Pathway to Victory

Speaker 1

Hey podcast listeners. Thanks for streaming today's podcast from Pathway to Victory and Dr. Robert Jeffress.

We're dedicated to bringing you bold biblical teaching that transforms your life and strengthens your walk with God.

And you can study God's word alongside Dr. Jeffress in person on the 2026 Pathway to Victory cruise to Alaska.

Speaker 2

Have you ever witnessed the breathtaking majesty.

Speaker 3

Of massive glaciers rising from crystal blue waters?

Speaker 2

Or stood in awe as bald eagles soar over snow capped mountain? I want you to experience these unforgettable moments with me on the Pathway to Victory Cruise to Alaska, June 13th through 20th, 2026.

Speaker 1

Join Dr. Jeffress and the Pathway to Victory family for a spectacular seven-day adventure aboard Holland America's luxurious Koningsdam.

Indulge in elegant staterooms, world-class dining, and expansive decks perfect for breathtaking views.

Visit historic ports like Juneau, Skagway, and Ketchikan, where wilderness and frontier history await.

Speaker 2

There's something powerful about connecting with God.

Speaker 3

And fellow believers in the majesty of his untamed wilderness.

Speaker 2

I truly believe this journey will refresh.

Speaker 3

You spiritually, physically and emotionally.

Speaker 1

Cabins are filling quickly, so reserve yours today. To book your spot on the 2026 Pathway to Victory cruise to Alaska, call 888-280-6747 or go to ptv.org now here's today's podcast from Pathway to Victory.

Speaker 2

Hi, this is Robert Jeffress and I'm glad to study God's Word with you every day on this Bible teaching program.

Speaker 3

On today's edition of Pathway to Victory.

Speaker 2

The heart in the Bible is the center of our thought, our will, and emotions. Your heart is the real you.

Now, there is a visible you that everybody sees, but then there is the real you that God sees. Man looks on the outward appearance, the physical, but God looks at the heart.

Speaker 1

Welcome to Pathway to Victory with author and pastor Dr. Robert Jeffress. The essence of discipleship is a changed life that comes from a transformed heart.

But why is it necessary to transform our hearts? And who is responsible for making it happen? Today on Pathway to Victory, Dr. Robert Jeffress describes how God changes us at the deepest level of our being, our hearts.

But first, let's take a minute to hear some important ministry updates.

Speaker 3

Thanks, David, and welcome to this Friday edition of Pathway to Victory. During today's program, we have the privilege of consulting God's Word for wisdom and insight on living the satisfying life of a disciple.

Let's be honest, sometimes we're overwhelmed with the pressures of becoming Christlike. I mean, as imperfect people, how do we take on the perfect qualities of Jesus, striving day in and day out? To be a heavenly ambassador for Jesus can be exhausting, but that's not his intention. Actually, the to-do list for Christians is much shorter than we realize.

Sound too good to be true? Well, it's the underlying theme of our current series and a brand new padded hardcover book called *Encouragement for the Heart of a Disciple*. We'd like to send a copy to your home right away because it contains an infusion of biblical hope and inspiration. Plus, when you respond today, we'll include a collection of prayer cards as well. These six pocket-sized prayer cards help you prayerfully articulate the discipleship steps that matter the most.

The devotional book *Encouragement for the Heart of a Disciple* and the prayer cards come with our thanks when you give a generous gift to support the ministry of Pathway to Victory. We'll say more later on, but right now let's give our full attention to the study of God's Word. Our primary passage comes from Proverbs 23, verse 7. Today's message is titled *Heart Surgery 101*.

Speaker 2

How many of you desire to live in the Kingdom of God, you say? Pastor? That is a dumb question. I mean, especially when you consider the alternative: living outside the Kingdom of God. We know what Jesus said about what outside the Kingdom of God is. It's a place where there's darkness, weeping, and gnashing of teeth. Who would ever choose to live outside the Kingdom of God? And yet many people are making that choice right now to live outside the Kingdom of God.

You see, the Kingdom of God is not a synonym for heaven. Now, heaven is the ultimate expression of the Kingdom of God. It's where everybody will revere, respect, and obey God's will. Likewise, hell is the ultimate expression and destination of those who refuse to respect, revere, and submit to God's will. But that delineation between the Kingdom of God and outside the Kingdom of God is a delineation we see right now here on Earth. Remember, a monarch's kingdom is that area where everyone respects and reveres the King's will. For example, Queen Elizabeth is the monarch over Great Britain. People who live within a territory owned by Great Britain submit to the Queen's will; they are part of her kingdom.

