From His Heart with Jeff Schreve

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
When it comes to your Christian faith and witness, are
you strong and courageous? Here's Pastor Jeff Shreeve.

Speaker 2 (00:07):
God has not given us a spirit of fear, but
of power and love and discipline. But here is the
sad reality. Many of us are like the cowardly lion.
We know that we're supposed to be bold as a lion.
And when you put your faith in trust in Jesus,
he declares you righteous. The wicked flee when no one
is pursuing, but the righteous are bold as a lion.

(00:29):
But you say, well, what do I do if I
don't feel very strong and very courageous, good with real truth,
real you from this home.

Speaker 1 (00:48):
Do you have something in your life right now that
is causing you fear and need Well, Pastor Jeff Shreeve
has just said, it's important to remember that God has
not given you that spirit of timidity.

Speaker 2 (01:00):
And fear, but He has equipped you.

Speaker 1 (01:03):
In me with strength and courage to be bold as
a lion. This is from his heart with Pastor Jeff Shreeve,
and he's in his new series Bold as a Lion,
a set of six lessons to help encourage you to
be like Joshua. You see we were created to be
strong and courageous for the Lord. By the way, this

(01:23):
Bold as a Lion series is our special gift of
thanks to you this month for your support of any amount.
And you can make that gift and get this wonderful
resource on USB flash drive, digital download, CDs or DVDs
your choice. Just go to fromishart dot org. Now, though
open to the Book of Joshua, chapter one in God's Word,

(01:43):
and let's begin this inspiring lesson from Pastor Jeff entitled
Strong and Courageous.

Speaker 2 (01:51):
Joshua, Chapter one, beginning in verse one. Now, it came
about after the death of Moses, the servant of the Lord,
that the Lord spoke to Joshua, the son of None,
moses servant, Moses' attendant, Moses' associates, saying, Moses, my servant
is dead. Now therefore arise, cross this Jordan, you and
all this people to the land which I am giving

(02:12):
to them, to the sons of Israel. Every place on
which the soul of your foot treads. I have given
it to you, just as I spoke to Moses. From
the wilderness and this Lebanon, even as far as the
Great River, the river Euphrates. All the land of the Hittites,
and as far as the great Sea towards the setting
of the sun will be your territory. No man will

(02:33):
be able to stand before you all the days of
your life. Just as I have been with Moses, I will.

Speaker 1 (02:39):
Be with you.

Speaker 2 (02:40):
I will not fail you, nor forsake you. Be strong
and courageous, for you shall give this people possession of
the land which I swore to their fathers to give them.
Only be strong and very courageous. Be careful to do
according to all the law which Moses, my servant commanded.
You do not turn from it to the right or
to the left, so that you may have success wherever

(03:02):
you go. This book of the Law shall not depart
from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day
and night, so that you may be careful to do
according to all that is written in it. For then
you will make your way prosperous, and then you will
have success. Have I not commanded you be strong and courageous.
Do not tremble or be dismayed, For the Lord your

(03:23):
God is with you wherever you go. Now. Warren Whersby,
in his commentary on Joshua, he said, what does a
leader need. He doesn't need advice, He needs to be encouraged.
And to encourage means to give courage to someone. And

(03:43):
God is encouraging his servant, He is giving him courage
for the task. And Joshua needed that. He needed that
from the Lord. And hey, if Joshua, who would go
fight the Lord's battles, if he needed to be strong
and courageous, you need it, I need it, we need it.

(04:04):
And if he would be honest enough to say, Lord,
I mean the reason that God told him this three
times in those nine verses is because he had a need.
If he's honest enough to say, I have this need you,
and I can be honest enough to say, Lord, I
have a need too. Because I'm afraid I'm facing some
things in my health, and I'm afraid I'm facing some

(04:25):
things in my finances and they're dwindling, and I'm getting afraid.
Maybe my job seems like it's getting phased out, and
I'm getting afraid, maybe there's an issue in the family,
and it's filling my heart with fear, and I feel
like turning tail and running. I just feel this, this
spirit of timidity coming upon me. God hasn't given you that.

