[00:00:00] You're listening to the Message podcast of High Ridge Church, Longview, where our vision is to help you know God, find freedom, discover purpose, and ultimately make a difference. We are so glad that you're here, and we pray that this message impacts your life as you apply the spiritual truths from God's word in practical ways. Let's listen in. Good morning. Good morning. Good morning. How's everybody doing this morning?
[00:00:23] Well, good to see your beautiful, smiling faces. I'm glad that you made it a priority to to get in the house of God first thing to start your week. Good decision, Right? We're one for one now the rest of the week. Who knows how that'll end up? But one for one so far. We're going to start in scripture today. It's a good place to start. We're going to turn in our Bibles, whether they be a physical Bible or a digital Bible. We're going to turn to Proverbs, Chapter four is where we're going to get started.
[00:00:48] And as we're doing that, I just want to give you a quick intro on who I am. You may know me, you may not, but my name is Pastor Zach. I am one of the pastors here on staff. Been on staff now eight years here at Highridge Church, and so been such an honor to serve this body of Christ. And I've got an incredible family. I've got my beautiful wife Taylor. We've been married for 11 years.
[00:01:10] I've got three kiddos outside the womb and one in the womb right now. And so we're excited.
[00:01:17] We're officially to the point in the pregnancy where it's like, let's get this baby out. Come on. Anybody ever been there before?
[00:01:23] And so we're just so honored to be a part of all that God is doing here at this church. And I also want to show honor where honor is due.
[00:01:32] And that's with Pastor Tim and Tina. We love Pastor Tim and Tina, don't we love Pastor Tim and Tina. Come on, somebody.
[00:01:39] They have invested in me. They have invested in our family, and I know that they have invested in so many of you. And I would not be where I am without his leadership and his love in my life.
[00:01:51] And if you're watching this, I love you very, very much. And so I also am so grateful for the fact that as a church, we believe in rest.
[00:01:59] We believe that our pastors carry a spiritual weight that's unique. And Pastor Tim and Tina, they're out on sabbatical, and that is a set aside time for our Lead pastor to get away, get fresh vision from the Lord, to recover from all of your shenanigans.
[00:02:18] And it's good for them. And I'm grateful that we as a church believe in it. We stand behind it, and we don't stress out or worry about it. They haven't done anything wrong. They just need rest. And I love when they come back from this time of sabbatical, they always come back fired up with fresh vision. And the Lord's been speaking to them. It's a good thing. And I want to also thank you and show honor to you guys. Pastor Tim says it every single week. But all that God does through this church would not be made possible without you and your generosity. The way that you serve, the way that you give, the way that you pray, those things truly matter. And so, on behalf of every life that's been touched as a result of what God has done through this church, if you have served, if you have given, if you have prayed, thank you. It really means the world. And so I want to start off talking today about odd gifts that you've ever received.
[00:03:13] Anybody ever gotten some odd gifts before?
[00:03:15] You're like, why did you get me this?
[00:03:18] Right? This is usually as a result of an aunt or a grandma. I'm just gonna throw y' all under the bus. Aunts and grandmas, y' all are the queens of odd gifts. And what usually actually happens and why odd gifts become a thing is you might be hanging out with your aunt one day and, like, you're sitting there and, like, a bird flies by and it lands on a limb, and you're like, what kind of bird is that?
[00:03:41] And they're like, oh, that's a cardinal. And you're like, I really love cardinals. They're so pretty. Well, your aunt takes that as I would like a cardinal themed gift on every event for the next 20 years.
[00:03:54] And so what you end up with is you end up with a cardinal clock and a cardinal coffee cup and a cardinal figurines.
[00:04:01] And then it comes down to, like, okay, you know, do I just let this keep going? Do I break her heart and let her know, like, I'm really not that into cardinals. I just happened to one day mention that it was a pretty bird. And you literally took it so literal that my entire decor in my home is completely different as a result of this cardinal based conversation that we had.
[00:04:24] And it's funny because social media is almost the exact same way.
[00:04:28] I don't know if you guys have ever noticed, but you're scrolling through Your news feed. And, like, a video pops up that is really not your vibe. You've never really seen it or been into it before, but you decide to watch it. You're like, okay, this is kind of cool. For me, recently, this was. Was pottery. And so what happened?
[00:04:44] I had a. Had a video. And they get you in the first two or three seconds. Just. Just remember this. If you can get past the first couple seconds, you're safe. But if you can't, you're hooked. Okay, so I'm scrolling and a video starts, and it's this dude throwing a big, giant mound of clay thack down on this potter's wheel. And then he starts working this. This giant thing. It's like two and a half feet tall. And he's working it, and he's got his arm in it and he's shaping it. And I'm like, this is really cool. And I get sucked in.
[00:05:14] Well, you know what? Social media decides.
[00:05:16] This guy needs some more pottery in his life.
[00:05:20] This guy, he's a pottery dude. So we're gonna show him pottery reels, pottery posts from all the pottery people, instructions and courses on how to start your own pottery business.
[00:05:31] I've missed all your birthdays. I apologize. I didn't see any birthdays. I don't have any bearing on what is going on in the world right now. Cause I have been consumed with pottery videos for the last several months. And I eventually came to the point where I had to say, listen, algorithm, like, it's too much, dude, I'm sorry.
