From His Heart

Dr. Jeff Schreve: When adversity comes, attitude check. Do I start complaining? When adversity comes, do you try the Lord's patience? How patient is God? He's very patient. The patience of the Lord is long, but it's not limitless. You can cross God's patience, you can come to the end of God's patience where boom, judgment falls because you crossed the line.

Larry Nobles: When there are problems with your attitude toward God because He's not doing for you what you thought He should or He's not answering your prayers like you thought He was, it might be time for an attitude check. And that's the title of today's message from Pastor Jeff Schreve on From His Heart.

Thank you for being here as we close out the week with another message from Pastor Jeff's six-lesson series, Attitude for Altitude. If you missed any from this series, you'll be blessed if you go back and catch up at fromhisheart.org. Click the Listen link.

Today, it's not a check-up from the neck up but from the heart up. And who doesn't need that from time to time, especially when it comes to our devotion to God and obedience to His word? Open your Bible now to the book of Numbers chapter 11 as Pastor Jeff Schreve lays the biblical argument for a regular attitude check.

Dr. Jeff Schreve: What happens to your attitude when you encounter adversity? Do you start complaining? Look again at verse one. Now the people became like those who complain of adversity in the hearing of the Lord. They were murmuring, they were griping.

Every time you grumble, every time you gripe, every time you mutter, every time you murmur about your adversity, your situation, the things you don't like, your unpleasant things that come to your life, God hears it and God hates it. So that's the very first question that you ask yourself.

We're talking about an attitude check. Adversity hits your life, hits my life. Ask myself, ask yourself this question: am I complaining about this? Question number two, not only do you start complaining, do you become ungrateful? Look what it says in verse four.

The rabble who were among them had greedy desires. They had fleshly desires. They were craving meat, as we see from this passage. And also the sons of Israel wept again and said, who will give us meat to eat?

We remember the fish which we used to eat free in Egypt, the cucumbers and the melons and the leeks and the onions and the garlic. But now our appetite is gone and there is nothing at all to look at except this manna. And it is something that they should have been praising about, but here they are and they're pouting about it.

They become so ungrateful for what God had given them. Do you become ungrateful for what you have? You say, well, I'm not so sure. Well, let me give you a little test. You want to test your heart to see if you're ungrateful?

Ingrates focus on what they don't have. And ingrates, secondly, they fail to count their blessings. Look what they said again, Numbers 14:6. But now our appetite is gone, there is nothing at all to look at except this manna. Yuck.

God's provision, God's blessing to them. Man, they should have been praising the Lord for that provision. Ingrates don't focus on what they have. They don't focus on the blessings. They don't count their blessings. What they tend to do is compare their blessings.

Have you ever been guilty of that? You begin to look at the blessings that someone else has? Comparing is always bad. It's always bad. So don't compare your blessings. Count your blessings and praise God for what you have, not what you don't have.

In marriage, strong tendency that we have in marriage to start looking at our spouse. And what do we look at them? We look at what they don't do right. We look at what they don't have and what we don't have in this marriage.

And then we start to look at someone else's marriage and someone else's spouse. And we think, boy, if I were just married to so-and-so, man, everything would be great. I mean, I got the raw end of the deal here. I wish I'd chosen this other person.

People do that all the time and their hearts start to drift away. Don't do that. Be grateful for the spouse that you have. Be grateful for the parents that you have. Be grateful for what God has given you.

Be grateful for the gifts and talents that you have, the job that you have, the resources that you have. Don't look at the Lord and say there's nothing to eat except this manna. Tut. That's what they did.

So when adversity comes, attitude check. Hey, do I start complaining? Number two, do I become ungrateful? Number three, do I shut down with God? Shut down with God. You say, I don't understand that.

What do you mean do you shut down with God? Well, here is what happens to a lot of people. They experience adversity in life and they don't like it. It is, as the word adversity means, misery, distress, calamity, hurt, unpleasantness.

They experience all that and you can experience a little bit of that where the car breaks or your computer crashes, to major things where your health goes out the window or your marriage is about ready to collapse or your child is deathly ill.

All sorts of levels of adversity. But you experience that and you pray and you ask God to do something and then God doesn't seem to respond right. And God doesn't seem to lift this burden off of you. And what you can do if you're not careful is you can get angry at God.

