For example, we notice, even in just one congregation, there are many...
- Shapes
- Sizes
- Colors of hair
- Colors of eyes
- Shapes and sizes of noses
- Shapes and sizes of ears
- Shapes and sizes of mouths of people.
Perhaps the time when we are most similar is when we are first born.
Illus: A mother who went to visit some relatives in another state brought home a picture of her uncle when he was a baby. She called her son, whose wife had just had a baby, and said, “You have to see this picture of my uncle Stan when he was a baby. He looks just like your baby.” The son said, “Describe what your uncle looked like when he was a baby.” She did. When she got through, her son said, “Congratulations Mom! You have just described about 99% of the babies in the world.”
About the only differences in newborns are that some have heads full of hair and others do not, and some are bigger than others.
As people grow up, they develop separate identities. Just about the time we think we have met every kind of personality there is, someone comes along who is different from anyone we have ever met.
Illus: You would think most young men would be thrilled to have the opportunity to kiss a crowd of girls. But there was one young man who made history by setting a record by kissing 2,000 girls, of all sizes and shapes, in 2 hours. When he had completed the task, he was asked by a journalist if he enjoyed setting that kind of record. “Yes, I enjoyed it, but I would much rather have had my pick of the two thousand girls, and kissed her alone for two hours.”
Yes, there are all kinds, and just about the time we think we have met them all we find another.
How is it that everyone can be different?
To answer that question, we need to consider at least FOUR things. For example, one of the things that makes us different from each other is...
I. OUR HEREDITY.
Everyone inherits certain things from their parents. Many inherit abilities which they can develop into fine skills.
Illus: Bach is known for his great musical contributions, but we can not forget the fact that there were 120 musicians in his family.
Illus: Ralph Waldo Emerson was a great preacher and philosopher. He was preceded by seven generations of ministers.
Many of us are what we are because we inherited certain abilities from our parents. However, some do not always develop their abilities in constructive ways.
Illus: Such was the case of a mother who was buying a sport jacket for a son. The salesman held one up for her to look at and said, “It’s just the thing for a man about town.” The mother said, “I agree. Now let me see what you have for a ‘Louse-about-the-house.”
On the other hand, some children develop their abilities and become very productive even though their parents set no such example for them.
Illus: History records that a thriftless, lazy carpenter married a woman named Nancy Hanks. He made her whole life miserable. No one would ever have dreamed that their child, Abraham Lincoln, would one day be President of these United States!
Yes, what we inherit, and what we do with what we inherit, makes us what we are. That is why God’s Word commands every parent, Proverb 22:6, to, “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.”
Listen, when parents instill the teachings of God’s Word in a child, those teachings will stay with that person until the day he dies.
Illus: A man in his sixties, who was known for having lived a very wicked life, would have tears swell in his eyes if you talked to him about the Lord. Anyone would think he would go into a rage, but not so. A long time ago a mother had tried to instill godliness in him. That will be with him until the day he dies.
Our heredity plays a major part in our becoming what we are. Every parent here needs to understand that.
Also, there is something else that plays a major part in our being what we are. That is...
II. OUR ENVIRONMENT.
Again, this is not a rule that is set in concrete.
-You will find people from the GHETTOES who have made something of themselves in spite of the environment in which they were raised. They may have even been abused and neglected, but they still made something of themselves.
-Then we all know of some who were raised in an ENVIRONMENT FULL OF OPPORTUNITIES, yet they wasted all that God had given them.
While we recognize environment plays a significant roll in our becoming what we are, we also recognize it is not a SET RULE TO FOLLOW.
However, many folks believe that WHERE YOU ARE BORN determines WHAT YOU WILL BECOME. That is, many believe if you are born in a poor neighborhood where most people barely have enough, then you will steal in order to have something.
Listen, a person’s environment DOES NOT HAVE TO DETERMINE a person’s OUTCOME.
Illus: Jesus was raised in Nazareth. Perhaps you may not know this, but the town of Nazareth was notorious for its people’s lack of morals and religion. You might say that Jesus was from “the wrong side of the tracks.”
When Jesus began to teach and preach, He never got away from being connected with Nazareth. Remember what Nathanael said when he heard of Christ for the first time, John 1:46, “Can there any good thing come out of Nazareth?”
The Lord Jesus was raised in a place that everyone looked down upon. He was a social outcast. However, Jesus did NOT ALLOW HIMSELF to be MOLDED and SHAPED by His environment.
OUR HEREDITY and OUR ENVIRONMENT play a major part in molding us into what we are. There is also something else we have to consider that plays a part in making us different from each other.
III. OUR WILL.
Some folks have an INWARD DRIVE that drives them to success. While the average man is sleeping, they are awake, trying to figure out how they can make a fortune.
Illus: Such was the case of one lady who loved expensive jewelry. Her husband would never buy any for her. One day he died.
- She told a friend, “He left me no insurance money at all.”
- The friend asked, “Where then did you get that expensive diamond?”