[00:05:49] There's a less interested button that you can push. I'm less interested in pottery than you think I am.
[00:05:55] And so.
[00:05:57] But as we dive in today and kind of talk about this concept of algorithms, what's interesting about an algorithm on social media is that its job is to feed you more of what you want.
[00:06:09] It's to give you more of what you're pursuing.
[00:06:12] It's so that what you look for, you find.
[00:06:15] Why? Because the more that you see it, the more that you're seeing something that you like, the more time you spend on their platform, so on and so forth.
[00:06:23] But I want to transition to the algorithm of our heart today. So that's the title of today's message is the algorithm of the heart.
[00:06:32] And I want to give you one kind of big core concept idea to think through, and that is this. That the condition of your heart determines the direction of your life.
[00:06:44] You may argue with me, you may say, well, it's actually my skill set, Zach, that determines the direction of my life. It's my connections, it's my relationships.
[00:06:52] But ultimately, beneath all of that, the condition of your heart really does determine the direction of your life.
[00:07:02] As we go to Scripture, we're going to start in Proverbs chapter 4, verse 23. And this is going to be kind of our anchor scripture throughout today's message. This is what we're going to continue to reference back to. And a couple years back, I had some. Some time with the Lord that really changed my life. And that's where this message is actually birthed out of. And this verse was the cornerstone. It was the cornerstone of all of it. And as we get into this, what you're gonna find is that there is some strong language in this verse. You know, who knows that the Bible is full of directives. The Bible is full of God telling us what we should do, what we shouldn't do, how to live a life that honors him.
[00:07:41] But In Proverbs, chapter 4, verse 23, it says this. It says, above all else.
[00:07:51] That is really strong language.
[00:07:53] Above everything.
[00:07:55] Above your marriage, above your kids, above how you appear to other people, your reputation, above your workplace, above your finances, above your retirement plan, above everything else, guard your heart, because a few things that you do flow from it. No, it's not what it said.
[00:08:18] Everything that you do flows from it. Everything. Everything that you do flows from your heart. Did you know that?
[00:08:27] So above your image, above your reputation, above your comfort, above your success, above all else, stand guard of your heart.
[00:08:37] We're going to spend the rest of today in Scripture as well. And we're going to kind of be dissecting a story, and we're going to turn to 1st Samuel 17.
[00:08:46] And this is the story of David and Goliath. And, you know, if you've been in church for any amount of time, you've heard this story, if you were raised in Sunday school, this is one of the very first stories we ever heard. And typically, the focus when we talk about David and Goliath is just David's great faith that he went and he killed the giant and all the great things that he did, and then he became king, and so on and so forth. But I actually want to spend some time on the front end of that. I want to spend some time talking about his heart leading up to him walking out on the battlefield. And so we're going to start working through this chapter together. But as we start in verse one, just for some context for you guys, what we find is we find that we have the Israelite army And we have the Philistine army lined up on a battlefield ready to fight, ready to wage war against one another.
[00:09:37] And in verse four, it says this. It says, a champion named Goliath, who was from Gath, came out of the Philistine camp. His height was six cubits and a span. What that translates to is nine feet, nine inches tall.
[00:09:51] That's a big dude, right?
[00:09:54] And he comes out of the camp and he says, listen, guys, instead of all of us fighting, you bring your best warrior to come fight me. If I win, we take control of your nation. If you win, you take control of our nation.
[00:10:10] And upon hearing that in verse 11, on hearing the Philistines words, Saul and all the Israelites were dismayed and terrified.
[00:10:19] And what's funny is he didn't just, like, state facts like that. He also was talking smack.
[00:10:25] He was also talking about Israel's God. He was talking about how they weren't courageous, they didn't have what it took.
[00:10:35] Verse 16 says, For 40 days, the Philistine came forward every morning and every evening and took his stand and ran his mouth. The Bible doesn't say and ran his mouth. I added that for additional support.
[00:10:48] But for 40 days, they listened to him make his statements and nobody did anything.
[00:10:57] And meantime, we've got David, who's the youngest of his family, who's out in the fields tending to sheep.
[00:11:04] And Jesse, David's dad, says, hey, your brothers are at the battlefield. I've made some food. I need you to go take this food to your brothers. So in verse 20, we see that early in the morning, David left the flock in the care of a shepherd. The loaded up and set out as Jesse had directed.
[00:11:21] When he gets there, he's like, what's going on? I hear this guy. What? Who. Who is he? What. What is happening? In verse 26, David asked the men standing near him, what will be done for the man who kills this Philistine and removes this disgrace from Israel?
[00:11:36] Strong language. He's walking up like he's ready to rock and roll. Like, what is going on? Why are y' all letting him talk like that? He says, who is this uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God?
[00:11:50] And here's where we introduce another heart posture to the story.
