7 Things That Help You Smile
“Those who look to him are radiant, and their faces are never covered with shame.” Psalms 34:5
Intro: Today we are going to talk about “7 Things That Help You Smile.”
The most well rounded people you will ever meet have learned to have happiness, and victory,
and to find heartwarming moments in the ups and down and twists and turns of life.
People like this aren’t just born that way.
You can learn and develop healthy habits that will give you the upper hand in this crazy world we live in.
This may take some time.
Depending on how lost you are or
how stuck you feel or
how unaware of how good you really have it.
Truth be told, when hard times hit, and the challenges you face are great,
you can either let your situation define you,
let it destroy you
or let it strengthen you. The choice is yours to make.
In today’s sermon I want to remind you of a few powerful, and easy to remember truths
that will help you choose wisely and grow stronger in your relationship with God and others.
1. Love helps you smile.
There is one thing that every person on earth can give away and that’s love.
It doesn’t cost you a thing to give away love.
In fact the more greedy and stingy we withhold our love the more it turns out it actually costs us.
When you withhold love from your family
then it can cost you that bond between brother and sister, or the bond between father/mother.
It is when you give love freely that you receive love back.
You don’t have to have wealth to bless other people
or give other people material things to be a blessing.
No, the greatest gift you can give someone is the smile that comes from sharing the love of the gospel salvation.
There is no greater love than the love of God.
We are taught at a very early age that love is good.
Yet, as we grow up we often don’t do a very good job at expressing love.
If you are a teenager,
when is the last time you put your arms around your father or mothers neck and said, “I Love You.”
Just imagine the smile that brings to a parents face.
Saying I love you is the most common way we express love.
But using words are not the only way.
What if you as a teenager cleaned up your room without your parents asking?
What if you made your spouse a sandwich and soda and brought it to them?
What if you give flowers and it is not a birthday or anniversary?
If you are married.
How much time do you spend holding and cuddling…, without sex?
Love helps you smile.
You can better deal with real life and true love when you are able to find ways to express love.
The bible says: “God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.” 1 John 4:16
The more I learn to love God
The more I know God loves me
The more I am able to express healthy kinds of love to those who are around me.
When you can discover and express healthy kinds of love you will never need to cover your face in shame.
Expressing love in a healthy way is not necessarily as easy as it sounds.
Because a lot of what we learn about love comes from bad examples.
Television..., pornography…, divorce…, living together from partner to partner to partner. 7-8
All of these are unhealthy models.
You know there is old saying that I grew up with when trying to teach children and youth
It said: “Garbage in Garbage”---“Garbage out.”
What it was trying to teach us is: what goes into our mind and into our heart becomes who we are.
But what I have learned over the years is that it is just as much what DOES NOT go in,
When we don’t teach our kids to prioritize their relationship with church and God. (When that doesn’t go in)
When we are not modeling the importance of prayer and faith and worship. (When these things aren’t going in)
When we are not allowing the love, hope, joy and peace of God into our minds and hearts we are missing out.
And we wonder why???? Why are people growing up so messed up.
When they have never been taught how to turn to God.
When they have never seen God coming into our own lives as an example:
So we have faith
but we do not feed it
So we cannot access strength…, which we already possess from God.
But when you realize you have the power to turn your wounds and worries into wisdom;
you just have to do something about them.
You have to accept that how you were raised
or what has happened to you DOES NOT DETERMINE YOUR FUTURE.
You can retake control of broken life, of a wounded past, of a hurt you suffered yesterday, last month, year ago.
The way you retake control is to take one step forward.
It starts where you are.
It always ends kneeling at the foot of the old rugged cross.
When you realize God so Loved the World,
That he gave his only begotten son, so that you will never have to perish,
But you can have enternal life.
When you no one have ever loved you like this before.., it will set you free.
And put a smile on your face.
2. Attitude and Altitude are 90% of the battle.
It’s okay to have down days and tough times.
You can’t expect life to be wonderful all the time.
Do not let the pain of a situation keep you hopeless.
Do not let negativity wear off onto you.
Do not let the bitterness steal your sweetness.
The entire body of water the size of the Pacific Ocean can’t sink a ship unless it gets inside the ship.
All the negativity in the world can’t bring you down unless you allow it to get inside your head.
Change your thoughts and you change your reality!
And mindset is especially powerful when it comes to accepting that…
Your attitude will determine your altitude.
There is joke about a person who was driving.
The person was in a fender bender.
jumped out of their and ran up to the other car waving their hands and shouting.
“Why don’t you people watch where you’re driving?”
You’re the fourth car I’ve hit today!”
Maybe your attitude needs a face life.
