Good Medicine

We began a series last week called Fresh Air. Fresh Air. And the idea of this series comes from a scripture, a theme verse, Deuteronomy 30, 19. This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I set before you a choice, life or death, blessings or curses.

And he ends by saying, now choose life. So last week we talked about a choice. And through this series is based on a book, a great book by Chris Hodges called Fresh Air. You can actually purchase that book at Amazon in any book location and read through it. And I'm taking principles out of this book and we're narrowing it down to four principles that we're going to be speaking about.

Last week we talked about this choice that we have to make. The choice of death or the choice of life. God laid out two trees for us all the way back in Genesis. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil where we abide by rules and abide by, you know, what we think is good, right, and wrong, which builds our stairway to heaven, right? Or we can live in what God intended us to live, the tree of life.

He gives us a choice, a life of freedom in him, freedom to live in Jesus, a freedom to no longer hold on to that past or that whatever you've gone through, that right or wrong that has been defining who you are and where you're going. He gave us that. So you can either have life, fresh air, or you can have death, the doldrums. The doldrums, a place where we feel like we're stuck. And we learned that the best way to do that, first of all, is to fall in love with Jesus, to give your life to Jesus, to give him an opportunity to have a relationship with you.

So that was our principle number one. Today, I want to talk about attitudes. Attitudes. And we see in Scripture here these end-time attitudes. And if you're following your notes, we've got you some note cards in there.

We can fill in the blanks and follow along, keep this for further study. But we are living in a time where attitudes are probably at their worst. Just one of the signs of the end times, in fact, it talks about attitudes. And it doesn't really go into like earthquakes and tornadoes and all the stuff that's happening naturally. What they deal with in Scripture mostly is the attitudes of people.

And some people ask me, do I believe that we're in the end times? You know, I don't know. I don't know per se, because not even the Son of God even said in His humanity, He knew when the Father would come back. But there's a lot of suggestions that we're pretty close to it. And we always want to live with this expectation every day of Christ's return.

And he talks about this in Scripture. 2 Timothy, Paul writes about the end times. And it's not the aligning of the stars, as we learned this past week. Many people followed and ended up being disappointed that the rapture didn't take place or the end times didn't come, maybe. But he talks about these terrible times in 2 Timothy 3, 1 through 3.

He says, but mark this, there will be terrible times. That word terrible is the same word he uses for the demoniac in Matthew, which means demonic times. There will be demonic times in the last days. And he goes on to talk about people's attitude. People will be lovers of themselves.

Yeah, I believe that's happening. People really love themselves. They're lovers of money. That's true. It's all about money.

It's all about the buck. They're boastful. They're, yep, they're proud. They're abusive. They're disobedient to their parents.

And these last four things is really what I want to focus on. People are ungrateful, unholy, without love, and unforgiving. And before I give you some solutions about attitudes, how we are to live out good attitudes and have the best attitude that God expects us to have, to live and have a breath of fresh air in our attitude, which changes everything. We need to kind of approach some of these things that we're dealing with today. And these four uns, if you want to call them that, the first one is, we are, if you want to jot this in your notes, we are ungrateful.

People are ungrateful. We see that today. People in general are ungrateful. And we don't see what we have because we're focused on what we don't have, right? We're so focused on what can I get, the greed, you know, of life.

I got to have this. I got to have that. And then we don't even know where we are, what we have. A fine example of people wanting more and wanting more is technology, right? The iPhone 8 comes out this week.

George already has his. He's out for a few weeks actually learning about the iPhone 8 so he could sell it. And guess what? People will be standing in line for hours to be one of the first ones to get their iPhone 8. And guess what?

The iPhone 7S is a piece of junk. And as they're checking their iPhone 7S and all the features, they're waiting for that iPhone 8. And then when the next one comes out, you know, it goes on and on and on. And it's like that with everything, with these TVs that come out today. You know, they have a TV coming out every month and it's always a little better, always more pixels, a little more curvier, the Extreme HD, XDT, C2, whatever they call it.

We got so many different types of TVs. In fact, we cracked our TV this morning. We got to go out and buy us a TV. Maybe we'll get a better one. You know, we'll get a better one because they have so many different TVs now.