(04:46):
God says, be strong and courageous. So three encouragements from
the Word in Joshua. One, how can you be strong
and courageous for the Lord? Encouragement Number one, Believe what
God has promised. Believe what God has promised. Now, the
Lord had promised Israel the land. What's going on in

(05:08):
the Middle East today? Why is Hamas attacking Israel? Well,
because they're the Palestinians, and they say, that's our land.
They go back to nineteen forty six and we were
living here, and then the un gave Israel this land,
and they go back to nineteen forty six, nineteen forty seven,

(05:29):
and we should go back to fourteen hundreds BC. That's
during the time of the Book of Joshua. Whose land
is it? It's God's land? Who did he give it to?
The Jews? Is their land because God gave it to him.
And so when they want to stay in their land,
they have a claim to the land because the land
belongs to God, and God says, I give it to you. Now,

(05:51):
the land that the Lord gave them wasn't a vacant
piece of property. You had all the heights that lived there.
The Gurgashites, the Jebucides, Diets, and the Amrites, all those heights,
and they had to go fight to claim what was theirs. Now,
they never lived in all of that. They always lived

(06:12):
below what God had given them. They didn't take everything
that God had given to them. And don't we do
the same thing. God has given us so much, but
we tend to live on so little. Hey, we need
to believe what God has promised. And God has promised
them to land. Now, he says in verse three, every
place on which the soul of your foot treads, I

(06:35):
have given it to you, just as I spoke to
Moses past tense. He doesn't say I will give it
to you. He says, I have given it to you.
It is yours. The heights are there. Go kick them
out of the land, because that land belongs to you.
I have given it to you. Now. They had to
go fight it, but it was already given to them,

(06:58):
and they had a phish physical land. We have a
metaphorical land. The promised land for the Christian is not
a physical land. It's an abundant land. It's an abundant
life that the Lord gives to us. And God has
given us a life of spiritual abundance. Just like He
gave them a land that was a land flowing with

(07:19):
milk and honey. It was a land of abundance. God
has given us a land of abundance, and He's given
us that in the past tense. Just as he said
to Joshua, I have given it to you. You just
have to go get it. You have to go possess
your possessions. But it's already yours. God has done the
same for us. First second Peter chapter one, verse three,

(07:41):
seeing that his vine power has granted to us everything
pertaining to life and godliness through the true knowledge of
Him who called us by his own glory and excellence.
What do I need for everything pertaining to life and godliness?
God says, I've already given it to you. You have
the moment you receive Christ. You receive everything pertaining to

(08:02):
life and godliness. The Lord comes into your life through
the person of the Holy Spirit, God, the third person
of the Trinity God. The Holy Spirit lives inside of us,
and Christ's in you. As the scripture says, the spirit
of Christ in you. The hope of Glory lives inside
Ephesians one three says Blessed be the God and Father
of our Lord, Jesus Christ, who has blessed us past

(08:24):
tense with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. In Christ.
Everything you need as a Christian, God's already given to you.
You have it, just like Joshua. Hey, Joshua, you're on
this side. They're on the east side of the Land
of Promised. They're in a place called Moab. They're getting
ready to cross the Jordan River and go into the land,

(08:45):
and they're going to fight the Battle of Jericho, very
first city that they're going to take. You got to
go take it. But it's yours. I've already given it
to you. Every place where your foot shall trod, I
have given that to you, So now go get it.
Here's the thing in the Christian life where we struggle.
We pray for things that we already have. Well, we

(09:08):
don't recognize that we have those things, and so we're
asking God for things that He said, Yeah, I've already
given that to you. You need to access that. You
don't need to keep asking me for it. Why don't
you just access what I've already given to you. Many
of you know the name William Randolph Hurst. He was
the newspaper magnate. Died in nineteen fifty one. His net