Apostle Paul says, “Let your gentleness be evident to all.” (Phil. 4:5)
The word here translated “gentleness” is one of the most untranslatable words in the New Testament.
The best translation of the word is reasonableness.
The hardest time to be gentle and reasonable is when we know we are right
and someone else is obviously dead wrong.
Ask yourself how???
Your face will be turned upside down against them.
Instead of a smile you are wearing a frown.
An oxymoron is a phrase where two words in a sentence contradict each other.
An oxymoron is a Christian wearing a frown.
I wander what would happen if you kept an attitude log.
You just write down every time you have a negative thought, bad attitude, a negative outlook.
What would happen if you just kept track of everything you hold in.
So if you are holding the enemy in…
and then at the same time…, praying for God…, to drive the enemy out…,
it creates an attitude that will keep you from reaching the altitude… of hope, happiness.
3. The biggest things you worry about don’t usually happen.
Fear, worry, and anxiety can be overwhelming and defeats more people than any other force in the world.
But they are not as powerful as it seems.
What I have discovered is a smile is stronger than most of my fears.
A smile will overcome most of my worries and the things I am anxious about.
Sometimes you have to fight hard to smile.
But we can avoid a lot of the darkness in life.
A lot of the biggest things you worry about never happen.
Bonnie went to her doctor.
She said doctor I think I have arthritis, tennis elbow, carpal tunnel,
and Mongolia dangy Nerveolitis
The doctor asked her how she came to this conclusion:
It was easy she said, I just did an internet search on elbow pain.
Sure enough the doctor looked at her and said, I think we need to amputate.
Bonnie said, Oh, no, you mean I will need to lose part of my arm?
The Doctor said, no you need to amputate your computer.
So many times it is not what is actually happening that is creating problems in my life.
But it is the way I am thinking about things that is creating anxiety.
It is my thoughts that are consuming me more than what is actually happening.
I mean most of the time when things are going right it probably want even last long
Because you are in the corner worrying about what is going to happen next.
Matthew 6:34 says, “ Take therefore no thought for the morrow:”
Stop worrying about tomorrow.
This verse was a familiar Jewish theme about God’s provision. God will provide.
What are the biggest things you worry about?
The facts are most of the things we worry about never happen.
But because you have spent all your time and energy and fears on worrying
You missed out on the good things in life you could have been enjoying.
The present is all you really have to deal with.
Life is not lived in some distant, imagined land.
It is lived here and now, with the reality of the way things are.
So appreciate where you are.
Your friends and family are too beautiful to ignore.
Take a moment to remember how fortunate you are to be breathing.
Take a look around, with your eyes earnestly open to the possibilities before you.
Much of what you fear does not exist.
Much of what you love is closer than you realize.
So smile.
One night I was staying up late. I couldn’t sleep. I had a lot on my mind.
I was praying about some important decisions that I had to make.
You know how you get when you are kind of in between that awake and sleep feeling.
So, I was in that kind of state. Half-wake-half-sleep and I heard this voice that said,
I could have been dreaming but I am convinced it was the voice of God.
And the voice said: “Bruce. Why are you worrying about what I have already taken care of?”
I knew that God had taken care of what I was worrying about.
It turns out what I was worrying about never even happened.
When you have God as a priority in your life.
The Good News is if you are really good at worrying
You are going to be really good at Worshipping
Because once you realize God is in control all the time and energy you have spent worrying
Will now be freed up to time and energy
That you can spend worshipping and serving.
4. You can change situations you take responsibility for,
Fess up I messed up.
Search me of lord.
“Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.” Psalm 139:23
Nothing--- changes--- until--- I ---do.
Know my heart.
Test me, and know my anxious thoughts.
Sigmund Freud said, “Most people do not really want freedom, because freedom involves responsibility,
and most people are frightened of responsibility.”
Pick yourself up. Dust yourself off. Say from now own, I am going pray about my decisions.
I am going to make better choices. Choices I can live with.
I am NOT going to surrender power over my life--- to my past--- or to anyone else but me and Jesus.
Ultimately, your happiness depends on your unshakable willingness to prayerfully make changes
In your life--- from this moment forward,
regardless of who had a hand in making it--- the way it is now.
It’s about taking control of your present circumstances,
and making a faith choice--- to choose differently today--- because you have learned from your past.
It’s not what happens out there
What doesn’t matter…, what they think doesn’t matter
What’s out there doesn’t matter.
What does matter?
What is inside your heart. That is what matters. Search ME oh Lord.
What does matter is that I keep my faith.
That I keep a spiritual and hopeful attitude… I CAN AND I WILL CHANGE
That I don’t let the enemy contaminate my spirit.
God you speak to me.
5. I am blessed not lucky.
Being positive in a negative situation is not naive;
it’s a sign of leadership…, strength, faith, God’s favor, God’s blessings upon your life.
