Speaker 1
Today you can discover that even if your life seems to be falling apart, you can live an unshaken life.
Speaker 2
Get down in your mind, get down in your heart this truth. True happiness doesn't come from sinful living. True happiness comes when you fear God and when you obey Him. That's what's going to satisfy you.
And that's where God brings love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness and gentleness and faithfulness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.
The essentials of a solid, unshakable life.
Speaker 3
There is tremendous truth. There is hope that you always dream. Love. He can heal every scars of truth. Real love real from his heart.
Speaker 1
What does it take? So believe believers in Jesus Christ can walk faithfully and steadily with God throughout this life to learn to dwell with him in this life and then in the life to come. In other words, what does it take to live an unshaken life in the Lord?
We'll find out today on From His Heart with Pastor Jeff Shreve. The message is from the eight lesson series Roller Coaster Facing the Ups and Downs of Life, and in it he reveals the crucial qualities of a believer's daily walk that, when practiced, will lead to a relationship with God who will help us through the dark times to come.
If you missed any of these lessons from this series so far, or you missed part one from last time, you can go back and listen again at fromhisheart.org where you can also download a free MP3 of any broadcast, as well as the sermon outlines from Pastor Jeff.
So if you're ready to begin now, here's Pastor Jeff Shreve with the truth about living a life that is and will forever be unshaken.
Speaker 2
**Psalm 15**
David writes this Psalm probably after he brought the Ark of the Covenant into Jerusalem. And the Scripture says this: O Lord, who may dwell in thy tent, who may dwell on your holy hill? He who walks with integrity and works righteousness and speaks truth in his heart. He does not slander with his tongue, nor does evil to his neighbor, nor takes up a reproach against his friend, in whose eyes a reprobate is despised, but who honors those who fear the Lord. He swears to his own hurt and does not change. He does not put out his money at interest, nor does he take a bribe against the innocent. He who does these things will never be shaken. He'll always be secure and stand strong.
So here's our question for today: What does it take to live an unshakable life in the Lord? What does it take so that we can dwell on his holy hill? What does it take so that we can abide in his tent and walk with God and be close to God and dwell with God in this life and then in the life to come? What does it take? I want to share with you five essentials. If you're going to live a life, if I'm going to live a life that's an unshakeable life.
**Essential number one: It takes integrity.**
It takes integrity, O Lord, who may abide in your tent, who may dwell on your holy hill? He who walks with integrity. The word integrity means to be sound, to be complete, to be solid. A person who has integrity is solid. As I've told you before, the difference between not having integrity and having integrity is a person who doesn't have integrity. He's kind of like veneer over particle board. He looks like he's real wood, but he's not real solid through and through. He's just a piece of veneer. And then inside it's just pasted shavings, just kind of pressed together, press board. A person with integrity is solid. He's the same on the outside as he is on the inside. He is solid through and through. God says, hey, if you want to build a life that lasts, if you want to have an unshakable life and not have the straw house or the stick house, you have to be a person of integrity.
**Secondly, second essential: It takes righteousness.**
He who walks with integrity and works righteousness. What does it mean to work righteousness? It means you practice living right. You have a righteous life. And the practice of your life is to do right and to obey God, to do what he says. You have a desire in your heart, Lord, I want to please you. I don't want to displease you. I want to obey you. I don't want to disobey you. And what is God doing and working in our lives? It says in the book of Isaiah, so that we may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified. Listen, don't deceive yourself if there's not a desire in your heart to please God, to live righteously, to be holy as He Himself is holy. Something is seriously wrong. And what may be wrong is you have never really put your faith and trust in Jesus Christ. You don't have a personal relationship with him, and he doesn't live inside of you. When you really know him, you begin to practice righteousness and live rightly, and you serve the Master and not the money.
See, he talks in this psalm about money. Verse 5. He says he does not put out his money at interest. You know, the Jews were not supposed to charge fellow Jews interest when they gave them a loan. He does not put out his money at interest, nor does he take a bribe against the innocent. And he talks about money there. Money is really, really important if you're going to build a life that is unshaken. If I'm going to build a life that is unshaken, we cannot be mastered by money.
Now, here's the difficulty with money. Everybody needs money. Not a person in this room who doesn't need money. It takes money to live, and money is a wonderful servant, but it's a terrible master. And money all the time wants to be the master. Jesus said, no one can serve two masters. Either he will love the one and hate the other, or he will cling to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money. And so we have to always make sure that the Lord is above all. Just as we sang, the Lord is above all, and the Lord is first place in my heart. And I'm not letting money take over and take control. It is so critical.