But you don't want to tell anybody you're angry at God. You don't want to tell yourself you're angry at God. You sure don't want to tell God you're angry at God. So you just kind of shut down. Have you ever done that in a relationship where you get mad at somebody and you just quit talking to them?

That happens to couples a lot. See, the marriage is a beautiful picture of our relationship with the Lord. That's the Bible gives that as a picture. And because marriage is a dynamic, your relationship with God is a dynamic.

It doesn't just everything's hitting on all eight today so that means it's hitting on all eight for the next 10 weeks. No, it's a day-by-day, moment-by-moment walk with God, just like to have fellowship with your spouse. It's a day-by-day, moment-by-moment thing.

You can start off good in the morning and it can crater in the evening if you're not careful and if you're not watching it. And sometimes couples don't tell. They don't tell their spouse why.

Some wives don't tell their husbands when they hurt their feelings. They just start to wall off. They just start to pull back. They just start to distance themselves. And many of us aren't good at telling God when we're mad. And so we just shut down.

Let me tell you something. Moses in this situation, he's the pastor of the First Baptist Church of the Wilderness with a Jewish congregation, two million whiners and gripers and grumblers and complainers. Man, he was upset and this is what he says to the Lord, verse 10.

Now Moses heard the people weeping throughout their families, each man at the doorway of his tent, and the anger of the Lord was kindled greatly and Moses was displeased. So Moses said to the Lord, to Yahweh, Why have you been so hard on your servant?

And why have I not found favor in your sight that you have laid the burden of all this people on me? Was it I who conceived all this people? Was it I who brought them forth that you should say to me, carry them in your bosom as a nurse carries a nursing infant to the land which you did swear to their fathers?

Where am I to get meat to give to all this people? For they weep before me saying, give us meat that we may eat. I alone am not able to carry all this people because it's too burdensome for me. So if you're going to deal thus with me, please kill me at once if I have found favor in your sight and do not let me see my wretchedness.

Man, that's a pretty open honest prayer, isn't it? God, if this is the way you're going to treat me, then I wish you'd just kill me because it's no picnic hanging out with these folks.

And you know it's funny, when the Lord would get mad at the people, he'd always tell Moses they're your people. Moses, your people. Moses like, they're not my people, they're your people. Nobody wanted them. Hey, nobody wants to be around a whiner, right? And a griper and a complainer.

And here's Moses' heart, so beautiful because you'd say, well, it sounds like Moses is complaining to the Lord. He is. He's pouring out his heart to the Lord. He's lifting his complaint up to the Lord.

Here's what the other people were doing. They were complaining among themselves and getting louder and louder and grumbling and griping. They weren't bringing that to the Lord. They were pretty much casting contempt and scorn on the Lord and saying the Lord is a crummy leader, look where he led us out into the desert and look what we have to eat, manna.

And boy, I wish we were back in Egypt. That was their heart. And here's Moses' heart. God, this is too much for me. And Lord, I just can't do this. And so Lord, if this is what I'm looking at, this is my lot in life and you're not going to help me here, then just kill me.

Kill me so I don't have to look on all this evil and misery and wretchedness within me and within the people. He was honest. He didn't wall up with God. He poured out his heart to the Lord. He was reverent, but he was honest.

Listen, you need to write this down because this is critical. Make it your practice to be reverently honest with God. Honesty produces intimacy. You will never be intimate with God. You will never walk closely with God until you let down all the defenses and you're just totally open with the Lord.

And you share your feelings and you share your hurts and you share your hopes and you share your dreams and you share your questions with the Lord. And you bring your whys to the Lord. And when life does hit you hard below the belt and you don't understand, then your child gets sick and your child dies and you don't understand.

When your spouse walks out on you and you don't understand and you're hurting, you bring that to the Lord. You tell him about it.

Larry Nobles: Reverent honesty with the Lord. Letting down your defenses and drawing close to him as you walk through the hard times. Only through Christ can we reject that natural tendency to shut down with God and turn inward.

Stay with us, Pastor Jeff returns with more in just a moment to close out the message, An Attitude Check, from the series, Attitude for Altitude. You know, you and I are living in a time when many people and maybe most people quietly carry deep grief about the loss of the life that they thought they would have.

Their human expectations haven't occurred. They're trying to get by on the outside while hurting deeply on the inside. Some feel forgotten by God, others feel stuck in despair. Is that you? Scripture tells us the Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. That's found in Psalm 34:18.

