Pastor Wayne Cordeiro
June 12, 2005 - W0524

As we all know, life is not always smooth sailing. The fact is, in life, we are faced with one challenge after another and often it’s the state of our heart that will determine how we fare. When challenges hit you, what is your first tendency? How do you respond? With anger, cynicism, moodiness, fearfulness? The way you respond is your first tendency…your default system.  Oftentimes, although we're Christians and we've been changed, our default systems have not. You can override those tendencies, but often by the time you do, some damage has already been done by your first impulse.

Today we want to talk about training our hearts so we can respond in a way that the Lord would want us to.  Oftentimes, we wrestle with ourselves…doing things we don't want to do but doing it because it's our default.  Even Paul the apostle struggled with this. In Romans 7, he said (paraphrased), “Man, the things I want to do I don’t, and the things I don’t want to do, I do…I’m a wretched man!”  Many of us react likewise only to think later, “I should’ve done that differently!”  Can the Lord change our hearts so that His ways are so embedded in us that our first tendency is not one of greed, anger, skepticism, or doubt but rather, compassion, understanding, love and encouragement?  The answer is…Yes!  He can IF we will submit our hearts to training. He is the one who will take us to new heights by training us…

“He makes my feet like hinds' feet, and sets me upon my high places. He trains my hands for battle, so that my arms can bend a bow of bronze” (Ps. 18:33-34).

This passage says that God will set us on high places to be victorious; however, the way we get there is through training by the Lord. I used to have a 90 pound fiberglass bow and it was so hard to pull back. Yet it says here that God is training us to bend a bow of BRONZE.  The Lord will discipline and train you so that your skills and abilities are so strong and stalwart that you can make it to the high places but this takes time, effort, energy, and maybe even suffering. We may want to get to the top, but we may not want to endure the training. A lot of times we want God to be our blesser but we don’t want Him to be our trainer. We want God to be our genie but we don’t want Him to be our coach. I often want God to be someone who defers to me, not someone who disciplines me.

God wants to train your heart so that you’re not always struggling against the firstlings of your heart. In the Shakespearean play Macbeth, Macbeth had just killed some people when he says, “I know, the firstlings of my heart became the firstlings of my hands.”  And in this statement, he is admitting that he acted upon his first tendencies and that impulsiveness has come to back to destroy his life.  Similarly in our lives, the firstlings of our hearts are sometimes wrong yet we act on it only to repent later. Sadly, the damage is usually already done. On the contrary, we need to ask God to train our hearts so that the firstlings of our hearts will be His heart. But, it is through this training that God blesses us. Let’s see how…

“To you first, God, having raised up His Servant Jesus, sent Him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from your iniquities” (Acts 3:26).

God sent His only son Jesus to bless us by turning us away from our sinfulness, and by pruning and cleaning us up. Again, we may want the Lord to bless us but not train us however the Lord actually blesses us by changing our hearts. Our hearts need changing because our default setting is not always the best.  Is there any way you can change it?  Yes!  In fact, here are three ways God will train and discipline your heart so that He can change your default system to something of the Lord, rather than something of the flesh. First of all, you must learn to…

1. DISCIPLINE YOURSELF FOR THE PURPOSE OF GODLINESS.
 “…discipline yourself for the purpose of godliness” (1 Tim. 4:7).
Before the challenge hits, we need to discipline ourselves. Athletes and musicians do certain regimens over and over again (e.g. scales, sit-ups, sprints), everyday.  They must discipline themselves because no one else is going to keep them accountable. In our spiritual lives as well, there are disciplines we must practice and train for so that in the heat of the moment, it (the right reaction) will be natural.  One discipline we need to stick with for the rest of our lives is…

• A DAILY QUIET TIME WITH JESUS.
We need to take time everyday to be still and hear God.  Listen, don’t just talk.  Listen to Him, and write down what He is saying. Sometimes I open up my calendar, and I ask the Lord, “What are you saying about my wife?  How should I treat her this month?  Is there anything you want me to do?” I ask similar questions about my children. I’ll actually write these things down in my calendar and do them. If we’re really listening with open hearts, as we open the Bible, God will speak to us…“As you enter the house of God, keep your ears open and your mouth shut…” (Eccl. 5:1, NLT).

Remember, God gave us two ears and one mouth because He’s probably saying we need to be listening twice as much as we speak.  I know I always talk about daily devotions, but it is Peter who said, “I plan to keep on reminding you of these things – even though you already know them…” (2 Peter 1:12 NLT).  I’m in good company with Peter.

Devotions is a discipline that nobody is going to check to see if we are cutting corners on; however, if you take short-cuts, you may not survive the eventual challenges you will face. The Bible says the Word of God is living, so when you stack God’s Words in you, and His Word begins speaking to you, you can actually…

• DISCIPLE YOURSELF.
Sometimes we feel that there is no one to teach or mentor us, but if we’re reading the Word of God which is alive and living in us, we will be discipled.

“The Word of God is alive and active, sharper than any double-edged sword…” (Heb. 4:12 TEV).
“But the Helper, the Holy Spirit… He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you” (John 14:26).

