Life’s too Short to be Negative
MESSAGE TRANSCRIPTION:
We’re in the middle of a sermon series called Life is Too Short. And if you have missed any of the previous sermons, let me just encourage you to go to our website. Eastsideky.church and you can watch any of the previous messages that you’ve missed. Now we’re talking about in the sermon series. What are the things that causes you and I to waste our one and only life that we’ve been given? And so we’re just looking at those different issues that trips us up. Excuse me. Oh, man. Excuse me. I mean, that’s good coffee, too. Oh, I’m sorry. I’ve never done that in 32. We have napkins. We have for 32 years. I’ve never done that in my entire life. That’s going to leave a stain as a good shirt to mane of Nike. I mean, I apologize. I’ve never had that happen. You know. But as I think about. The stain is going to develop on my shirt. Kind of reminds me of today’s subject matter negativity. Negativity. Or stain the wardrobe of your heart. It will stain the the wardrobe of your life. Negativity. Well, mess with you. Negativity would destroy relationships. Negativity would destroy. Your marriage. Negativity would destroy your business and your company. That you own negativity would destroy your relationship with your children and your grandchildren. Negativity will even destroy a church. Life is too short. To be negative. But wouldn’t you agree with me? Though. There’s something that resides in all of us. That loves other people’s dirty laundry. Right, Patrick? I mean, we love it, don’t we? I mean, we love to get that laundry basket out. We love to pull up one piece of dirty laundry on someone else. And we love to pull out another piece and we love to sort through it and we love to hold it up. We go, Hey, look at this. Look at Patrick’s dirty laundry. Look at this. There’s something about that that we that we love. Is that the reality is that we just love to air other people’s dirty laundry. Let me just ask you a question. Do you live with someone? Who always looks at life. As if the cup is half empty. Are you married to someone like that? Do you live next door to a neighbor whose cup is always have empty? Let me ask you this question. Are you married to someone? Who’s full of negativity.
Now, today, we’re going to talk about how to navigate and negotiate negativity. We’re going to talk about how to get clean. And if you are tired of having a negative attitude. What today’s message is for you, because a lot of us, we have this spot, we have this stain on her life, on her heart of negativity. And how do we become clean of that? Let me just ask you a question. When I say the word negativity, what comes to your mind? What’s the first word? Don’t shout it out. Just what’s the first word that comes to your mind? Well, actually, I’ve just put some words on the screen. I want you to say them with me.
Slander
Gossip
Secrets
Sarcasm
Cynicism
Pessimism
Criticism
Here’s the deal. Negativity is always disguise. Right. We call it a lot of different things, but we never call it negativity. We call it something else. But there are negative. There’s negative news. There’s negative people. There’s negative stuff in the sports world. Even in Little League. There are negativity found in all the media outlets. There’s negativity found on social media platforms. And after times we want to point the finger at the media and social media and how they promote negativity. But we have to understand right before we accuse them that they’re only delivering what the consumer desires and the consumer loves negativity. And so I just ask you again that are you tired of living with the negative attitude? Are you tired of living with your cup being have empty are you tired of walking and going through the dirty laundry of other people? You know, I don’t know what your favorite music may be. You know, the young staff members around here, they always make fun of me because I listen to K Love and Air One, and I think they’re pretty good stations. And they go, Those are old people stations. Is what they tell me. And I guess I’m old. But every once in while I get tired of listening to to K Love and Air One and my second go to radio station is country music. Anybody else like country music besides me. I like the older country a little bit better, the ones that has a little bit of blues. But you have to agree with me that whatever decade that you’re in, country music is sad music. Would you not agree with me? Would you not agree me. By telling the life stories? And for example, listen to this.
We’re like those country songs, right? I mean, like, we have got that country boy, he can survive Folsom Prison Blues Looking back, Texas dirty laundry mentality. We have it. And here’s the reality is you get a group of people together and before long, what happens, Tammy, is eventually we go to negativity, we go to negative news, we go to the the dirty laundry of other people, and we begin to hold it up for others to see. We begin to air it out. And, you know, it’s the bad news. It’s the bad stuff that we know about other people. And we you seem to cannot keep negative news to ourselves. And it’s the squeaky wheel. Always get the grease. You know, what I’m talking about is that negativity is just everywhere. But the great thing that I love about the Bible is the Bible teaches us how to come clean with negativity. The Bible tells us over and over and over that there’s people that are negative, but life is too short to be negative. You can come clean, you can be set free from this, because once you think about it is, what do we have maybe five, six, seven decades to make a difference? And this is the reason why I put this in the outline.
Life is too short to destroy the
DECADES with negativity.
