From His Heart

Jeff Schreve: Every single thought we take it captive to the obedience of Christ. We don't let any thought come in that doesn't first go by a guard that says, "Halt! Who goes there?" I don't know if I'm gonna let you in, thought. You have to pass a test. Does this pass the test of obedience to Christ?

What was Paul filling his head with as he's there in prison in Rome? Things that are true, things that are pure, things that are lovely, things that are honorable, things that are right. He was just dwelling on that stuff. He was thinking on those things. He was thinking on thoughts that lift you up, not thoughts that bring you down.

Larry Nobles: How can you have an attitude that rises above regardless of the circumstances? That's the question in this edition of From His Heart with Pastor Jeff Schreve. In today's inspiring message from Pastor Jeff that we began on Monday, we'll learn five insights into how to have an attitude that truly glorifies God despite what you may be going through. It is possible.

The message is entitled, "So You Want to Soar?" and it's from Pastor Jeff's dynamic series, "Attitude for Altitude." And the Lord knows we can all use a little bit or maybe a lot of attitude adjustment. Now to listen to part two from last time or if you miss part of this program, you can listen again online at fromhisheart.org and click the listen link. Now though, open your Bible to the fourth chapter of the book of Philippians. Hey, do you want to soar?

Jeff Schreve: I want to share with you five key essentials that will develop attitude in you, in me, that we could say, "Hey Paul, we're learning from you and what you had to say by inspiration of the Holy Spirit so that we can rise above regardless of what we're facing."

Key essential number one, if you want to have an attitude like Paul that allows you to rise above regardless of the circumstances, number one, you must make a conscious choice to rejoice. A conscious choice to rejoice. Look at it again in Philippians chapter 4, verse 4. "Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. Let your forbearing spirit, your gentleness, your patience be known to all men. The Lord is near."

Now, where was Paul when he wrote this? In prison. Would anybody in here say, "I got it worse than Paul?" Anybody in prison today? Anybody chained between two soldiers? Anybody facing imminent death? Probably not. I don't think so. Paul's got it worse than we do, and Paul made a conscious choice to rejoice. And you can make that choice too.

Second key essential. You want to have an attitude that rises above, an attitude like Paul that no matter what, he can rejoice in the Lord? Second essential, you bring all your cares to Him. Philippians chapter 4, verse 6. "Be anxious," Paul says, "for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God."

Psalm 55, verse 22 in the Amplified says this, "Cast your burden on the Lord, releasing the weight of it, and He will sustain you; He will never allow the consistently righteous to be moved, made to slip, fall, or fail." Cast your burden on the Lord.

I have this backpack. Now, I filled this backpack in my office just a little bit ago, filled with books. It's heavy. And some of you are carrying a burden right now and it's on your back, just like this backpack is on my back. And you're carrying it around and you're worried and you're bothered and it's weighing you down. And the Lord says, "Hey, you know what you need to do with that burden? You need to cast that burden on Me, release the weight of it."

Now, watch this. It doesn't do much good for me to take my burden and to bow my knee and to pray that God would help me with this burden as so much of the time we do that. "God help me with this burden. I have this huge burden. I have this huge concern, I have this huge worry, and Lord, You see it and Lord, I need You to help me with it. And so Lord, I'm trusting You to help me with it. And then, see ya later, Lord." And we go back. We never release the burden. We never release the weight of it.

He doesn't say just show me your burden. He doesn't say tell me about your burden. He says cast your burden on the Lord. Leave it there with Him. Let it go. Release the weight of that. And when it comes to this thing called worry, you know where we have trouble with worry? Anytime that you start worrying about things, be anxious for no thing, it's because you took the backpack back. You got the burden back on your back.

Every time that you start to feel worried, it should be like an alarm clock that goes off that says, "Wait a minute, you took the burden back." The Lord says cast it on Him. The Lord says cast all your cares on Him because He cares for you. And so I'm to pray about everything and worry about nothing and give those situations and those difficulties to the Lord.

