Heart Shifts

Pastor Gary Caudill · Jan 15, 2024

Transcript

Genesis chapter 31, the context here is Jacob, someone says he heard, someone, Jacob said he heard the words of Laban, Laban is his father -in -law, he heard the words of Laban's sons saying Jacob has taken away all that was our father's and of that which was our father's as he'd gotten all this glory. Jacob beheld the countenance of Laban, excuse me, and behold, it was not toward him as before. And the Lord said unto Jacob, return unto the land of thy fathers and to thy kindred, and I will be with thee. Jacob sent and called Rachel and Leah

to the field unto his flock, that's his wives. And said unto them, I see your father's countenance, that it is not toward me as before, but the God of my father hath been with me. And ye know that with all my power I have served your father. And your father hath deceived me and changed my wages 10 times. I may be able to put up with an employer doing that to me.

But God suffered him not to hurt me. If he said thus, the speckle shall be thy wages, then all the cattle bear speckle. And if he said thus, the ring strait shall be thy hire, then bear all the cattle ring strait. Thus God hath taken away the cattle of your father and given them to me. And it came to pass at the time that the cattle conceived that I lifted up mine eyes and saw in a dream and behold the rams which leaped upon the cattle were ring -striped, speckled, and grizzled.

I guess that's how you pronounce that. And the angel of God spake unto me in a dream, saying, Jacob, and I said, here am I, and said, lift up now thine eyes and see all the rams which leap upon the cattle are ring -strapped, speckled, and thistled, for I have seen all that Laban doeth unto thee. I am the God of Bethel, where thou anointest the pillar, and where thou bowst a vow unto me, now arise, get thee out from this land, and return unto the land of thy kindred, and Rachel and Leah answered and said unto him, is there yet any portion or inheritance for us in our father's house? Are we not counted of him strangers? For he hath sold us and hath quite devoured also our money. For all the riches which God hath taken from our father, that is ours, and our children, now then, whatsoever God hath said unto thee, do. Go with me now back to verse number two. This will be my focus. Jacob beheld the countenance of Laban, and behold, it was not toward him as before. Today I want to preach about heart shifts. Thank you, you may be seated in God's presence. Heart shifts. Here's my proposition, how we allow our hearts to be influenced and how we allow ourselves to influence the hearts of others and go undetected for years right up until the proof shows up and then it's irreversible. So be careful with your influence. Somebody say amen. Heart shifts. I wonder, for example, how many young adults or maybe teenagers when they go off to college after having been raised in an evangelical home, much like the ones that we say we are, wonder how many of them

left home in their hearts 10 years before they left the church when they became an adult. I wonder where and when and how and why their hearts shifted undetected for so long before the parents noticed that they didn't look at them the same anymore. Often, we are guilty of influencing people on levels and in ways that don't surface for decades. And because they don't surface, immediately, we assume, oh, they'll be all right, oh, they'll get over it. Not realizing that we're step -by -step, bit -by -bit, accusation -by -accusation, criticism -by -criticism, attitude -by -attitude, molding and shaping and forming them. Inside of them a resentment towards us because we don't know how to love regular like we know how to hate regular. And little by little, through the faithfulness of being inconsiderate, one day we'll wake up and our child's a different person. Heart shifts. They can go undetected.

And our challenge today from the scripture is to be careful how we influence others. others because what you have today you may not have tomorrow and it could be directly linked to how you treated those that you claim you loved and somebody say amen. Let me give you from the text the influences of the heart that are clearly visible to me. First First I see in verse number one the external influences. The Bible said Jacob heard the words of Laban's son saying Jacob hath taken away all that was our father's and of that which was our father's hath he gotten all this glory.

I see here external influences. Let's first look from the perspective of Jacob who was being influenced by this external source of information. How often do we allow external voices and external influences shape our thinking and drive our decisions today? Whether it's real or perceived, we often live as if perception is reality, whether it's true or not. That's why we have to be careful when we don't know the difference between what somebody said and what somebody meant. Because they may have said it poorly and meant it well, but what we perceive is that they meant it as poorly as they said it. And so the visions pop up in our head because somebody with a good heart that didn't know exactly how to communicate it well,

all of a sudden we think they're mad at us, all of a sudden think they're angry with us, all of a sudden think we'd be better off if we just distanced ourselves and went to the church down the road. And churches split all the time because we misappropriate external influences. I'm glad the Bible teaches us that the word of God is quick and powerful and sharper than any two -edged sword piercing even to the dividing of the center of soul and spirit of the joints and marrows,