(09:30):
worth in today's money would be thirty billion dollars. He
was a big shot and he had money coming out
of his ears, and he loved artwork. Well. He ran
across a piece of art one day in some kind
of publication and he said, I have to have that
piece of art. So he got his his guys together

(09:52):
and he says, hey, here's this piece of art. You
guys need to find this and get it for me. Well,
days before the internet, so they had to do work
to figure out, okay, what is this? Who has this?
And so they did all this work for weeks to
find out where the peace of art was. They came
back to William RANDOLP. Hirst and they said, hey, good news,

(10:12):
we found the art. He says, great. How much I'm
gonna buy it? He said, you can't buy it. He said,
why can't I buy it? He said, because you already
own it. It's in your warehouse. That's like so many
of us. I need to get this, well, I need
to get peace. God said, yea, I've already given you that.
That's part of the abundant life. That's the fruit of

(10:34):
the spirit, love, joy, peace. So don't ask me for peace.
Access the peace that you have. God has given us
everything pertaining to life and godliness, a life of spiritual abundance.
And secondly, he has given us his enduring, overcoming presence.

(10:57):
So he tells Joshua, every place where your foot shall tread,
I have given that to you as an inheritance. That
is the Promised Land. Now go get it. And he
tells them in verse four, these are the borders of
the land that I've given you, And they live on
so much less. One theologians said, there are about two
hundred thousand square miles of land that make up the

(11:18):
Promised Land, and Israel lived in about thirty thousand square minks.
And there's so much that they didn't access because they
didn't go and get it. But he says in verse five,
no man will be able to stand before you all
the days of your life, just as I have been
with Moses. I will be with you. I will not
fail you or forsake you. And then in verse nine,

(11:41):
have I not commanded you be strong and courageous, Do
not tremble or be dismayed for the Lord, your God,
is with you wherever you go. Joshua had the promise
from God's own lips that he would be with him
just as he was with Moses. He would not fail
well Joshua, he would not forsake Joshua. And Joshua could

(12:05):
rest on the fact that the Lord is with me,
no matter what giant I face in the Promised Land,
no matter what difficulty I face, the Lord is with me,
just as he was with Moses. And Joshua saw how
the Lord was with Moses in such a powerful way.
Now what do we have in the New Testament. We

(12:27):
have the promise in Hebrews chapter thirteen. Let your character
be free from the love of money, being content with
what you have, For he himself has said, I will
never leave you, nor will I ever forsake you. It's
a quote from this passage. It says, so that we
may confidently say, the Lord is my helper. I will
not be afraid. What shall man do to me? What

(12:50):
can man do to me? If the Lord is my helper,
If the Lord is there with me? As Jeremiah, the
prophet Jeremiah, who dealt with difficulties in his life and
people hated him because his message will is not a
feel good message. He was telling them judgment was coming
and they didn't want to hear it. And Jeremiah said,
judgment is on every side. Everybody's against me. Terror is
all around me. I hear the rumblings and the murmurings

(13:13):
of the people. They're trying to hurt me. They're trying
to imprison me, they want to kill me. And then
he says in Jeremiah twenty verse eleven, but the Lord
is with me like a dread champion. Who goes up
against the dread champion no one. And if God is
for us, who is against us? Who can be against us?

(13:36):
And the Lord was promising Joshua, I will be with
you just as I was with Moses, and I will
never leave you and never forsake you. And he says,
don't tremble, Do not tremble or be dismayed. Don't let
your body get shaky. You just keep me focused on

(13:56):
the fact that I am with you. Some of you
may have a few months ago when I got to
interview on the radio George Foreman. I love Big George Foreman,
and so I had seen the movie Big George Foreman.
Then got to talk to him about it. He said something.
When he won the heavyweight championship of the World in
nineteen seventy three, He's a twenty four year old guy,
had been boxing all that long, just several years, and

(14:20):
went up against Joe Fraser, Joe Fraser smoking Joe Fraser.
He was twenty nine years old. He was a heavyweight
champion of the world. And George always tried to intimidate
his fighters, and so he'd get in there and he'd
look at him, you know, it was just that real
penetrati trading look. And I asked George about that, and
he said, he said, well, Joe Fraser looked me straight
in the eye. And I was glad he did, because

