“Attitude Effects Everyone”

07/01/2001 

To his use and we are standing on Holy Ground because we are separated out for his use. For his benefit and so this morning as we pray we know that we are standing on Holy Ground because we have declared it so for God’s sake. Father, as we stand on Holy Ground we thank you that we are worthy of your prayer You are worthy of our praise and worthy of our adoration. We are worthy of everything that we are and have because you created us. You bought us with your son Jesus Christ and his death on the cross. We thank you that you are a God who loves us so much. You demonstrated you love for us even though we are sinners. Christ so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that we should not perish but have everlasting life. Father, you are a God who loves us so deeply that you do such things for us that we can not even imagine. Father help us to return that love by giving you ourselves. You said that we should glorify God in our body because we have been bought with a price. We do not belong ourselves anymore, we belong to you. So Father, help us to honor you with everything we are and have and everything we do in Jesus name. Amen.

The article that came in the Review just yesterday at least to my house. The portion that I thought was very interesting was George Washington wrote a number of letters in fact it was a manuscript that he wrote called “The Daily Sacrifice” containing George Washington’s handwritten prayers. The records of his personal communication with God revealed the depth of his devotion in his youth. He was approximately twenty years old at the time he recorded these prayers. Consider the following: “ Increase my faith in the sweet promises of the gospel, give me repentance from dead works, pardon my wanderings and direct my thoughts unto Thyself, the God of my salvation. Make me always watchful of my heart, that neither the terrors of conscience, the loathing of holy duties, the love of sin or unwillingness to depart this life may cast me into a spiritual slumber”. Very interesting, I thought, as we contemplate our independence and of course I am going to read a passage from another document that came about, was actually signed on this day says; When from the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by there Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among Men, deriving there just powers with the consent of the governed. That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or abolish it, and institute a new Government, laying its foundations on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect there Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more desposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is there right, it is there duty, to throw off such Government and to provide new guards for there future security. Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies and such is now the necessity such constrains them to alter their Former Systems of Government. The history of the present king of Great Britain, George III, is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations all having a direct object of the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this let these facts be submitted to a candid world. I am not going to read all those facts that they recounted but they talk about all the different things that the charges in a sense against the government of King George. The last paragraph say these, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States, they are obsolved from all allegiance to British crown and that all political connections between them and the state of Great Britain is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent states they should have full power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and do all other action things which independent states may have right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance upon the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor.

Then of course this shows the signers of the Declaration of Independence. That is just a portion of what we are celebrating on the 4th of July, coming up here in the next few weeks even though it is hopefully know as the 4th of July it is actually Independence Day. The day that this was signed and declared. Many of us have not read the whole thing but don’t understand what was being said in it we just know the day and we know it is a day to go fishing, swimming, and be with family and yet there are great reason behind the celebration of Independence Day. And if you have read the history of all those who at the end who have said that they will pledge there lives and there fortunes and there sacred honor to each other. Most of them died poor, many of them died in battle and lost there homes completely and so we know this was a great price. Of course we are grateful for the fact that we can sing wonderful songs and enjoy each others company here on a day this and in such a free state. We know in many parts of the world are under siege, Christians are, and they can not do such things as we. So we do appreciate and honor those who wrote and established the Declaration and the freedom that came following. There is a greater freedom, of course, that we appreciate and that is the freedom of Christ that God paid by the sacrifice of his son, that provides real freedom for us throughout eternity. Which is ever greater freedom then we enjoy here on this earth. 

How many of you have had to deal with a troublesome issue of some sort this week? Not including kids. There are troublesome issues anyway. That is what they were given to us for anyway. To teach us and for us to teach them. I don’t have any doubt that at some point in this week you have had something that has caused you some real thought and within the last year for certain. Within the last few months, I am sure, and within the last week or so. As Scott was telling this week not only getting ready for performance of the concert the other night but Doug’s Mom passing away and going through all that and so there are certain weeks like that and we know that they tend to come in multiples don’t they. I know I see Larry Wyman, the funeral director down here at Clare, once in awhile and if I haven’t seen him in a long time and I get a call it is almost inevitable that I will have at least two or three more funerals before to long. So for families sake I don’t like him calling even though I enjoy his company. but I know there seems to be a, you probably have heard the old adage that trouble always comes in threes and things. You know something happens you can wait for the next shoe to fall and that is not always the case but it just seems to be true.