[00:11:55] In verse 28, it says, When Eliab, David's oldest brother, heard him speaking with the men, he burned with anger at him and asked, why have you come down here and with whom did you leave those few sheep in the wilderness? I Love that he even goes as far as to try to belittle him. He doesn't say, who did you leave the sheep with? He says, who did you leave the few sheep with? He didn't even say, you're just a shepherd boy. You're a shepherd boy of a few sheep, right? He's trying to, like, pour it on. And then he says this. He says, I know how conceited you are and how wicked your heart is.
[00:12:28] Side note, not in my notes.
[00:12:30] Just because somebody says that your heart's wrong doesn't mean it is.
[00:12:35] I know how conceited you are and how wicked your heart is. You came down only to watch the battle.
[00:12:41] Over the next several verses, we find David just getting away from his brother because he doesn't need that negativity in his life.
[00:12:46] And in verse 32, David walks up to King Saul and he says this. He says, let no one lose heart on account of this Philistine. Your servant will go and fight him.
[00:12:57] Saul replied, you're not able to go out against this Philistine and fight him. You're only a young man. And he has been a warrior from his youth. But David said to Saul, your servant has been keeping his father's sheep.
[00:13:10] When a lion or a bear came and carried off a sheep from the flock, I went after it, struck it down, and rescued the sheep from its mouth. When it turned on me, I seized it by its hair, struck it, and killed it. Your servant has killed both the lion and the bear.
[00:13:25] This uncircumcised Philistine will be like one of them because he has defied the the armies of the living God.
[00:13:32] The Lord who rescued me from the paw of the lion and the paw of the bear will rescue me from the hand of this Philistine. Let's pray.
[00:13:44] Father, we thank you for your word. I pray that as we receive it today, that it would not just encourage us or inspire us, but that it would truly transform us, that we would not leave today the same way that we came.
[00:13:57] Everything that you want to do over the next several minutes, our answer is yes.
[00:14:01] If you want to challenge us, our answer is yes. If you want to encourage us, our answer is yes. And even if you want to convict us, our answer is yes. Lord, we want to do what you want to do.
[00:14:11] In Jesus name, Amen.
[00:14:14] So as we look at this story, what is the big idea? What is the big idea? The big idea is that two people can face the same situation and respond differently because of what's happening in their hearts.
[00:14:28] Two People can face the same exact situation and respond completely different based on what's happening in their hearts. And you have seen this play out.
[00:14:38] Imagine you have a man over here that faces a difficult situation. He loses his job, or he's walking through losing a loved one, or maybe he's walking through divorce, or something heavy is happening in his life. And what we actually find is it strengthens his resolve. He gets more connected to the Holy Spirit.
[00:14:57] He comes out the other side of this terrible thing stronger, more full of faith than he was before.
[00:15:05] But on the other hand, we have another man going through the same situation, and he spirals out of control.
[00:15:13] He starts drinking.
[00:15:15] He's overwhelmed with depression and anxiety.
[00:15:19] He doesn't know what to do.
[00:15:22] So you have the same situation.
[00:15:25] The situation isn't what determines the outcome. I want you to hear me say that one more time. The situation is not what determines the outcome.
[00:15:36] Our response to the situation and our heart posture in terms of the situation is what determines the outcome.
[00:15:43] And some people respond with. With faith, Some people respond with fear, and some people respond with criticism.
[00:15:51] And oftentimes criticism is just fear that has learned how to talk.
[00:15:57] Israel wasn't just afraid of Goliath. They spent 40 days talking about him, discussing him, rehearsing him, magnifying him in their mind. By the way, if you have a giant problem that you keep looking at, you probably need to quit talking and just go kill it, right?
[00:16:18] The more we talk, the bigger it gets.
[00:16:21] But a fearful heart eventually becomes a critical heart. Israel saw a giant and responded in fear. And David saw the same giant but responded in faith. Same battlefield, different hearts.
[00:16:34] So as we dive into the message today, I want to give you three truths that we discover when studying the algorithm of the heart. And here's truth number one.
[00:16:44] What you say flows from your heart.
[00:16:48] What you say flows from your heart. In Luke 6:45, Jesus said this. For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of.
[00:16:59] Also, the mouth can't speak what the heart is missing.
[00:17:06] Everything that you talk about comes out of your heart. Everything that you obsess over comes out of your heart. Everything that you neglect is not there.
[00:17:15] Whatever's in the heart is going to come out of your mouth as we apply this to this story. The army of Israel spoke fear.
[00:17:23] We can't beat him. He's too big. We're not strong enough.
[00:17:26] But David showed up and immediately spoke faith. Who is this uncle uncircumcised Philistine that he should defy the armies of the living God?
[00:17:36] Same situation different speech because there were different hearts.
[00:17:41] But notice something else. The army wasn't just speaking fear. They were also speaking criticism.
[00:17:47] When David showed up with Faith, who attacks him? His own brother attacks him.
[00:17:53] You ever thought that someone was on your team and then you find out they're not on your team? How disappointing of a moment that is.
[00:17:58] That's probably how David felt. He's like, what the heck, man?
[00:18:02] When David showed up with Faith, they attacked him. Eliab said, why have you come down here? With whom did you leave those few sheep? I know how conceited you are.
[00:18:11] Translation is, who do you think you are? You think I'm your oldest brother? You think that you're gonna come down here as the youngest brother and bring something to the table that I can't bring? Who do you think you are? You're gonna make me look bad.
