From His Heart

Dr. Jeff Schreve: You might be walking to the promised land which is awesome, but along the way there is adversity. Maybe you are facing some of that today. Unpleasantness in your job. Maybe you're in school and you're having trouble with one of your teachers or you're having trouble with a coach or you're having trouble with the principal. Or maybe you're having trouble in your family and there's adversity there.

And maybe you're having trouble in your relationship with God because God is not doing for you like you want Him to do. He's not answering your prayer like you want Him to answer, and so you're frustrated with Him. Hey, what happens to your attitude when you encounter adversity?

Larry Nobles: Welcome to the Thursday edition of From His Heart with Pastor Jeff Schreve. Listen, when you come head-to-head with adversity in your life, what's your first reaction? Do you complain? Do you become ungrateful? Maybe you even shut down with God.

Well, today's eye-opener message by Pastor Jeff seeks to help us to get back on track if we're in need of a big-time attitude adjustment. The message today is entitled "An Attitude Check." It's part one of the fifth lesson in the six-message series *Attitude or Altitude*.

Now if you missed any of these life-changing lessons we've had so far this month, go to FromHisHeart.org to listen again or download a free MP3 of any broadcast. If you can now, why not turn to Numbers chapter 11 in your copy of God's Word? Here's Pastor Jeff to give us all a good honest opportunity for an attitude check.

Dr. Jeff Schreve: We can't control so many things that happen to us and that come at us in life, but we can control how we respond to it. We can control our attitude. In the Book of Numbers chapter 11, we read these words: "Now the people became like those who complain of adversity in the hearing of the Lord. And when the Lord heard it, His anger was kindled and the fire of the Lord burned among them and consumed some of the outskirts of the camp. The people therefore cried out to Moses, and Moses prayed to the Lord and the fire died out. So the name of that place was called Taberah because the fire of the Lord burned among them."

The people of God who had come out with Moses, had come out of Egypt with Moses, they should have been rejoicing in the Lord. They had the Lord's presence there, the cloud by day, the pillar of fire by night. They had been to Mount Sinai and God had given the law and God had told them about the tabernacle. And here they had the Ark of the Covenant, which was the visible representation that God was there and God was among them.

Things were exciting. They're getting ready to go into the promised land. They were slaves in Egypt, and now they're going to take over this land. And the promised land was a land flowing with milk and honey. This is going to be a great place and God is giving this to us and it is awesome. But they began to complain. Why? Because they're in the wilderness.

And wilderness may sound like a cool word until you really understand what wilderness is. Wilderness is desert. It's sand and rocks. It's hot. There's no air conditioning out in the wilderness. It's a tough go out in the wilderness. Now you might be walking to the promised land which is awesome, but along the way there is adversity.

The word for adversity means misery, distress, calamity, hurt, unpleasantness. Maybe you're facing some of that today. Maybe you're facing unpleasantness in your job, misery and adversity. Maybe you have a boss that you just don't gee-haw with. You guys don't get along. Maybe you're in school and you're having trouble with one of your teachers or you're having trouble with a coach or you're having trouble with the principal or whatever it might be.

Maybe you're having trouble in your family and there's adversity there. And maybe you're having trouble in your relationship with God because God is not doing for you like you want Him to do. He's not answering your prayer like you want Him to answer, and so you're frustrated with Him. Hey, what happens to your attitude when you encounter adversity?

I want you to notice with me from Numbers chapter 11, four key questions to ask yourself to do an attitude check on yourself when you face adversity in life because we all face it and it hits us without warning. You encounter difficulties and adversity and trouble and strife. What do you do? Question number one: when you encounter adversity, first question you ask yourself, do you start complaining?

Hey, when I encounter adversity, do I start complaining? Look again at verse 1: "Now the people became like those who complain of adversity in the hearing of the Lord." They were murmuring, they were griping, they were upset. And it says "in the hearing of the Lord." Now, doesn't God hear everything? Yes, God hears everything. God hears what you whisper in your bedroom. God hears all your thoughts. God knows everything.