You’re doing it right
when you have so much to cry and complain about,
but INSTEAD you prefer to smile and appreciate your life instead.
When you realize how blessed you are
that not only puts a smile on your face
but it will result in your wanting to bless other people.
When you begin to work to be a blessing to someone else
all the weight that was centered on your life
Is taken off
As you help someone else remove the weight and burden of their life,
it removes all the weight that has been holding you back and keeping you down.
When you think like Jesus thinks you will serve like Jesus serves.
See the way you have been living in worry and stress and depression
Is now reversed.
You are now blessed and becoming a blessing to someone else.
Where you have spent all this time praying for yourself and the things you were worrying about.
Instead of receiving your life will turn around and you will be giving and blessing and giving blessing
Instead of a cycle of worry and stress and worry and stress
You will begin to live into being blessed and blessing being blessed and blessing.
At the end of the day, it’s not LUCK THAT makes us happy.
There is always, always, always something to be thankful for.
You are not just lucky you are blessed.
6. Great things take time and faith.
Instant results are rarely the best results.
Remember, PATIENCE is not about waiting;
it’s the ability to keep the faith and work hard for what you believe in.
Don’t settle for less than you are capable of.
Search me….this would set us free.
Because most people borrow drama from other people--- trying to look into other people’s lives.
Shake your head like its not you.
Go ahead, that’s good pastor tell them.
Preach to them
Look at the person beside you and say He must be preaching to you.
Because I am never guilty of borrowing from someone else’s drama.
He must be preaching to you.
I know you have to be around SOME PEOPLE but maybe you need to put some drama protection on
SPF 75 (Spiritual Protection Formula)
Steer clear of other peoples drama
because you know you have enough drama in your own life.
When you learn to let go of all the needless drama
and learn to let go of the people who create the needless drama
that will put a smile on your face.
Search me oh Lord.
Not them. And their drama. God deal with me and my drama.
Life is much too short to waste time talking about people, gossiping, and stirring up drama.
Value that arrives in an instant is often gone in an instant.
Other people cannot invalidate you.
Someone can call you trash but that does not make you trash.
Great things take time and faith.
Success often means trying again after a failure.
Success is not doing the same things over and over again expecting different results.
It is hard to have peace
when on the inside
we are unwilling to change the things we have been doing.
That ‘s the definition of insanity.
Keep do the same things over and over year after year and expect to get different results in your own life.
In the life of the church.
You see it is difficult to pray my problems away when my own lifestyle is creating my problems.
You can’t keep going to the same old places.
Hanging around the same people.
Doing the same old things
and then pray God deliver me from my problems when my lifestyle is creating my problems.
You see there can’t be a Saved Sunday morning me.
Mean Monday morning me.
Terrible Tuesday evening me.
And a different Friday me.
And a different Saturday night me.
And then a Sunday morning me.
What if you send out the wrong you on the wrong day?
Have you ever done that?
Send out the Mean Monday morning you on the Tuesday night at home you instead?
Instead of sending out the Sunday morning you at the ball game
You sent out the Terrible Tuesday you?
I am not just picking on the people who go to ballgames
You could send out the Terrible Tuesday you
at the Methodist Womens Luncheon or Methodist Men’s breakfast.
It is hard to ask God to bless a life that is divided in so many different directions.
You have to figure out who is the real you.
You have to figure out…, Hey, these are some things I need to change.
This make take some time.
Guess what even after you figure out: These are some things I need to change.
Change takes time.
When you are living by faith
And making decisions based on your faith you are already successful.
7. God is always with You.
In the church so many of us are fighting the same exact battle alongside you.
We are all in this together.
So no matter how embarrassed you feel.
know that there are others out there experiencing the same emotions.
Gina’s sing the song “I am NOT all alone,” Jesus goes before Me I am not alone>
There’s always someone who can relate to you.
If you’re feeling desperate right now, hear me:
I often feel and think and struggle much like you do.
I care about many of the things you care about, just in my own way.
And although some people do not understand us, we understand each other. YOU are not alone!
Closing: Today I have given you 7 Things That Help You Smile
Receiving Godly love from the heavenly Father and giving that same love of God that you have experience will help put a smile on your face.
Having the right attitude and altitude will help put a smile on your face
Learning that the things we worry the most don’t usually happen will set you free of a lot stress, depression, and anxiety and will put a smile on your face.
Knowing that you can change your circumstance as you take responsibility for your choices will deliver you and put a smile on your face.
Knowing you are blessed not just lucky will put a smile on your face.
Great things come to those who wait will put a smile on your face
Knowing God is always with you certainly will make you smile no matter what you are going through.
Are you ready to feel better?