You bring all your cares to Him and know that God promises peace. Look what it says. If I will do verse 6, "Be anxious for nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God, and the peace of God which surpasses all comprehension shall guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." God promises peace for those who cast their burden on Him, for those who refuse to worry.

As we sang with the choir, "My life is in Your hands, Lord." I don't need to worry. You don't have to worry and don't you be afraid. Joy comes in the morning. Troubles, they don't last all day. There's a friend named Jesus who will wipe your tears away. So if your heart is broken, just lift your hands and say, "God, here's my burden. Lord, I leave that with You and You promise to give me peace."

The peace of God which surpasses all comprehension shall guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Like a Roman guard around you is God's peace. And people don't understand it. It doesn't make any sense. It surpasses all comprehension. "Hey, you're facing serious situations. How are you so calm? How are you so at peace? I don't understand it." It's because the Lord is giving me supernatural peace.

Do you remember in Acts chapter 12, Peter was imprisoned? Herod had put him in prison, and Herod had already imprisoned James, the brother of John, and killed James. He put him to death with the sword. And the Jews liked that, and they said, "Yeah, Herod, you're our man! Herod, Herod, he's our man!" They were cheering.

Herod's like, "Hey, they like me now. Let me get another one of the apostles. We got James, he was number three, Peter, James, and John. Let's get number one." And so they get Peter in prison. In Acts chapter 12, Peter's in prison during the Passover, and Herod says, "After Passover, we're going to bring Peter out and we're going to kill him too."

And so it's the night before his execution, and he's got all these soldiers around him and he's chained to Roman guards. And the Lord sends an angel. You remember that story? The Lord sends an angel, and do you know what the angel has to do with Peter? He has to strike him to wake him up.

If you're going to be executed the next day, you think you might sleep a little light? You think sleep might be hard to come by? Not for Peter. Why? Well, he cast that care on the Lord. His life was in the Lord's hands. He didn't have a care because he had cast all his cares on Him. And so he wasn't carrying those around. So he could sleep just knowing, "Lord, You're in charge here. I trust You. So I'm going to go to sleep. You work all this stuff out."

And God did. And God sent a great deliverance. And Peter had perfect peace. So what do you do to have an attitude that rises above? You make a conscious choice to rejoice. Essential key number two, you bring all your cares to Him. Essential key number three, you reject stinking thinking. Verse 8.

"Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute," that means of good reputation, admirable, "if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, let your mind dwell on these things." What was Paul filling his head with as he's there in prison in Rome? Things that are true, pure, lovely, honorable, and right.

He was just dwelling on that stuff. He was thinking on those things. He was thinking on thoughts that lift you up, not thoughts that bring you down. Great verse in 2 Corinthians chapter 10, verse 5 that says, "For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but divinely powerful for the destruction of fortresses. We are destroying speculations and every lofty thing raised up against the knowledge of God. And we are taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ."

Every single thought we take it captive to the obedience of Christ. We don't let any thought come in that doesn't first go by a guard that says, "Halt! Who goes there?" I don't know if I'm gonna let you in, thought. You have to pass a test. Does this pass the test of obedience to Christ? Whatever is true, honorable, right, pure, lovely, and of good repute, if there is any excellence and anything worthy of praise, that gets in. Let your minds dwell on these things.

Those are the thoughts that can park in your head. And anything else, things that are untrue, ugly, negative, and that bring dishonor, those thoughts don't get in. And some of you have parked negative thoughts in the garage of your mind and God is saying to you today, "You need to tow those out. You need to get those out. You're never going to rise above if you let all that junk sit in your head."

Well, you say, what kind of negative thoughts? "God couldn't love me. I'm too bad for God to love. God couldn't forgive me. God can't use somebody like me." Lie, lie, lie. God does love you. God can use you. God can forgive you. Don't ever elevate your sin over the blood of Jesus Christ. And the blood of God's Son cleanses from all sin.

See, you take the truth of the Word of God and you say, "I'm going to believe God's truth. I don't care what my feelings say." And all those thoughts that have been parked in your head, you get them out and you tow them out and say, "I'm not going to fall to stinking thinking. I'm not going to fall into this victim mentality."