[00:18:25] Goliath wasn't the only giant on the battlefield. There was also a giant of fear and criticism.
[00:18:31] And the truth about a critical heart is that it always finds a target.
[00:18:38] What's so funny is that people will be critical of a circumstance, and their solution is, I need a new circumstance.
[00:18:45] And then you put a critical person in a new circumstance, and what do they find more things to be critical about?
[00:18:52] A critical heart is going to be a critical heart. Regardless of circumstances, a critical heart always finds a target. Here's some examples.
[00:19:00] If it's not criticizing circumstances, it's criticizing leaders.
[00:19:04] If it's not criticizing leaders, it's criticizing your co workers.
[00:19:08] If it's not criticizing your co workers, it's criticizing your spouse. If it's not criticizing your spouse, it's criticizing your churches.
[00:19:16] If it's not criticizing the church, it's criticizing the culture.
[00:19:21] Because criticism is often the overflow of a heart that has lost sight of God somewhere along the way.
[00:19:30] If you follow Jesus, if you profess to follow Christ and you're walking with him, if you are reading the Bible and spending time with Jesus, you're gonna have a heart of faith.
[00:19:42] It's a natural byproduct. We don't chase after the faith. We chased after the relationship. And the faith will well up inside of us. But what happens is when we get distant from the Lord, when we get far from God, when we are maybe going through the motions, attending church, serving tithing, doing all the things we're supposed to do, but our hearts have drifted from relationship with God, Our lens begins to change, and we start seeing things critically.
[00:20:11] So here's some questions that we can ask ourselves.
[00:20:14] What do I talk about When I'm not in public, when I'm in an intimate setting with people that I trust, what is my language formulated around? What do I post when I'm emotional?
[00:20:29] Little help. You should post nothing when you're emotional.
[00:20:35] What do I say about others when they're not around?
[00:20:40] What dominates my conversations?
[00:20:42] Here's a good question. Do people leave conversations with me stronger and lighter, or do they leave conversations with me heavier and weaker?
[00:20:53] When people are with me, do I fill their tank up or do I drain their tank with the speech that's coming out of my mouth? And here's the truth.
[00:21:01] If my heart is bitter, my words will be bitter. If my heart is insecure, my words will tear others down. That's what insecurity does is it focuses on other people's faults and tears them down. If my heart is fearful, my words will magnify problems. If my heart is critical, my words will magnify faults. But if my heart is full of faith, my words will build up. My words will encourage, my words will strengthen. In faith talks about how big God is.
[00:21:33] Fear just talks about how big the problem is.
[00:21:36] And criticism talks about how it's everybody else's fault.
[00:21:41] So you may want to write this down. Your words don't create your heart, they reveal it.
[00:21:48] Your words don't create your heart, they simply reveal it.
[00:21:52] Here's the second truth that we discover when analyzing the heart. And that is, what you believe flows from your heart.
[00:22:00] What you believe flows from your heart. Proverbs 23:7 says this. For as he thinks in his heart, so is he.
[00:22:08] As we look at the story of David and Goliath, everybody else believed that we're too small, Goliath is too strong. But David believed this. He believed that God delivered me from the lion, God delivered me from the bear, and God will deliver me from Goliath.
[00:22:25] Again, side note, not in my notes.
[00:22:27] But oftentimes we can't operate in faith because we've never demonstrated faith before.
[00:22:35] What we find in the story of David was he got himself into situations before that he did not have what it took to solve the problem. He did not. There's no way that a young boy should be able to kill a lion. There's no way that a young boy should be able to kill a bear. But he saw God's faithfulness through these circumstances where he had to put his faith in the Lord. And so I don't know the experience of the Israelite army, but I do know the experiences of David in the fact that he had Lived in a position where he had had to work his faith muscles before, so he had the faith to do it again, Right? And so, so many times we never put ourselves in a position to work our faith muscles.
[00:23:16] If I can't see it in the physical world, in the physical realm, it must not be. Did you guys know that God has supernatural power?
[00:23:25] Did you know that he can do things that you don't see? Do you know that he can perfectly align conversations and opportunities to fall right into your lap?
[00:23:35] And so many times I have waged war against a circumstance or against a set of people or against something. And if I had just let God do, would have been way better.
[00:23:48] Anybody ever been there?
[00:23:49] It's like, man, here I am fighting with my co workers and fighting with my boss or fighting with the situation and if I would just pray for them, God would change their heart.
[00:24:02] So what we find is that the Israelites and David had the same enemy, but they had different belief systems.
[00:24:09] David remembered God's faithfulness and but Israel could only focus on their fears.
[00:24:16] Your heart shapes your beliefs about God. Is he really who he says he is? Can I trust this? Is this real? Is it tangible? When I consume this word, is God being truthful?
[00:24:31] Your heart shapes your beliefs about yourself.
[00:24:34] Am I enough? Am I capable of living the life that God has called me to live? Which, by the way, is if you're really doing what God's called you to do, you're not.
[00:24:45] He will only call you to live a life that would require him for you to pull it off.