And as soon as you buy a TV, you're like, darn, they came out with that 3D Ultra HD deal, you know, and now I got to, I want to go back and get that one. Can I just give this one away and go get that one? And we're always striving for. We have such convenience in life. We can shop at home.

We can do it online. We put in an order at Walmart yesterday. Did you know they have a Walmart service now where you can go online and shop online and put all your stuff in the shopping cart. You can pay online and they give you a time to go pick up your groceries. This is cool.

You can go pick up your groceries. You don't even have to get out of the car if you don't want to. And not only that, they have an app. And you can hit the app as soon as you leave the house and they know when you're going to be there. So I'm pulling up in the parking lot yesterday.

I had my app on and the GPS is there and I pull in and I had to wait 10 minutes. And I'm angry. And then I had to step back and think about what I was preaching today and say, look, I don't have to go in the wall. Walmart. I don't have to shop for two hours for all this stuff.

This person has already done it for me. Because we are ungrateful. We have to have the bigger home, you know. We have to have the bigger house. I was talking to a couple not too long ago.

They have one kid and they have four bedrooms, but we have to have a bigger house. I said, why? I don't know. We just want something bigger. You know, is there a need?

No, not really. We just want something more. We want something bigger, okay? We just don't think about what we have because we're always aiming for what we want. And this can kill us.

This can stifle the fresh air we have that we can gain in life. I was talking to somebody the other day. They said, hey, I want to, you know, live near the ocean. That's great. But I got to have a pool too.

And I'm like, you got the ocean? Why do you need a pool, you know? No, I want both, you know. It's like we just want and want and want. And there's nothing wrong with wanting things.

I'm not saying that. This isn't a message beating your prosperity, right? I mean, God wants to bless you. I believe that when we have the opportunity, we could do that. But we just focus on everything that we want.

We forget about what we have and we become ungrateful. And there's a book called The Progress Paradox. It's a leadership book. The Progress Paradox. And it says in this book, the better off we are, the more miserable we are.

So the more we have, we actually become more miserable because we're just, we've got, we want, we got all these choices. And they actually have this thing called choice anxiety. Choice anxiety. And many of us are dealing with choice anxiety because we have so many choices. Think about it.

You're driving down the road. I want to eat. Husbands and wives, how long does it take you to figure out what you want to eat, right? I know for me and for Miranda and I, it's ridiculous, you know. We're like, I want to eat here.

I don't really want to eat there. Well, you know, whatever you want. Okay, we'll go here. No. And you got, you know, all these.

You got, you know, you want to go shopping. You got Walmart, you know. And then you got Target, you know, Target, some people call it, right? And then you have all the in-betweens and you're trying to figure out where to go. And it can make you very anxious because we have so much.

My mom used to say this when we would complain about what we had or what we were eating or what we wanted. She'd always throw this out. And I'm sure many of your mothers and fathers did the same thing. Kids in Africa are starving. Why are you complaining?

And I didn't really know what that, knew what that really meant until I actually went to a third world country and witnessed it myself. And I'm like, wow, people really don't have a lot. Most of the world doesn't have a lot. They're starving. They have very little yet.

We are ungrateful. And in the last days, we see an attitude of ungratefulness. The second thing, if you want to jot this down, is people are unholy. And holiness isn't something that's very valued these days. In fact, we think it's a negative word.

And some of that's from our church traditions. Because we think that it's the way you look or the way you comb your hair or how you dress. And it's all about not having fun, you know. Because that's kind of what was preached to us when we were kids if you were raised in church, right? This kind of, we call that legalism where you have this set of rules in order to get holy enough to be close to God.

But that couldn't be further from the truth. The concept of holiness is not outward perfection as is communicated often or thought to be. But it's something inward. It actually means to be separated or to be different. And that's an inward thought.

That's an inward thing. Something has changed inside of us. Back in the Old Testament, the Israelites were called separated, holy people. They were a people that were distinct. God chose those people to separate them from the rest of the world to show his glory.

And to prove that his, to show his love and prove his love to the world through a relational connection with a people group. And when we look at holiness, it's not something that's meant to kill our joy, to make us look a certain way or act a certain way. But it's about a relational value that God wants us to have because he wants the best for us. And he wants to be close to us so we perfect holiness so that we can grow closer to him. It's a relational inward action.