One of the things that were best known for in our life is our attitude of life, about life, about people, about things, about God, himself, we talked about that last week. Our attitude is one of those things that we kind of wear on our sleeve. It is the kind of thing that we don’t see so much ourselves but everybody else sees us. In fact, as I talk to many families at funeral homes and when I have been talking to them about loved ones. The last three funerals I have had were people that I didn’t know and so when I set down with the family I ask them what kind of person this person was who passed away. How will they be known? And it is almost always the case that they are known by what kind of attitude they had. They loved people, they liked people, they did always reflect the kind of person they were. By the time I get done talking with the family, I have a fairly clear picture of what kind of attitude that person had when they faced life. Be become known by our attitude, by how we look at things. What I want to look at today is the fact that we don’t have control over allot of things in life. In fact turn to Isaiah, if you would, Isaiah, Chapter 45. Some people compare the book of Isaiah to the whole Bible, The whole Bible has 66 books in it and is divided into the 39 Old Testament and 27 New testament books and many have looked at Isaiah and said the first 39 chapters look similarly to what the Old testament does and the second 27 books look very similar to what the New testament were talking about grace and love of God. And so many have compared the whole book of Isaiah with the Old and New Testaments. In Isaiah Chapter 45 verse 9, tells us an interesting truth, one that we kind of forget I think. Is the world the clay and were not the maker, not the potter. It says in verse 9. “Woe to the one who quarrels with his maker and earthenware vessels among the vessels of earth. Will the clay say to the potter, “What are you doing?” Or the thing you are making say, “You have no hands.” Woe to him who says to the Father, “What have you begotten?” Or to a women to “What are you giving birth?” Thus says the Lord the Holy one of Israel and its Maker: Ask me about the things to come concerning my sons and you shall commit to me the work of my hands. It is I who made the earth and created man upon it. I stretched out the heavens with my hands and I ordained other hosts and I will arise in righteousness and I will make all his ways smooth.” So he says there is a problem among men that we tend to think that we control things. We tend to think that we are in charge. God says remember you are the clay, I am the potter. Many times the things in life that happen to us we don’t understand because we are the clay and not the potter. And so there are troubles that come into our life, good things, bad things, either one that are in our life that are not of our doing but they effect us. Debts, lose of jobs, sickness, all kinds of things happen to us. We are the clay, not the potter. That things in our life happen to us often times. In fact, a lady told my family one time, “ Trouble is either coming or going in our life.” It is always one or the other. It is either on its way or it is just leaving. So a general term we may want to use for it is adversity. Adversity hits in all forms. Sometimes it is our fault, by the way. Sometimes our adversity is a consequence of our own sin. A consequence of our own decisions. If we have to pay off credit card debts, it is probably because we used the credit card. But sometimes people steal credit cards and they charge things for you. My daughter and her husband were doing some financial work a couple of months ago with a financial counselor trying to get everything squared away so they could invest for the future and this kind of stuff and this was Audrey and Adam out in Missouri, and they did a credit report to see were they stood and come to find out somebody had been using her husband, Adams, social security number and name to get cellphones and things like that. And they had two or three things on there credit report that they had nothing to do with. It wasn’t their fault at all and so they are having to get that cleared up. Well, some of those things we charge sometimes somebody else has charged to our account. Either way it is adverse, isn’t it? Sometimes we have to pay for things in life that somebody else caused. Somebody else runs into our car we are the ones who may have to pay for it. Sometimes we run into there car and we have to pay for it. My wife is up on a horseback ride, yet and I think she is coming home this week. In fact I am going to get her today so I know that she is coming back sometime.

Adversity is amazingly on the horseback ride, there is about 85 who ride the trails. Some of you sitting here had been on part of the trails already. Horses fall down they hurt things, they break things, they get hung up on thicket lines and cut themselves, they go lame, for one reason or another, horsepeople get bucked off . The first time I went up to visit Kate a couple of weeks ago, one lady had a black and blue mark from here all the way down her whole leg because the horse had gone over backwards on her and so she was hobbling around camp trying to keep it from setting up on her. Well, adversity hits. Sometimes a partridge flies up, a deer runs in front of you and the horse spooks and you are off on our head and nobody meant anything except for God in a sense. Adversity strikes. Sometimes you will find yourself sick and you didn’t plan on it. Sometimes you find yourself injured you didn’t count on it, we almost had prayer for Jodie Robison’s toe this morning. She stubbed her toe and not she has a sore toe. Now everybody knows, sorry about that. But if you see her you will see her limping anyway and you’ll say what happened and she will say I stubbed my toe. We do that, don’t we? One time my wife and I were playing with our cat when we were first married back when I liked cats and her name was Morris. The cat’s name was Morris. Actually my nephew called it Moff-a- getty, because he couldn’t speak very well. So Moff-a-getty loved to play. If you went like this and she was down there she would be up there and have your fingers before you could get it away. She just loved to attack. She always play claws out, Siamese tend to do that. So she would eye you and if you moved your eye she might come for your face. You kind of had to be a little careful with her. We had a scratching post so you would scratch like this and she would be one there. If you held your hand up this way she would be on the top jumping before you got it away. So we had kids over allot, sometimes high school kids and say hay Bill scratch the top of the post. And he would come away with a bloody stump you know and it was kind of fun for us. But I have no clue where I was going with that know. Thanks Allot. Oh I know what it was, I reached for the cat one time and with the edge of the footboard of our bed and the footboard caught my finger nail, oh does that hurt