When you store God’s Word in your heart, the Holy Spirit will disciple you, and your heart will begin to be trained. The first way God trains your heart is to have you discipline your heart for the purpose of godliness. The second thing you must do is …

2.  HUMBLE YOURSELF UNDER THE MIGHTY HAND OF GOD
“Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time” (1 Peter 5:6).
God wants us to correct ourselves by being humble when our flesh wants to be proud.   When situations like this occur, they need to be caught and dealt with right away.  If they aren't, you begin to have difficulty distinguishing between right and wrong. Those prideful feelings and sinful behaviors become normal and it becomes a part of your personality, a part of who you are. 

 “Because the sentence against an evil deed is not executed quickly, therefore the hearts of the sons of men among them are given fully to do evil” (Eccl. 8:11).
“When a crime is not punished, people feel it is safe to do wrong” (Eccl. 8:11 NLT).

We need to ask God to help us identify these things in our lives, and if we fear the Lord, we will change. In Proverbs it says, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, but what does it mean to fear God?  Does it mean to be afraid of Him?  The concept of fearing God was difficult for me to understand until one day when my brother Jerome, an electrician, explained that when you work with electricity you know it’s power, you respect it greatly and you fear it. If you work with it properly, the blessings are magnificent but if you don't respect or fear it, it is extremely dangerous and the effects can be devastating (including death).  That’s how it is with God. Our majestic, all-powerful God wants to bless us but if we cut corners, we’ll suffer the devastating effects of sin. When you humble yourself under the mighty hand of God, you’ll be better able to detect those times when you are taking short cuts, stealing something of credit, etc. As you humble yourself, God will train your heart so that the firstlings of your heart will be like the Lord’s, and you will be able to…

• AVOID MAKING YOUR OWN GODS THAT ALLOW YOU TO LIVE POORLY.
Sometimes we have a deep desire to do something we shouldn’t do. We take the desire, and we mold the god of forgiveness that allows us to live poorly. The god we create approves of our sin, and we begin to create our own standards.  “…They have set up their own standard for signs” (Psalm 74:4). Be really careful or it’ll destroy your fear of God, and you will live very poorly.

When you want to do what Jesus wants you to do (and it’s natural, not contrived) then you know God is really training and changing your heart because your goal in life is to become a man/woman after God’s own heart. In addition to disciplining and humbling yourself, there will be times when you will need to…

3. STRENGTHEN YOURSELF IN THE LORD.
There are going to be times when you'll get discouraged and there’ll be no one around to strengthen you. During those times, you need to strengthen yourself.  “…David strengthened himself in the Lord his God” (1 Sam. 30:6).

In those seasons when there isn’t anyone around to encourage you, you’ll want to give up. You’ll say, "no one came to visit me," or "I was in the hospital and no one knew." But, one of the greatest tests of maturity is whether you can strengthen yourself in the Lord. Some of God’s greatest men, like David, needed to strengthen themselves in the Lord because there was no one around to help. This is critical because it’ll help us…

• BREAK THROUGH QUITTING POINTS.
Every single one of us has quitting points, and if we don’t strengthen ourselves to be able to break through those points, the enemy can actually determine our futures. For example, when the heat of difficulty gets up to 7 (on a scale of 1-10) in your marriage, you give up. When the heat gets up to 7 with your employer, you give up. If your quitting point is 7 and the devil knows it, he can control your future by turning up the heat at strategic points in your life to get you to turn one way or another based on what he wants you to do. He’ll manipulate you and take you right to the edge where you've given up and you have nothing left...then he goes in for the kill. Remember, the thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy. We must learn to break through quitting points through something called forbearance so the devil cannot determine our futures.

“I entreat you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called… showing forbearance to one another in love…” (Eph. 4:1-2).

Showing forbearance means having patience, endurance, and self-control to break through quitting points. When you start breaking through quitting points, the devil can’t determine your future because you’re breaking through the challenges. Your tendency is no longer to bail out but instead to follow Him through the furnace of blazing fire. Then, when people look at your life, they’ll see the King of Kings walking with you in the midst of the furnace of blazing fire. You’ll be someone who, when your heart is tested and challenged, will follow His ways.

Don’t ever give up. If you just look at your anatomy, you see that God created you to never give up. Your eyes are on the front of your head, not on the sides or the back.  He wants you to look forward to His promises, not back on your mistakes.  Your ears also face forward so you can follow His calling rather than listen to people talking behind your back. Your arms also work better reaching forward and your feet face ahead.  These all suggest that we keep moving and reaching forward. In fact, there’s really only one part of your anatomy stuck to your other side but maybe God is just saying there are certain things you just need to leave behind!

When we ask God to be the trainer of our hearts, we need to put our full trust in Him even when things get uncomfortable or even painful (e.g., pruning). If you discipline, humble and strengthen yourself in the Lord, He will be your coach, trainer and disciplinarian. You’ll be transformed into a man or woman after His own heart.

DISCUSSION TOPICS

1. What is your first tendency when you are confronted with a problem or challenge?
2. Think about your upbringing. Does it affect the way you deal with problems? If so, how?
3. How are your daily quiet times? How much talking and listening do you do? What has the Lord been impressing on your heart?
4. When was the last time you spoke pridefully about yourself, desiring some kind of recognition and praise? How could you have responded differently?
5. Have there been times in your life when you needed to strengthen yourself? If so, what did you do? What did you learn?

Much mahalo to volunteer writer Kristi Murai whose service is reaching out and touching lives through this Sermon Notes ministry.