But when it says that they complained in the hearing of the Lord, that means their complaints were so loud they began to lift themselves up to heaven. That's how much they were murmuring and grumbling and griping and complaining. This should have been a victory march. See, here's the timeline. Get it in your head because it will help you. When God led them out of Egypt, they didn't just make a beeline for the promised land.

He led them out of Egypt and then He led them, it took them a couple of months to get to Mount Sinai. There are a lot of them. There's 600,000 men that are in this group that came out of Egypt, men 20 years old and upward because that's how they numbered the people. And you can cross-reference that in Numbers chapter 1, verse 46. Actually, to be exact, 603,550 men over the age of 20.

You add women and children into that group and you have a group of about two million people. So two million of these guys, they're not going to move real fast when you're trying to move two million people. It's like traffic on the freeway. You get too many cars, it slows down. And so movement is slow. It takes them a couple of months and they get to Sinai, Mount Sinai.

That's the mountain of the law. That's where God met Moses for 40 days and 40 nights and God wrote with His own finger on tablets of stone. God gave Moses the law and God showed them about the tabernacle and how to make it and the Ark of the Covenant, all this great stuff they get from the Lord and the people are gung-ho. "Yes, we will obey the Lord. We will do what He says."

But then they fail. Moses is on the mountain for 40 days. They say, "We don't know what happened to Moses. Aaron, make us a golden image like we had in Egypt." So he makes the golden calf. You remember that story. And so all that time they're there at Mount Sinai is almost a year. It's about 11 months. And then they set out. And they're setting out to go where? To go to the promised land.

To go to Kadesh Barnea, which was going to be their point, their fort to go into the promised land. Three days from the time they left Sinai to get to Kadesh Barnea, which was going to be their point to go into the promised land, three days they start to complain. Why? Well, like I told you, it's desert. It's hot. It's difficult and there's adversity.

They're complaining and they're murmuring and they're grumbling and they're griping. It's kind of like this when you decide, hey, kids, we want to take you to the beach. And you've got little kids, and when my girls were little, if we were going to go on a trip, a long trip in the car and we're going to go someplace fun and it's going to be exciting and hey, you guys are going to love it.

What happens when you're in the car with little kids for hours and hours and hours? Grumbling, griping, murmuring. "She's touching me!" You ever hear that? "Are we almost there?" "I'm tired." "I have to go to the bathroom." "I'm hungry." It's just one of those things. It's like fingernails on a chalkboard. You don't want to hear it. I'm trying to do something good for you and you guys are all fighting and grumbling and griping and complaining.

That's exactly what it was like for God. Listen, the scripture tells us, Philippians chapter 2, verse 14, "Do all things without grumbling or disputing or arguing." Do all things without grumbling. That's my favorite Greek word: *goggusmós*. Because it's onomatopoeia; it sounds like its meaning. Muttering is onomatopoeia. It sounds like what it is. You just mutter.

And their muttering was loud. Their grumbling was loud. Now how many things are we supposed to do without grumbling? All things. What's included in all things? Everything. Anything, everything in your life you are to do, I am to do without grumbling. God hears the grumbling and the griping. You mark it down. God hears it. "Now the people became like those who complain of adversity in the hearing of the Lord."

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. Not only does He hear the grumbling and griping, God hates the grumbling and griping. You hate it when you hear it from your own kids.

God hates it when He hears it from His kids. And it doesn't mean He hates your kids. I don't hate mine when they do that, but I hate the grumbling and I hate the griping. God hates it. And see, God takes it personally when you grumble and you gripe. You say, "No, no, no, I'm grumbling against my boss." All authority comes from God. You're grumbling against the Lord.

Larry Nobles: You're listening to From His Heart with Pastor Jeff Schreve. And those parallels between how we relate to our kids and how God relates to us, well, they're pretty revealing sometimes, aren't they? We're almost midway through the broadcast today, so stay with us as Pastor Jeff returns in a moment with more of the message called "An Attitude Check" from the series *Attitude or Altitude*.