It's not outward, it's inward. Holiness is an inward process of growing closer and more like Christ. And when we allow compromise in our life and we allow sin in our life, it kills that. And it only destroys us, it destroys us inwardly. And it affects us outwardly.

And we are tortured mentally. We're robbed of our joy. And we carry around guilt and shame of the things that only we know about. And it depletes our joy when we compromise and we get involved in sin. It's an attitude that destroys.

But the good news is this, guys. If you're in sin or you've been in sin, Jesus can fix all of that. He doesn't care where you've been. He doesn't even care where you were thinking of going. He just wants you now.

And by the power of the Holy Spirit, that everything that has been compromised in your life through sin can be cleaned, restored, refreshed. He can even cleanse your consciousness. And that guilt and shame can be gone today. You can start fresh. You can gain a breath of fresh air today.

But people in our day are unholy. Thirdly, If you want to jot this down, people are unloving. People are unloving. There's no concept for others. People are selfish.

They think, well, you know, somebody's got an issue. Somebody's got a problem. Somebody needs help. That's their problem. I'm doing this for me.

I had somebody tell me one time we were talking about, you know, feeding hungry people in other parts of the world. And they're like, well, that's not my problem. That's their problem because I was born here and they were born there. We're selfish people. And many don't know, don't even know their next door neighbor.

How many of you have neighbors around you you've never even seen before because we're so segregated. We just go in our homes. It's about us. Let's not congregate. Let's not talk.

And there's a tremendous disregard for relationships, for life, for helping others. The unborn, sex trafficking. The closer we get to the Lord's return, it seems like the more unloving people get. And in the last days, we would be no longer moved to love one another. We don't love one another.

The attitude of unloving, unloving people. But the truth is, God is love. In the Greek, it's not the type of love that God is. It's not a feeling. It's not a romantic feeling.

It's not a friendship kind of love. All those are nice loves. The love that God has for us is agape love. It's a complete, unselfish love that desires no return for the love he gives you. It's intentionally choosing to do something caring and helpful regardless of the cost.

Regardless of the consequences to oneself. That's the type of love that God gives us. He just wants you where you are. And we, as believers, as followers of Christ, should have that same type of love. We should be loving people.

The sign of the end times is that people are unloving. And then fourth, people are unforgiving. Forgiveness is probably the most dangerous attitude of all. Because we carry around bitterness. We carry around hurt.

When we have something in us, we shut off. And we allow that to grow. And I've heard stories about people not going home to their families for Christmas because people in their families were fussing and friends. It even happens with our church. People get upset with each other rather than dealing with it.

We hold on to unforgiveness. And with unbelievers, this should not even be a question. Forgiveness should not even be a question in our minds and our thoughts. We should be forgiving people. It's laying claim to the grace God has given us.

He's forgiven us of everything, regardless of where we've been and where we've gone. And as Miranda said earlier, even when we're unfaithful, He is faithful to us. He is a forgiving God. But many are unwilling to release what has been wronged in them to someone else. We have people that are unforgiving.

And the truth is, it's an easy solution. Just forgive. Just forgive and be done with it. Forgiveness is not a two-way street. It's one way.

You can forgive. Reconciliation, yeah, that's a two-way street. But forgiveness is a one-way street. And you can make the choice to forgive. Just forgive.

Just release it. Don't cast blame. Don't discuss it further or anything. Just say, I forgive you. We've got to be forgiving people.

Because your problem is not people. It's Satan. Your problem is not people. It's the enemy. Your problem is not people.

It's a spiritual thing. You need to keep that in your mind. Anytime you have an issue with somebody and you have unforgiveness in your heart. It's not that person. It's a greater enemy.

It's a greater problem that we need to make a choice today. Life or death. Unforgiveness or forgiveness. And these things we talk about today are killers. Killers.

They kill us when it comes to living life to the full. As God calls us to. John 10, 10. The thief comes to steal and kill and destroy. But I have come that you may have life and you may have it to the full.

See, that's God's point. That's Jesus' purpose. He doesn't come to kill. He doesn't come to steal. He doesn't come to destroy.