And so many people are consumed with negativity. Now, when I got thinking about the negativity and I got thinking about all the different examples in Scripture and throughout Scripture, I thought about the one example, the one where the people of God had a PHD in negativity. You remember them. They’re called God’s chosen people. They’re called the Israelites. You know, remember them. You remember the Israelites. They were in captivity in Egypt for 400 years. They were slaves. They built the cities for the Egyptians, and then God sent Moses in to deliver them. You remember the story and remember that what happens is that God miraculously set them free. They’re going into the promised land. They come upon the ocean. And what does God do? God parts the ocean they walk through on dry ground. The nation of Egypt comes after them. What does God do? God eliminates them all together. And then once they get on the other side of the ocean, what does God do? God provides for them for weeks after weeks and months upon months. He provides a cloud for them during the day to guard them, a fire at night. God gave them this entire piece of real estate. I mean, it was unbelievable. But you remember the story right before the nation of Israel is going into the land of milk and honey. God decides to do something. God says to Moses, Moses, pick a man from each of the 12 tribes and one from each tribe. And I want you to send them out as spies into the new promised Land. Everybody remember the story. If you remember it, say amen. Now shake your head. Amen. You see, if you follow me, you’re listening. Okay. So. Amen. And so they are going into the promised land there to get a report. And God says to Moses, Moses, don’t worry about anything. I’m going to be with you. I’m going to be with them. The promised land is going to be delivered to you. And Moses says, Yes, sir, Lord, we will do it. And so Moses picks the 12 spies. They go into the promised Land as they go into the promised land. They spend some days scouting. They come back in. Ten of the 12 spies have developed a spirit of negativism. A spirit of negativity. Look at how the Bible says it.
“They gave Moses this account: “We went into the land to which you sent us, and it does flow with milk and honey! Here is its fruit. But, the people who live there are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large.'”
Numbers 13:27:28 (TNIV)
Now, notice Who said this? Who said this? Who said this? Who said this? They said it. Negativity breeds negativity. Negativity. My friends, they always run in a pack. You show me someone who is negative and I will show you that their friends are negative as well. Negative people hangs out with negative people. Negativity always breeds negativity. You have to understand that negativity is contagious. And so here are the people of Israel. They had 12 spies go into the land. Ten of them come back and they have a pretty negative point of view. They said the city is fortified, the people are giants. Negativity. For these ten could have ended with them. They could have held on to their negativity. But you know what happens? Those ten representatives went back to their individual tribes. And what did they do? Someone tell me. Do they keep it to themself? Now what do they do? Negativity demands to be shared, right? We have to share the negativity, We just can’t keep it to ourselves. We want to always share the bad news. So they go back and they tell their tribes all about the negativity. Tells the tribe all about what was going on in the land. And I just kept thinking to myself, Why are people so negative?
Now I think there’s a lot of reasons why people are negative. I think we can come up with a bunch. I think we can make a long list and probably come out with one in about 2 minutes. I think one of the reasons that people are negative is because when we’re negative about other people, it makes us feel superior to a certain degree. Correct? But I think there’s a more fundamental. Calls for. Negativity. Is negativity is an attribute of lazy people. Now, let me say that again, because I should have gotten an amen. But if you’re lazy and I understand that but alright. the fundamental attribute of someone who is lazy is negativity. And you know why? It’s negativity. Because they don’t want to be on a mission with God. They don’t want to be challenged by God. They don’t want to be used by God. They want to play it safe. They want to stay in the comfort zone rather than the stretch zone. They want to just somehow or another, they just want to play it safe. They don’t want to be used by God. And folks, we should never play it safe. We should never get lazy. And when Virgil Grant becomes negative, you can bet your bottom dollar that Virgil Grant has become lazy. But remember, only ten of the 12 had a spirit of negativism. There’s two other guys. Does anybody remember the names of those two other spies? Caleb and Joshua. Remember them? Caleb and Joshua was different. They didn’t come back seeing what a big fortified city It wasn’t how big the people were. They came back and they were men of courage. They were men of vision. They were men who believed in the mission. They said, Yeah, things are good in the promised land. But yes, there are some large people. Yes, there are some fortified cities. But you need to understand is that they stood up for the cause, not because of who they are, but because of whom God is. They understood that God had given them the promised land. They understood that God was going to make a way. And they said, You know what? We need to stand up. We need to take the real estate that God has given to us and friends. Here’s the thing that you need to understand. This is what I’m trying to get Eastside to understand and what I’m trying to get you to understand is that God has given us some real estate. God has given us some property. God has given us a vision. God has given us a cause. God has given us marching orders. And what the elders of the church, what the finance team and the staff is trying to help you to see, is that we have the ability to move forward, not because of who we are, but because of the God that we serve. And God wants us to push back. Darkness in Madison County. God wants us to help 10,000 people to live the all in life or to begin the journey of living they all their life. But do you understand the number one obstacle for us to fulfill this vision is the negativity of the people in this church. It’s the negative attitudes. It’s the negativity that we’re not able to do this. And we want to come back to that in a second. Look with me at numbers chapter 13.
