The Importance Of A Positive Attitude - Brian Osburn

As we all know, life is full of experiences, it's full of

emotion. It's full of its ups and it's

Downs. It's full of it's good times and

bad times. It's full of joy.

It's full of depression. And, you know, considering these

things, whether a person is a Christian or not, we all face

the same types of things in life, we experience life and we

experience death and we experience everything in

between. But you know, as a Christian

though, Satan he is ever trying to throw everything he has in at

us in order to keep rustom serving the Lord Almighty.

And one of the things that he tries to do in order to keep us

from being faithful to the Lord is try to look at life in the

wrong way. Way.

And he tries to get us to think that it's really not worth the

effort and the time being a child of God and he tries to

discourage Us in every possible way that he can.

And so at that in mind I'd like to talk about the importance of

having a positive that positive outlook and attitude on life and

help us focus on why what we do, why we do what we do, as we live

for the Lord. Now in life, You basically have

two kinds of people, you have pessimists and you have

optimists. Now, Optimist sorrow where their

people always trying to look at the good in every situation.

While on the handy got pessimists, who, you know, life

is just full of women's And if I look at my own life, I consider

myself to be an optimist. Now, Melissa may tell you that

at times, I'm too optimistic that things just simply aren't

reality in some situations as far as what I see the outcome is

going to be. But, you know, be that as it

may, there is no doubt that all people have different outlooks

on life and experiences on life. There's a man named Clement

Stone. And he said this, he said there

was little difference in people, but that little difference makes

a big difference. The little difference is

attitude, the big difference is whether it's positive or

negative. And building upon that there's

enough man by the name of Norman Vincent Peale, who once stated

that any fact facing us is not as important as our attitude

toward it for that determines or our success or failure.

And how true that is. And that is what we're going to

see in our study this morning. And so as we begin, let's go all

the way back to the Old Testament.

In fact, we'll all go, all the way back to need to Numbers

Numbers 13 · chapter mention

Chapter 13. And when we look at Numbers

Numbers 13 · chapter mention

Chapter 13, we find the story of the 12 Spies of Israel.

Now, it was one day that God approach Moses and he says, to

Moses as we pick up in verse number two, here in this

chapter. He says send man to spy out the

land of Canaan, which I'm giving to the children of Israel from

each tribe of their fathers you. So send a man, everyone a leader

among them and so after receiving these instructions by

God, Moses does, is, he's commanded to do.

And so he goes and he choose 12 men to be spies for Israel.

And so as these men are gathered there before Moses, Moses has

this audience to these men and he tells them to check out the

land of Canaan. He tells him to see what kind of

a land. It's like to see if see what the

people like are the people, strong are the people week.

See how many there are? They big anumber?

Are they small? See if the land itself is good?

Or if it's bad take account of what their cities are like, are

they weak like tents or are they strong?

Do they have fortified structure and also bring some fruit back.

So we can know how plentiful this land is.

And so the man do just this, they go over to the land of

Canaan and says spice. And we're told that they pick

all kinds of fruit in. The Bible says this, this, just

jumps off the page at me and then just remarkable.

Now, one of the things they did is they, they cut off a cluster

of grapes and that cluster of grapes to show how plentiful

this land was. They had, they had to have two

men, carry this cluster of grapes on the pole, and that's

just how plentiful this place was.

But anyway, anyway, they spend 40 days there.

And so they make their way back to Moses and they have reports

about what the land of Canaan is like, and what the people are,

what the people are, who dwell in it.

And so here's the report, they say, we went to the land where

you sent us, it's really flows with milk and honey.

And this is It's Nevertheless, the people who dwell in the land

are strong, the cities are fortified and very large.

Moreover, we saw the descendants of anak there.

Now, after giving this report, One of the spies was named

Caleb. And Caleb was quite eager to

take advantage of God's promise that Israel could have that land

of Canaan because he States in verse number 30.

Let us go up at once and take possession for.

We are well able to overcome it and so he's full of zeal.

He said, let's go do it. God gave it to us.