is a discerner of the thoughts and intentions of the heart. God knows the difference between how you thought about it and what you felt about it. How many of you are poor communicators? Be honest, just raise your hand. Oh, hey man, we're all guilty of it sometimes. Because we get emotional and we'll speak passionately, and we may have meant well, but we did bad. Heart shifts. People's hearts are shifted by their reaction to external influences, whether those influences were perceived or real. Are you following me, say amen. Amen. Now let's look at the external influences from the perspective of Laban's sons. Not only can we be influenced externally, but we can be the external source that influences others. And it's needful for us to be mindful of that. That everything I say, everything I do, and everything that I am is influencing someone either on the surface or beneath the surface.

And I've got to be careful. There's no way that I can filter myself for everyone because you try to please 1 ,000 people, you'll lose your mind in the process. But there are some basic guidelines that you can live by according to the word of God to help you at least avoid many incorrectly influencing in many situations. just by your attitude, just by your body language, just by how you convey yourself. And I have to especially be careful of this as your leader, as your pastor. I'm always the best at conveying my heart when my emotions are high. But you pray for me because I am as challenged in this area sometimes as anyone else, and for that I apologize. My prayer is that you see my heart, my devotion to my Lord, and not the frail and pitiful way in which I can sometimes communicate it.

But that being said, we all need to work on how we influence one another. This is a team effort. This is not a one -man show, but one man can run the show if they push their influence in the wrong direction, not even meaning to. Sheep are often afraid of the wolf to the degree that even if the shepherd is right by them, they'll scatter and run. They won't listen to the voice of the shepherd for fear of the wolf. I dare not accuse anyone today in this church of being a wolf. I hope and pray that no one is. I don't think we have any, I guess.

I believe that who God's put together here is of sincere heart and motivation, loves the Lord with all their heart, would die for Jesus if need be. I believe that, I really do. Sometimes I wonder if, even though we're not wolves at heart, sometimes our sharp teeth can run some sheep off, not even meaning to. You hear what I'm saying? Heart shifts. Heart shifts are so needful to be understood because heart shifts is what changes the course

of entire nations, not just families and individuals and communities. If you'll study the life of the patriarch Jacob, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, she's just saying about it. The patriarchs of faith. And from those men was birthed an entire nation of Israel through which the Christ child was born and the whole world is influenced. You can stem the influences that Jacob both had on others and it was influenced by and how it impacts us still to this day. Influence never dies. I know young people, right now, that as soon as they get 18, they're going to leave their house because of the way they're treated at home, because their parents don't, they underestimate the weight, the crushing weight that their negative influence is having on their kids. I knew this would be a heavy message, I didn't know exactly how the Holy Spirit was going to let me unpack it for you this morning.

There's so many ways that we could go, and I'm careful this morning with my words intentionally. Understand then that there are external influences that both externally influence us and that that we become an external influence to others. And again, I say that we need to be careful with our influence. Not only are there external influences, but more notably is the eternal influences that we see in the scripture. Look at verse number three. And the Lord said unto Jacob, and somebody bring me some, hey hold on a minute. I think I've got some right here. Brother Ron, thank you for the water. Amen. Hold on just a second y 'all, my mouth is dry.

Verse three, and the Lord said unto Jacob, return unto the land of thy fathers and of thy kindred and I will be with thee. So not only is Jacob being motivated by external human influence to make a move in another direction, but now God's done a way to get on the matter. Eternal influences. And I wanna note that you can be both influenced by the eternal and influence others eternally. And it would do us a lot of good to filter

all of our external influences through God's responses to them. Don't just jump to conclusions, don't just make hasty decisions in your emotional response, but take it to the Lord in prayer and say, Lord, what would thou have me to do with this? Do I stay or do I go? Do I pray or do I speak up? Do I humble myself and make an apology or do I stand by my ground because I know I'm right and you want me to learn how to stand on truth no matter the criticism? You see, the way we respond to others really needs to be closely directed by the Holy Spirit of God. We may think we're right and we may be right, but the Holy Spirit may say, zip your lips, I'll do the talking. Or he may say, there's a reason I've allowed this, I wanted the external influences to shift your heart so that you'd be prepared to go when I'm fixing to tell you to go.