Do you and I obey the Queen of England? No. We are not a part of her kingdom. We are outside the Kingdom of Great Britain. It's the same way with the Kingdom of Heaven and those who are outside the kingdom. Those who are living within God's kingdom right now are those who respect, revere, and obey the will of God. Those who are outside the Kingdom of God are those who are right now rejecting and refusing to obey God's will. Heaven and hell are simply the continual eternity of the present choices people make right now.

Now think about living in the Kingdom of God. Probably one reason you said you want to live in the Kingdom of God is you're thinking about those eternal benefits that await everybody who is going to be a part of the Kingdom of God. We know what those eternal benefits are. We spent a whole sermon series talking about them. When we talk about heaven, you know, bodies that never grow sick again, a reunion with our loved ones in heaven, freedom from sin—those are all part of the eternal benefits of living in the Kingdom of God.

But guess what? You don't have to wait until you die to experience the benefits of God's kingdom. Right now, you can experience the benefits of living under God's rule. When you submit, respect, and revere the will of God in your life right now, there are some immediate benefits. What are those benefits? Think about freedom from worry, peace no matter what is happening around you, contentment with your financial situation, harmony in all of your relationships, and freedom from bitterness toward those who wrong you. You don't have to wait until you die to experience that. Right now, those kingdom benefits belong to you.

Now this is where a lot of Christians get mixed up, and a lot of non-Christians get mixed up. They may say, "Well, you know, that sounds good. So how am I going to start experiencing those kingdom benefits right now? How do I become a part of the Kingdom of God?" Let's go back to our Great Britain illustration for just a moment. You know, Amy and I have been watching *The Crown* on Netflix. And let's just suppose one evening we're watching that and we say, "You know what? That Queen Elizabeth, she's a pretty cool chick, and you know, we'd like to be a part of her kingdom. We would like to live under her reign."

And so what do we do? Well, Amy and I decided to start sipping tea. Every day at 3 o'clock, we have high tea. Not only that, we work on developing our British accent. And not only that, we memorize the words of the British national anthem and we sing it every morning at breakfast. Does that make us a part of the Queen's kingdom? Does that automatically make us citizens of Great Britain?

Speaker 3

Of course not.

Speaker 2

In order to be under the King's reign, we have to become citizens of Great Britain. It is the same way with becoming a part of God's kingdom, telling people to quit getting angry or to start forgiving or be pure in your relationships. That is useless because people can't do that naturally. There has to be a transformation of our life that gives us the desire and the ability to submit to God's will.

We're in a series right now called Seven Marks of a Disciple. And we've said that the essence of being a disciple is a changed life that comes from a transformed heart. If you haven't written that down yet, write it down across your outline because that's what it means to be a disciple. A disciple is somebody who experiences a changed life that comes from a transformed heart.

And today we're looking at that first mark of a disciple, which is a transformed heart. You will never become a citizen of God's kingdom. You will never enjoy the benefits of living as a citizen of God's kingdom until you have that transformation of your heart. And that's what we're going to talk about today. Today I'm gonna answer three questions about spiritual transformation. Number one, why is it necessary? Number two, who's responsible for it? And number three, what is the process by which it happens in our life?

Let's first of all talk about spiritual transformation. Why is it necessary? Turn to Second Corinthians, Chapter 4. We're gonna take about a three-minute course on anatomy according to the Bible, because if you don't understand this, you'll never understand what we're talking about. You need to understand what the Bible teaches about the heart.

You know, in our culture, we have been influenced by Greek philosophy. Greek philosophy separates the mind from the heart. The mind is the real us. It's our intellect, it's our will. The heart is simply that seed of emotions that can never really be trusted. But according to the Bible, the heart is the center of the real us. It's the center of our intellect, it's the center of our will, and it's the center of our emotion.

For example, the Bible teaches the heart is the center of intellect. Proverbs 23:7 states, "As a man thinks in his heart, so is he." Where do we think? It's in our heart. It's also the center of our will, the choices that we make. In Mark 3:5, there's a description of the Pharisees who rejected Christ. It says, "And looking around at them with anger, grieved at the hardness of their heart." It was their heart that had made the decision to reject Christ. The heart in the Bible is the center of our thought, our will, and our emotions. Your heart is the real you.

Now, there is a visible you that everybody sees, but then there is the real you that God sees. Man looks on the outward appearance, the physical, but God looks at the heart. Now, the Bible teaches us that the visible us, that is our bodies, begin deteriorating the moment we draw our first breath. Did you know that the moment you are born, your body starts deteriorating? And then when you hit age 50, it hits warp speed. Y'all hear an amen on that?

But here's the good news. Even though we are decaying physically, we can be transformed spiritually. 2 Corinthians 4:16 says, "Therefore we do not lose heart. But though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day." Now, when we talk about spiritual transformation to allow us to live the kind of life we want to live, we're talking about the transformation of our heart, our mind, our will, and our emotions.