Let's go get it. But, you know, not all the spies

were, as eager as Caleb was in fact, There Were Ten Spies of

all the twelve spies that went. There were 10 of them that had

quite differing outlooks about this latinum, Canaan and listen

to how they react to What Caleb says unto this multitude here.

It says, but the man who had gone up with him said, we are

not able to go up against the people.

Or they are stronger than we. And they gave the children of

Israel, a bad report of the land which they had spied out saying

the land through which we have gone.

A spy's, is a land that devours its inhabitants and all the

people whom we saw in it are men of great, step of great statue.

There we saw the Giants of the Senate.

Savannah came from the Giants and we were like grasshoppers in

their sight and so we were in their sight now listening to

this explanation or this description.

Ian by these ten spies and after hearing what Caleb had said

they're take a Caleb, you're nuts.

There is no way we could go over into that lad.

Did you not notice how big those guys were and how little we were

in them? They would destroy us, there's

no way we could overtake that land.

And so because of that attitude, that they had, even though God

had promised them this land, because of that negative

attitude, it create a snowball effect in the children of Israel

became because began to become discouraged and developed an

agate negative attitude, just as those ten spies had had and

listen to what they said, as we continue now, in chapter 14

because it says they're beginning of verse 1.

So, all would see the congregation lifted up their

Then cried and the people wept that night and all the children

of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron.

And the whole congregation said to them, if only, we had died in

the land of Egypt, or if only we had died in this Wilderness, why

has the Lord brought us to this land to Fall by the sword that

our wives and children should become victims?

What did not be better for us to return to Egypt?

So they said to one another, let us select a leader and return to

Egypt. This is remarkable to me.

Of what their attitude is, like all the sudden now, you remember

how their life was back in Egypt, there were slaves there.

Nobody wants to be a Slave. Yet, when they're in their, in

their circumstance, here they would rather go back to Egyptian

slavery. then to, you know, not going to land of Canaan and be

destroyed by these people And so, Joshua and Caleb being the

other two of these 12 Spies. They try to calm these people

down and tried to encourage them.

That be they be able to take the land, but the children of Israel

got, they got so mad that they want to Stone him to death.

They won't have. Any part of going into that

land? Well, do their disbelief of the

Lord, a cosme to perish in the wilderness as God would not

allow the generation to inherit the land of Canaan.

But he did. However, allow Caleb and Joshua

and their families to go to Canaan, but nobody else and that

generation was allowed to go in. Now, I so that ends our story

just for this illustration, this morning, But from this story, we

can learn three things about having a negative attitude and

what it can lead to you see when we when negative attitudes are

allowed to develop, we number one, stop believing in God and

we stop believing in ourselves. You know, that is not to say

that we all together become agnostic, or we all of a sudden

became a become an atheist. Although that can happen.

But what I mean to say that is is that we begin to not believe

in what God has promised for his children.

Now, when you look at Israel, Israel did not truly believe God

and that he had promised the inheritance of Canaan, because

if they had believed it, they would have believed in

themselves to overtake the land and it didn't matter how big

those people were or how small they were or how big a number or

how small number those Or they would have believed in God, and

believed in themselves that they could overtake this land after

all God has given them this land.

But you know, when we allow the negative attitudes to overtake

us, we then begin to doubt of God is really taking care of us.

We begin to doubt. If he is truly gives us peace or

if he truly gives us joy or if he truly gives us hope in this

life, and not only that. But when with that begins to

develop on our minds and then leads us to stop believing in

ourselves and it causes us to stop trying.

And you know, as just was the case with the Israelites, if

that's going to be the case, we have already lost the battle.

With this type of attitude. But you know, a second thing we

can learn from the Israelites is that if we allow negative

attitudes to develop, We then begin to discourage others

around us. You know, you look at the

example of those spies there in Israel.

It all began with just 10 men. And from that, Ted had the 10

spies had the same attitude of Caleb and Joshua.

Israel would have had a different Outlook, they would

have had a positive frame of mind and determination to get

what God had promised them. But due to the negative attitude

of just 10 men, an entire nation and entire nation was

discouraged, and they develop the same attitude.

Now, let's bring a little bit closer to home.

Imagine what they want and what they need congregation.