He comes to give you life. And he's asking you to make a choice today. The tree of the knowledge of good and evil are the tree of life. Ungrateful, unholy, unloving, unforgiving. All these areas can steal the enjoyment we have in life.

But God wants so much more. So we're talking about today, the title of our message is Good Medicine. And here, as we go through the second half of this talk, I want to give you some points, some things to help your attitude. Because it's easy. We do have a choice when it comes to attitude.

And the choices that you make will change everything. It'll change the people around you. It'll change the environment you're in. You need a breath of fresh air. All of us need a breath of fresh air.

Amen? Do you need a breath of fresh air? Let's make a choice that our attitudes are actually going to breathe air into the atmosphere. Amen? Can we believe that today?

So we're calling it good medicine. While some of you are really sick. You're in the doldrums. And you're stuck. And you're in a place.

And you're depressed. And you're having a tough time. And you're trying to figure out life. But today, I want to share Proverbs 17, 22 with you. A cheerful heart is good medicine.

A cheerful heart is good medicine. Nehemiah 8, 10 says, The joy of the Lord is your strength. And my goal is for you to experience fresh air. Not only will it affect you. It will affect the people around you.

It will affect the environment. It will affect everything that goes on. Because it's not. It's simply put. I've heard it said like this.

It's attitude determines altitude. Attitude determines altitude. Because if we have the right attitude. Then the altitude of the room. The altitude of the air.

Everything will change. And we can make a difference that way. If we come in. If we all choose to have a good attitude. Attitude.

So first of all. If you want to write this down. Number one. You need to make a choice. And we can make a change.

Just say. You need to make a choice every day that I am going to have the right attitude. You have to choose it. But here's the catch. Nothing in you wants to make that choice to have the right attitude, okay?

Because you want to have the wrong attitude. You want to get what's yours. You want to, I mean, it's a battle within us. And we base our attitude on our feelings. But you can't trust your feelings.

You have to make a choice regardless of your feelings. And we think that our attitude will just fix itself, right? I mean, if we have an attitude, don't leave me alone. Don't worry about it. It's just going to fix itself.

I don't have to make a choice. It's just going to fix itself. But for most of us, our attitudes will not take care of itself. In fact, life is 10% about what happens and 90% how we react to it. Life is 10% of what happens, the things that come into life, and how we respond to it really makes the difference.

And some think, well, Pastor, it's just out of my hands. I can't, you know, I can't help it. But that's not the truth. You can actually make a choice. You can make a choice how you react to certain situations.

And the best way to start each day off is just wake up in the morning and decide. Decide. You've got to decide every day. I heard the story of a lady that was being moved into a nursing home. She'd lived independently her entire life.

And her child asked her, are you happy with this? You know, this room, you know, and everything in the nursing home. She said this, and you've got to get this. Happiness is something you decide on ahead of time. Whether I like my room or not doesn't depend on how my furniture is arranged.

It's how I arrange my mind. It's how we arrange our mind. If our attitude is based on our circumstances and what we have and what we don't have and the ungratefulness of everything that we talked about earlier, then we're never going to be happy. We're never going to experience the breath of fresh air that God wants us. But if we can arrange our minds, if we can arrange our thoughts, if we can decide ahead of time, I'm going to arrange my mind to do this.

And here's how you do that. You've got to pray first. First, every day, you need to wake up and you need to look at God and you say, look, God, I just woke up from my sleep. I haven't gossiped today. I haven't sinned today.

I haven't spent too much money today. I haven't been a glutton today, right? Right? I haven't done anything today, Lord. So I decide right here that I am going to make a choice and I'm going to live it.

You've got to decide every day. I'm going to have the right attitude. A great prayer that you can pray here is Psalm 1914. May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight. Oh, Lord, my rock and my redeemer.

Let everything I say and let everything that I think about be pleasing to you, Lord. Let everything I say, let everything I think be pleasing to you, Lord. Let everything I say, let everything I think today, throughout this day, I'm choosing now. Let it be pleasing to you, God. Secondly, we need to develop a high appreciation for life.

Develop a high appreciation for life. Because life, you know, me and David were talking a little bit this morning about life. Right, brother? And he's like, you know, life is just, you know, going to be hard at times, right? I mean, we have to develop a high appreciation for life, the reaction to what's going on in life.