Our God specializes in meeting people in broken places and this month Pastor Jeff Schreve wants to meet you in that grief-stricken place that you may be in. And he'll do that with two incredibly powerful and practical resources. First, the five-message series, Life Goes On: How to Face a New Normal, along with the full-length companion book entitled Life Interrupted.

Both your gift of support this month to From His Heart of any amount. Pastor Jeff receives no income from this ministry. He's our chief volunteer. To get these two perceptive gifts as thanks from Pastor Jeff for your support to From His Heart, simply call 866-40-BIBLE or visit fromhisheart.org.

And remember that whether you or someone you know is facing loss, illness, betrayal, financial pressure, or maybe a season that feels overwhelmed, these resources will point back to the unchanging faithfulness of our loving heavenly Father. Both the book and the series in the format of your choice, a great encouragement for you when you make your gift today. Well now let's conclude today's message called An Attitude Check. Here again is Pastor Jeff.

Dr. Jeff Schreve: Psalm 62 verse 8 is one of my favorites. Trust in him at all times, O people. Pour out your heart before him. God is a refuge for us. He's a safe place. You can share your secrets, you can share your hurts, you can share all your tears with him. David did that.

Hey, you can share what you're struggling with. You can share the sin that you're struggling with. You can tell God all about that. Listen, God is not your condemner. He's your savior and he's your friend. The Lord didn't come into the world, the Scripture says, to condemn the world. He came to save the world.

The Bible says in Isaiah 50 verse 6, Behold, the Lord God helps me. Who is he who condemns me? Not the Lord God. The enemy of your soul is the one who condemns you. The devil is the one who condemns you.

The devil is the one who tries to beat you up with guilt and shame and tries to drive a wedge between you and God and tries to get your heart angry at God and bitter at God so you wall up because of the adversity that's come into your life. He tried to do that with Job and Job wouldn't do it.

And Job's wife said curse God and die and Job wouldn't do it. And Job said though he slay me, yet will I trust in him. And Job passed his test and it was a difficult test, but he passed with flying colors because he trusted God.

And he poured out his heart to the Lord and his questions to the Lord. And some of you are here and you have walled up and you know you've walled up. And you're mad at God over something that happened five years ago, 10 years ago, 20 years ago.

And now you have this distant relationship with the Lord, kind of where you exchange pleasantries and your prayer life is just kind of disconnected and it's just God bless so-and-so and God bless so-and-so and God do this and God do that. But it's not a heart connection.

It's just like the person that you used to be close friends with and now you're not close friends with and you kind of say hi in the grocery store and you just keep on going. You don't want to have that kind of relationship with God. So listen, when adversity comes, attitude check. Have I walled off and shut down with God?

You know what's interesting, Moses shared his heart with the Lord. How did the Lord respond? Did the anger of the Lord burn against Moses as it did with the people when they complained? No. God said Moses, I'm going to get you some help. Moses, you got too much on you.

The burden is too great for you. Let's get 70 men that can help carry the load. And you pick them, 70 elders, 70 guys that you can trust. You pick them and I'll put my spirit on them. And God began to help Moses because the Lord God is for me as one who helps me. He's not against me.

Question number four. When adversity comes, do you try his patience? Look what he says to Moses in verse 18. And say to the people, consecrate yourselves for tomorrow and you shall eat meat for you have wept in the ears of the Lord saying, Oh, that someone would give us meat to eat for we were well off in Egypt.

In the land of slavery, we were well off. That's where we wanted to be. God, you ripped us out of our favorite place, Egypt. We were well off in Egypt. Baloney. Therefore the Lord will give you meat and you shall eat.

You shall not eat of it one day or two days nor five days nor 10 days nor 20 days but a whole month until it comes out of your nostrils and becomes loathsome to you because you have rejected the Lord who is among you and have wept before him saying why did we ever leave Egypt? Serious, serious things that they said to the Lord.

Not to the Lord per se, but in the Lord's hearing as they griped, as they complained, as they spit upon the manna and God's provision. They tried God's patience, tested God's patience. How patient is God? He's very patient.

The patience of the Lord is long, but it's not limitless. You can cross God's patience, you can come to the end of God's patience where boom, judgment falls because you crossed the line. In Numbers chapter 14, he was going to destroy the people because they didn't go into the promised land.