Why is that transformation necessary? Well, look at what the Bible tells us about the heart. There are three insights the Bible gives us about our hearts. First of all, our hearts determine our behavior. Acts of sexual immorality, outbursts of anger, greed that would cause us to steal—these are not involuntary responses. They are all the fruit, the manifestation of what is in our heart. Jesus said in Matthew 12:35, "The good man out of his good treasure brings forth what is good, and the evil man out of his evil treasure brings forth what is evil." To try to change somebody's behavior without changing their heart is absolutely futile. The Bible says our heart is where all behavior emanates from.

Secondly, the Bible teaches our hearts have been polluted. We have all inherited a polluted heart. Genesis 6:5 says, "Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually." Did you know that's true of how God views every person? The moment we are born into this world, we are born with defective hearts. And the only thing that comes out of our minds are evil thoughts in God's eyes. Through Jeremiah the prophet, God said in Jeremiah 17:9, "The heart is more deceitful than all else and is desperately sick. Who can understand it?"

People today want to talk about the goodness of the human heart. That's not God's point of view. By God's absolute, pure standards, every heart is desperately wicked. How did that happen? How did our hearts become wicked? Romans 5:12 tells us this virus that infects our heart came through Adam. "Therefore, just as through one man, sin entered the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned from Adam." We inherited this defective heart.

Paul describes exactly what the result of that heart is. In Romans 5:6, he says, "For while we were still helpless, at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly." The phrase or the word "ungodly" describes the condition of our life because of our defective heart. Do you know in the English language that prefix "un" means "not"? For example, we think of an unattractive person as somebody who is not attractive. A person who is unintelligent is a person who is not intelligent. So we assume that when we see the word here, "ungodly," that means somebody who is not godly.

But in the Greek language, that prefix "un" actually means "against." An ungodly person is not just somebody who is unlike God. Well, duh, we're all unlike God. But that phrase actually means somebody who is against God. And the Bible says Christ came to die for all of us who are ungodly. That is our state in God's eyes. We are against God. And that's why every time God says no, our first inclination is to say yes. And when God says yes to something, our first inclination is to say no. We are born ungodly. Our hearts are the center of our actions. Our hearts have been polluted.

Thirdly, our hearts can be transformed. That's the good news. Now, in Ezekiel 11:19-20, God points to that day when we're going to receive a brand new heart. Look at verses 19 and 20: "And I shall give them one heart and shall put a new spirit within them. And I shall take the heart of stone out of their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in my statutes and keep my ordinances and do them. Then they will be my people and I will be their God." Did you know one day you're gonna have a heart transplant? God's gonna give you a brand new heart that is free from any defect whatsoever. A heart that automatically wants to please God. A heart that is never tempted with evil again. How many of you are ready for that kind of heart? Well, the good news is it's coming. The bad news is you have to wait for it.

That heart transplant one day is coming. Does that mean then I have to walk around with this defective heart that is opposed to God and keeps me from benefiting from the kingdom of God? No. Even though we don't receive a new heart right now, we can experience a transformed heart again. Think about your physical heart. Maybe what you'd really like is a brand new heart, but you can't afford that right now. So do you have to walk around with a completely defective heart? No. The doctor will say, "There are some things we can do to strengthen the heart that you have right now. We can give you some tablets that will help reduce the plaque buildup in your arteries that restrict the blood flow to your heart. Here are some exercises you can perform to strengthen your heart muscles."

You can have a transformed heart right now. God said the same thing to us. We don't have to live as citizens outside the kingdom of God. We can experience the benefits of obeying God from a heart that wants to know Him. We can have a spiritually transformed heart.

Well, then that brings up the second question. We understand why it's necessary to have something change in our heart, but who is responsible for that spiritual transformation of our heart? Who is responsible? Is God responsible or am I responsible? We better understand it if it's going to happen.

Now, there are some people who say, "Oh, well, that's God's responsibility. Pastor, surely you know that just as we can't save ourselves, God alone can save us. Only God alone is capable of transforming our hearts to become the kind of people we want to become." In fact, people who believe that will actually point to Scripture. Galatians 3:3 states, "Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh?" They say, "Paul is very clear. If you were saved by grace, do you think you can become more like Jesus through the flesh, through human effort?"

But an examination of the context here shows you that's not what Paul is talking about. He's not talking about how we become like Jesus as Christians. He's talking about salvation. He said, "If you begin by trusting in Christ's grace alone for your salvation, why would you switch horses in the middle of the stream, so to speak, and start depending on your flesh, your good works, to save you? If you began by trusting in the Spirit of God, why not keep on trusting in the Spirit of God for your justification?" He's not talking about how we transgress our lives here.