And you know the way that you guard against that? Because I have a problem with it, you have a problem with it. We all have a tendency for that. We have to watch out that our heart doesn't start to love money. Money is a neutral thing. It's not money that's the root of all evil. It's the love of money. So you know the way that you guard your heart from loving money? You give. You give. And when I give money to the Lord's work and to people in need, then I become not the Dead Sea that just receives and receives and receives and doesn't do anything. I become a conduit of God's blessings. Luke 6:38 says, Give and it will be given to you. Good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, they will pour into your lap. For by your standard of measure, it will be measured to you in return.
What does it take to live an unshakable life in the Lord? Well, first it takes integrity. Second, it takes righteousness. Third, it takes the discipline to walk by faith. I love the end of verse 2. He who walks with integrity and works righteousness and speaks truth in his heart. Speaks truth in his heart. So very important if you're going to have an unshakeable life is to have the truth in your heart. And you speak that in your heart morning, noon, and night. You're constantly reminding yourself of the truth. Why? Because the devil, the big bad wolf in the Three Little Pigs story, the devil is out there seeking someone to devour. And he is a liar and the father of lies. He will come at you with lies. And his lies seem so much like the truth because his lies are always rooted in circumstances. And God has told us in his word, we walk by faith, not by sight. And if you walk by sight, you're in trouble.
A walk of faith always is thinking about God. The emphasis is on God when you walk by faith. When you walk by sight, the emphasis is on circumstances. And the circumstances start to take center stage when you walk by sight. So the faith walk says, well, wait a minute. What's center stage in my life is the truth that God is God and God is over this situation.
**The discipline to walk by faith.**
**Essential number four: It takes a commitment to guard your heart and tongue.**
Verse 3. He does not slander with his tongue, nor does evil to his neighbor, nor takes up a reproach against his friend. He doesn't slander with the tongue. There's a commitment to guard the heart and guard the tongue. David said in Psalm 141, verse 3, Set a guard, O Lord, over my mouth. Keep watch over the door of my lips. Have you ever gotten yourself in trouble because you didn't have a guard over your lips? A watch over your mouth? And you're like, ah, I can't believe I said that. And it's out of your mouth. And once it's out of your mouth, you can't reel it back in. You say something in anger to your wife, you can't pull that back in. Kids, you say something to your parents, and you can't pull that back in. Guys, you say something about your mother-in-law, it's out there. Watch it. Set a guard, O Lord, over my lips and a watch over my mouth.
Hey, if you and I are going to have a life that is unshaken, then you refuse to gossip, slander, and spread strife. I'm not going to let that come out of my mouth. Let no unwholesome word. Ephesians 4:29. Let no unwholesome word proceed from your mouth, but only such a word as is good for edification, according to the need of the moment, that it may give grace to those who hear. One of the big, big, big sins in the church is gossip. People just love to gossip. And did you know the Bible even says that gossip is one of those things that people love to do? The Bible calls it in the Book of Proverbs that the word of the whisperer, the word of the gossiper is like dainty morsels. It goes down in the innermost parts of the body. It's a tasty little morsel. It's like being at a wedding and they have this table full of just kind of wedding food. You know, at weddings sometimes you have wedding food. It's like little finger sandwiches. They have that a lot of times at weddings. It's not a whole sandwich. It's just a little piece of a sandwich, a little slice. It's like somebody's finger. And it's about the size of your pinky. And it's just like. And you can eat a lot of those. Because it's not. You're not eating a whole sandwich. I mean, there's no way I'd go to a wedding and have three sandwiches. But I might have 30 or 40 of those little finger deals. Because it's just a nibble, right? It's just like, this is. This is. Is nothing. And gossip is like that. It just feels so good, and it's just so little. And it's just so. You know. And there's just something within us in our old Adamic nature that wants to spread gossip and strife and to slander. The Lord says, don't do that. The person who's building a life that is unshaken, he doesn't do that. She doesn't do that. Puts a guard over her mouth. His mouth. It's important.
