Become a Better You In The Hard Times of Life

HOW TO BECOME A BETTER YOU IN THE HARD TIMES OF LIFE
INTRO

When I hear my friends say they hope their children don't have to experience the hardships they went through--I don't agree. Those hardships made us what we are. You can be disadvantaged in many ways, and one way may be not having had to struggle.

• That quote reminds me of my grandmother. Born in 1912 to immigrant parents, she knew what the word struggle meant.
• After her mother died in childbirth, she lived in an orphanage, after her father remarried she was neglected and abused by her stepmother, so as a teen she moved out into a rented room on her own just as stock market crashed in 1929 and Great Depression set in.
• 50 years later, in her own small modest home, my grandmother would exhort me with words similar to what we heard in our opening quote. She would tell me one day I would appreciate the struggle and hardships. They would make me better.
• At a time in my life when I was struggling through those hard teen years, my grandmother coached me about the need to work hard in life; the need to learn to not complain about things you cannot control; and how to focus on what was really important.
• Today, 30 years later, we are living in tough times. We are living through a stock market crash and banking failure with recession coming on. The Baby Buster and Millennial Generations have never really tasted hardship. This message is for them, and for all going through trials and struggles.
• The Apostle Paul speaks to us again this week from a Roman prison where he was unjustly jailed for preaching the Gospel.
• Our reading from Paul’s letter to the Church at Philippi outlines four Christian attitudes that can make you a better person in the midst of hardships and struggles.

1. TO BECOME A BETTER YOU IN TIMES OF HARDSHIP AND STRUGGLE, DEVELOP AN ATTITUDE OF REJOICING

4Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice!

• To rejoice is to express joy, gladness, and happiness. Joy in the general sense is an emotional response to any pleasurable state or event.
• For a Christian, joy is a wellspring of gladness and happiness that results from fellowship with God.
• It is a fruit of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Spiritual fruitfulness is who and what we are—our quality of character and the essence of who we are as a person resulting from the indwelling Holy Spirit.
• The Fruit of the Spirit are nine qualities of godliness that God produces in a person when he comes into our lives to transform us so we become like him in who we are and how we live.
• When Paul tells the Church to REJOICE IN THE LORD AWAYS he is teaching us how to have a basic outlook in life that says no matter what goes on around me, nothing can take away what God has given me.
o He has given me forgiveness from all the guilt and sin in my life. He has given me a purpose, direction, a reason to live, a new beginning, eternal life beyond the grave, and he is my ever-present encourager, comforter, and friend.
• No matter what we are going through, at all times, and in all circumstances, God is always with us, so whether we are in prison like Paul was, in a struggling church like the Philippians were, or living through a stock market crash and hard times, we can have an inner happiness.
• Once Paul tells us to rejoice always, he repeats it a second time!! Again, I say rejoice. I think we need to hear this over and over. By nature, human beings are focused on themselves. We whine, complain, and want the world to revolve around us.
• The spiritual person focuses on God, and is able to say “At the cross at the cross where I first saw light, and the burden of my heart rolled away. It was there by faith I received my sight and now I am happy all the day.

2. TO BECOME A BETTER YOU IN TIMES OF HARDSHIP AND STRUGGLE, DEVELOP AN ATTITUDE OF GENTLENESS TO OTHERS

5Let your gentleness be known to all men. The Lord is at hand.

