Title: Changing to Live the Everyday Life God Way

Text: Proverbs 15:13-16

13
A happy heart makes the face cheerful,
but heartache crushes the spirit.
14
The discerning heart seeks knowledge,
but the mouth of a fool feeds on folly.
15
All the days of the oppressed are wretched,
but the cheerful heart has a continual feast.
16
Better a little with the fear of the LORD
than great wealth with turmoil.

In some ways, the life of faith is not to come to the chapel, worship, and go back, but to believe God
entirely and to change the everyday life to Gods way and living that life. This is what gives the
believers attitude have value, and what makes the believer wise and discerning.

Pastor , in his book Life is a Gift", "Many people can pour out their soul into a work with value.
However, to pour out your soul into the small tasks in daily living and make it into something of value
is something only you can do.

Through this saying, I had the idea that believers are people who can pour out their soul into such
kinds of small tasks to give it something of value. Its not that the attitude of life is affected
because of the circumstance, but that they are people whose lives change the circumstance. Because of
this, I believe that rather than being controlled by the circumstances, we must have the posture of
changing the circumstance through the life attitude.

If we look at the Book of Numbers, the people of Israel escaped Egypt and came to encounter the
descendants of Anak in the wilderness. As they encountered the fearless and cruel children of Anak, a
descendant of the Nephilim who had more combat experience than them, the people of Israel began to
tremble in fear and began to tell Moses their anxieties and complaints. At that time, Moses reminds
them of what God did in Egypt and that God was with them in the wilderness and says to them: " Do not be
terrified; do not be afraid of them. 30 The Lord your God, who is going before you, will fight for you,
as he did for you in Egypt, before your very eyes," (Deut. 1:29-30), and told them not to look at the
difficult circumstance, but to look first at the presence of the God who was with us and at work in the
midst of our lives.

We must believe that God is someone that will fight instead of us. Then our lifes attitude can change.
With that purpose, today, I would like to take the time to look at the message in Proverbs to think
about what the attitude of our lives must be as believers.

First, the attitude of life that we must have is to not lay up anxiety in the heart.
This is something that happened in Britain. There was a congressman who lived always burdened by stress
and frustration. One day, as he was in the car passing in front of the house, he saw the cleaning man
sweeping the alley. The scruffy cleaning man, although sweating, was singing and cleaning with a joyful
expressing. The puzzled congressman got out of the car and asked him Is this work that enjoyable to
you? At that, the cleaner replied. Yes, thats right. Right now, I am beautifying one corner of
the beautiful world that God had created.

Why did the congressman approach the cleaner and ask him? Its because he as he thought about it, he
could not understand the enjoyment of the cleaner who was working in a circumstance that the congressman
did not think was better than his own. Looking at the circumstances, it did not make sense for the
cleaner to be rejoicing. By the standard of looking from the outside, there was nothing to be seen that
was better than him. However, the reason the cleaner was able to work joyfully was because he poured
his soul into the small tasks of day-to-day life and made them into valuable work.

Living in this society, we encounter a myriad of problems. At times, we get anxiety because of
relationships, and at times we get anxiety because of business problems. There many cases that we get
anxiety because of large and small problems. However, its never the case that our problems are solved
because we become anxious. Instead, because of anxiety, people have failures, and as their life
collapses, both mentally and physically, they become devastated.

In verse 13 today, it says that these sorrows can harm the spirit. "A happy heart makes the face
cheerful, but heartache crushes the spirit."
In a different English translation, this verse is expressed as follows: "A glad heart makes a cheerful
face, but by sorrow of heart the spirit is crushed."

And as sorrow crushes our spirits, our bodies will also be harmed. If that is the case, then what would
it be for the spirit to be harmed? It means for the relationship with God to become distant. By making
us unable to see God, it makes us unable to have faith. When some difficult circumstance is suffered,
because of the inability to make spiritual judgments because of the inability to have faith in God, they
suffer.

Ultimately, for the believers to have anxiety is because they cant believe in God. This happens
because they are unable to rely on God. When facing some problem, if you watch only the reality of the
problem, although you say you believe in God, you will fall into sorrow.

Among the movies that I really enjoyed and watched meaningfully, theres a movie titled Patch Adams,
and its a movie thats based on a true story of Hunter Adams, the founder of the charity hospital,
the Gesuntheit Institute in West Virginia. In the movie, theres a conversation between the genius
mathematician that Adams met in a mental hospital. He shows Adams four fingers and asks him how many it
looks like. When he answers four, the mathematician says that he is wrong, and that it is 8. He
says that if instead of looking at the 4 fingers in front of him, but instead focuses on the object
beyond them, then that its 8.