[00:24:51] Like if you. So if you're just coasting, there's probably more for you from the Lord.
[00:24:57] If you are capable in your flesh to do what you feel like you're supposed to do, I guarantee God has something more for you.
[00:25:06] Your heart shapes your beliefs about others. Can I trust others? Can I be vulnerable with them? I've been burned before. I don't want to be burned again.
[00:25:14] Anybody been there? I've been there.
[00:25:17] Your heart shapes your beliefs about the future.
[00:25:19] Is there hope for me? Are the days ahead of me better than the days behind me?
[00:25:26] But your heart, the condition of your heart shapes these beliefs. If my heart is wounded, I. I'm going to believe lies. If my heart is fearful, I'm just going to expect defeat.
[00:25:38] If my heart is critical, I'm just going to expect disappointment.
[00:25:42] But if my heart is guarded the way that Proverbs chapter four tells us to guard our hearts, then I will believe the truth.
[00:25:50] I will believe the truth. And critical people often Just believe that nobody cares, nobody understands, nobody listens, nothing's ever going to change. And everything in my life is broken. And eventually it just changes the film that you see the world through.
[00:26:08] You just have a negative filter on everything.
[00:26:10] Even what's crazy is even if you know the word, even if you have all the information that you need to live a faith filled life, you can allow your beliefs to take you down a path you never meant to go.
[00:26:22] So here's a question that I'm going to ask you and it may be the most impactful question that I can ask you today. And it's this.
[00:26:30] What beliefs do you hold that when compared to scripture are exposed as lies?
[00:26:38] And what's crazy, guys, is there are a lot of people that know the word of God. They know it, they grew up in church, they have studied it, they've read, you know, they've done the daily Bible app, they've read all the things that God has to say and they've come across all the promises of God. God. But at the end of the day, they don't believe them.
[00:27:02] Is that a scripture problem or is that a me problem?
[00:27:05] Is that a scripture problem or is that a belief problem? Is that a cynicism problem? Is that a critical problem?
[00:27:11] Here's some examples. My marriage will never change.
[00:27:15] My kids are too far gone. This business is doomed.
[00:27:20] Nobody sees me, nobody appreciates me. Nothing ever gets better.
[00:27:24] Those beliefs, by the way, they don't come from your circumstances. And I know you're about to fight me on this.
[00:27:30] Zach, look at my life.
[00:27:32] Can't you see that my marriage is falling apart? Can't you see that my children have gone away from the faith? Can't you see that I'm broke? Can't you see I have no money, I have no resources? Can't you see that my situation does not look the way that I want it to look?
[00:27:46] My friend, I would remind you that this is exactly the way that the Israelite army saw Goliath and David walked onto the field and saw something different.
[00:27:58] Your circumstances aren't the thing that determines the outcome.
[00:28:06] These beliefs don't come from your circumstances. They come from what's inside your heart. A fearful heart expects defeat. A critical heart expects disappointment. But a faith filled heart expects God to show up and do great things.
[00:28:22] You don't live out of your circumstances, you live out of your beliefs.
[00:28:29] You don't live out of your circumstances, you live out of your beliefs. Here's the third truth that we discover when studying the heart. And it Is this what you fight for and against flows from your heart.
[00:28:42] Matthew, chapter 6, verse 21. This is Jesus again. He says, for where your treasure is, there, there your heart will be also.
[00:28:50] What does this mean? What you're invested in, your heart's gonna be there.
[00:28:55] What you spend time on, your heart's gonna be there. What you talk about, your heart's gonna be there. And so the question that we need to ask ourself in terms of what we're fighting for and fighting against is what battle are you engaged in every day?
[00:29:10] What kind of battle are you engaged in?
[00:29:12] Some of us are actively engaged in the battle. You would say, yep, Zach, this is the thing I'm fighting for or fighting against every day.
[00:29:19] Some of us would be like, I have elected to not fight any battles today.
[00:29:25] Right. Come on.
[00:29:29] Which is an easy thing to select.
[00:29:33] As we look at David and Goliath, the army fought for their safety.
[00:29:37] They fought for their comfort. They fought for their survival.
[00:29:43] But David fought for something else. And before I even read these, what if you fought for these?
[00:29:49] David fought for God's glory.
[00:29:52] David fought for God's honor.
[00:29:55] David fought for God's name. He literally says, as he's addressing Goliath in verse 47, he says that the battle is the Lord's.
[00:30:04] Same battle, different motivations.
[00:30:10] Your heart determines what you're going to fight for. Are you going to fight for your reputation, to be well known and liked among your peers? You're going to fight for your status. You're going to fight for comfort, which, by the way, these aren't terrible things. These are not sinful things. The question that we need to ask, are these the right battles to be fighting? Right.
[00:30:31] Oh, here's a good one. You're not going to like this one.
[00:30:35] Are you just fighting to be right?
[00:30:40] We're going to go there for a second. Okay, here we go.
[00:30:45] We will burn down marriages to be right.
[00:30:49] We will burn down bridges to be right.
[00:30:52] We will not talk to our own children or our own parents for decades in order to be right.
[00:31:01] Being right, the desire to be right is one of the biggest battles you need to wage war against.
