Pathway to Victory

David: Hey podcast listeners. Thanks for streaming today's podcast from Pathway to Victory. Pathway to Victory is a nonprofit ministry featuring the Bible teaching of Dr. Robert Jeffress. Our mission is to pierce the darkness with the light of God's Word through the most effective media available, like this podcast. To support Pathway to Victory, go to ptv.org/donate or follow the link in our show notes. Now, here's today's podcast from Pathway to Victory.

Dr. Robert Jeffress: Hi, this is Robert Jeffress, and I'm glad to study God's Word with you every day on this Bible teaching program. On today's edition of Pathway to Victory, what Solomon is saying is the most important choice we can make is to build our life around God. How do you do that? How do you choose intimacy with God over isolation from God? Let me just share with you four practical principles for making God first in your life.

David: Welcome to Pathway to Victory with author and pastor Dr. Robert Jeffress. Have you ever felt distant from God, even though you're going through all the motions of the Christian life? Or maybe something feels missing in your relationship with the Lord. Today on Pathway to Victory, Dr. Robert Jeffress shares how to move from spiritual isolation to genuine intimacy with God. But first, let's take a minute to hear some important ministry updates.

Dr. Robert Jeffress: Thanks, David, and welcome again to Pathway to Victory. We all want our lives to matter and to find genuine satisfaction. Perhaps you've worked hard to build a career, create a comfortable home, or enjoy life's pleasures. But if you're honest, you've probably noticed that even when you achieve what you're after, something still feels incomplete. Solomon, the wisest and wealthiest man of his time, experienced the same frustration, and what he discovered changed everything.

Today, in our final message from my teaching series, *Choose Your Attitudes, Change Your Life*, I'll share Solomon's most powerful discovery, that choosing intimacy with God is exponentially more productive than choosing to isolate from Him. And then, on this last day of my teaching series, it's important to remind you that it's one of your last occasions to request my book by the same title. Many have chosen to use this practical book to spark meaningful conversations in their small group Bible study.

Let me send you my book, *Choose Your Attitudes, Change Your Life*. Plus, I'm going to include a book that opened my eyes to the power of Christian legacy. It's written by David Green, the founder and CEO of Hobby Lobby, and called *The Legacy Life*. Many of us are wondering how we might pass along our Christian values to the next generation, especially our families. For that reason, I sincerely recommend David's book. Both books, David's and mine, are yours when you give a generous gift to Pathway to Victory.

Okay, let's open our Bibles together. I titled today's message, "Choosing Intimacy with God Over Isolation." In this series, *Choose Your Attitudes, Change Your Life*, we've been talking about biblical decisions, biblical attitude choices that are absolutely crucial in life. But as we close out that series today, we're going to end by talking about the most foundational attitude choice of all, the only one that will give you a proper spiritual map of life. And that is the choice to choose intimacy with God over isolation from God.

If you have your Bibles, turn to Ecclesiastes chapter one. You remember thousands of years ago, there lived a man named Solomon. He was the king of Israel. And yet, as he surveyed the endless cycle of seasons and of nature, he came to the conclusion that there was no purpose to life whatsoever. Meaningless, meaningless, everything is meaningless. But before he came to that final conclusion, he decided to set out on a personal pilgrimage to discover the right map that would give him direction in his life.

Look at verses 12 to 13 of Ecclesiastes 1. "I, the Teacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem. I devoted myself to study and to explore by wisdom all that is done under the sun." And so he tried three different maps to see if he could find meaning in his life. The first map he used was pleasure. Chapter 2, verse 1, he said, "Come now, I will test you with pleasure to find out what is good." Well, if that doesn't work, what would he do next?

Well, Solomon thought to himself, you know, I've always been more of a thinker than a playboy at heart anyway. So maybe I'll try something else. Maybe I'll try the pursuit of wisdom. But then he came to this conclusion, verses 14 and 16, "But I came to realize that the same fate overtakes the wise and the fool both. Like the fool, the wise man too must die." Having found no meaning in pleasure or in wisdom, he tried work itself.

Maybe if I throw myself into my work, that will provide meaning. Verses 18 and 19, "I hated all the things I had toiled for under the sun because I must leave them to the one who comes after me. And who knows whether that person will be a wise man or a fool? Yet he will have control over all the work into which I have poured my effort and skill under the sun. This too is meaningless." Life under the sun is meaningless. But there's the key: under the sun.

That's a phrase Solomon uses 29 times. It refers to life from a horizontal perspective. If we just look around at what is around us instead of looking up, if we look at what is around us, life does seem meaningless, futile, useless. But there's another way to look at life: to look at life above the sun. For the first 11 chapters of Ecclesiastes, it is under the sun, the meaninglessness of life. But then when he gets to chapter 12, he gives the above-the-sun perspective.