You know, Dallas Willard has a great insight on this. He says, "Grace and effort are not opposites." We get the idea in Christianity that if we exert any effort, there's something wrong. It all has to be of God. No, grace and effort are not opposites. Grace and earning are opposites. Working for your salvation is heresy, but working out your salvation is basic Bible. Grace and effort are allies, not enemies.

Let me show you that in Scripture. Turn over to Philippians 2:12-13. Paul says, "So then, my beloved, just as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your salvation with fear and trembling." Oh, Paul, I can't believe you said that. We're not supposed to work for salvation. It's a free gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. Hey, read it again. He didn't say work for your salvation. He said work out your salvation.

When he talks about salvation, he's not just talking about our ticket to heaven. Salvation in the fullest extent is becoming the person God wants you to be. Yes, it includes going to heaven, but it includes right now living as that person who experiences the benefits of living under God's rule. He said, "That is something that we work out, not that we work for; we work out." Then he goes on to say in verse 13, "For it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure." God is the one who is in you, giving you the power to become the person he wants you to be.

To illustrate this, just imagine an electrical socket in your house. You know, inside that electrical socket is all kind of amazing energy. There's energy to power an oven to cook a fabulous meal. There's the energy to power a saw, an electric saw that will help you create a beautiful piece of furniture. Inside that electrical outlet is the energy to power your computer to write a new book that will bless millions of people. But none of those things happen just because the energy is there. That energy has to be combined with your effort. Without your effort, that energy produces nothing. It takes your effort to produce that fabulous meal or that beautiful piece of furniture or that book. That's what Paul is saying here. The moment you become a Christian, God not only forgives you of your sin, but he places a power source in you. It's a person. He's called the Holy Spirit.

Speaker 3

Spirit of God.

Speaker 2

And the Holy Spirit of God has all of the energy necessary for you to live the kind of life God wants you to experience.

But it takes your effort, combined with the Spirit of God, his power, to become that person you dream of becoming.

Work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who is working within you.

Speaker 3

Working out your salvation may seem heavy and difficult, but the Spirit of God is your companion, and he will provide all you need. We're so glad you joined us for this Friday edition of Pathway to Victory. Our series is called 7 Marks of a Disciple.

If you'd like to take this study even further, be sure to request a copy of the brand new devotional book *Encouragement for the Heart of a Disciple*. As you strive to fulfill a never-ending inventory of requirements for being a godly parent, a spouse, an employee, and more, you might feel progressively disconnected from the God you're trying to serve. This resource will help you cut through the clutter as you choose to follow Christ in important areas such as forgiveness, contentment, and trust.

This padded hardcover book contains 80 stunning photographs of God's creation, and each chapter is paired with a Bible reading suggestion along with a prayer you can follow. This devotional-style book is designed to guide your spontaneous moments of reflection and renewal as you discover how God is working within you. You have to see it to truly appreciate how beautiful it is, and it would make a wonderful gift for a friend as well.

Include a generous gift to support the ministry of Pathway to Victory with your request for *Encouragement for the Heart of a Disciple*, and we'll be sure to send a copy to your home right away. Thanks for getting in touch today. God will use your gift to pierce the darkness with the light of His Word.

Here's David with all the details.

Speaker 1

When you give a generous gift to support the ministry of Pathway to Victory, we'll say thanks by sending you a copy of the brand new devotional book by Dr. Robert Jeffress called *Encouragement for the Heart of a Disciple*. Call 866-999-2965 or, even easier, go to ptv.org. When your ministry gift is $100 or more, we'll send you the Encouragement Resource Set, which contains the new devotional, six Clutter Free Prayer Cards, the *Clutter Free Christianity* book and Life Application guide, and the *7 Marks of a Disciple* message series on DVD, video, and MP3 format audio disc set.

If you'd rather write to us, then address your envelope to P.O. Box 223609, Dallas, Texas 75222. Again, that's P.O. Box 223609, Dallas, TX 75222.

I'm David J. Mullins wishing you a great weekend. Then come back next week when we continue our series called *Seven Marks of a Disciple*. That's Monday here on Pathway to Victory.

*Pathway to Victory* with Dr. Robert Jeffress comes from the pulpit of the First Baptist Church of Dallas, Texas. Experience the breathtaking majesty of America's last frontier on the 2026 Pathway to Victory cruise to Alaska.

Speaker 2

Board Holland America's luxurious Koningsdam ship with.

Speaker 3

Amy and me for a journey that.

Speaker 2

Will refresh your soul and renew your spirit.

Speaker 1

Experience the unforgettable adventure June 13th through 20th, 2026. To book your cabin, call 888-280-6747 or go to ptv.org.

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 follow the link in our show notes. We hope you've been blessed by today's podcast From Pathway to Victory.