[00:31:09] One of the things about following Jesus and this clashes with American culture. In American culture, we say, I have rights.
[00:31:18] I stand on my rights.
[00:31:20] When we follow Jesus, we lay down our rights.
[00:31:25] Just because you have rights doesn't mean that Jesus is calling you to exercise them.
[00:31:33] That flies right in all of our faces.
[00:31:36] And I don't like it, but it doesn't mean that it's less True.
[00:31:44] Are you fighting for these things or are you engaged in the fight every day for God's purposes, for your life, and for God's glory?
[00:31:54] And what's so cool about this is this applies to every situation.
[00:31:57] It's not just like, oh, well, I have to work at the church in order to fight for God's purposes or God's glory. No, you can dig ditches and fight for God's purposes and God's glory.
[00:32:07] You can spend your time working at the DMV dealing with the most hateful and frustrated people on the planet and fight for God's purposes and God's glory. You are not exempt from based on your occupation or your history.
[00:32:23] You can implement this in your life.
[00:32:26] Here's another one. What are you fighting against?
[00:32:31] And I'm about to talk about something that we're not talking. We don't talk a lot about anymore in the church. But are you fighting against your own sin?
[00:32:39] Or do we just tolerate our sin?
[00:32:42] Because the Bible tells us that when we come into relationship with Jesus and we start following after him, the Bible tells us we should hate sin.
[00:32:51] Now, don't hear what I'm not saying. I'm not telling you to fight against your wife's sin.
[00:32:57] I'm not telling you to fight against your neighbor's sin or your boss's sin. What if you fought against your sin?
[00:33:04] God, I want to squash this thing that has been with me that I want to get rid of it. I wanna move past this. I want to move into freedom from sin in my life.
[00:33:16] That is a fight, my friend, worth fighting every day.
[00:33:19] What if you fought against your own pride?
[00:33:23] Because most of the time what we do is we say, hey, pride, come here. Let's go fight them.
[00:33:29] Let's partner up. I'll be the Lone Ranger and you can be Tonto. And we're gonna go ride off into sunset and go get the bad guys, AKA all the other people.
[00:33:38] But what if you fought against your own pride?
[00:33:43] You know, it will squish pride. Again, not in my notes. Just a little fun thing here, you know, it will absolutely just be a wet blanket on a fire to your pride prayer anytime that my wife and I have had a disagreement that I gotta pray over her before we go to bed. I'm like, ugh, Lord.
[00:34:09] Oh, it's just. It's not fun.
[00:34:12] It's not fun. By the way, fighting against your pride is not fun. But it's one of the most meaningful fights that you could engage in every day.
[00:34:19] Or do we just fight against anybody that disagrees with us, anybody that's on the other side of the political spectrum than us, anybody that sees the world differently than us.
[00:34:30] And here's the truth is that critical people often spend tremendous energy fighting battles that God never assigned them.
[00:34:40] Oftentimes, we just spend all of our time and energy doing stuff that God never asked us to do.
[00:34:47] When we're critical, we fight against offenses, we fight for our preferences, we fight for our personal agendas, and we fight for being right. Meanwhile, we neglect prayer, the pursuit of holiness, unity among God's people, serving and sharing Jesus through our life.
[00:35:07] A critical heart is obsessed with being right, but a healthy heart is obsessed with honoring God with their life.
[00:35:16] Remember this. The quality of the battles that you fight reveals the condition of your heart.
[00:35:22] The quality of the battles.
[00:35:24] It's an interesting idea. So it's like, okay, well, Pastor Zach, how do I determine the quality quality of a battle? How do I determine if I'm fighting the right things? Well, I want to go. Here is where I want to go.
[00:35:36] Does God wage war against it?
[00:35:39] What did Jesus have to say about it?
[00:35:43] And if it's not on his list, it shouldn't be on mine.
[00:35:48] And when David showed up to the battlefield to fight, he wasn't showing up ready to fight because he was offended.
[00:35:55] He wasn't trying to win an argument. He wasn't trying to prove a point. David was consumed with God's glory.
[00:36:02] That's why he could walk toward a giant while everybody else just stood around talking.
[00:36:09] So let me ask you, are you fighting people, or are you fighting for God's purpose in your life?
[00:36:16] I want to share a little bit of my story real fast. I am a second born by nature. I'm. I'm naturally rebellious. Every rule is meant to be bent a little.
[00:36:25] Some are meant to be broken, right?
[00:36:29] And I've been on staff here for eight years. I've been a pastor here on staff for eight years. And I've had some seasons where I am just fired up. I'm excited about the things of God. I love the people. And then there's. Then I have seasons where I just basically say, you know, listen, ministry would be so much fun if it weren't for the people, right?
[00:36:51] And which. The whole point of that is that the only reason we do ministry is for people. And so in all this, I've had seasons where I've had a critical heart. I've had seasons where it doesn't matter what is being done. I look at it and I think that's not the right way to do that. I would have done it this way.
[00:37:11] They have a bad heart.
[00:37:13] Those people are doing it wrong.
[00:37:16] And what happened over time.
[00:37:19] And the Bible describes this as a heart of stone.