“And they spread among the Israelites a bad report about the land they had explored. They said, ‘The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size….We seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.”
Numbers 13:32-33 (TNIV)
Now I love how Satan works. I love how he takes things and he magnifies it. You know, one of the characteristics of a negative person is that they exaggerate everything. Well, they tell a story. Not only are they negative. Not only are they lazy, but they also they begin to exaggerate everything that’s going on around them. And notice how they exaggerated the story from the promised land, from the land flow with milk and honey is that we seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them. They exaggerated everything. And here’s how Satan works. Media How Satan works. I just want you to write this down or put it in your notes section of your phone. Here’s how Satan works.
Satan takes our mouths and with negativity, make them sound like megaphones.
Is that Satan can take the negativity that we know about and take your mouth and make all the negativity in her mouth. Make it to exaggerate. So it sounds like a megaphone to other people. He has the ability to exaggerate other things that’s going on. And we exaggerate things that are negative to other people. No. There’s probably 300 plus people in the room. Probably 300 plus in the first service. So I’m just assuming that there’s someone here who has a negative spirit. Would you agree with me? There’s at least one, right? The odds are pretty high. You know, and I can hear what you’re saying right now. In your mind, you would probably never say it out loud to me, but you would probably think in your mind. My church. We can never do a second campus. It’s too big of a project. It’s too big of an ordeal. And then they begin to exaggerate why it’s an ordeal and why it’s too big of a project. And what they’re doing is they’re using negativity, an exaggeration to hide their comfort level and then playing it safe, then being lazy.
Now, I’m not being judgmental. I’m just saying that’s where you’re at. And you have a choice to remain in your comfort zone or be in the stretch zone and do something big for the Lord. Can I just tell you, for the last 32 years, starting September the first, I will begin my 33rd year as a senior pastor of Eastside Community Church. I get a phone call now. That’s good. Tell the president I said hello. So I became a third year. And can I tell you something? Is that he said we have been cloak the negativity from the very beginning. When the very first time that I came to preach. And I got called to become the pastor. And I came in September and started preaching. And then November I said, Hey, how’s the search going for a new pastor in 1990? They go, Oh, we’re not looking for anyone to go. What’s the plan? They go, You’re the plan. And I go, okay. And so in December, they voted on me. That’s when we did secret ballot ballot votes back in the day. And there’s 33 people in the room. And 33 people cast their vote. I got 30 yes and three no’s. And ever since the beginning, we’ve been cloaked in negativity. People said, No way can Virgil Grant go back to his hometown and lead a church to make a difference. When the church in 1998, when was currently with the Salvation Army is I’m giving you a little history lesson but also sharing with you the negativity. We bought this land, we bought this 18 or 19 acres or whatever it is. We bought this land. They said, Oh, they can never relocate. It’s too big of a project. And people in the community and people in the church, they were full of negativity.
Then finally we moved into this facility on Easter of 2002, and then two years later we doubled our facility and we was cloaked in negativity and people never said. People always said that would never work. And then we started up basketball and cheerleading, brought it to Madison County and they I would never work, but it’s still going today, even though we’ve given it away to other churches. And then. We started growing and we started doing buzz events and that’s why we brought in special speakers so that you can have an easy invite to bring your friends and neighbors and people goes, Oh, look at the Eastside, watering down the gospel, bringing in these big names. And then we did that big event at Christmas for the very first time. He even said it’s a cuss word for some of you. But remember, we did that Fa la la La Family Christmas Village. Remember that? And we pulled that off and people criticized us. And then after we did that, we started talking about opening our second campus on Exit 95. And people have been critical of that. And I hear people all the time, you know, and you hear it, they say, well, all Eastside does is they just preach, you know, the wealth and gospel up there, you know, get rich. They don’t never talk about sin. They don’t believe in what we believe. Their watering the gospel down. And I’m like, are you kidding me? I mean, folks, if you believe that Jesus Christ is the only way to heaven, you are a flaming conservative in this day and age.