- The lady replied, “My husband’s last request was that I bury him in a $5,000.00 casket and take the $75,000.00 left and buy the largest stone I could find and engrave in it, ‘In loving memory,’ and that was exactly what I did. I bought this stone for $75,000.00 and had ‘In Loving Memory’ inscribed on the back side.”
Seriously, there are those among us who are blessed with a STRONG WILL AND A KEEN MIND and they are ingenuous enough to know how to make a fortune.
Our HEREDITY, ENVIRONMENT, and our WILL are three things that make us different from each other.
There is yet ONE who can make THE GREATEST CHANGE in our lives.
IV. OUR GOD.
HEREDITY, ENVIRONMENT, and our WILL all play a significant part in our becoming what we are, but listen, absolutely nothing can make as significant difference as the LORD JESUS CHRIST!
- He has taken drunks and made them sober.
- He has taken drug addicts and made them respectable.
- He has taken prostitutes and made them wonderful mothers.
- He has taken gamblers and made them hard working men.
- He has taken liars and made them to speak words of truth.
- He has taken husbands who abused their wives and made them loving husbands.
God has done more to MOLD AND SHAPE those who will come to Him than ANYTHING or ANYONE else on this earth.
Let me give you a PRIME EXAMPLE from scripture. Look at Mark 5:1-5. We read, “And they came over unto the other side of the sea, into the country of the Gadarenes. And when he was come out of the ship, immediately there met him out of the tombs a man with an unclean spirit, Who had his dwelling among the tombs; and no man could bind him, no, not with chains: Because that he had been often bound with fetters and chains, and the chains had been plucked asunder by him, and the fetters broken in pieces: neither could any man tame him. And always, night and day, he was in the mountains, and in the tombs, crying, and cutting himself with stones But when he saw Jesus afar off, he ran and worshipped him, And cried with a loud voice, and said, What have I to do with thee, Jesus, thou Son of the most high God? I adjure thee by God, that thou torment me not. For he said unto him, Come out of the man, thou unclean spirit. And he asked him, What is thy name? And he answered, saying, My name is Legion: for we are many. And he besought him much that he would not send them away out of the country. Now there was there nigh unto the mountains a great herd of swine feeding. And all the devils besought him, saying, Send us into the swine, that we may enter into them. And forthwith Jesus gave them leave. And the unclean spirits went out, and entered into the swine: and the herd ran violently down a steep place into the sea, (they were about two thousand;) and were choked in the sea. And they that fed the swine fled, and told it in the city, and in the country. And they went out to see what it was that was done. And they come to Jesus, and see him that was possessed with the devil, and had the legion, sitting, and clothed, and in his right mind: and they were afraid.”
Before the man of Gadara met Jesus, he was ONE BAD DUDE! He was a wild man. Everyone was scared to death to be around him.
Illus: Every time I read about that man I think of the story of the man in the west that everyone was afraid of. They called him BIG BAD BILL. One day the town was full and someone came riding through town hollering, “Run for your lives, BIG BAD BILL IS ON HIS WAY TO TOWN!” Folks all over town began to flee for cover. Soon the streets were clear. All of a sudden a big man came riding down Main Street on a wild buffalo, beating him with a rattle snake in his hand. He pulled up to the saloon, jumped off the wild buffalo, and walked through the saloon doors, tearing both doors off their hinges. He stomped up to the bar, threw his big arms across the counter and it broke in half. The bartender said, “Wa--Wa--What do you want?” The big man said, “Give me a drink quick!” The bartender was so scared he gave the man a whole keg of moonshine to drink. The big man gulped it down in about three swallows and quickly turned to leave. The bartender asked, “Where are you going?” The big man called over his shoulder as he disappeared, “Haven’t you heard? BIG BAD BILL is coming to town. That man is crazy. I don’t want to be here when he comes. I am getting out of here!”
The man of Gadara had about that same kind of reputation. HE WAS THE WILDEST MAN YOU HAVE EVER SEEN!
- Verse 2 says that he was a man with an “unclean spirit.”
- Verse 3 says he “had his dwelling among the tombs; and no man could bind him, no, not with chains.”
- Verse 5 says that, “...always, night and day, he was in the mountains, and in the tombs, crying, and cutting himself with stones.”
That man was one of the wildest men you have ever seen! I dare say, more than likely no one in this congregation has ever seen such a wild man.
But, he met the Lord Jesus and the Lord MADE THE GREATEST CHANGE that has ever been made in a man’s life.
The townsfolk were afraid of the man. After the Lord saved him, they came to where he was. Verse 15 tells us that they saw. “...him that was possessed with the devil, and had the legion, sitting, and clothed, and in his right mind...” Only the power of God could make that kind of a change in a man.
Conclusion:
Our heredity, environment and will are all things that have made differences in our lives. However, to those who know the Lord, THE GREATEST CHANGES HAVE COME THROUGH THE LORD JESUS CHRIST. If it was not for Jesus, we would be like all the other lost people on this earth.
I. OUR HEREDITY
II. OUR ENVIRONMENT
III. OUR WILL
