The Greatest Change

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.