Look at what he says in chapter 12, verse 1. Here's the key to finding meaning in life. "Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come and the years approach when you will say, 'I find no pleasure in them.'" Remember your Creator. How do you do that? How do you choose intimacy with God over isolation from God? As we close out today, let me just share with you four practical principles for making God first in your life.

First of all, realize that true fulfillment is impossible apart from God. I believe Solomon had reached the same conclusion. He had built the most powerful nation in the world at that time. He became the wealthiest man of his day, and yet he realized he wasn't fulfilled. Secondly, to gain intimacy with God, honestly evaluate your relationship with God. What right now is the center of your affections? What are you building your life around? The temporary or the eternal?

A good way to really evaluate your heart is to ask yourself the question: how would you respond if suddenly you lost all of your material possessions, your health, you lost your children? Would your life completely spin out of control? There was a person who actually experienced all of that. His name was Job, and we find his story in the Old Testament. Obviously, Job was heartbroken after he lost his kids in a freak windstorm, after all of his possessions were taken from him, after he began to lose his health.

But it didn't undo his life. In Job 1:20-22, it says that Job arose, he tore his robe, and he shaved his head, and he fell to the ground and worshipped. And he said, "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I shall return there. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord." Through all this, Job did not sin nor did he blame God. Job's life was built around something more than what could be taken away from him. Is yours?

What a contrast to Solomon. When we get to the 12th chapter of Ecclesiastes, we come to see an old man whose life is beginning to unravel. His health is breaking down. By the way, that's what all those images are we read just a few moments ago talking about the windows grow dim. He's talking about the eyes. The sentinels begin to tremble. That's the arms and the legs. He was starting to lose his health. Not only that, his power in the kingdom had been diminished.

His wealth had been passed on to another. Even his wisdom was being called into question. And he comes to the end of his life and he said, "Don't make the same mistake I did. Remember God. Remember your Creator in the days of your youth." Have you ever been on a road in an unfamiliar place and you make a wrong turn? And not soon afterwards, you realize you made a wrong turn. And you've got that decision point: am I going to admit my mistake, turn around, and go the opposite direction?

And there's something inside of you that doesn't want to do that. Because after all, you've gone a long ways in this new direction and you'd have to retrace your steps, and it would take longer to get back on the right road. I mean, it's really idiocy when you think about it, but it makes sense at the time. So you keep going further in the wrong direction, hoping that magically somehow it's going to become the right direction. And the further and further you go, the harder and harder it is to turn around and admit you made a mistake.

I see some ladies punching their husbands right now. We're all like that. The further you go in the wrong direction, the harder it is to turn around. But that's what the word repent means literally. It means to turn around. To be headed in the wrong direction, to acknowledge it and start going in the right direction. There's some of you that are ready to do that, I think. You're ready to admit what I've been chasing after, it hasn't done it for me. It hasn't been providing the fulfillment I've been looking for.

I'm ready to admit I've been going the wrong direction and go the right direction. Unfortunately, that didn't happen to Solomon. He waited until it was too late. 1 Kings 11:4 says, "For it came about when Solomon was old that his wives turned his heart away after other gods, and his heart was not wholly devoted to the Lord his God as the heart of David his father had been." Remember your Creator before it is too late. Number three: how do you build intimacy with God?

Remove any barriers in your life to intimacy with God. Do you know what the biggest barrier is between us and God that keeps us from having a relationship with Him? The biggest barrier, it's a little word, three-letter word: S-I-N. Sin. In Isaiah 59:2, the prophet said, "But your iniquities, your sins, have made a separation between you and your God, and your sins have hidden His face from you so that He does not hear." He was talking to God's own people, the Israelites.

Now, let me be clear about this. When we are born into this world, we are born separated from God. The wall is already there. It's a wall that is caused by the sin we inherited from Adam. We are separated from God. You say, well, how do you remove that wall? You can't remove it. I can't remove it. But that's why Christ came: to pay for our sins. He's the one who removed that wall and made access to God possible. And when you trust in Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, God takes a sledgehammer to that wall.

He knocks it down. He welcomes us into His presence. But after we become a Christian, we can try to erect that wall ourselves, brick by brick by brick. And when we erect our own wall, sin after sin after sin, it's not that God changes His attitude toward us, but we change our attitude toward God. We grow distant from God the more sins we pile on, and we build and build and build that wall until we can no longer see our Creator.

