This Week's Light Service Sermon

Light Service Sermons for the Month
Putting the Passion Back into Life
Adjust Your Attitude
DATE:August 20, 2000
TEXT: Ephesians 4:23-24a

Robert Louis Stevenson, the great author, was bedridden most of his life with tuberculosis. One day, his wife heard him hacking away and said, “I suppose you still believe it is a wonderful day.” Turning toward a window filled with sunlight, Stevenson said, “I do! I will never let a row of medicine bottles block my horizon.”

Mal Hancock was a promising athlete who saw his dream shattered when he suffered a fall that left him paralyzed for life. Needless to say, May faced almost insurmountable challenges as a he tried to reconstruct his life.
While in the hospital, Mal’s sense of humor took over and he began to record life in the hospital through cartoon drawings. It wasn’t long before the staff was coming in to see him every day, hoping they’d be a part of his latest cartoon adventure.
May eventually sent one of his drawings to a publisher and his career as a cartoonist was launched. His work appeared in the Saturday Evening Post and TV Guide, among other many other magazines and he even published a book called, Hospital Humor.
A physically challenged woman had a friend who approached her one day and said, “Affliction does so color life.” To which she responded, “It sure does. But I propose to choose the color.”
Those three people, all faced with some of the toughest stuff life has to offer, had discovered something life-transforming in the midst of their difficulties. They had discovered the power of attitude and its ability to color our lives. They had learned that God has created us with the power to choose how we will respond to life—and that our response will determine whether or not we live life with passion. And in the case of these three people, they had decided to live life with energy and enthusiasm in spite of life’s setbacks.
Research continues to show us just how amazing our attitude is. We have the power, through our belief system, to determine how it is we will respond to life and that that response has everything to do with the passion with which we live life. As Virginia Satir reminds us, “Life is not the way it’s supposed to be. It’s the way it is. The way you cope with it is what makes the difference.”
British psychiatrist, J. A. Hadfield conducted an interesting experiment to test the power of attitude. He asked three people to grip a dynameter. The first time they did it the average grip was 101 pounds. Then he hypnotized the volunteers and convinced they that they were very weak. The average grip dropped to 29 pounds. Then he convinced the volunteers that they were very strong and the average grip jumped to 142 pounds.
The fact is, we are what we believe. Our attitude has everything to do with the way we live life. Research says that people who approach life with an attitude that says yes to others and to possibilities live with far more joy and passion than naysayers do.
Last week we began a new series called, “Putting the Passion Back into Life.” It’s a series focused on the characteristics of passionate people and what we can learn from them about how to keep the fire in our bellies burning that we might make the most out of what God has for us.
We began the series last week by talking about how passionate people prize their priorities. They learn the art of focusing on the important and putting their energy there. For it’s in the important that we find passion.
Today as we continue our series we’re going to focus on how people keep the passion alive by adjusting their attitude—how God can readjust the way we respond to life that we might choose its colors. But before we do that let us pray…
(PRAYER)
There are several different kinds of attitude busters in life that seek to rob us of our passion. They include:
1) difficulties
2) setbacks
3) guilt
4) negativity and so on
But perhaps the most pervasive passion-draining attitude buster is hopelessness—the belief that we have absolutely no power to control the future.
Martin Seligman, a popular psychologist and expert in the field of attitude calls this sense of hopelessness learned helplessness. He says that those of us who experience this passion-debilitating way of viewing life have probably gone through some experiences that teach us that no matter what we do, there will always be an opposing force stronger than we are. And the result is that we choose to give up. We feel helpless, life looks hopeless, and eventually it drains all passion from us. For when there is no hope, there is no energy and joy in life.
Many of us can relate. The pressures, setbacks, and challenges of life have beaten us down to the point where we have a hard time believing in life at all. We don’t have the strength to pull ourselves up by the bootstraps anymore. We no longer have the energy to will ourselves to think optimistically. We’re simply worn out. And our color of life is pretty hopeless.
