Turning Home Into Something Better “Let’s Deal With Attitudes”
Glenville 11/4/12 Genesis 25:19-34 James 4:1-12
Is there anybody here who is a part of a family that has some kind of attitude problem? Is there anybody here who has been told by others, you need to change that attitude? Is there anybody here who has been tempted to change somebody’s else attitude through the use of force? As a kid I can remember my mother taking a switch off a tree to be used as an attitude adjuster prepared just for me. Did anybody else have attitude adjusters in your home? Okay.
We are beginning a new series today entitled “Turning Our Homes Into Something Better.” The three messages and Life Sharing Lessons will look at “Let’ Deal With Attitudes”, “Let’s Deal With Sharing The Load”, and “Let’s Deal With Encouragement”. Now before you say, “but I live alone, why do I need those topics” remember this. You may live alone, but you still have family members you deal with, and you’re going to be challenged to allow to God to change you to deal with them.
Today we are going to look at a biblical family of a husband, wife and set of twins. We think just because families are in the bible and have a relationship to God, everything works out perfectly for them. That simply is not the case. You would have a hard time finding a family in the bible that you would want to be just like them. People in the bible, are sinners with attitude problems just like us. God shows us He does not have to have perfect people to get His will done. There is hope for your family.
In our New Testament reading, the apostle James tells us that most of our attitude problems center around not getting our own way. There is something we want, we don’t get it, and we get bent out of shape. We show our displeasure by displaying an attitude toward others.
Now bad attitudes come in many forms. Some of them stink, some of them of rotten, some of them are cold, some of them are nasty, some of them humiliate, some of them cause us to walk around with a spiritual sense of superiority, and some of them are distant. One thing they all have in common, is that they work hand in hand with Satan. When we are in the midst of one of our attitudes, we are shutting out the Holy Spirit and keeping ourselves from having the mind of Christ.
We are told in Philippians 2:5, In your relationships with one another, have the same attitude of mind, Jesus had. Is there anybody here besides me who has failed this test on a regular basis at home or in your family? You may be saying, but Pastor Rick, you don’t know the people in my family, they just get on your nerves for no reason. Does God know those people? Did God know about them, before He put this in the bible? Is God giving you a “get out of attitude jail free card’ simply because you are in your family and not somebody else’s.
In our Old Testament text, we ran into the family of Isaac and Rebekah. Just to give you a little bible background. Abraham was a very important man in the bible in that God had made a promise to him, that the whole world was going to be blessed through one of his children. God told Abraham this even though Abraham was 75 and had no kids and his wife was 65. They thought it would be tough having a kid right then and there, but God had them wait another 25 years so that Abraham was 100 and Sarah was 90 when she got pregnant. The child of the promise was Isaac. Isaac was going to be the son, who would have a lot of children to bless the world.
Now Isaac had to have a special wife. She was to come from Abraham’s clan back in a country God had called Abraham to leave. Not only that, Abraham sent his top aid, to find a wife for his son Isaac. God supernaturally led this top aid to find Rebekkah and bring her back to Isaac. The moment they saw each other, it was like love at first sight and they dated for 10 minutes, and got married before the day was over. And they stayed married for the rest of their lives being faithful to each other.
Expectations ran very high for this couple and the many children they would have. Isaac was 40 when he got married. No doubt there had been plenty of ladies who would have loved to have married this son of one of the richest men in the county years earlier. But Isaac had waited for God to provide him with a wife. Rebekkah was very beautiful had saved herself and kept her virginity for her husband. No doubt Abraham shared with them the vision and promise God had given him about the role God had chosen for them to play in fulfilling the plans of God. Everybody is on board.
But then after five years of marriage, they still do not have any children. Can you imagine how Rebekkah is feeling? There is a pressure on her to keep the plan of God alive. Can you imagine, the pressure Isaac must be feeling from his father, who wants to see the next child of the promise. Isaac and Rebekkah both want a child but they aren’t having one. Do you think it caused tension and attitude problems in their marriage? Is he thinking, maybe she wasn’t the one God had chosen.
Is Rebekah beginning to doubti herself. Rebekkah’s last words she had heard from her family some six years ago when she left her country were “Our sister, may you increase to thousand upon thousands; may your offspring possess the cities of their enemies.” But for five years, she has not had any news about a child to write home about. Was she embarrassed or ashamed?
But maybe the problem was not Rebekkah, maybe it was Isaac. After all, he came from a family that only produced children when they got to be very old. Maybe Isaac didn’t have the sperm count he should have had. Their sex lives instead of it simply being a spontaneous act of love between a husband and a wife, it was turning into a tension builder of performance. Isaac and Rebekkah were both being called upon to display attitudes of acceptance, of forgiveness, of patience and forebearance with one another. Is that what God is asking of you at this time as some door does not seem to be opening fast enough or some door is closing in on you.
You see when we don’t get what we want, it’s easy to begin to attack each other and to try to find out who is at fault. Who should get the blame? But as Christians we have to recognize that God is sovereign, and our timing is not the same as God’s timing. We are tempted to rush along the process, and give ourselves far more headaches in life than we ever dream and many that God never intended for us to have. You see there are several futures ahead for each of us, and our lives are not fully predetermined, because God says, “if you do this, then I will do that?” We never know what we are giving up, when we take matters into our hands to make something happen in order to get what we want.