The biggest brick that blocks our view of God is not adultery or murder or theft. I mean, those are all certainly sins. But the one brick that blocks our view of God more than any other is idolatry. Now, some people think he named the one thing I'm not guilty of. Well, you might want to think again. Idolatry is not just bowing down before a wooden statue in Africa somewhere. Idolatry is loving anyone or anything more than you love God.

That's what it is to have an idol: to be obsessed with, to think about, to love anything or anyone more than we love God. And if we're going to have intimacy with God, we've got to be willing to let go of those idols in our life. I'll never forget a number of years ago, I had lunch in another city with a well-known Christian leader. You would know his name immediately. He's taught millions the Word of God. And after we finished with lunch, we were walking outside.

Next to his office door was his automobile. It was a 1968 Oldsmobile. And I was kind of shocked by the car, actually. I said, well, that's an interesting car. I mean, it was like a tank. And I said, tell me about your car. There's got to be a story behind that. He said, "Yes." He said, "You know, there's some great things about this car. First of all, I never have to worry about being hit by anybody on the freeway. Everybody steers clear of me."

And he said, "Also, nobody wants to steal my car. I never have to worry about anybody stealing the car. I can leave it unlocked and nobody takes it." He lived a very frugal lifestyle even though he was a major Christian leader. And so I asked him about that. I said, what led you to live the way you do? He said, well, it all happened when I was 10 years of age. He said, I had a paper route, and I used to get up at the crack of dawn before school and go out and throw my papers.

I started earning money and I'd go down to the bank every week and deposit my money in my little savings account. And it started to grow and grow and grow and grow. And before long, that bank book became my obsession. All I could think about was how much money I had and how proud I was of it. And I realized it was a hindrance in my relationship with God. So one day I took that bank book down to the bank and I withdrew every dollar I had.

And I went out and bought Bibles for all of my classmates. And since that time, I've never had a problem with materialism or money. By letting go of it, I broke its hold over me. If we're going to have intimacy with God, we've got to be willing to let go of whatever idol it is that is blocking our relationship with God. Finally, how do we have a right relationship with God? To continue to nurture our relationship with God. If we're going to have intimacy with God, we've got to continue to nurture our relationship with God.

Here's a formula that's absolutely guaranteed to destroy any relationship you have: don't ever talk to the other person, don't ever listen to the other person, and don't ever spend any time with the other person. That will destroy any relationship. Now, you may think, well, I've got a great relationship with my wife or with my children or with my lifelong friend. You may think you have a great relationship. You may have a great relationship, but quit talking to them, listening to them, or spending time with them.

And that relationship will shrivel up overnight. It's the same in our relationship with God. You know how to destroy intimacy with God? Don't ever talk to Him, don't ever listen to Him, don't ever spend any time with Him. We have to nurture our relationship with God if we're going to be intimate with Him. Even Jesus, the Son of God, understood that. You've heard me many times quote Mark 1:35. To me, it's one of the most amazing verses about the life of Jesus.

The day after the busiest recorded day in His entire ministry, when He ministered until late into the evening, the Bible says on the next morning, in the early morning while it was still dark, I had to get up at three this morning for Fox & Friends. I was miserable. It was dark out there. I didn't want to do it. I wanted to roll over, but I knew I had to do it. Jesus got up not just one morning, but every morning, in the early morning while it was still dark.

He got up, He arose, and He went out and departed to a lonely place and was praying there. Think about it. If spending time with the Heavenly Father was essential for the perfect Son of God, how much more essential is it for you and for me if we're going to have a relationship with God? How do you spend time with God? You know the answers. We talk with God through prayer, telling what's on our heart. We listen to God through reading His Word.

We spend time alone with Him as often as we can. I've found in my own life one of the best ways to develop intimacy with God is by keeping a journal. Not a diary, but a journal. Not every day, but just writing down things that God is teaching me, that I'm learning from Him, and keeping a list of prayer requests and the answers that do or don't come. As I reflect back over those journals, it is such a refreshment to me to see that God really does exist and He's at work in my life.

In a lot of ways, Ecclesiastes was Solomon's spiritual journal, and he left it so all of us could read it and learn from his mistakes. Solomon said, don't be like me. Remember God. Make Him first in your life before it's too late. One of my favorite fables is about the dog that was carrying the bone in its mouth. And as it went over a bridge, it happened to look down into the pool of water beneath the bridge. And the dog immediately saw the reflection of the bone it was carrying in its mouth.

The dog actually dropped the real bone and it dove into the water in pursuit of the reflection and ended up going hungry. That's really Solomon's story. He gave up his relationship with God that had started out so strong. He gave it up because he was distracted by the reflections, by the gifts of God rather than the giver of the gifts, God Himself. And he ended up dying spiritually hungry. Don't make that same mistake, Solomon says.