The negative influence that even one person could have within a

congregation or even a family, or a relationship.

It could snowball. Unto other people so that other

people could become discouraged because of what a person thinks

about, maybe a work that a congregation is doing or

whatever the case may be. It can cause others to have a

gloomy outlook on the situation. And so that leads us to the

third thing of what we can learn from the story is that number

three if we allow negative attitudes to develop, we fail to

reach goals that God has placed for us.

Now, the reason why is really tied into the first point

because we've already lost the battle before we even begin.

You see, we see the situation and we see that we don't see any

possible benefit from it. Therefore, we don't even try.

And perhaps we may become so discouraged, that we have no

motivation to accomplish great works for the Lord, but negative

attitudes. We must understand are nothing

but distractions that Satan throws in front of us to keep us

from being zealous to keep us from being eager.

And to keep us from being diligent for the Lord.

And that generation of Israel was not allowed into that

Promised Land. And neither shall we?

If we allow Satan to overtake our lives with negative

attitudes, that prevent us from doing what the Lord Wills. but,

Seeing these three things here and see having seen what a

negative attitude can lead to, I want to now, take a look at the

other side of the coin. Of what a positive attitude can

lead to and the great success that will could come from it.

We're going to look at another story from the Old Testament and

that's what the story of Nehemiah. now, when the book

first opens for Nehemiah, We find that work gets to him that

the walls of Jerusalem had been broken down and it's Gates had

been burned. Now, the news Falls quite

heavily heavy on, nehemiah's, heart to the point that he, it

really impacted his life, he wept about it, but then he

prayed about it too. And so it impacted his life so

much that there was one day that he was attending to the Kings

needs. And the King you know he noticed

the Amaya and he noticed Nehemiah just wasn't quite

himself. Something was bothering

Nehemiah. He thought her perhaps Nehemiah

was sick and so he asked what's wrong Nehemiah.

It was at that point that Nehemiah begin to explain the

situation down in Jerusalem how it lied and waste.

And so after hearing the story, The king says, well you need to

go and do something about it then and so what he does, the

king sent me a he sent a letter with Nehemiah, what the

commission to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem.

And so as Nehemiah, he made his way down and he finally made his

way. He arrived at Jerusalem and when

he right arrived at Jerusalem, he took an assessment of the

ruins within the city. He saw the walls, certainly they

were in ruined. He saw the gates certainly they

had been burned just as he I'd heard and so after taking this

assessment, he goes to the officials and and this is what

he has to say to the officials. Now, as we look at chapter 2 and

verse 17 and 18, then I said to them, you see the distress that

we are in how Jerusalem lies and waste and its gates are burned

with fire come, let us build the wall of Jerusalem that we may no

longer be a reproach. And I told them of the hand of

my God, which had helped which had been good upon me and also

the king's words that he had spoken to me, so, they said, Let

us rise up and build. Then they set their hands to

this. Good work.

You see me? And my has positive attitude,

had impacted the men, and a positive way to do a good work.

You see it states in chapter 4 and 6 at the people had a mind.

The people had a mind to work. They were determined and they

were encouraged and zealous to perform this good work.

But as they built this wall, though there were some

opposition. There were some ridicule on the

way opposition came and the opposition belittled the Jews

and they said, you know, you Jews.

Are you doing it? Just vanity.

Because as soon as you guys bit up, those walls were going to

come by and we're going to destroy them all together.

But you know this really just encourage them.

It motivated the Jews even more to finish the walls and we find

that it took them 52 days to complete that task.

And that just simply is amazing to me of the determination of

just just to complete this good work.

Now this is story is a great one to keep in mind when we think

about how having a positive attitude and what it can lead

to, and From it, just like we learned from the, from from the

story of the Israelites, with those 12 Spies.

We learned three things as well, about having a positive

attitude. You see when positive attitudes

are maintained. We continue to believe in God

and our ability to serve him. Now Nehemiah did just this.

He believed in his God and believe the Lord was behind him

in this great work and this motivated him to accomplish this

great task of rebuilding the walls.

And he know when we ourselves begin to believe in God and

Trust his promises and understand that he is with us

and he will never ever fail us. We then begin to feel uplifted.