If you believe that Jesus is the only way to heaven. And that’s what we believe around here, because this is what the Bible teaches, that Jesus Christ is the only way to heaven. He’s the only one who was worthy enough to die for your sin in my sin. And then he was placed in the grave, and three days later God resurrected him. And at this very moment, he’s seated at the right in the Father interceding, advocating for you and for me. And not only do we believe that, but we believe that there’s there’s the Trinity, there’s God, the Father, God, the Son, God, the Holy Spirit. We believe that Jesus was born of a virgin named Mary, that she was conceived by the Holy Spirit, but not any man. We believe that Jesus Christ was the only perfect individual who ever walked upon the face of this earth, and there’s never been any one else. We believe that there’s a literal hell that if you die without receiving Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, and that’s going to forgive you of your sins, that you’re going to die. It’s split hell wide open, folks. We believe all of that. But people wants to say, well, the only reason that you’re growing is because you water the gospel. No, no, we’re growing because we work our butts off. That’s the difference. Because when you decide not to be negative, but to work and to invest and to chase people down.
So, folks, I’ve heard it my whole life. You know, the only reason why I’ve survived the last 32 years of ministry is because.
NONE of this is about me.
None of this is about you. None of this is about our elders. None of this is about our staff. It’s only about God. And here’s what I know. Is. What you do reveals what you believe about God. Now, let me say that one more time. Some of you wrote in to say that one more time, I’m going to say set what we do reveals what we believe about God. And I believe. That God is interested in the 60% of the people in Madison County and surrounding counties. Who has no religious affiliation. Who has voted with their feet but not coming to church. I think that’s what God is interested in. I think God is interested in a church. He’ll stand in the gap. Who’s willing to take the hit? Who’s willing to take the negativity of lazy people in the community? Who doesn’t want to be on a mission with God? He’s looking for a church to take the hit, and I’m willing to take the hit. I don’t know about you. But I’m willing to stand in the gap for lost people who does not know Jesus Christ as the Lord and Savior. But if we’re going to be used by God, we have to get rid of the negative spirit that reigns in so many people’s hearts. So how do we come clean? Let me just give you real quickly, because I’m out of time. I can preach longer than you can set, I promise you on that. Well, let me give you how to come clean. The letter C stands for.
COME C.L.E.A.N.
CONNECT
You have to take an inventory of your relationships. People listen to me. The relationships that you possess, the relationships that you have, are important to your well-being. As a Christian, you hang around negative people. You’re going to develop a negative spirit. You hang around positive people. You’re going to develop a positive spirit. You have to take an inventory of your relationships. And can I just say something to you? I’ve said this before, but I say it again. There’s three types of relationships. The first type of relationship is what I would call.
ENERGY SUCKERS = They will suck drain your battery dry.
These are the people that will absolutely drain you. And I don’t know about you, but I think that is the devil’s strategy. For every Christian who’s seeking to live that all in life, to give him or her ten energy sucking people to hang out with, does anybody else agree with me on that? Is it just me? Maybe I’ve got your ten and I’ve got 20 and you don’t have any? I don’t know. But it just seems like every time that you want to live that all in life is that the devil will put energy sucking people around you. And you go, Well, Pastor, how do you define an energy sucking person? Well, folks, it’s not rocket science. You know what it is? As you see so-and-so come and you go, Oh, my gosh, here they come. I don’t want to be around them. And you just kind of duck. And if you do that with someone, you know that they’re the person who’s draining your life dry. The second type of relationship that you have is.
NEUTRAL PEOPLE = they give and take.
hey give, they take, they give, they take. It’s kind of a wash out. But the people that I want in my life are the people that.
REPLENISHING PEOPLE= they re-charge and re-calibrate you.
When I’m around them, I get fired up. When I get around them, I’m recalibrated, I’m replenished, I’m actually recharged. I mean, I’m ready. I don’t know about you. I’m ready to storm the gates of hell. When I get around people that replenishes me. I’m ready to take the devil and knock him right between his eyes as hard as I can when I’m around these people. So you just have to connect. You have to take inventory of your relationships. The second thing that you have to do to.
COME C.L.E.A.N.
LOOK.
If you want to come clean, you have to look what I mean by look. What do you have to look to the past. You look to the present and you look to the future. And folks, if you’re going to become positive, you’ve got to look to the past. And you know what the past is? The past is is that Jesus Christ went to the cross, died on the cross for my sin and for your sin. He was put in the grave. Three days later he was resurrected. My sin and your sin has been forgiven. There’s something to be positive. Look at the present, if you will, folks, Today is the five year anniversary of my open heart. I have a second chance a lot. August 21st, five years ago I had open heart surgery. I shouldn’t even be here. I’m completely dependent on my pacemaker. He goes out I’m down. God gave me a second chance. Look at the beautiful people that’s in this room. Look at my beautiful family, look at the things that Gods given me. You can’t look to the past. You can’t look to the present, but you gotta look to the future. I don’t know about y’all, but I’ve read the end of the book, and then the book says that we win, that we win, that there’s nothing that can separate us from the love of God, that nothing can separate us. We win. The devil has been defeated. We have been given eternal life. We have been forgiven ever since. And folks, when you look to the past, the present and the future, there’s no reason to be negative. But then you have to do E.