Now many people today form their attitudes about God based on how many curveballs life has thrown them. When trouble comes, they move away from God instead of toward Him. The Christian life has never been touted as an easy one. In Acts chapter 14, Paul himself said, "Through many tribulations we must enter the kingdom of God."

But Jesus promises peace and joy no matter the circumstance. Would you like to have an attitude of peace and joy every day, no matter what? Are you tired of the angst that life can bring? Well, this month we want to help you get started on that by getting your hands on Pastor Jeff's powerful series and book: the series *Life Goes On: How to Face a New Normal* and the companion full-length book *Life Interrupted*.

Both of these for your gift of any amount to From His Heart this month. You can get the series in the format of your choice. The book, uplifting and empowering to read. Go to FromHisHeart.org to get your copy, FromHisHeart.org, or simply call 866-40-BIBLE, 866-40-BIBLE. Request *Life Goes On*, the series, and the book *Life Interrupted*.

We're confident these tools will bless and equip you to remain firm in your optimism, your faith, and your closer walk with Jesus. Now let's continue with the message from Pastor Jeff's series *Attitude for Altitude* and today's appropriately titled lesson "An Attitude Check."

Dr. Jeff Schreve: In Numbers chapter 14, broken record, the people grumble and gripe again. They are at Kadesh Barnea now. They finally made it to the point that they're going to be in right before they go into the promised land, and they don't go into the promised land. Because when they spy out the land, they find out that there're giants in the land and they get scared.

And the 12 spies that go in come back with this report: "Hey, that's a good land. That's an awesome land. It sure is a land flowing with milk and honey. But we can't go in there. There're giants in there." And Caleb and Joshua are like, "Yeah, we can go in there because God said that's our land and God's going to give us the land, and let's just trust God and go in there."

But the 10 faithless spies turned the tables on Joshua and Caleb, the two faithful spies, and they turned the whole congregation of Israel against the Lord. And the Bible says that the people wept and they cried and they grumbled against Moses and Aaron and they wanted to go back to Egypt. And listen to what the Lord said about that. Numbers 14:27: "How long shall I bear with this evil generation who are grumbling against Me?"

"I have heard the complaints of the sons of Israel which they are making against Me." Now the Israelites would say, "Wait, wait, wait, time out, God. We're not grumbling against You. We're grumbling against Moses and Aaron. They don't know how to lead." And God says Moses and Aaron are doing exactly what I'm telling them to do. You're grumbling not against Moses and Aaron, you're grumbling against Me.

And anytime that you and I start to grumble and gripe and complain of adversity, it all comes to God. And God takes it personally because you're grumbling against the Lord. You say, "No, no, no, I'm grumbling against my boss." All authority comes from God. You're grumbling against the Lord. "No, no, no, you got that wrong. I'm grumbling against my parents."

God put your parents over you. "Oh, well, I'm grumbling against the president." That's God's authority. Listen, God takes that personally. And the anger of the Lord was kindled and the fire of the Lord burned among them and consumed some of the outskirts of the camp. That should have got their attention, right? We're not supposed to do this. God doesn't like it.

God gets angry when you start to grumble and gripe and complain. It's obvious as the fire of His anger began to fall. 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? When adversity hits your life and touches down in your life like a tornado, do you become ungrateful? Look what it says in verse 4: "And the rabble, the mixed multitude, the non-Jews that came out of Egypt with them, 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. This manna, yuck."

Now the manna was like coriander seed and its appearance like that of bdellium. The people would go out and gather it and grind it between two millstones or beat it in the mortar and boil it in the pot and make cakes with it. And its taste was like the taste of cakes baked with oil. And when the dew fell on the camp at night, the manna would fall with it.

Okay, here's the situation. You have two million people out in the wilderness, which is the desert. Now they have flocks and they have herds and things like that, but they're not going to last long if you start killing all of those out in the desert. It's difficult out there. And so God feeds them. God rains down bread from heaven.

And what the people would see is the manna, which we have heard about. It would be like dew that would come up at night and the scripture says in Exodus chapter 16 it was like frost on the ground. It was a flaky substance like frost on the ground. It was white like coriander seed and it was a resin kind of substance like bdellium.