(14:42):
if he had looked down, he would have seen my
knees shaken. He said, I was scared. And the Lord says, hey,
don't even let your knees shake, Joshua, you don't need to,
because I am with you, and you don't need to
be afraid. The Lord is my helper. I will not
be afraid. What shall man do to me? Believe what

(15:04):
God has promised. So God has given us and promised
us a life of spiritual abundance, He's promised us his presence,
his enduring presence. He won't leave us and his overcoming presence.
No one can stand before the Lord. And God wants
us to operate from a position of victory. What do
I mean by that, Well, we don't have to pray

(15:26):
for victory. We pray from victory. We don't have to pray. Oh, Lord,
give us this land. God says, I've already given you
the land. Go get it. So it's better to pray, Lord,
give us strength and power to take the land that
you have given to us. That's a better prayer. See

(15:47):
when you're in difficulty and you know you need peace,
and peace is a commodity that comes from God. You
can't get peace in a pill, or in a bottle,
or in some kind of prescription. That comes from God.
And God has prom I must it to his children.
It's the fruit of the spirit, love, joy, peace, and So,
as it says in Philippians, be anxious for nothing but

(16:07):
in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving. Let your
request be made known to God. And the peace of God,
which passes all comprehensions, shall guard your hearts and minds.
In Christ Jesus, we need to access what God has
already given to us, and we need to pray from
a standpoint of victory, not for victory. Now, you may
remember I told you this illustration some time ago. But

(16:31):
suppose we meet after the service and you say to me, Jeff,
I really like you. I want to help you. I
want to help you personally in a big way, and
you write me a check for one hundred thousand dollars.
I'm just saying this is just an illustration, but in
case it hits somebody, yeah, I'd really like to do that. Right,

(16:53):
may a check for one hundred thousand dollars and you
hand me that check. Now, two things have to take
place for that check to make a difference in my life.
Number one, you have to have one hundred thousand dollars.
If you're on skid row, it doesn't it's not going
to help me, right you don't have it. Number Two,

(17:14):
I have to cash it. If I don't cash it,
then it's not going to make any difference. I just
have a piece of paper with numbers on it, and
your signature doesn't make a difference. You have to have
the money. I have to cash it. Now, when it
comes to God, the Bible is a is a checkbook
of promises. As Peter said, for the promises for you
and your children and all who are far off, as

(17:36):
many as the Lord our God shall call to himself
Tewod Corinthians one twenty, for as many as may be
the promises of God in him they are. Yes. That
means that God writes a promise out on his check,
and the Lord Jesus signs it. As many as may
be the promises of God and Him in Jesus. There, Yes,
he signs his name to it, and he gives it

(17:57):
to you and me as his children. This is for you.
That's a check from God. Does God have the money
to pay on that check? You bet he does, and
he gives it to us. What are we going to
do with it? We have to cash it, says wherefore
also by him as our amen to the glory of
God through us. You say, what does that mean? That
means you have to say amen to what God promised you.

(18:20):
You have to say let it be so, Yes, Lord,
you have to take that check from the Lord. You
have to put your name on the back of it,
endorse it, take it to Heaven's bank, and say, Lord,
you promise, and I am cashing this check. That's what
it means to possess your possessions. You believe God, you
believe his promises, and you pray not for victory but

(18:42):
from victory. God. This is what you promised. You know,
we have that charismatic theology. Name it and claimant, name
and claimant name and claim is wrong. You can't name
it and claim it. What do you want? What do
you desire? We just say, oh, I'd love to have elections. Well,
name and claimant. I'd love to have a new plane.
You don't have an airplane at all, well, just any plane,

(19:03):
even a used one. Name it and claimant, name it
and claim all that stuff. You can't do that. God
has to name it. And when God names it, then
you claim it. God named the land. All that land
belongs to you, so claim it in Jesus' name. And
these promises. In everything you need for an abundant Christian life,

(19:23):
God has provided. So we need to take what God
has named and claim it in the name of the Lord.
Believe what God has promised. How can I be strong
and courageous in the Lord. That's the first encouragement. Second
encouragement obey what God has commanded. Obey what he has commanded.