We then begin to feel encouraged and we've had the strength and

we have the motivation to accomplish great things and

there may be some I'm things that just might seem impossible

to some people, but as we all know With God, all things are

possible. We can do some great things.

But not only that, but when positive attitudes are

maintained, we encourage those around us and we overcome those

who try to discourage us in our way, you know, from the vision,

he determined of one, man. Being Nehemiah an entire Army of

men. Saw the good of accomplishing

this, task, it did not falter when opposition tried to

belittle and discourage them now a little bit closer to home.

This is we talked about the negative attitude of one person,

perhaps within a relationship or family or a congregation just

flip that around. Think of the positive impact of

encouraging words from one person in a congregation think

of what the congregation could do?

A corrugation could be set on fire.

With positive outlooks and positive attitudes.

And they'll be able to overcome any obstacles that may face

them. Thirdly when a pause attitudes

are maintained people, ultimately reach goals that God

has placed before them. You know this is true with Emi

and the others in accomplishing, the goal of rebuilding the walls

of Jerusalem. Now with them when it first

started it might have seemed like a long and tedious and

difficult task but day by day they were able to do it.

It was step by step and you know we may be faced with some

enduring trials or some persecutions in life.

But with a with a positive attitude, about the situation,

we're going to be able to overcome overcome it.

Even though it may seem impossible step by step, we're

going to be able to do it. Well, how is this possible?

How do we stay optimistic when we find ourselves perhaps so

overwhelmed or may be discouraged about something?

How do we maintain a positive attitude in life?

Well, the fact of the matter is we have the ability to control

our own attitudes and our own moods.

Nobody else has that power, but you yourself Now, we may not be

able to control or change the circumstances, but we can

control how we react to certain things.

For example, when things get hard for you, You can choose to

rejoice in those trials, and those persecutions.

You think how in the world? How do you do something like

that? Well for one thing, James wrote

this, James 1 verse 22 through for my brother, count, it all

James 1:22

joy. Count it all joy when you fall

into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith.

Produces patience but let patience have.

It's perfect work that you may be perfect and complete, lacking

nothing. And so, how are we supposed to

rejoice and persecutions our trials?

How do we prepare our minds to do this?

Well, the key as James tells us here in verse number 3, is that

it comes with us having the understanding that the testing

of our faith. Produces patience.

If you cannot grasp that, then you're going to have a difficult

time with various trials that you face and you know, Paul

wrote about a similar thing over in Romans chapter 5.

Romans 5 · chapter mention

Paul wrote this in verses 3 through 4, it says not only that

but we also glory in tribulations knowing that

tribulation produces perseverance and perseverance

character and character hope. Is he Paul adds that as we

maintain a positive attitude and trials are character develops

into a better person, a stronger person, we become stronger, our

hope is strengthened, we have a greater peace of mind, but one

other thing that helps us in this as Paul later writes in

chapter 12 and 12 of The Book of Romans is that we must be

steadfast in prayer. You know, prayers in these seats

are in essential key to maintaining a positive attitude.

You know, the more you pray The more you begin to focus upon God

and the more you begin to focus upon God, the more you become to

rely upon God and the more you become to rely upon God upon

God, the more you're strengthened by him.

It starts with prayer. It's an essential key.

It's sometimes what we may do, sometimes.

What I may do is it's like prayers just the last option and

that shouldn't be the case. It's an essential key.

You know, we may not have the character of job who had Praise

and Worship the Lord after losing practically all.

He had including his children. But you know, we could all start

somewhere. You know, these are things that

you're just not burnt born with. They take time to develop but as

we continue to develop them, our Outlook and our attitude of

life, and the Lord will shine brightly to those, even around

us. You know, another thing that we

can do to maintain a positive attitude is to block out

negativity. And one way to do this, is to

avoid negative. Self-talk, and you could do this

by. And I mean, when I talk about

negative self-talk, it's attitudes like, well, I just

can't do this, or this is just too hard for me to be able to do

Because with this type of attitude, you're not even giving

yourself a chance and just like those people of Israel that

we've talked about already. You've already lost the battle

because you won't even begin it. Avoid negative self-talk.