[00:37:24] And what I found was that I had the title, I had the position, I even had the authority of a pastor, but walked through seasons where I had a heart of stone and I was doing the work of God with the wrong heart.
[00:37:41] And everybody would have looked and said, hey, you're doing a great job. All the stuff that you're doing is good.
[00:37:46] But my heart was wrong.
[00:37:49] And about two years ago, I walked through a season of prayer and fasting and spending time with the Lord. And he, just, to be honest with you, just convicted the fire out of me.
[00:38:00] And during that season, one of the primary things that he revealed to me was, first of all, all of my own inadequacies.
[00:38:10] Oftentimes our pride comes from a place of this perspective that I have all the answers, and they're all wrong.
[00:38:19] But as soon as we allow the Holy Spirit to work on us, we find and we realize that we're broken people.
[00:38:25] And this is what the Lord did for me. He realized, helped me realize how desperately I needed a savior, how desperately I needed grace and how I needed to be redeemed. And in that moment, he said, zach, what if all these people that you have unrealistic expectations for are just like you, broken and hurting and needing redemption?
[00:38:52] What if you didn't hold them to unrealistic standards? What if they need a savior just like you? And it. And it. It broke something off of me and gave me a new lens to look through. So that every time I see a person doing something that I don't agree with, instead of saying, that's bad, you're wrong, I say, I wonder what happened in your life that made you respond that way. I wonder what kind of experiences you've had. I wonder what. What type of pain you've felt. I wonder. And instead of attacking or engaging in a fight with a person, I start praying for the person.
[00:39:29] And it's the healthiest perspective. I wish I had figured this out way, way, way, way long ago.
[00:39:36] It's pretty new for me, but God did heart surgery on me and changed my perspective and took out a heart of stone and replaced it with a heart of flesh like the Bible describes.
[00:39:52] And so, as we wrap this section up, I want to just say, show me your battles, and I'll show you your heart.
[00:40:00] Show me your battles. What are you fighting? What are you fighting? For what are you fighting against? And I'll show you the condition of your heart as we wrap up. I'm running out of time.
[00:40:09] The fourth truth that we discover is that the condition of your heart is a daily decision.
[00:40:14] It's daily because we drift.
[00:40:20] This is true of all of us. We drift. Proverbs 4:23. Again, our anchor verse says, above all else, guard your heart.
[00:40:32] And as we've talked about guarding your heart today, there's two cancers we have identified. Fear and criticism.
[00:40:42] Fear says, what if God doesn't come through? Criticism says that God's not going to come through.
[00:40:47] Fear, doubts God. Criticism judges God. And the truth is that both are extremely dangerous and both must be guarded against.
[00:40:55] And here's something that we need.
[00:40:59] Some of us don't need freedom from a giant. We need freedom from the fear of the giant.
[00:41:05] We need freedom from the critical spirit that we've developed while staring at the giant.
[00:41:10] Because the greatest threat to Israel wasn't Goliath. The greatest threat was what 40 days of looking at Goliath had done to their hearts.
[00:41:19] So I'm gonna give you some practical things as we wrap up. How do we guard our hearts? Here's number one.
[00:41:26] Guard who and what you listen to.
[00:41:29] Guard who and what you listen to, my friends.
[00:41:32] I love you.
[00:41:34] I love you.
[00:41:36] I love you.
[00:41:38] We have to get intentional about guarding who and what we listen to.
[00:41:44] You can find terrible news.
[00:41:47] Everywhere you go, you can find news and information that just stirs up fear like a wildfire. Everywhere that you go, you can find news and information that will make you hypercritical everywhere that you go. This takes zero effort.
[00:42:05] You have to guard against it.
[00:42:09] When we're guarding who and what we listen to, we're guarding our hearts from the type of music that we listen to, we're guarding our hearts from the podcast that we listen to. We're guarding our hearts from the social media voices that we're listening to and the news cycles that we're tuned into and the negative voices that we might listen to.
[00:42:27] The second thing that we need to do to guard our hearts is that we need to guard what we think about.
[00:42:32] Guard what we think about. Did you know that you can think about what you think about? Did you know that most of us don't ever think that we don't ever think about what we're thinking about. Never had the thought, never crossed our mind.
[00:42:46] What did cross our mind was just our initial thought that led our lives.
[00:42:51] We have an emotional response to something. We have a thought and we act on that thing.
[00:42:55] But did you ever consider that you could weigh your thoughts?
[00:43:00] Is this thought kind, is it helpful, and is it true?
[00:43:06] That's a good litmus test. I learned that from Bill Leckie, by the way, one of our elders.
[00:43:11] Are these thoughts kind, helpful, and true? And if they're not all three of those, get rid of them.
[00:43:18] The Bible says in Philippians 4. 8, it says, finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things.
[00:43:36] This is the guide on how to think.
[00:43:39] And number three is we need to guard who you do life with.
[00:43:44] Some of y' all are just hanging out with hood rats, and you need to quit.
[00:43:49] You need to be careful.
[00:43:52] Oh, here we go. We got people.
[00:43:54] Don't do that. Don't do that. Yeah.
[00:43:58] She's like, hey. Yeah.