(19:44):
Verse six, Be strong and courageous, for you shall give
this people possession of the land which I swore to
their fathers to give them. Only be strong and very courageous,
he says it again. Be careful to do according to
all all that the law which Moses, my servant commanded.
You do not turn from it to the right or

(20:06):
to the left, so that you may have success wherever
you go. Do all that the Lord has commanded. Be
careful to do all. That word careful means to keep watch,
to guard with care what God has commanded. Now, God
expects you and me to do everything that he commands

(20:30):
us to do. God doesn't give suggestions. He gives commands Exodus,
chapter twenty. God didn't give the ten suggestions and written
in pencil on a little piece of papyrus. No, he
gave ten commandments written in stone by the finger of God.

(20:51):
God doesn't give suggestions, He gives commandments, and he expects
us to obey the commandments. Jesus said in Luke six
forty six, why do you call me lord lord, and
do not do the things that I say? That doesn't
make sense. I'm your lord, I'm your master, I'm your king,

(21:14):
and I tell you to do this, and you say no,
Why do you call me lord? Lord? And do not
do the things that I say? You know, we really
can only say to the Lord, yes, Lord, or no, sir,
because the moment you say no to a command of God,
he's not your lord anymore. He's not your master, he's
not your boss. You have taken him off the throne,

(21:37):
and you said, I'm going to be on the throne.
I'm going to be captain of my own ship. No, sir,
I'm going to do what I want to do. Why
do you call me lord? Lord? Jesus said, and do
not do the things that I say?

Speaker 1 (21:52):
That is the perplexing question that we must answer. Why
do we not do the things the Lord ask us
to do? Because of the restraints of time, we're going
to have to pause right there for today, but next time,
after a brief review, Pastor Jeff will continue describing the
obedience that should accompany our devotion to the Lord. Don't

(22:13):
miss the conclusion to the message, strong and courageous. You
heard part one today, Part two tomorrow from the series
Bold As a Lion and as we've discussed today, Many
people have a fear about something. Maybe you're facing dwindling finances,
or failing health, or family problems, or any multitude of

(22:33):
life's issues. Well, you're not alone, but it's important to
remember that God has not given you a spirit of
timidity and fear, but rather has equipped you with strength
and courage. As you listen to Pastor Jeff Shreeve's new
six lesson series called Bold as a Lion, you'll be
encouraged with the incredible wisdom and promises that God has

(22:54):
for his children. As he told us in his Word,
your life will be changed as you learn to walk
confidently by faith and not by sight. This new series
is our gift of thanks to you for your financial
support from His heart this month. It's only through the
support of our listeners that we're able to be here
each and every day, not only on this station, but

(23:15):
on hundreds of stations around the country, touching lives for
now and for eternity. Pastor Jeff is a volunteer for
this ministry, receives no income from the resources we get.
We use those to tell more people about Jesus. For
your gift this month, we'd like to send you the
Bold as a Lion series and the format of your choice.
Simply make that gift when you call eight six six

(23:37):
for zero Bible eight six six for zero Bible, or
go online to Fromiheart dot org and know that you
are supporting the Kingdom of God and his priorities when
you stand with us at from His Heart. God bless
you well. Thanks again for listening today. I'm Larry Nobles
and we pray you were blessed and that you'll join
us again on Wednesday for part two of a lesson

(23:58):
titled Strong and Rageous from Pastor Jeff's new series Bold
as a Lion. Join us again when we'll open God's
word and share real truth, real love, and real hope
from his Heart. From his Heart is the listeners Supportive

(24:39):
Broadcast Ministry of doctor Jeff Shreeve, celebrating twenty years of
broadcasting the truth and 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
about that when you go to fromis Heart dot org.