you've taken it back. You've taken it back. And I said, you need to just keep putting it onto Jesus. Keep putting it at his feet. And I said, if you have to do that a hundred times in one day, that's okay, do it a hundred times. But what you'll find is the next day you only have to do it 80 times, and the next day after that, you only have to do it 60 times, and then 40 times, and then 20 times, and then 10 times, and then maybe only two or three times a day. Is that problem bothering you? Why? Because you've learned to cast that on the Lord, be anxious for nothing. But in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God."

Action step number three: think on the best things. "Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever's honorable, whatever's right, whatever's pure, whatever's lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there's any excellence and anything worthy of praise, let your mind dwell on these things." You can choose your thoughts like you choose your friends. You don't have to, you know, the devil will throw things at your mind, but you don't have to listen to what he's saying. You don't have to latch onto those things.

As Martin Luther said, "I can't keep the birds from flying over my head, but I can certainly keep them from making a nest in my hair." I can do that, right? You don't have to take those thoughts in. You can put a guard at the door of your mind. A guard that says, "Halt! Who goes there?" And if that thought is not true and honorable and good and right and of good repute, and if it doesn't have excellence, if it's not worthy of praise, then you say, "I'm not thinking that. Get out of here." Take every thought. 2 Corinthians says, "Take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ." Think on the best things.

You know, sometimes the music we listen to is not the best. It doesn't fill your mind with good things. There used to be a song out when I was in college, and it said, "Still you wonder who's cheating who, who's being true, who don't even care anymore. Makes you wonder who's doing right by some folks tonight. And whose car is parked next door." A friend of mine, my roommate, he said one of the guys that he worked with was listening to that song. And when he'd listen to that song, he'd think, "My wife is cheating on me. I gotta watch out for her. Cause there might be somebody's car parked in my driveway." And it caused him all kinds of consternation because that song made him think things aren't going well.

And I think my wife is cheating on me. Hey, think on the best things. And then fourthly, lather, rinse, repeat. When you shampoo your hair. I did that probably 30 years ago. When you shampoo your hair, it always says on the bottle, "Lather, rinse, repeat." Why does it say that? Because they want you to buy more of it. And so keep doing it. And that's what Paul says in verse 9. "The things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things. God of peace will be with you." Do them. Do what I have told you to do, what I have encouraged you to do, what I have commanded you to do. If you'll make that a practice of your life, then you will experience peace. Then you will experience joy. Then the fruit of the spirit, the love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, self-control will flow through your life. Why? Because Jesus is the source of all that. And it doesn't matter what's going on around you. You can have the source.

That's why there are testimonies of those who were being burned at the stake for their faith in Christ. And the crowd would say they were singing as the flames lapped upon them, singing praises to God. Why? Because no matter what happens externally, he's still there. He keeps me singing, as that song says. "And there's within my heart a melody, Jesus whisper sweet and low." That is the formula. And that is the secret for contentment. You recognize that God is over every circumstance. You realize what you can experience in Jesus Christ, and you revive your faith by putting it into practice.

I'll close with this story. Fanny Crosby was born in the 1800s. When she was two months old, she contracted a disease. They called for the doctor, but the doctor in the town wasn't there. So another man came who, unbeknownst to them, was not a doctor. He was pretending to be a doctor. He was just an imposter. He was a quack. And he examined little Fanny and said, "What we need to do is get some hot mustard poultices and put them over her eyes, and that will be her medicine." Well, the hot mustard poultices ended up causing her to go blind. She would have recovered from the illness. She did recover from the illness, but she didn't recover from that. So at two months old, because of a quack doctor, she lost her eyesight.

But she, at a young age, put her faith and trust in Jesus Christ. And she loved him. I read about her that she would memorize five chapters of the Bible each week. Each week. She wrote 9,000 hymns in her lifetime. Over 9,000. When she was 8 years old, she wrote this little poem. And I love it. It says, "Oh, what a happy soul I am, although I cannot see, I am resolved that in this world contented I will be. How many blessings I enjoy that other people don't! To weep and sigh because I'm blind, I cannot and I won't."

Speaker 1

What an insightful message. This has been called the Giant of "If Only." It's also the sixth lesson out of seven in the series, the Land of the Giants.

Listen. Life is filled with giants. Every one of us faces internal battles with a variety of invisible giants that aim to steal our peace, our joy, and our confidence in the Lord. Does God have an answer for these giants? Absolutely. In this encouraging Land of the Giants series, subtitled "How to Deal with Your Biggest Problems," Pastor Jeff will help you overcome your biggest problems by using God's proven strategies for destroying these Goliaths you face.

The series and the popular booklet, "When You Don't Like Yourself," are our gifts of thanks to you this month for your support from His Heart. This month, we're launching a new initiative with Pray.com to translate all of our broadcast, radio, and television into Spanish and Portuguese—a giant of a task. But we have a giant God who can do anything. Your gift will help us so much. Call 866-40-BIBLE to make your gift, or go online to fromhisheart.org and make the gift to help us with this effort. We'll send you the Land of the Giants series in the format of your choice and the booklet, "When You Don't Like Yourself." God bless you.

A final thought today: the ultimate in contentment is to put into perspective our blessings. First Timothy chapter six says, "For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with these," i.e., practical application of appreciating basic necessities. They should be enough.

I'm Larry Nobles. Thank you for being with us today. And a quick reminder not to worry: Pastor Jeff will be back tomorrow to begin the final message in the Land of Giants series that will expose the lies of the devil in a lesson entitled "The Giant of Worry." That's on Wednesday when we'll again open up God's word and share real truth, real love, and real hope from His Heart.

Speaker 2

There is treasure, there is blessed. There is hope that you always dream of. He can heal.

Speaker 1

From his heart, is the listener supported Broadcast Ministry of Dr. Jeff Shrave 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 at promisheart.org.