And so they'd see this stuff, this frosted flaky thing, it's like frosted flakes. And they see it on the ground and they didn't know what it was. And the word for manna literally means "What is it?" And so they see this stuff and they say, "Manna! What is it? I don't know what it is." And that's what they called it. Manna. They didn't know what it was.

But they could take it and they could cook it and they could eat it and it sustained them. And the Bible says in Exodus chapter 16 its taste was like honey wafers, wafers with honey. It wasn't a bad thing. It was a good thing. But it was every day. What's for breakfast? Manna. How about lunch? Manna. What about for a snack? We got more manna. It's just manna, manna, manna.

It's 24/7 manna. And you've been eating that for 14 months now. And you kind of want something else. Hey, I love pizza, but I don't want pizza for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the next 14 months. But here they are and they're eating manna and they're getting sick to death of the manna. Now the manna was a daily miracle from God.

So they have this daily miracle and it's something that they should have been praising about. But here they are and they're pouting about it and they're disdaining God because of the manna. They're just spitting, as they say, "There's nothing to look at except this manna, yuck." They become so ungrateful for what God had given them.

Attitude check: when adversity comes, 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. Are you focused on what you don't have? "Oh, if we just had some fish, if we had meat, oh, I remember back in Egypt that wonderful place."

Oh, you mean the place where you were slaves and you were brutalized? Yeah, we don't talk about that. But that wonderful place where they had fish and they had leeks and they had onions. I don't know why they liked garlic. Those things wouldn't appeal to me, but they appealed to them. And you know, they had that spicy food there.

Manna was honey wafers, but it was more bland than the leeks and the onions and the melons and the fish. And they were just focusing in on what they didn't have. Do you do that? You focus on what you don't have? Maybe you can relate. See, because good people and godly people, we can surely start focusing in on what we don't have.

We can easily become ungrateful and desire what we don't have. That happened to Tevye in the musical classic *Fiddler on the Roof*. He was just a poor Jewish farmer living in Russia with his five daughters and his wife. And he wants to be a rich man and he begins to focus on what he doesn't have: riches, material riches.

Now he had lots of riches: five daughters and a wife and a God who loved him and provided for him. But he was focusing on what he didn't have. Ingrates always do that. They focus on what they don't have. And ingrates, secondly, they fail to count their blessing. 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. Psalm 78 says, "And He rained down manna upon them to eat and gave them food from heaven. Man did eat the bread of angels; He sent them food in abundance." Man, they should have been praising the Lord for that provision, praising the Lord that they were getting to eat angel food.

I would love to have some manna, wouldn't you? I mean, to be able to taste that, to know what it really tasted like and what it was like. And every morning God was faithful. And on Friday, God was faithful to give them twice as much because on the Sabbath, Saturday, they weren't to gather. And so every day you had a miracle of God's provision.

Hey, ingrates don't focus on what they have. They don't focus on the blessings. They don't count their blessing. 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. So don't compare your blessings; count your blessings and praise God for what you have, not what you don't have.

Larry Nobles: Ungrateful people focus on what they don't have and fail to see what they do have. Sadly, that pattern is easy to see in a marriage, too, which Pastor Jeff will point out next time on part two of the lesson "An Attitude Check." Now if you miss any program, you can always listen again online at FromHisHeart.org; click the listen link.

And when you're there, remember to make a gift to From His Heart this month to support this outreach around the world. And when you do this month, we'll send you the series *Life Goes On: How to Face a New Normal* and the companion full-length book *Life Interrupted*. These are our special thank-you gifts for your support this month to From His Heart.

Call 866-40-BIBLE to get your copies, 866-40-BIBLE, or go to FromHisHeart.org. Thank you for joining us today. I'm Larry Nobles, and we truly hope the program was a blessing to you and that you'll be back with us again tomorrow for part two of "An Attitude Check." Here's a preview.

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.

Larry Nobles: That's on Friday when we'll again open up God's Word and share real truth, real love, and real hope from His heart.