He was saying that if we focus on the 4 fingers in front of us, then not only do we not see whats
behind them, but the 4 fingers only seem big, but if the focus is put on the object behind the fingers,
then the 4 fingers become faded and the problem does not seem large.

We dont NOT have sorrow because we are believers. Because we are humans, we naturally have sorrows.
However, believers are people who are living by setting God as the reliable background. Because of this,
rather than putting the focus on the problems that are in front, we must have the habit of putting the
focus on God, who is beyond the problem. If we contain and hold on to sorrows in our hearts to try to
resolve the problems that are the source of the sorrow with our human efforts, our hearts and spirits
will become crushed and our bodies will be harmed more and more by stress.

Even just myself, its that way. As Im a pastor, there are times when sorrows would appear from
human relations. When I try to do something about the problem, I get more stress. Perhaps all of you
might have at least one similar experience. Everyone is different. Thats why it happens. A knot
appears. However, if I try to untie the knot, then I get frustrated and get stressed. But if at this
time, I pray and entrust it to God, then the sorrows fade. Thats been my experience.

To be a believer means that we are people who dont bear the problems that cause sorrow in our hearts
and try to solve it on our own, but that we immediately lay it down before God and pray. If we look at
Matthew 11:28, the Lord says a familiar saying: That
believers It Anxiety Made Out Problems Heart Bear For yourself Try to solve The It As Instantly God Put
down Praying People. Clause in Matthew 11:28 " Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I
will give you rest." Its a passage with a promise that if we entrust our burdens and worries to the
Lord, then we will receive rest. But how are we? We find it difficult to entrust. And often, we
entrust wrongly. Why cant we entrust? Its because we are anxious. Its because there is no trust
of God.

Pastor Rick Warren said that believing in God is to surrender. Surrender means to completely
entrust ones own body and spirit to the other. If its like this saying, then if the life of faith
is being shaken because of fear, then that means there is an inability to surrender to God. Anxiety
does not solve problems.

Rather, it harms my spirit and creates a distance in my relationship with God. Then that leads to a
lack of prayer. Because of the inability to believe God, the power of prayer becomes unbelievable to
the heart. But there is something we must certainly know, and that is the truth that without prayer,
anxiety can never be solved. This is the reason that we must entrust to God and pray. If not, then
your spiritual eyes will dim.

The heart of a person is very important. Because the source of life comes from it, we must protect it.
God wants us to give Him our hearts. If the heart, which is the source of life, is wounded, then it is
natural that the body decays. The spiritual condition of mankind has a close relationship to the
physical health, so it is important to live with a heart that is always rejoicing and thankful.

Next, the life attitude we must have is to not focus on foolishness.
If we look at verse 14 of todays scripture, it says "The discerning heart seeks knowledge, but the
mouth of a fool feeds on folly."
This verse contrasts the discerning person and the fool and tells us the attitude that should be
inhibited in a believers life. It says "The discerning heart seeks knowledge, but this is not talking
about worldly knowledge.

The intent of the author of this proverb is that because the person with wisdom knows their own
weaknesses, the author tells of the person who seeks and asks God, who is the root of all knowledge, and
follows the spiritual instincts that comes from God. This person acknowledges the perfect God and longs
for his will and the wisdom he gives

On the other hand, 'the mouth of a fool feeds on folly' is speaking of following the instincts of the
flesh of enjoying what is immediately seen. So in the Message English Bible paraphrase, it says ' fools
feed on fast-food fads and fancies.'
.
Fast Food fads and fancieshas the meaning of enjoying the instinctive things. Instead of
acknowledging God, foolish people are people who choose to live following their instincts. As we know,
'instinct' means the unsuppressed feelings or impulse that comes to any organism after it is born,
without depending on education or experience. To live following the instincts means to reject living by
a standard or rational judgment, and at that time, acting on feelings or impulse.

However, in Jude 1:10,19 of the Bible, " Yet these people slander whatever they do not understand, and
the very things they do understand by instinctas irrational animals dowill destroy them." These are
the people who divide you, who follow mere natural instincts and do not have the Spirit." It contrasts
between people who live by their instincts and people who live in submission to the Holy Spirit.
The attitude of the life of a believer is to not live by instincts. The person who lives in submission
to the Holy Spirit is the life of a believer. Why is it that we Christians emphasize the Holy Spirit
and consider it impotant?