Eternal influences. I'm afraid that much of our decisions is more carnally motivated than spiritually motivated. and we need to be careful to allow eternal influences, the word of God, the spirit of God, to be more impactful in our decision making than anything anybody has said to us. That's why you can walk around with great confidence knowing that you're accepted in the blood, even if people dog you, even if people trash you, even if people run their mouth about you, even if other people discredit your ministry and say that you'll never amount to a hill of beans, you don't have to pay attention to a thing they say if you've got God's word on your side. You let the eternal influence you. And take what they say with a grain of salt. Hardships, we all have them. And sometimes, you know what the Bible says about the heart, don't you? the heart is deceitful and desperately wicked. Who can know it?

You can be being influenced in a good or a bad direction before you even recognize it. Your heart can be shifting for years and then one day all of a sudden you lost your mind or all of a sudden you took drastic measures and did something completely different that you've never done before. And you're like, where did that come from? well, it's stacked up for a lot of years,

you just never catch it up to it. Because your heart is so vulnerable. And if you're not careful, you allow the negative influences of not only those things that are external around you, but things that you let plant in your mind that you feed over and over become a louder voice than the voice of God. As a church, we need to understand and how heart shifts occur, and to make sure that our hearts are held in the hand of the master so that if my heart moves, it's only moving because God is moving. David said, my heart is fixed, O God. My heart is fixed on Thee. That word fixed carries with it two meanings. One is to be repaired.

Thank God He can fix a broken heart, amen. But number two, it means that it is set upon Him, that is not moved, be ye therefore steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord for as much as you know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. And that's how you can fight hell by the acre and come out on the other side not even smelling like smoke

because your heart is not fixed on the brethren it might hurt you, but your heart is fixed on the one that you set out to please. Can somebody say amen? You know, what makes a martyr follow Jesus all the way to the top of the block? A heart shift. What turns an alcoholic into a missionary that travels to Africa over 20 times on his own dime just because he wants the privilege to tell another soul that never heard about the one that can change them too?

It was a heart shift all of a sudden. God took that heart of stone and made it a heart of flesh and now it has life in it and it has vibrance and it has purpose in it. Now all of a sudden, he's no longer an alcoholic, but he's singing and preaching the praises of Jesus. Amen? Amen. A heart shift. We need to be careful to know that God wants to be the master of your heart. What's in your heart today? What have you been contemplating? What have you been considering? Are you tempted to quit because it's getting tough? Are you tempted to back off because you're feeling too much pressure? Before you do, I wanna say, have you talked to the Lord about it? Have you heard His voice? He may in fact ask you to stay in an unpleasant place longer than you want to stay.

because there's a greater purpose than our personal comfort. Jacob is living proof. Before this, I preached a message on some things I didn't see coming. Jacob, you remember Jacob's ladder, the dream he had of the angels ascending and descending? The Bible said he named that place Penteor, for I've seen God face to face, and my life is preserved. but he said, God is in this place and I knew it not. It was a hard place, it was a dark place, it was a long and lonely place, but it was a place where he laid his head on his pillow and he slept through the night very uncomfortably, but then the next day he turned that pillow into a memorial of praise to God for bringing him safe thus far, and God can turn your pain into praise if you'll let him do your hardships and don't do them yourself. That's right.

Stick with him now, stick with the Lord. He saw it coming before you ever did. He knows exactly where you're just gonna go through it. He knew exactly what you're gonna have to face, but don't quit, don't give up, because God can hold your heart and keep you through the fire. Internal influence. We need it every day in our church.

Thirdly there, I see, is the internal influence. Get this, Jacob heard from others, then he heard from heaven, and now he's beginning the process of processing those influences internally. Now you've gotta deal with your own thoughts. Now you've gotta deal with your own attitudes. Now you've gotta deal with your own old habits, good or bad. Your propensity is to either do right or do wrong. You gotta grapple with your own ideas whether they're true or not, amen. This is the third source of influence I see in our text. Verse four, Jacob sent and called Rachel and Leah to the field under his flock. What was he doing? He was calling them for a meeting. Now he's fixing the air of his thoughts. I've heard from others, I've heard from God. Now I've got something to say, don't we do that? Nothing wrong with having something to say, as long as what you've got to say is right. And not only right, but in the right attitude. That's the tough part, amen. You know Moses got in trouble, because he caught the attitude. Missed the promised land, because he caught the attitude. I pray just this week, God, don't let me miss my promised land because I hit the rock instead of just speaking to it. Don't let me get my, don't let Gary Cole ever get in the way.