And he was so frustrated with them because they wouldn't believe him. And they thought, well, God's not powerful enough to handle some giants that live in the promised land. We need to go back to Egypt. They were going to kill Moses and go back to Egypt.

And the glory of the Lord came and Moses had to intercede for the people so God didn't destroy them. And Moses reminded the Lord about his character. And he said in Numbers 14:18, Lord, you remember you're slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, forgiving iniquity and transgressions, but he will by no means clear the guilty.

God, remember when you appeared to me on Sinai and you passed before me and you hid me in the cleft of the rock and as you passed by, you said this about yourself, the Lord, the Lord God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness and truth. God, you remember that?

He reminded the Lord of who the Lord was. And God is slow to anger. He's long suffering. You know that word anger in the Hebrew literally means nose. It says that God is long in the nose. You say, well why would they long in the nose? What's up with that?

Well the Hebrews noticed that when an animal or a person would get angry, you would see that on the person's face. Oftentimes the nostrils would flare out when a person got angry or an animal was getting ready to attack and was angry.

They'd see it in the face and the nose, the nostrils would flare. And they said you know God is one who's long in the nose. It takes a lot for God's facial expression to change. It takes a lot for God's nostrils to flare in anger. But that can happen.

God can lose his patience. You can try his patience. You can cross his line. And you hit God's hot button when you reject his loving provision and his perfect plan. They were jumping up and down on God's hot button. They were rejecting the Lord.

They said it's better to be in Egypt as slaves than to go with God. You talk about a wound to God's heart when the people that he loved, when the people that he delivered, when the people who had seen all the miracles from God, when they said we'd rather be slaves in Egypt under Pharaoh's thumb than to be your free people walking with you. Wow. Eating your crummy food, God. We'd rather have Pharaoh's fish than your manna.

God says okay, that's what you want? I'm going to give you meat. And he sent quail. And a ton of quail. Two million people, right? They can eat a lot. Well he sent quail three feet deep for miles.

And the Scripture says when they went out to gather the quail, the person that gathered the least had 50 bushel baskets of quail. And when they went to prepare the quail and they put it in their mouths before they could even chew it, God's judgment fell. And those with those greedy desires, those fleshly desires, they died.

Our God is a consuming fire. Listen, God is a good God, but God is a holy God. And the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And we can come before the Lord and we can bring all our discouragements and all our complaints, bring them to him, always with reverence, always in the fear of the Lord because you're not talking to some shoeshine boy who missed a spot.

You're not talking to some clerk who miscounted your change. You're talking to God who's in charge of everything. Who all he has to do is that and you're consumed. So you come before the Lord reverently.

Listen, how's your attitude? You're dealing with some adversity today? How's your attitude? You might be really struggling with something today, some adversity that's come and you know you have a bad attitude toward it.

And you've heard this message and you say man, that's me. I've been griping, I've been complaining, I'm ungrateful, I'm not talking to God about this. And man, I don't want God's wrath to come because I'm trying his patience. But Jeff, what do I do? You come to him.

And you know that the Scripture says for you, Lord, are good and ready to forgive and abundant in lovingkindness to all who call upon you. Would you do it? Would you say Lord, here's my attitude, change it so I can praise you.

Larry Nobles: As Pastor Jeff so clearly stated, will you come today to a God who gives grace to the repentant heart? It's only through his grace for which we are thankful that we can be changed and pass the ultimate attitude check.

To find out more about what it means to surrender your life to Christ, go to fromhisheart.org, click on the Why Jesus icon. Well thank you for being here today. I'm Larry Nobles and we trust the messages have been a blessing to you and that you'll join us again next time when Pastor Jeff will present the last message in this Attitude for Altitude series. It's called Givers or Takers. Here's a bit of what's to come.

Heard about a missionary and he was talking to a new convert named Pablo. And he was talking to Pablo and he said, Pablo, he said, if you had 100 sheep, you'd give 50 of them to the Lord's work, wouldn't you?

And Pablo said, you bet I would, preacher. And he said, and if you had 50 cows, why you'd give 25 of those cows to the Lord's work? He said, you can count on me, you bet I would. And he said, and if you had two pigs, you'd give one of those pigs to the Lord's work?

And he said, that's not fair. You know I have two pigs.

Dr. Jeff Schreve: Here's the point. We like to give in principle, in theory, hey it sounds good. But what we really believe we practice. All the rest is just religious talk. Join us next time here on From His Heart.