[00:44:02] But we need to guard who we do life with because we become the average of the five people we spend the most time with.
[00:44:08] Proverbs 13:20 says this. It says, walk with the wise and become wise, for a companion of fools suffers harm. We don't want to be companions of fools.
[00:44:22] We want to walk with the wise and become wise. So who you walk with eventually shapes how you think. How you think eventually shapes your heart. And so here's the final thought today, and that is that your future is not decided by your talents, your gifts, or your opportunities. It is decided by the condition of your heart, because the condition of your heart determines the direction of your life.
[00:44:47] So you can go ahead and put up your notes, put up your devices. We're going to spend some time with the Lord for a minute.
[00:44:56] With all heads bowed and all eyes closed all across this room.
[00:45:00] I think the most impactful question that we could ask the Lord right now is, lord, what are you revealing to me about the condition of my heart?
[00:45:32] Maybe you'd say, zach, I've been living with a heart full of fear.
[00:45:40] Zach, I've been living with a critical spirit, a heart full of criticism.
[00:45:46] If that's you, I want to pray for you real fast, if that's okay.
[00:45:50] Lord, I just pray for my friends.
[00:45:53] I pray that right now, even in this moment, you would transform their heart, that you would conduct heart surgery, that you would go in and you would remove their heart of stone and you would replace it with a heart of flesh.
[00:46:08] That they would see people and circumstances through the lens of faith and not fear that they would give people the benefit of the doubt instead of Leading with a critical spirit. Lord, I pray that you would redeem that which is broken in us.
[00:46:28] With all heads bowed and eyes closed. Maybe you're here and you'd say, you know what, Pastor Zach, if I'm being honest, this is great and all, but I don't have a relationship with Jesus. I don't know him personally, but I want to.
[00:46:42] I want to come into relationship with him.
[00:46:48] Well, my friend, I don't believe it's an accident that you're sitting where you're sitting today.
[00:46:53] And I would be so honored to introduce you to Jesus.
[00:46:58] This prayer that I'm gonna pray is not a magical prayer.
[00:47:04] It's an introduction to the one person that can change your life forever.
[00:47:09] So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna say a line, I'm gonna pause. I'll give you a chance to repeat it after me.
[00:47:15] And in fact, we're gonna do this all together, all across the room.
[00:47:19] So, church, family, say this with me. Jesus, I believe you're the son of God.
[00:47:25] I believe that you came and died and rose again so that I could have life and freedom from my sin.
[00:47:36] Jesus, I repent and turn away from my old life.
[00:47:44] I give you my past.
[00:47:46] I give you my future, and I trust you with the present.
[00:47:52] Thank you for just now saving me with heads bowed and eyes closed all across the room. If that was you and you just said that prayer for the first time or you said it again to rededicate your life to the Lord with nobody looking around, I want to just ask you to raise your hand. I want to see if you made that decision today. I want to see you perfect. I see you. I see you. I see you. I see you. Thank you guys so much.
[00:48:19] So if you just said that prayer, I want to invite you to look up at the screen behind me.
[00:48:24] Okay. On the screen behind me, I've got a phone number. And I'm going to ask you to take one more faith step today. And I would love for you to pull out your phone and text all one word text. I prayed to 844-HRCTXT. And the reason that we would ask you to do this is we want to help you walk with Jesus from this day forward. And so what we're gonna do is, over the next five days, if you text this number over the next five days, we're gonna send you five videos from Pastor Tim. They're gonna tell you what your next steps are.
[00:48:53] All right? So, High Ridge family, you can go ahead and look up at me. Stand up to your feet. We've already had six people respond to Jesus today, which is something that we always wanna celebrate.
[00:49:07] Me got me all choked up.
[00:49:11] I'm going to invite our elders forward and their wives. If you are here and you need prayer for anything, I want to invite you to come receive prayer.
[00:49:21] This is one of the greatest honors that we can do is pray for the people inside of this church. And so as soon as we dismiss, come to the front if you need prayer for anything. We want to pray for you.
[00:49:33] And so for the rest of us, I'm gonna dismiss us and we're gonna go have the best week of our lives. Come on. All right, let's do it. Lord, we love you. We thank you for today. I thank you for all that you're doing and all that you've done in this place. Pray that you would be with us as we head into the week. And, Lord, that we wouldn't just file this in the memory bank of a message, but, Lord, that we would allow you to do surgery on our hearts, Father, that we would fight for your glory every single day when we wake up, God, we give you room, we give you permission to do what you want to do in us.
[00:50:06] Lord, as we leave, I pray that we would be missionaries heading out into the missionary field, Lord, that you would use us to change our world every single day. We love you and we praise you in Jesus name and all God's people said, amen. You are dismissed. Have the best week ever.
[00:50:24] Thank you so much for listening in today. Our prayer is that you are encouraged and strengthened by the message. If you haven't done. If you haven't done so yet, be sure to subscribe to this podcast and leave us a review wherever you're listening. If you want to be a part of our online community, connect with us through Facebook or Instagram with the handle hyridgelv. Or you can check out our
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[00:50:54] We appreciate your support and we're believing with you today for God's best in your life. Have an incredible week and we will see you next time.