Is there anybody here besides me that is thankful that God blocked some of the schemes we have devised in our minds and our hearts. Sometimes I have been kept from sin not because of my righteousness, but because God foiled my plans. I thank God for being gracious and merciful enough to rescue me, when I’ve tried to mess up myself.
For Isaac and Rebekah, the five years of waiting, turned into 10 years, which turned into 15, which turned into 20. Can you wait on God for 20 years without getting an attitude problem with God? I know I have been pretty frustrated with God and it has led me to having an attitude with God, that led to sinful behavior on my part through having a negative attitude toward others.
We read a verse in the bible, and name it and claim it, without recognizing the rest of the verses that go with it. In chapter 25:20 it tells us that Isaac was 40 when he married Rebekah. In verse 21 it tells us that Isaac prayed for his wife because she was childless and the Lord answered his prayer and she became pregnant. But at the end of verse 26 it says that Isaac was 60 years old when she gave birth. How many times did he pray for his wife during those 20 years? Would you still be faithful to God if you knew in advance, you were praying a 20 year prayer request?
Sometimes in our homes we are angry and displaying bad attitudes because we have been praying for something for three months and it has not happened. Some of you are wonderful single people, who are bright, look good, and are living for the Lord and you really would like a spouse, but God just seems to be taking too long. What if God says my plan is a 30 year plan, or a 45 year plan? Are you still willing to trust God to give you a great life whether or not someone comes along? Do you believe God is going to reward your faithfulness to Him? God sees what you are enduring, and God has not forgotten you. Every faithful servant will receive his or her reward.
When Isaac and Rebekah did get the desire of their hearts, it still did not mean life became instantly wonderful. Rebekah had a terrible time in her pregnancy. She was having twins, and it felt as though the boys inside were fighting each other. God told her there were two nations in her womb that would be in battle against each other. When the boys were born, that took some pressure off Isaac and Rebekah to produce some offspring. Finally Abraham could breathe a sigh of relief. He had to live to be 160 in order to see his grandchildren from Isaac.
The twins were Esau and Jacob. God had warned Rebekah that there was going to be trouble in the family, by letting her know, the older brother was going to serve the younger brother. That’s not how things were suppose to work. With every blessing that comes into your life, some type of problem is going to come along with it. That is why, our hope and our joy is to be found in our relationship to Jesus Christ. Jesus is what keeps our attitudes where they ought to be.
Esau growing up is the strong athletic type. He wants to get out into the woods and into the forests to hunt for game. His body is muscular and very hairy. He likes to walk around with his shirt open to impress the ladies. If you got into a fight, you would want him on your side.
Jacob is the more artistic type. He couldn’t shoot a chicken, but in the kitchen when you tasted his cooked chicken you thought you were in heaven. He was a master chef. He knew how to say “thank you” and “please”. He could clean a house and was eager to ask, if there was anything else he could help you with. The old people would say now that’s a smart boy. He didn’t mind working.
The presence of the boys produced tension in the home, because Isaac loved to eat wild meat so he greatly loved Esau. Rebekah loved having her son around the home who was always so helpful, that she greatly loved her son Jacob. No doubt there were attitude problems with them accusing each other of showing favoritism to the other son.
Don’t you think Jacob knew his father loved Esau more than him. Don’t you think Esau knew his mother loved Jacob more than him? As kids don’t you think they used this to their advantage. Who did Jacob go to, to get permission for something? Who did Esau go to for permission?
Which parent did each of the boys try to use guilt on to manipulate him or her in getting his way. “If my brother would have asked for it, I bet you would have given it to him.” Very slowly you have the attitudes of contempt sneaking in the home. You have the attitudes, of jealousy creeping in the home. You have the attitudes of anger and disrespect creeping into the home.
We all need to ask ourselves, what negative attitude am I bringing into the home, because I didn’t get what I thought I deserved. You have not, so you begin to fight over it. Since you can’t get into a fist fight, you start throwing around bad attitudes and you blame the other person for it. The only thing is, is that God holds me responsible for the attitude I choose in responding to someone else. We claim we love each other, and yet the moment a problem comes us that does not go our way, we forget what love is.
Let me remind you by looking at 1 Corinthians 13 again. 1 Corinthians 13:4-7
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.
5 It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.
7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Is that what you think of when you think of loving your family. Is that what you think of with loving the people in the church. Let’s read this verse together again out loud. Only this time, each time you see the word Love, or the word it, say out your name instead of love or it. 1 Corinthians 13:4-7
Together
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
How many of us can say that what you just said is actually all true? If you’re like me, you may have to say, I still need a lot of work over there and over there and over there. I need to examine, how my failure over there is causing an attitude problem that I need to surrender over to God. In our homes, we are both part of the problem and part of the solution when it comes to needing attitude adjustments. We can be right and still have the wrong attitude.
Jesus said to us, “I have come that you might have life, and have it more abundantly. Everybody getting their own way at home is not the way to happiness. Putting the needs of others ahead of our own as Jesus did for us is one of the steps. But the step that will make the most difference, is to step toward Jesus, and say, “Lord I want you to live through me, so that I can be the child of God, you want me to be. Let the attitude of Jesus Christ, become your attitude. In so doing, you will be turning home into something better. Your church will become better as well.
Jesus Christ died and rose again from the dead, so that you not only can have a changed attitude, but so that you can have a changed life and destiny as well. Putting your trust in Him will forever change your future.