I have all kinds of adversity in my life, right there he is, he is one of them. Sometimes it is your fault and sometimes you play with a cat. But you still come in with the same injury don’t ya. Adversity is a part of our life, sometimes it is our fault and sometimes it is inadvertent, sometimes somebody else’s fault but always adversity is part of the shaping that God uses as us being the clay and he the potter. Whether it is our fault or just an event of life that is inevitable, like death, sickness, those things that happen to us. Those are things we can not avoid they are inevitable. They are final but they all can be used by God to shape us. We are kind of like that diamond that comes out of the mines rough and ugly and everything but there is chipping that takes place and adversity helps to shape and reshape us into a person that God really can use and can be pleasing to him. Adversity is part of that process, part of life. Sometimes it is our fault, sometimes it is an event of life, sometimes it is God doing it to us or for us. 

Let me talk to you about a few purposes for adversity. I am not going to talk long on each one because you can read the passages because they are a clear as can be. You won’t have to question or dig to deeply to what they are. The First thing that adversity does is makes us call out to God. Makes us call out to God. The prayer chain is evidence of people needing to be able to call out to God. Many times the prayer chain has a response and somebody calls back and says I want you to know that the pray was answered. Most of the time, probably 90% of the time, people call and say here is a problem, here is something that has happened to somebody. An accident, an attack, an illness, a setback of some sort we cry out to God. That is not a bad thing. He says come unto me all you who are weary and heavy laden and I will give you rest. Cast your cares upon me for I care for you. So we are to do that but adversity first of all causes us to turn our eyes toward God. So we should not chaff under adversity because the first thing it does is to make us recognize that is still God. We are the clay, he is the potter. So we call out to the one who can change things. That is why he says don’t be anxious about things instead ask God. Let your request be know to God and he will give you peace beyond comprehension. So the first thing we do when adversity strikes is OK God I can’t do anything about it. I didn’t do anything about it., what is going on here? Well after that then he can teach us. He can do a number of different things.

Another things he does is use adversity to discipline us. Turn to Hebrews, Chapter 12, new testament, way in the back, Hebrew 12. Adversity reminds us that God loves us through discipline. Because adversity teaches us, shapes us, kind of keeps us from going the way we shouldn’t be going and so adversity corrects our walk. That is because God loves us. The whole purpose of discipline is to bring about proper behavior. That’s the way it is with our kids. When we discipline our children it is to train them to do what is right. That is what discipline means. Discipline means training. Discipline is not always punishment, it is training. So we train our children so that they will walk in a right manner. God disciplines us so we will walk in a right manner. Notice what he says, starting with verse 5, “And have you forgotten our exhortation which is addressed to our sons. My son do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord nor faint when you are being reproved by him. For those the Lord loves he disciplines, and discourages every Son whom he receives. For it is for discipline that you endure, God deals with you as his Son. For what Son is there whom his father does not discipline. But if you are without discipline of which we have all become partakers then you are illegitimate and not sons. Furthermore, we have earthly fathers to discipline us and we respected them so would we not much rather be subject to the father of spirits and live. For they disciplined us for a short time as seen best to them but he disciplines us for our good that we may share his holiness. All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful but sorrowful. Yet to those who have been trained by it after forward yields for peaceful fruit of righteousness.” So it says the reason for discipline is bring about the peaceful fruit of righteousness. We are at peace with God and righteousness is part of the fruit we bare. So when adversity strikes one of the first things we should do is when our focus is turned to God say OK God am I supposed to learn something here? Is there something in me that needs to be adjusted here? One way to put it is to say, Is this my fault? If a child is doing wrong and a parent catches them the child needs to know what it is that they were doing wrong. and so the parents responsibility is to say OK here is what right is, here is what you were doing and they are not the same. So you start doing right other wise I will bring heavier consequences on you the next time because you need to learn to do what is right. In 1Corinthians, Chapter 11, it says the same thing. It says when we receive communion, which we did last week, it says examine yourself before you receive communion so that you are not disciplined by God. So we can avoid much of God’s discipline if we discipline ourselves first. If a child does what is right first the parent doesn’t have to come in and do anything about it. If a student studies the material first and already knows the stuff the teacher doesn’t have to hard on them and go over, and over, and over it and given them bad grades to help them to learn better. To teach them that they are doing wrong. So there is the process that if we don’t do it first God doesn’t have to do it to us, the disciplinary aspect of it. So when he says there is some trouble here look to me and ask me is there something I need to learn first.