As we saw last week, God created us to live life with passion. Now God knows that life isn’t always fair or good. In fact, he experienced the tough stuff of life first hand when he walked the earth in the person of Jesus. However, God did create us with the remarkable ability to choose our response to life—to choose the color of life no matter what the circumstances. And his antidote to passion-draining hopelessness is to recreate our attitude—to create in us a new way of thinking. And he does that by giving us hope. For God knows that hope is the power that transforms a “can’t” attitude to a “can” attitude.
2000 years ago God, in the person of Jesus, faced the greatest obstacle that life can throw our way—the obstacle of death. Jesus was crucified on a cross and with his death all hope seemingly came to an end. But three days later Jesus replaced the hopelessness with hope when he rose from the dead. And because he is alive today his can fill our minds with that hope—hope that assures us that the tough times of life can’t defeat us. Hope that every day is New Year’s Eve, that everyday we get a chance to start again. And when that hope fills our hearts, we find a new attitude toward life—an attitude that says “yes” rather than “no.” An attitude that puts the fire back into life.
Eugene Lund was once asked to speak to a group of 59 sixth graders in East Harlem. He wondered what he could say to these kids, mot of whom, because they saw no hope for the future, would drop out of school. He had a nice speech prepared but as he looked into the faces of those students he put down his notes and spoke from the heart. He said simply, “Stay in school, and I’ll pay the college tuition for every one of you.” Nearly 90 percent of that class went on to graduate from high school because, as one student put it, “I had something to look forward to, something waiting for me. It was a golden feeling.” That golden feeling was hope. And it transformed their attitudes.
In a large city here in the States the school system has initiated a program that sends teachers into hospitals to tutor children who will be there for extended stays. One day one of the volunteer teachers was called upon to visit a hospitalized child and work with him on nouns and adverbs. The teacher walked into the room to discover that this young boy had been badly burned over most of his body and was in a great deal of pain. She was deeply moved by what he was going through and found it very difficult to focus on the task at hand. And when she left she felt that she hadn’t properly done her job.
The next day she received a call from the nurse who asked her, “What did you do to that boy?” The teacher assumed she had done something wrong and began to apologize. But the nurse interrupted and said, “No, no. You don’t understand. We’ve been worried about that little boy. But ever since yesterday his whole attitude has changed. He’s fighting back and looks as if he’s decided to life.”
Two weeks later the young boy explained that he had completely given up hope until that teacher came to visit him. At that moment everything changed. He said, “It suddenly hit me that they wouldn’t send a teacher to work on nouns and adverbs with a dying boy, would they?”
His attitude had been readjusted by hope. And that hope put new fire into his life.
That’s why Jesus came. To make hope a possibility. To show us that, no matter what life throws our way, he, not the circumstances in our life, will have the final word. He endured the cross to make hope a reality. And when that hope captures our minds, we discover a new passion for living—a new determination to make the most out of the gift of each day.
In the movie, Groundhog Day, Bill Murray plays a weatherman who’s caught reliving Groundhog Day over and over again in Puxatanny, Pennsylvania. And he’s the only one who knows it. At first, once the initial shock wears off, he kind of enjoys it. But as the monotony of living the same day over and over again wears on him, he starts losing his passion for life. For awhile every day he commits suicide to wake up and live the same day all over again.
(Video Clip Groundhog Day if possible)
Murray's character comes to realize that, rather than being a burden, starting the day over was actually a gift to better himself. To learn new skills. To help people. In other words, hope transformed his attitude, and it put the passion back into his life.
The good news is that Jesus came to fill every day with hope—to help us see that each day is a fresh start—a chance to enjoy the gifts God has for us. And when that hope captures our attitudes we discover the power to choose the colors of life, no matter what life throws our way, colors that put passion and fire back into life.
I encourage you to discover that attitude-changing power of hope by welcoming Jesus into your life. For he promises to walk with you each day, giving you the strength to face life’s challenges, the courage to choose the colors of life, and the promise of a fresh start each and every day, gifts that fill us with hope and passion.
AMEN