You know who could have fallen very easily into this victim mentality? A lady who was born in the early 1800s. Her name was Fanny Crosby. Fanny Crosby, when she was just a few weeks old, had a doctor come because she had these sores and problems with her eyes. And a doctor came who was kind of a medical quack, and he came and he prescribed a treatment for her: hot mustard poultices to put on her eyes.

And they damaged her optic nerve and she went blind as just a few weeks old little baby girl. And I love what Fanny Crosby said. Fanny Crosby is the hymn writer who wrote over 8,000 hymns and God used her life in such a powerful way. And at the age of eight, she wrote one of her first poems and it said this:

"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." She wasn't going to dwell on the negative. She was towing all that stuff out of her mind. She said, "Whatever is true and honorable and right and pure and lovely and of good repute, those are the things that I'm going to think on."

Hey, you want to rise above? You make a conscious choice to rejoice. You want to rise above? You bring all your cares to Him. You want to rise above? You reject stinking thinking. And key essential number four, you walk by faith and not by sight. Look what he says in verses 10 through 13.

"But I rejoiced in the Lord greatly, that now at last you have revived your concern for me; indeed you were concerned before, but you lacked opportunity. Not that I speak from want, for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am. I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in prosperity; in any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need."

Verse 13: "I can do all things through Him who strengthens me." I can do all things through Him, through Christ who strengthens me. Great verse. If you haven't memorized Philippians 4:13, you need to memorize it. "I can do all things through Him, through Christ who strengthens me."

You say, "Well Jeff, time out. Got a question. All things? I mean, all things encompasses a lot. It encompasses everything. So I can do everything through Christ who strengthens me? Does that mean that I can beat Usain Bolt in the 100-meter dash?" Any of you think you could beat Usain Bolt? No. Does that mean that you can hit a baseball farther than Albert Pujols? Nobody that God has ever made can hit a baseball farther than Albert Pujols.

What does it mean? Does it mean that I can bench press 1,000 pounds? "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me" means this: anything that the Lord asks you to do and commands you to do, you can do it. Peter, could he walk on water? In and of himself he couldn't, but when the Lord said, "Come," he could get out of the boat and walk on the water to go to Jesus.

He could do the impossible. Why? Because it's whatever God asks you to do, God commands you to do, God invites you to do, you can do it. "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." There's nothing in the Bible that you and I read that we say, "Well, I can't do that. God wants me to witness to my neighbors and to my friends. I can't do that. I don't know what to say, and I get nervous, and I'm shy, so no, that's not for me."

"I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." Whatever He asks me to do, I can do it. I can get up here and sing if He asks me to do it. I can get up and teach. I can get up and preach. I can give generously and sacrificially. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

There was a guy in the Bible in the book of Judges, chapter 6. His name was Gideon. Gideon was scared of his shadow. The people of God had been under the thumb of the Midianites, and the Midianites would come in every time they farmed and had a big crop and take it. And so here is Gideon and he's threshing wheat in the winepress.

You would always go to a high place to thresh wheat because you'd throw in the pick and you'd throw the wheat up in the air and the wind would drive away the chaff and the wheat would fall to the ground. But here he is in a hole, and he's threshing the little bit of wheat in a hole. And the angel of the Lord comes to him and says to him, "Hail, oh mighty man of valor!"

Gideon looks around. "Me? Who, me? The guy threshing in the winepress in the hole so nobody sees me? You're calling me a mighty man of valor?" "Hail, oh mighty man of valor, the Lord is with you!" And Gideon says to the Lord, "Well, if the Lord is with us, how come we're getting our clock cleaned and our lunch eaten by Midian? Where is the Lord in all of this? Where are the miracles that we read about and heard about?"

The Lord doesn't answer him. The Lord says, "You know what? I'm going to use you to deliver Israel from Midian." And Gideon says this, "Oh Lord, how shall I deliver Israel? Behold, my family is the least in Manasseh, and I am the youngest in my father's house." And the Lord said to him, "Surely I will be with you, and you shall defeat Midian as one man."