COME C.L.E.A.N.
ENJOY
Speaker 1: Mature Christians they learn to enjoy the things of life. They don’t allow the things of life to possess them. Mature Christians are always positive. You know, there’s thing I love about my dad when he was alive. Oh, he loved life. He loved things. He was the most positive person that I ever knew. He would play the lottery $2 ticket every week, twice a week, because he believed. If Any of my siblings. That’s my mom. He believed in his heart of hearts that he was going to win that thing. And he was positive. He says this is the week. And we said, you’ve been saying that for ten years. Nope, this is the week. And he got home and forgot to get his lotto ticket . He went to town and got it before the drawing because he just believed that. He was one of the most positive people that you would ever meet in your life. I mean, completely positive. Because mature Christians understand. But every good and perfect gift comes from the Lord above. Negative people. Negative people. They’re complaining they’re in the zone.Because why? Because they don’t have what everybody else has. They don’t enjoy anything because they’re consumed with negative. So you have to connect. You have to look. You have to enjoy. The letter A means to.
COME C.L.E.A.N.
ACTIVATE
You have to activate. You’ve got to do something. And what I mean here is that you have to do something. Is that a read the other day? For every ten compliments that you receive, you have to have yet to receive ten compliments to negate one negative column comment. So you get a negative comment. It takes ten to eliminate that one. And many of you, you’re like me. You remember that statement that the coach made? Or the teacher made your mom or dad made to you? When you was little. It’s replayed quite often at times that you’re not even expecting. But you’re too big. You’re too fat. You made that. Really? You’re not good enough, you’re not capable enough. You don’t have the ability. Some of those words are ugly and. You’re not strong enough. All of those words, they impact the soul. And we as Christians, every time that were negative. We’re digging in the souls of other people. We have to activate their faith and be the most positive people on the planet. And then the letter N is to.
COME C.L.E.A.N.
NAVIGATE
We have to navigate the negativity. Now, I know what I’m about to say is going to be difficult for you to hear, and you’re not going to believe it. But just believe it, okay? I’m a very impatient individual. I know that’s hard for you to believe. I know that you don’t see that in me as your pastor, but, man, I am very impatient. I’m probably one of the most impatient people that you’ll ever meet. But if I pray for patience. What does God do? Does God just take me and put me with the most patient loving, kind people that he could find? Is that what God does? What does God do? He puts me in the most difficult circumstances that demands the most patients in the moment. You know what I’m talking about. And God says, Virgil, you just have to navigate. You have to trust. You have to trust my spirit. You have to trust my word. You have to trust my teachings. If you lean into the things that I’ve taught you, the things that I’ll remind you if you do that, is that you will navigate through this. And you won’t be impatient. But you develop patience through the testing and through the process. And friends. That’s how you come clean.
That’s how you get rid of a negative mindset. Just evaluate your connections. Look to the past. Look to the future. Look to the present. Enjoy the things that God has given you activate and then navigate. If you do those things, you can be clean. And here’s what I believe. That we should be the most positive people. Of anybody in central Kentucky, because we have witnessed time and time again. The miracle working power of God in our congregation and in our own lives. And so this morning. If God’s going to use us, we’ve got to deal with the spirit of criticism. That may not reside in your heart toward Israel, but your heart towards life in general. Because God cannot. Bless us the way he would like to. Life is too short. To be negative. Would you pray with me? Now this morning. You may feel convicted, every head bowed. You don’t have to close your eyes just about your head. Every. Head bowed. Some of you may be convicted. Some of you may be at the point of I need to repent. Some of you may be feeling overwhelmed. Because of today’s message. Whatever you need to do, you can do it right there in your seat. And I just pray right now. That you would get rid. Of that spirit of negativism. And that you would come clean and that you would repent. And that you would take on the spirit of praise and worship. Because of the goodness of God in your life. And so this morning, would you stand?
Father, would you take these people right now? Would you use them? Would you cast out the spirit of criticism negativism? And would you help them to have a spirit of praise and worship and focus on the goodness of God? And this morning, Lord, I just ask. This can all be done. For your glory and for Your Honor. And everyone said, Amen