If we look, there are some people among Christians who believe that the Holy Spirit is some magical
power. However, Jesus never spoke of the Holy Spirit like that. Instead, the Lord spoke of the Holy
Spirit as a person, and described him as one who is together with us inside of us in John 14:16 " And I
will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever"

Thus, the truth that the Holy Spirit is a being that is with us as a person is important because as a person,
through fellowship with God the Holy Spirit, we can become similar to his characteristics. Without going
through the Holy Spirit, we cannot grow similar to the Lord.
The goal of all Christians is to live like Jesus. God said "Be Holy as I am holy. Just because we
want to be holy does not mean we become holy. Only when we trust only in the Holy Spirit, we can pursue
holiness. If the Holy Spirit manifests, then we can meet Jesus as Lord and Savior. And the Holy Spirit
confirms to us the works that Jesus has done and helps us to work for God as our Lord did. If the Holy
Spirit works powerfully in me, the thoughts of the flesh are changed to thoughts of God.

If we do not rely on the Holy Spirit, then we will be annoyed based on the circumstance, and we can only
act instinctively. Because of this, we must not live by our ways because it is sweet to our mouth.

Finally, the posture of life that we must have is to fear the Lord.
Verse 16 of todays passage says "Better a little with the fear of the Lord than great wealth with
turmoil." What the passage is talking about is that it is better to diligently live serving the Lord
than to always worry about losing their wealth. What does it mean here when it says fear of the Lord?

In the passage, Fear of the Lord is a fear that is felt at some worldly power, but a fear that is
related to respect.
For example, there are times that a child feels fear towards the parent. This is not just a fear of
power, but its a fear that has love as background. When a parent requests a task from a child, the
child does not end at just listening, but puts it into practice. To fear the Lord means this kind of
faith.

In Deuteronomy 10:12, it says " And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you but to fear the
Lord your God, to walk in obedience to him, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart
and with all your soul," and explains that the person who fears God fears walks in his ways and loves
God, and puts their hearts and will to serve God.

But there is something we must know. Among the Christians who are living by grace, there are some
cases when the person mistakes receiving grace to be a sign that they are healthy Christians. Certainly,
it is good to live experiencing grace. It is far better than if it were not the case. However, this is
the most beginners level of spiritual posture.

If we stop only at when we feel grace, that grace is a momentary feeling that is not useful to anyone.
Its not much different than if an unbelieving person were to come to church and listen to the
pastors sermon and is inspired by it and think I should live that way, but returns to day-to-day
life without any action of change.

What is challenging to many believers is to put grace into practice. To practice according to receiving
grace is to have truly received grace. For example, if a child listened to the parents story and
empathized with the story, then that empathy must be put into practice, and the behavior must change.
No matter how much empathy is there, if the behavior does not change, then jts as if there was no
empathy and its becomes as though grace is like that too. If we receive Gods grace, then there must
be an appropriate behavior for having received the grace.

In the Bible, there is a parable of a man who received forgiveness of his debt to the King. The King
forgave the man who owed him 1000000 Talents of all that he owed the King, but the man who received the
forgiveness of his debt, when he met the man who owed him 100 talents, told him to pay him back, and had
him locked up in prison, and the King rebuked the man and had him thrown in prison as well.
This Parable is a story about forgiveness, however, on one hand, it is also a story about grace. Its
saying that people who have received grace must have actions of grace. This is because it is following
Gods way, and it is the work of loving God with all your heart and character. To live day to day,
being challenged by the words of God, living and changing the attitude of life.

No matter if a Christian received grace, if the life is not revived by the Word, then the taste of that
word is soon lost. Through that, when a stimulus appears, we must specifically make a decision. And we
must put it into practice. When we do that, our attitude of life will transform to be the way God wants
it. This is the life attitude of fearing God, and when this behavior is there, then the small day-to-
day tasks will be filled with the spirit to make it into a work with value.

Beloved Christians!
I dont want you to be believers who are caught up by the circumstances, but that you will be people
who control the circumstances. No matter what circumstance you are in, rather than anxiety going first,
I hope you will be the children of God who changes the circumstances around you with the posture of a
believer who believes and relies on God.

Lord said "For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."(Matthew 6:21). I want our
treasure to be God. And I hope that through the attitude of life of believing and relying on God, that
it would become a daily life of value and become a life that changes the circumstances.