Sometimes we have to sacrifice ourself in order for God to be seen and heard. Jesus, that's a picture of Jesus was only to be smitten once for the sin of mankind. And the reason it was such, what reason Moses got in trouble with God was because he violated the typology that what God wanted to convey, that this was a type of picture that Christ the Rock would be smitten once and for all for the sins of the world. But because Moses was angry, he not only had something to say, but he, rest God, he was gonna show himself off. God rebuked him and said, and of that, do not cross it over. How many churches today don't ever cross over

in the promised land because we take matters into our own hands and we may have the right Bible verse and we may have the right lesson and the right message, but our attitude stinks and because we spoil it with our attitude, we live in the whole lump and it's virtually ineffective and more destructive than constructive. Heart shifts, attitudes. This is something we all need to work on. And I know I get into deep water sometimes. I know I'm teaching things, maybe some of you never heard before,

but I'm taking it right from the text, am I not? The internal influences, even though God speaks loudly and clearly, and even though we've heard what others have said, Often, it is not what God has said, it is not what others have said, it is what we say to ourselves that ultimately determines which way we wanna go. We gotta decide, are we gonna let ourself influence us more than God? Or are we going to sacrifice ourself, lay ourself and our will down and say, Lord, you speak. I've heard enough of me.

Note, you can be influenced internally, and you can also cause others to be influenced internally. The heart and thoughts are where we process the influences of the external, the internal, and the eternal to ultimately make decisions either positively or negatively. In our text, if you fast forward to verses 17 and 18, I want to point something out. John says, and I'm gonna bring this to a close. Then Jacob rose up and set his sons and his wives upon camels, and he carried away all his cattle and all his goods, which he had gotten the cattle of his getty, which he had gotten and had anoram for to go to Isaac his father in the land of Canaan. They got up and went, they sure did. In this context, what was happening was providential. Providentially, his father -in -law's sons started running their mouth about him. Providentially, he overheard that. Providentially, God spoke to him and said, that's all right, I've got other plans for you now. Providentially, he was influenced by God's voice and decided to go in another direction.

It was providence. But before you make a decision, you better make sure it's providentially led. You gotta make sure that you're hearing the voice of God. How do you check the voice of God? The Bible says, try the Spirit, see whether or not you know that book. God will never speak in contradiction to that book. But if you have a principle founded firmly upon the word of God, then you can rest assured you've heard from God. He gave it to us in written form so we couldn't mess it up. But what does this culture do? They rewrite it anyway. Oh, I don't like that verse. Let's either delete it or change it. I think it should be worded this way. And you gotta be careful with the hearts of men who shift at social whim because before you know it, they will be given counsel by devil to take out the most important parts of the Bible. In fact, I'm not gonna get into this this morning, but there are some verses that take out the blood, that take out repentance, that take out the virgin births

Can somebody say amen? You better be careful the influences and what you call a Bible. Know your stuff. Know your influences and know why you're doing what you're doing. Make sure it's not birthed out of selfishness or pride or arrogance or just plain old hard -headedness. Make sure it's the voice of God. I can't tell you how many times I thought I arrived only to find out that not only have I arrived, I even got started yet. Holy Ghost has a way of revealing things in your heart that you didn't even know were there. And testing is what brings it to surface. God's going to try us, church. He's going to try us. He's going to test us. He wants to see how you want to operate under pressure. Are you going to maintain a spirit of excellence or are you to bite and devour one another?

Influence, very important. Laban didn't realize that because he wanted to control rather than partner with the son -in -law, that one day he would lose all of what he could no longer control. Laban didn't see this was coming. He thought he had Jacob. and use them and abuse them. He lied to them so many times, it's not even funny. This was God's anointed man, Jacob. You read what the Bible said. He said, but it didn't hurt me. Amen, no weapon formed against you shall prosper. That's right, if you're God's child, you're following God, the devil may mean it for evil, but God's gonna turn around and make it good anyway. That's why I don't have to worry about what men say about me or think about me so long as I'm following the voice of God because at the end of the day,

I want to be taken care of by my God, whether I'm taken care of by men or not. Amen. He's my daddy. He's my provider. He's my protector. He's my voice. Sorry to offend someone, but he's my voice. Amen. And pardon me if I preach what I hear him say. Argue with me what I hear him say don't suit your fancy. But I ain't got no other choice. I fell in love with him. He's been too good to me and I owe my all to him and he's my master and he's my Lord. Would you seriously ask me to compromise my walk

with the Holy God to suit your fancy? God forbid that any preacher on the planet preach what others want him to say just so that he can stay in their good graces. We've got to preach the unadulterated, infallible, inerrant word of God. And we've got to do it with the grace that the Holy Spirit enables us to preach it with. Question, how many prodigal sons have left the family