We need to know that people who have a high appreciation for life, they know that God is involved. He's working it out for his good. That's really what it comes down to. So nothing gets them down no matter what. They learn to laugh, they learn to love, they learn to just make fun of the situations they're in.

And we need that attitude. We need to have a high appreciation. Oh, whoops, you know, this happened, that happened. Oh, it's not the end of the world. Just kind of laugh about it.

In most cases, we get through it, right? We need to have a high appreciation for life. Love people. Laugh about those situations. Live a little bit.

Enjoy life. Go to Lucky Oyster every night of the week and enjoy yourself, you know? You're on a track hoe all day. Why not, right? Right, brother?

Paul, I love how Paul says it in 2 Corinthians 6, 10. Sorrowful, yet always rejoicing. Poor, yet making many rich. Having nothing, yet possessing everything. That's how we need to think.

I remember my granny. She didn't have much in life, but she was always a wonderful, happy woman. And it didn't take much to please her. You could buy her some bedroom shoes and she would think that she won the lottery, you know? She just had such a high appreciation for life.

And you'd ask her and she'd save everything, you know? You'd buy, like, those cookies in a tin can. Oh, this is... She wouldn't even be concerned about the cookies. It was about the can, you know?

Oh, this is such a cute little can. It's so... And she just put it up on her. And Leon gave me that and she could always remember, you know, anything that we got her, she just had a high appreciation for life. She loved life and she lived through some hard times.

She went through the Great Depression. Her father owned a lot of land, lost it all. Just went through some tough times. But the thing about that generation that I learned and I took in is that, you know, the stuff wasn't there. The stuff wasn't in the way.

The stuff was okay. They enjoyed having stuff. But that wasn't what really gave them breath and gave them life. It was the joy and the appreciation at that moment for everything that was going on. Even in the midst of the hurt and the heartache and the suffering.

Even in the end of her life. You know, just that joy, that peace that she had. Because she had a high appreciation for life first. Thessalonians 5.18 says this, Give thanks in all circumstances.

For this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. So, how do we do that? If it's raining, be grateful. If it's sunny, be grateful. If a trial, be grateful.

If you're blessed, be grateful. In every situation, just be grateful. It's a choice we make. The third point is, find the positive in everything. Always look for a positive.

Find the positive in everything. Because there is something positive in everything. And I would even suggest starting with people. Right? Because people can irritate us, right?

People can either irritate you, or they can entertain you. I've just questioned that in everything. Maybe we can, there can be very good. Yeah. When weierra, it.

May we have cast it in and then we have to stop. And so, let's leave. So why not let them entertain you, you know? They can either be a problem to avoid, or a person you can love, you know? And people are going to be your most difficult circumstances when it comes to thinking positive about things, you know?

The greatest splits, the greatest heartaches, there's nothing worse than a broken heart, because people get their feelings hurt, they, you know, things happen in relationships, broken marriages, all kinds of things. But, you know, when we're dealing with people, learn to love people. Don't be irritated with people. Don't be annoyed with people. Love people.

And we have to retrain our minds to think of such things in general. Not just people, but just circumstances in general. How we react means everything. How we think about these things. Paul writes in Philippians 4-8, he says, Finally, brothers, 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 of such things.

Think of those things. Retrain your thought process when bad circumstances come your way. Rethink. Reprocess. Think differently.

It's a choice we make. And the fourth thing is, and this is the most important. You can do all three of these other things, but really what it comes down to, it's all laid in this one point. Turn everything over to God. Turn it all over to God.

The fact is, trouble is going to come your way. Now listen, trouble is always going to be there. Every day, you'll have a reason to have a bad attitude. Every day, the mistake, you'll have that choice, but the mistake isn't having a problem. It's what you do at that point on with the problem.

Because the problem isn't a mistake, it's how you react to those mistakes. And here's the secret. One of the reasons we're not happy, you know one of the reasons we're not happy is that you're trying to handle it all yourself. You're trying to figure it out all yourself. You're not giving it to God, you're doing it yourself.