But another, you could also block out negativity by avoiding

negative people. Now, we've seen these types of

people before these types of people seem to have nothing good

to say about anybody or anything.

They simply may have a sour outlook on life altogether and,

you know, if we're around such individuals, it might not be

long until that kind of attitude May rub off.

My May rub off on us if we're not careful.

I mean, after all Paul did Right in his first epistle to the

Corinthians. He said that evil company

corrupts good habits and certainly that is the case in a

whole spectrum of things but especially in this situation.

But another way that you could block out, negativity is by

surrounding yourself with positive people.

Be around people who are going to encourage you to take on a

task, or to keep pressing on for the prize that Waits before us,

surround yourself with those who will Your spirit and not

discourage, it be around people who are willing to lip lend, a

helping hand. If you're feeling overwhelmed in

a trial or a task in your life, It is very important that we

fill our minds and companionship with the right thoughts.

And with the right people And if we do so our laps are going to

be so much easier. There's going to be less

obstacles and less opposition that we face in life.

The one last thing that we must do in order to maintain a

positive attitude is to live in the present and leave the past

behind us. You know, we all have regrets in

life. And we just need to accept our

mistakes and we just need to move on.

And the yet, there are just some people that just can't seem to

forgive themselves and let things go.

And you know if anyone could have lamented over his past, I

would guess it would have been Paul.

You know Paul he did so much harm and damage to the church

back when he be before he became a disciple of the Lord.

You know, he He persecuted men and women some even to the point

of death because of their belief in the Messiah.

But God be praised. The he change his life around,

he became the Apostle Paul. And one thing that helped him in

life was to not dwell on the things that he had once done.

But to press forward to the goal and he writes about this in the

book of Philippians in Philippians chapter 3 here

Philippians 3 · chapter mention

verses 12 through 14. It says not that I have already

attained or am already perfected but I press on the diet that I

may lay a lay hold of that, for which Christ Jesus has also

laid, hold of me brother. Aaron, I do not count myself to

have apprehended but one thing I do forgetting those things which

are behind and reaching forward to those things, which are

ahead. I press toward the goal for the

prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

What? Wonderful words from Paul.

And certainly words that we all can learn can learn from that.

We cannot let the things of our past, become a ball and chain in

our lives because all it's going to do it.

Just discourage us through life. We just can't let go of it.

We should turn that Focus rather to that which lies ahead and

make every effort to reach the goal and you know, this type of

attitude in life. It really helped Paul through

the rest of his life as he. And one thing that I like to

read is what he wrote to Timothy in his last epistle to him.

It says their second Timothy 4018 and the Lord will deliver

me from every evil work and preserve me for his Heavenly

Kingdom to him be glory forever and ever.

Amen. He was sure. this because of the

Outlook that he had on his life, As we conclude this morning.

when you think about your life as a Christian, we have every

reason to have a positive attitude in our spiritual

growth. I mean, we know that God is ever

ready to help us grow. He has provided us his word and

he has also provided us the privilege of prayer.

A prayer to help us on our way. He's also even create the church

to divide to provide an environment that even promotes

growth. And so when we Face trials, and

when we Face persecutions, we will know that our labor is not

in vain yet. If we do fall, God is still

loves us and he forgives us and he's there to pick us back up.

I'll leave you with the words. Of William James.

He said this he said the greatest discovery of my

generation is that man can alter his life simply by altering his

attitude of mind. And so the choice is yours.

What kind of Life do you want to live today?

Do you want to live a life of positivity that pleases God and

will get you to heaven or rather?

Do you want to live a life that does not believe in God?

Even though enough to put a positive attitude of Faith and

Hope and joy in your life? Really.

You have the choice. No one else has that power to

make that choice for you. The choice is in your hands, but

if you Choose Wisely God's going to be there.

He's going to be there for you and through it all.

And so it is very important that we maintain a positive attitude

in our life at all times. And let us never be bogged down

by the things of life. But ever be pressing toward the

goal as Paul said, We thank you for listening to our podcast,

put on by the Church of Christ at 22:15 plans.

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