or maybe even left the church due to either real or perceived heart shifts indicated by repetitive actions and attitudes that eventually came to surface. This is awfully convicting. We all know that there were times that we could have responded better or not responded at all. Sometimes we feel like we just have to say it. I'm trying. I really am. I'm trying to let the Lord fight my battles. I'm really trying. Sometimes I speak before I think and I'm sorry for that. You pray for me. You pray for me. I'll pray for you. That we can all get better at influence. Better at both being an influence and better at processing those influences that are in our lives, whether positive or negative. I'm ringing this to a close. Let's hang with it another minute. heart shifts. My wife and I have prayed and sacrificed. We've not done everything right. We've made many mistakes along the way. But we've done our best that when our children are of age, that we wouldn't be surprised about heart shifts that happened ten years together. We knew nothing about it, but they were willing to believe. And I'm honored and blessed that though essentially three of them are at the age where they can start doing their own thing, they still want to serve God with their daddy and their mama. As far as I know, there's not been another place they'd rather be at on the weekend.

And I contribute that largely to being, I'm fixing to help you now, approachable. Approachable. Can your kids come to you and fess up and not get a explosive reaction? or are we going to blow up and just further push them in the mud that just admitted they stepped in? Be approachable. What you should have done is hug them instead of rebuking them. So you can you can rebuke and love. You can say well you know I'm glad that you realized that you were wrong but let me tell you first and foremost nothing you will ever do will change my love for you. Be approachable. Be accessible. Be available. But most importantly, be affectionate. Don't be so hardcore and grinding. They feel like they should, they can talk

to anybody but their mom or their daddy. Church leaders, we've got to do the same for our church. We can't give such a pious appearance of holiness and spiritual superiority that the church will ever confide in us for direction or advice. We need to walk among the humble and the loaded because we ourselves are humble and loaded. We're no better than anyone else. We're and call it to a different position instead of responsibilities. If your heart shifts to a different church, I it's not because of anything stupid I said or did, but it's because the Holy Ghost led you. Amen. You're not gonna please everybody. I'm gonna give you some trying. But the best way to avoid that is just to get the heart of God on it.

He knows who said what, he knows what their motives were, he knows what they meant versus what they said. And if you'll talk to God, God will advise you on how to move forward from where you're at without creating an unnecessary catastrophe out of it. Laman lost it all because he wanted to control it all. Many parents lose their kids because they're rather than being graceful and loving, they're manipulative, controlling, and demeaning. How many prodigals have left the family because of it? How many prodigals have allowed the devil to give them a false narrative, only for them to leave wrongly and come back empty -handed? It's not always our fault. I've learned, men shall be men outside of God's able. You can raise them right, you can raise them with the right attitude, but if they don't choose to make your God their God, they can still go astray. It's not always your fault, mama. And I might be preaching to somebody right now that's trying to wear the guilt of a wavering child that you did everything you knew to do. Quit wearing that guilt, give it to God. They're responsible for what they even heard. Are you hearing me? If you did something wrong, apologize to them. Go to them and admit it.

That goes a long way for healing. If we just drop our pride and swallow our pride and just realize, you know what, it's time that we face the issues. I didn't always handle myself right. I'm going to try to do better. If you'll forgive me, let's start a new page in our life. This will help a lot of families, amen. I'm talking about heart shifts. We want our heart shifts to move towards God, not away from him. Towards commitment to his call and his church, not away from it. Ultimately God can become the keeper and preserver of our heart when we pray like Psalm chapter 51 and verse 10, and create in me a clean heart, oh God, and renew a right spirit within me. Help us, Jesus. Well, the Bible instructs us in Proverbs 4 .23, keep thy heart, or guard and protect thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life. And I'm afraid that we've dropped the ball in this area. too many times, and we'll pay the direct consequences for it.

Here's a chair that waits for you and a friend who understands everything you're going through. But she keeps standing at a distance, in the shadow of your shame. But there's a light of hope that's shining, won't you come and take your place? There's nothing he ain't seen before For all your sin, all your sorrow, and your There's a savior and he calls, bringing it all to the table. I can't see the weight you carry and the fears that haunt your heart. For all your troubles, all your forgiven, you're accepted as you are. Bring it all to the table. There's nothing he ain't seen before. For all your trials, all your worries, and your burdens There's a Savior at your calls to bring it all to the table Come on in, take your place, there's no one who's turned away All you sinners and all you saints Come right in and find your grace Come on in and take your place There's no one who's turned away All you sinners and all you saints Come right in and find your grace Thank you for watching.