For me, that's one of the greatest challenges in my life is that I don't allow God to have it, I try to handle it myself. And I don't know if any men relate in here, we are people that like to try to figure out things ourself. But instead, give it over to God. The greatest point of anxiety comes from when we fail to give it over to God, put it over in His hands. Whatever trouble, whatever issue, whatever frustration, whatever it is, give it to God.

In fact, He says it Himself, do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your request to God. He wants to hear your request. He wants to know your request. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your heart and your mind in Christ. It will guard your heart and it will guard your thoughts in Christ.

Turn it over to God. And some of you need that right now. And you'll have that opportunity at the end of service just to release it over to God. But 1 Peter 5, 7 says, cast all your anxiety on Him because He cares for you. He wants you to cast it on Him.

Cast it on Him. So what I want to... So all of this, you know, coming together to this one point in Fresh Air Principle number 2, and it comes from the scripture of Philippians 2, 5, and 11. It says your attitude, talking about that attitude again, should be the same as that of Jesus Christ, who being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God. Let me just stop there.

He was God. God. But He laid aside His God manness and became a man so that we could share the same attitude He had. A humble attitude. He did not consider equality with God something to grasp, but made Himself nothing.

He laid it all down. He made it nothing, taking the very nature of a servant. Man, He was God, but He became a servant, being made in human likeness and being found in the appearance as a man. He humbled Himself and became obedient to death. Even death on the cross.

Even death on the cross. Therefore, God exalted Him to the highest place and gave Him the name that is above every name. That at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth. And every tongue confess that Lord, that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father. So, what is our principle today?

Today, just as Jesus, the attitude Jesus has, we are to have a Christ-like attitude. Choose a Christ-like attitude. It's a choice. It's a choice. Choose life or choose death.

Choose life or choose death. In conclusion, I think many of you here are like, I didn't realize that I had a choice. I didn't know that this situation I'm in or whatever I'm going through, I didn't realize that this was something that I actually could control. That I could actually make a choice in. That I could actually be a part of, you know, I could be a part of the solution.

But I think the greatest choice that we can make today is to have a relationship with Jesus. We need to go back to principle one. A relationship with Jesus. And with all heads bowed and all eyes closed, I just want to pray over everybody here. And I want to start by just asking this question.

I want to ask this question. I want to ask this one question. How many of you are going through some tough times and your attitude is just hard to deal with? Is there anybody here? I see some hands.

Just be honest today. Because I want to pray. I want to pray with you. I want you to ask God. I just want to ask God today that they would just touch you.

Lord, with all those hands raised, God, I pray that you would give us the strength to make the right choices. Khun, Khured Pyhidas If e'r the Son Den! So I dare give us those hands. One, I see them! Thank you.

To make the right decisions. Lord, you have offered us the tree of life. And you say, choose life. Choose life. It's a choice.

Lord, give us, I want to pray over those specific situations that are causing the attitudes, are causing the wrongs, causing the hurts. Lord Jesus, that we would look to these principles today, Lord, and we would begin to change our attitudes so that we can more see you and we can experience that breath that we are missing, God. A breath of fresh air. For some people here today, maybe that breath of fresh air starts with a relationship with you. So if there's anybody here today, and maybe this is the moment, this is the time, this is the place where God has, this is the divine moment where you feel that something was said in the message that says, you know, maybe this is the time that I need to surrender my life to Christ.

That I need a relationship with Him. It's no longer about the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It's about the life that I give, the freedom I give. If that's you today, I want you to pray this prayer with me. And dear Jesus, I believe that you are the Son of God and that you died on the cross for my sin.

Today, I give my life over to you. I changed from the inside out. I'm making a decision for you. I'm going to walk with you. Holy Spirit, come inside of me.

Come inside of me and change me. Make me different. If you prayed that prayer, if you would just gently lift your hands. I just want to know who you are. I just pray for you this week.

Amen. Anyone else? Anyone else? Lord Jesus, we just thank you for the gift of salvation. The most precious gift we can have when you gave it all on the cross, Lord.

So we just celebrate you today, God. We celebrate salvation. We celebrate everything that you have given us in your word, Lord. As we go out today, in the name of Jesus, we thank you, God, for just everything that we can possess in you. Help us to have the right attitudes throughout our week and our days so that we just rejoice in the glory of Jesus Christ.