Choose intimacy with God. Make it a priority in your life instead of isolation from God. Maybe you sense that barrier is between you and God. If you're not yet a Christian, that barrier is very real, and there's nothing you can do to remove it. Nothing at all, but God can. All He asks you to do is to trust in Jesus as your Savior. To believe that He paid the price for your sins on the cross and to trust in Him, not your good works, but in Him to forgive you of your sins.

And the Bible says the moment you acknowledge your sin to God and trust Jesus to be your Savior, you become a child of God, the assurance you have that you'll be with Him forever in this life and in heaven. That's what it means to trust in Christ. If today you would like to put your faith and trust in Jesus as your Savior, we invite you to come. Finally, there may be some of you, you're already a Christian, but you would say, you know, Pastor, lately I've taken a detour in my life.

If that's true of you, I invite you to come and just say, Pastor, I'm ready for a new beginning. That's all you have to say. Father, we thank You that You're a God of mercy. We thank You that You are able to fulfill every need we have. And I pray for those today who are ready to trust in Christ for their salvation for the first time. I pray no one would resist Your Holy Spirit's invitation. Give us the power, the courage to stand up, come in, and respond to Your invitation. In Jesus' name, Amen.

Back on Monday, January 5th, we started this teaching series that concludes today, called *Choose Your Attitudes, Change Your Life*. And this is one of the very last days to request my book by the same title, along with audio CDs and DVDs. So be sure to get in touch with us right now. Allow me to send my book to your home when you give a generous gift to support the ministry of Pathway to Victory. But that's not all, because I'm also going to send David Green's brand-new book, *The Legacy Life*.

As the founder of Hobby Lobby, David articulates what it means to think with eternity in mind, especially as it pertains to the legacy we leave. Rather than working hard to amass a huge savings account, David urges us to see the joy and value of working in cooperation with God to bless generations long beyond our own. Look, I'm sensing that God's Spirit is moving in the hearts of men and women all across our country. He's working, and I believe our time is growing short.

We don't know when Jesus will return, but the signs are evident. And now's the time to ramp up our efforts to share the Gospel. Would you join me in telling the world the good news about Jesus Christ? When you give generously today, I'll say thanks by sending you both *The Legacy Life* and my own book, *Choose Your Attitudes, Change Your Life*. Here's David to tell you more.

David: Today, when you support the ministry of Pathway to Victory by giving a generous gift, we'll say thanks by sending you *The Legacy Life*. In addition, you'll receive *Choose Your Attitudes, Change Your Life*. That's the book by Dr. Jeffress that served as the basis for this series. To request your copy, call 866-999-2965 or go online to ptv.org. Now, you could also make a donation by texting PTV to 78800.

And when you give $100 or more, you'll not only receive these two books, we'll also include the audio and video discs for this month's series, *Choose Your Attitudes, Change Your Life*, plus a personal or group study guide. Call right now, 866-999-2965, or online simply go to ptv.org. You could also send your gift to PO Box 223609, Dallas, Texas, 75222. Again, that's PO Box 223609, Dallas, Texas, 75222. I'm David J. Mullins. Financial people will tell you how to invest your money, but do you know how to invest for eternity? Hear a message called "Investing for Maximum Returns." That's Friday on Pathway to Victory. Pathway to Victory with Dr. Robert Jeffress comes from the pulpit of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas.

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David: You made it to the end of today's podcast from Pathway to Victory, and we're so glad you're here. Pathway to Victory relies on the generosity of loyal listeners like you to make this podcast possible. One of the most impactful ways you can give is by becoming a Pathway Partner. Your monthly gift will empower Pathway to Victory to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ and help others become rooted more firmly in His Word. To become a Pathway Partner, go to ptv.org/donate or you can follow the link in our show notes. We hope you've been blessed by today's podcast from Pathway to Victory. Oh, and one last thing before we go. Have you reserved your spot yet for the 2026 Pathway to Victory cruise to Alaska? You've been hearing me and Dr. Jeffress mention it, so what are you waiting for? Just picture yourself on the deck of Holland America's elegant Koningsdam and stepping out on deck to witness nature's grandeur. It's beautiful. These moments in God's creation will deepen your faith in powerful ways. It really will. Experience five-star dining, luxurious staterooms, and visiting iconic ports like Juneau, Ketchikan, and Skagway. We're also bringing along our own Christian entertainment. You'll love it. Seats are filling up, so book your spot today at ptv.org.