Another thing that adversity does, is help us to conquer our pride. One of the things that adversity tells us is that we are not in control. I think I talked to two guys this morning who have hay down in the field and rain came down on the hay. Nobody else happen to in the whole county. Or the counties around here. Allot of hay went down this last week in the sunshine and then last night the rain came down so some of it couldn’t be baled and it makes a little of a set back and makes schedules change and things like that. OK, The first things it does is tell us that we are not in charge. We are not in charge of the weather. If we thought we were, we found out again that we were not. Many of you came wearing jackets this morning. Woke up with the windows open and a cold breeze coming in. Oh Oh, I made a mistake here I didn’t realize this was going to happen. Who is in charge? We are not in charge. It helps us to remember that we have no reason to be proud in ourselves because we are not the one who is the potter, we are the clay. Things happen to the clay so therefore we look to the potter and say God you sure changed my plans. This thing that happened is something that I would not have foreseen, could not have foreseen so therefore I recognize your magnificence, your power and my inability, my weakness. That is why prayer is called beseeching. The word prayer means to beseech and it means to beg, it means to get on our knees because we have no ability to change things and ask the one who has the ability to change things would he please change things. That is what prayer is. So it conquers our pride, that is a very wise thing because pride is what gets us in trouble. It is our pride that gets us in trouble, it is our pride that says I want to do what I want to do. What I want to do is often not what God wants me to do so I get in trouble for it. The consequence falls upon me for my own sin. That is why God wants to defeat our pride. It says God resist the proud but give grace to the humble. Therefore resist Satan and he’ll flee from you. God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble. If we think we are in charge and he knows better then he is going to have to help to remember that. To help us to remember that we are not in charge. So adversity will come into our life with the purpose of helping us to know that we are not in charge when we thought we were. An awful lot of self made men in this world, I come across some really interesting men in my life, more than two, but especially some men stand out in my mind, I’m not going to name names, some life around here and some don’t. Some people call them self made men. They never need God, they never need anybody else they can do it on there own, they have made there millions they have made there place in life all on there own and you talk about spiritual things they don’t need those things because after all they have been in charge there whole life. The one gentlemen that I can think of, can’t even think now days. He has gotten to the age where his mind no longer works. Is he truly as self made man, is he the potter or is he the clay? He would have been wise, I believe, to do what Solomon said, remember your creator in the days of your youth before these days when you are scared of the dark and scared of the night when they come. We are not self made people. All of life helps to shape us into who we are. People need our thanks because they taught us, they trained us, God used people to shape us into who we are. We are not self made people. We are shaped, God would love to shape us even better, if we would let him. If all the adversities and disciplines of life would shape us into the person he could really approve. By the way there are four other ones and we have no time. So guess what we are going to talk about next week.. OK isn’t that adverse for you to have to listen to some more. But that is OK. Now this week when something really rotten happens to you say OK now what is God doing here? The first thing he is doing is turning your focus to him.. Say God what is it I need to know about this? 

Let’s pray

Father we thank you that you bring adversity into your lives, sometimes we bring it unto ourselves. You said if we suffer for righteousness sake that is great but if we suffer because it is our problem, big deal. Father, help us to know that consequences of our own sin are normal and right they do teach us not to sin again. But Father we know you said that if we would discipline ourselves to honor you, you would not have to discipline us from your perspective. So Father help us to take a good careful look at our own lives and place ourselves in line with your will so you don’t have to do it with adversity. Father we would love to live without adversity, if possible, and we can do much of that if we just discipline ourselves first. Father, we also know that adversity is just something that is going to happen to us and every year of life something is going to happen that causes pain and that pain should cause us to look to you because you said I can take your burdens, I can teach you, I can discipline you, I can help you come about the peaceful fruits of righteousness, I can be God, I can be Father if you will be the clay. Father first of all help us to know that we are the clay and not the potter. In Jesus Name, Amen.

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