The Bible says there are six things which the Lord hates. Yes, seven, which are an abomination to him. And the last one on that list, number seven, is one who spreads strife among brothers. Don't do it. God hates that. You know the word devil? The word devil in the Greek is diabolos, and it means a slanderer, a false accuser. One who goes and tells things to damage and defame. So there's a commitment to guard your heart and your tongue.
Now, not only do you guard what comes out of your mouth, but you refuse to hurt your neighbor and respond in bitterness. See, it says that in verse 3. Nor does evil to his neighbor, nor takes up a reproach against his friend. The word for neighbor, the word for friend are the same Hebrew word, so they're just interchangeable. But why would someone do evil to his neighbor or friend? Why would someone take up a reproach, a taunt, a scorn, a shame, a disgrace against his neighbor or his friend? Why does somebody do that? Because they're wanting to get back at them, that's why. Because that person did something to them, so they feel, you hurt me, I hurt you. That's kind of how we do things. If you say something to me that hurts, I'm going to bring it back to you. We tend to be people that give insult for insult. We do that in marriage, and then we try and one-up the other person. You insulted me. Me, I'm going to insult you, but I'm going to put a little stank on it. And we just keep coming back and forth with that. We do that to people. Why do we do that? Because you hurt me, and I want to hurt you.
Everybody in this room has been hurt. Everybody in this room has hurt people. I mean, that's just the world we live in. God forbid that we become people who lash out to try and hurt others who have done things that we feel have hurt us. Now here is the natural non-Christian progression. When you get hurt, somebody does something, says something, does something to you and hurts you. First of all, you nurse the hurt. Oh, that was just horrible. That just hurt so bad. You're just nursing the hurt. And then you rehearse the hurt. And then I said this, and then they said that. You go through it in your mind. You ever done that before? You go through it in your mind, the whole thing over and over and over. You nurse the hurt, then you rehearse the hurt, then you curse the hurt about how bad it was, what this person did to you. Then you disperse the hurt. You tell your friends, did you know that he did this to me? Did you know that she did this to me? And you build a little posse of people who will hate the other person because they were so terrible to you. So you nurse the hurt, you rehearse the hurt, you curse the hurt, you disperse the hurt.
Hey, listen, we need to take the hurt and give it to God and release it to God and let God reverse the hurt and do a miracle in that situation. Joseph's brother sold him into slavery. And he said in Genesis chapter 50, you meant evil against me, but God used it for good. God reversed all that hurt. And Joseph didn't have a heart of bitterness toward his brothers. And you and I can live without bitterness when we give all those hurts to the Lord.
**Essential number five: It takes an understanding of true happiness.**
Look at verse four. He says, in whose eyes a reprobate is despised, but who honors those who fear the Lord? A reprobate is someone who is a reject, someone who is a cast-off. And a reprobate was someone who rejected God and says, I don't want you, God, I'm going to go my own way. Now it says in Romans 1 that when people say they don't see fit to honor God anymore and to acknowledge God anymore, then God gives them over to a reprobate depraved mind. God says, all right, you don't want to walk with me, you don't want my will, my ways, my word, you want to do your own thing, then have at it. And God just gives you over, and you become reprobate, reject, cast off. But you're the one that did it first because you walked away from God. And then God says, all right, I'll walk away from you if you don't want me. I'm a gentleman, I'll leave, I'll let you to your own devices.
And David is saying in verse four, in whose eyes a reprobate is despised, that means to disesteem, to disdain. Now he's not saying that we hate reprobates. Lord, I hate everybody that's a reprobate. Because that's what you want me to do. You want me to hate them. No. The Lord says, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you. God causes the rain to fall on the righteous and the unrighteous. God loves even the ones that walk away from God. He still loves them. He longs for them to come back. Scripture says, all day long I've stretched out my hands. God says to a disobedient and obstinate people.
But here's the thing. Verse four, in whose eyes a reprobate is despised. We despise the way of the reprobate. Those who reject God, those who walk away from God. You say, I don't want to go there. And here's the rub. We look at the reprobates, we look at those who have left God to live it up, to live for the weekend, to party hardy, to do all that stuff, not thinking about God at all. And we say, man, they just have what a life. How cool is that? As Charles Lowry said, you know, when he was a kid going to church, he'd be driving in the car with his family, going to church just as a kid, and he'd see some other kids gathering to play baseball in the morning. He'd be like, man, I got to go to church. They get to play baseball. Man, if I could only be a person that didn't have to go to church because going to church is such a drag. But boy, if I could be like those reprobates. They just get to do whatever they want. And it's easy to start thinking that way.