Wow. He didn't think he could do it. But the Bible goes on to say when God called him and it was go time and now it was, "Hey, we're going to fight Midian," that the Spirit of the Lord came upon him. And the Bible says literally that the Lord wore Gideon like a suit of clothes. He empowered him to do what Gideon in and of himself couldn't do.

And that's a picture of Philippians 4:13. I can do all things that God asks me to do. I can do all things. Why? Because there's power within me as a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ. Ephesians chapter 3, verse 20: "Now to Him who is able to do exceed-abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory."

There is power in the Lord. And if you know Christ, He lives inside of you and there's nothing that He cannot do. And if the Lord tells you to step out in faith, I promise you He will make your path sure and firm. He will make the sea like a street as He did for Peter.

David said in Psalm 18, verse 29, "By You, Lord, I can run upon a troop, and by my God, I can leap over a wall." So you walk by faith and not by sight and you say, "I can't do this, but I'm not looking at me. I'm looking at You, Lord, and You can do it through me."

And key essential number five. When you put them all together, look, he says you make a conscious choice to rejoice. Rejoice in the Lord always. You cast all your cares and bring all your cares to Him. You reject stinking thinking. You walk by faith and not by sight. And you say, "Yeah, there's one more, Jeff. What's the fifth essential so that I can rise above?"

You keep doing it. You take those four things and you keep doing them day after day after day. Look what it says in verse 9: "The things you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things, and the God of peace shall be with you." You've got to keep doing it. You've got to put it into practice.

We're not talking about a one-shot, "I rejoice in the Lord this one morning at First Baptist Church," and that means I got this attitude thing all whipped. Listen, the Christian life is not just a one-shot deal. It is not a 10-second 100-meter dash. Christian life's a marathon. It's a walk with the Lord. And it's long.

And we live in a world where we want to have things sped up, and we want to have microwaved lives, and we want to have instant this and instant that, and we want instant spiritual growth, and we want instant rising above and being a person who has a tremendous attitude and a godly attitude. It doesn't work that way.

It doesn't work that way for anybody. It didn't work that way for Paul. He talked about, "I've learned to be content. I've learned these things." It took time. He didn't just read it in a book one day; he lived it out. So you and I need to practice these things.

And when you put them into practice day after day after day after day after day, you begin to rise above. And maybe you only go 10 feet, and then it's 50 feet, and then it's 100 feet, and pretty soon you're soaring with the Lord because you're putting His Word into practice. Hey, here's the question: do you want to soar? Well, then will you do what God says to do?

Larry Nobles: Well, what a great way to begin this series, Attitude for Altitude. It's showing us how attitude really does determine your altitude in life in many ways. If you want to soar, life needs to be clay in God's hands. Today's message was part two of the lesson, "So You Want to Soar?" and the entire series Attitude for Altitude is available online at fromhisheart.org. Just click the listen link.

Also this month, for your gift of support of any amount to From His Heart to help us continue to expand our outreach around the world, we'll send you Pastor Jeff's five-lesson series, "Life Goes On: How to Face a New Normal," and the companion full-length book, "Life Interrupted." These two resources will bless your life, guaranteed. Remember, Psalm 34:18 reminds us that the Lord is near to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. God bless you for standing with us today at From His Heart as we reach the world for Christ. Just go to fromhisheart.org to make your gift, or simply call 866-40-BIBLE, 866-40-BIBLE.

And when you're visiting our website, we hope you'll sign up for Pastor Jeff's weekly Real Hope email encouragement letter. You'll get it in your inbox every Friday morning, and they'll really lift your spirits with practical helps for everyday living. Click on the email encouragement icon on our homepage at fromhisheart.org. There too you can become a friend of the ministry on our social media offerings. It's easy to do.

Well, time has gone for today's broadcast. Thank you for joining us. I'm Larry Nobles, hoping you'll be here again next time when Pastor Jeff Schreve continues the series Attitude for Altitude. Join us on Wednesday for the lesson "Trust and Obey." That's when we'll again open up God's Word and share real truth, real love, and real hope from His heart.