• Hard times of struggle test our character, especially in our relationships with others.
• In hard times, the worst of people will often come out under stress and pressure. People will throw you under the bus, steal from you, blame you, neglect you, and abuse you to survive hard times.
• Yet, Paul says, for the Christian, God wants to bring out the best in us in hard times.
• He wants us to remember when people do terrible things, He is at hand, He is always present to bring justice and take care of our enemies—his part. Our part is to let the fruit of gentleness be evident in us.
• Again, gentleness is a spiritual fruit of the Holy Spirit. Gentleness is a true humility that does not consider itself too good or too exalted for humble tasks. Opposite of pride or snootiness.
• “Meekness, a synonym for gentleness, is enduring injury with patience and without resentment.”
• Gentleness is never self-important but is considerate, courteous, and modest. In hard times when people are stressed, hurting, fearful, or angry, gentleness makes us leaders of the fearful.
The story is told of a corporal at Valley Forge who was directing three men as they tried to lift a log into place. It was too heavy, but the corporal commanded again and again, “All right, men, one, two, three, lift!” A man in an overcoat came by and said to the corporal, ‘Why don’t you help them?” The corporal pulled himself up to full height and replied, “Sir, I am a corporal.” Without a word the man stepped over and with his help the log went easily into place. The man was General George Washington.

3. TO BECOME A BETTER YOU IN TIMES OF HARDSHIP AND STRUGGLE, DEVELOP AN ATTITUDE OF PRAYERFULNESS.

• So often in life, when hard times come, we let the hard times set the agenda. When we face hard times we can easily become worried, stressed, and become full of anxiety. What if I lose my job? What if the money I lost in my 401k doesn’t recover? What if this illness doesn’t get better?
• Paul tells us the key to getting through hard times without anxiety:

but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; 7and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

• Prayer is one of the main keys to overcoming anxiety during the struggles of life. Prayer means God wants us to talk to him. So, we cannot approach God with sin in our lives, so prayer always means we must first confess our sins, so we can stand in the presence of a Holy God.
• When our spirits are burdened, only prayer can ease our mind.
• As we come into God’s presence in prayer we say “Lord, I thank you that you gave me life, my family, and all I have. Now, I want to bring to you my struggles. I need your help and your direction for all these things that are troubling me.”
• Paul says, that when we make prayer and thanksgiving our response to the hardships and struggles we face, that another fruit of the Spirit forms in us—peace.
• Peace is calmness and quietness in the deepest level of our being. In our lives as Christians it is paradoxical. It surpasses understanding.
• God is in control. So while I don’t understand how all this will work out, I know that God is going to work it out so I can rest and not have stress. God is guarding my heart and mind now. I can calm down.

4. TO BECOME A BETTER YOU IN TIMES OF HARDSHIP AND STRUGGLE, DEVELOP AN ATTITUDE OF THINKING HOW GOD THINKS

• Truth is whatever God thinks about something since he is truth. Have you ever wondered how God thinks? In this letter to the Church at Philippi, Paul tells us.

8Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy-meditate on these things.

• In life, you can either focus on the good or the bad. You can have, as they say, stinkin` thinkin` that is negative and focused in ways that will tear you down, or you can learn to think optimistically and positively which will help you to not get dragged down into the pit of despair.
• When facing struggles and hard times, Paul says to think about the things that are true, noble, just, pure, lovely, of a good report; things that are virtuous.
• Don’t think and act like the cable news or radio talk show hosts. Don’t become morose and focus on all the bad in the world. It will ruin you. Turn off the TV. Read, get out in nature.
• Learn to think of goodness; think and meditate on God, and on all the good that God brings into the world himself and through his people.
• Learn to take time to smell the roses; enjoy the leaves changing; smell the fresh air; live life like a child experiencing the wonder of this world as if it the first time you have ever seen it.
• The result of rejoicing and being gentle to others, of praying, and thinking about life like God--you will learn to be content in whatever life brings your way.
• Paul says, content people, no matter if we are lacking or abounding materially, we will have learned the attitudes that no matter what hardship or trial we face, we will say like he did,

I CAN DO ALL THINGS THROUGH CHRIST WHO STRENGTHENS ME.
TODAY, YOU CAN DO IT! JESUS IS HERE TO STRENGTHEN US. WE BECOME STRONG TO FACE THE HARD TIMES AND STRUGGLES OF LIFE WHEN WE REJOICE ALWAYS! WHEN WE ARE GENTLE AND MEEK TO OTHERS, WHEN WE PRAY, AND WHEN WE THINK POSITIVELY IN GOD.