Psalm 73, the Psalm of Asaph. Surely God is good to Israel, those who are pure in heart. But as for me, I almost came close to stumbling because I saw the wicked and I saw how happy they are, and I saw how everything was going their way. And I said, surely in vain I have kept my heart pure. What's the use, God? They have it all. And I got nothing. Big old plate of jack squat. That was what he was thinking.
In whose eyes a reprobate is despised? Listen, true happiness doesn't come from sinful living. You're never going to be happy when walking away from God. Oh, you can be happy for a little while, but it doesn't bring lasting happiness. I've told you before, I'll tell you again. And people are doing it all over this city. They're walking away from God. They're saying they're Christians, but they're leaving the will and ways and word of God, and they're doing their own thing. And that road always leads to the pigsty. Every single time. It only goes one way, and that's to the pigsty. And your life will crash and burn, and the big bad wolf will blow you over and gobble you up if you walk away from God.
So get down in your mind, get down in your heart this truth. True happiness doesn't come from sinful living. True happiness comes when you fear God and when you obey Him. That's what's going to satisfy you. That's what's going to meet the longings of your heart when you're a person who keeps his word. When you're a person who lives right. When you're a person who comes before the Lord in honesty and says, Lord, here I am. I'm a crackpot. God help me. I don't want to put any wax. I don't want to cover up anything. I want you to see the real me, and I want you to change me from the inside out. That's the heart that God works in. And that's where God brings love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness and gentleness and faithfulness and self-control. Against such things, there is no law.
The essentials of a solid, unshakable life. Now, in closing, I want you to think very honestly and very soberly at the three houses. There's the House of Straw, the House of Sticks, and the House of Bricks. How are you building your life, and what changes do you need to make today?
Speaker 1
Maybe you know right now that you're a believer and that Jesus is the Lord and Savior of your life, but your sinful living has brought distance between you and God. The good news is that you can come back to him today by confessing your sin and surrendering your life and walking by the power of the Holy Spirit instead of your selfish desires.
Or maybe you know, right now, this very moment, you are not a child of God. You've never surrendered your life to Him. You've never repented of your sin. Well, you can do that today if you don't know Jesus in a personal way. We pray that this very important moment right now will be one for you to sincerely cry out to him from your heart. Stop what you're doing. Confess your sin. Ask him to fill your heart with the Holy Spirit, come to him in faith and repentance, and he will make you a child of God and you'll live with him for now and for forever, knowing that you are a part of the family of God.
If you'd like to know more about what that really means to surrender your life to Christ, you can do so when you go to fromhishheart.org, click the "Why Jesus?" link on our homepage. You'll find some free materials to download and some specific messages from Pastor Jeff that we pray will be a blessing to you. Be sure to email us and let us know how Christ is working in your life.
No matter who you are or what stage of life you're in, you have either just come out of struggles, you're going through struggles, or you will soon. And it's likely that you've fallen for some of the lies of the devil. You can see, hear, and let sink into your heart the real and only truth found in God's word. To help you do that, this month, we'd like to send you Pastor Jeff's powerful series "Nothing but the Truth." We aired it at the first part of this month, plus the companion booklet, "Sticks and What to Do When the Going Gets Tough." Both are our gifts to you to encourage you in the faith and thank you for your gift today of any amount.
To get it, call 866-40-BIBLE (866-40-24253) or go online to fromhishheart.org. You'll find these resources will be a real blessing, and your support will help us to reach more people for Christ. Pastor Jeff is a volunteer for this ministry and receives no income from it, so thank you for standing with us.
Well, that's all the time we have for today. I'm Larry Nobles. Thank you for joining us today on From His Heart for part two of the message "Unshaken." We invite you to join Pastor Jeff tomorrow as we begin the sixth lesson in the series "Roller Coaster: Facing the Ups and Downs of Life." Join us for the lesson "Deliver Us From Evil" on Thursday, right here on From His Heart.
Speaker 3
There is tremendous truth There is hope that you always bring love he can heal every scars of truth Real love, real hope From His Heart.
Speaker 1
From His Heart is the listener supported Broadcast Ministry of Dr. Jeff Shreve speaking the truth in love to a lost and a hurting world. Remember, no matter what, God loves you and he has a wonderful plan for your life. Find out more@fromisheart.org.
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