Character and Destiny, Part 2 with Pastor Chris Buttery

[Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] you have a friend who uh he's really a medical missionary a bit of a cold porter and a bit of a medical missionary and he travels the globe and meets with clients and he helps them come up with a plan to help them deal with some of the health issues it might be might be high blood pressure it might be high cholesterol it might be they have heart disease whatever the issue might be and so he's working with a company a couple i should send out a company he was working with a couple um over there in the middle east and he was working with them and helping them with with with how they could eat things that things that they could eat that would be better for them getting them on an exercise regimen doing different things for them and the husband his issues became much much more minimal they weren't as concerning as before as he was working on this regimen but the wife's conditions remained the same and she he was doing every she was doing everything he was doing they were both doing everything that he had he had asked them to do to help them live good healthy lives but there was one thing that she wasn't doing or hadn't done and that he found out he sat down with her tried to find out what's going on here what's what's wrong and discovered that she was harboring unforgiveness a bit of spirit toward her mother and he told her unless she deals with that issue her health challenges are going to still remain because that was what was holding up the works and and so they prayed about they talked about it she made an effort to reach out and lo and behold the effort resolved itself it was a beautiful thing and all of a sudden her health issues went from high concern to low concern so we talk about health it's not just the physical things that we do there's also the harbouring and unforgiving spirit bitterness envy those things can can affect the health as well but i want to talk a little bit about some health things with you here this morning before we go on to the next um next contrast i want to share with you some some health in life enhancers health that'll bring a healthier life and of course if we practice these eight enhances of a longer life that will be our lives will be much better for it first of all the first the first one is eat more way less yes you heard me right eat more weigh less eat more whole grains and fruits and nuts and vegetables and minimize and eliminate the high fat high cholesterol foods so i had you there for a minute didn't i yeah some of you are listening eat more way less eat more of the good stuff you know the bible presents three diets you know what those diets are there's the unaccepted diet unacceptable diet that's the one we read about in leviticus chapter 11 deuteronomy 14. certain land animals seattle sea creatures birds that we shouldn't eat scavengers and the like leave those off the dinner plate then there's the acceptable diet god allowed man to after the flood to eat flesh foods wasn't wasn't the ideal diet it was the permissible primarily because there wasn't any vegetation to eat at the time so they began to eat clean particular clean animals it was permissible it wasn't a command it was just allowed and but then there's the ideal diet and that ideal diet you read about back in genesis of course and where god commanded adam and eve to eat from uh the fruit of the tree the where the fruit grows and the nuts grow and so on and so the diet that god had given adam and eve in the garden of eden was the ideal diet it was the best diet for them of course he's the creator he knows us better than we know ourselves he knows what fuel we need to fuel the fuel the the tank and keep us moving in a in a good way in a healthy way and so we gave them those gave them that diet and we've discovered science has discovered over the course of of years of not not many years but few years that the vegetarian diet is the best diet a better diet than other diets when coupled with other other things back in australia where i'm from um i was 17 i decided i'd go vegetarian my friends looked at me what what is that and why would you do that and you need your meat and so i'd be i'd be the only one that ordered a vegetarian pizza when i was with my friends and there was another there was another person there she'd no i'll take some of the vegetarian pizza i'm trying to go that way too and i was just kind of doing it for health health kind of health purposes to be honest with you when i looked at a steak i was looking at the the nostrils of a cow i just couldn't do it anymore i just i looked at the meat and i saw the animal and i said i just this is weird i can't do this anymore it was kind of weird i don't know how it happened or why it happened but it did and just said i'm not going to do it 17. and you know even at 17 yeah 17 you're filled with energy rest of your life before you i'll tell you i i felt lighter i felt like i had far more energy when i stopped uh stopped eating uh flesh foods meat but back in australia the medical journal of australia was asking the ques ask the question is a vegetarian diet adequate because you often hear oh no no you need your protein oh you need your iron you need meat for all of that no you don't the medical medical uh journal of australia said in a vegetarian diet you get adequate protein and you get adequate iron and of course there have been little movies that have come out um that have talked about the benefits of a vegetarian diet and and books and others and so this is nothing new if you know the bible you know this is nothing new and god is asking his people to rise to the occasion and to be examples to those around us to let people know this is the better way to live the better way to go and we we live this way not because we want to necessarily live a longer life we live this way because we know it helps keep the mind clear and it's the mind that god has the opportunity to speak to us through clogged mind limits the communication freer mind clearer mind god's better able to communicate with us and so eat more and weigh less the other one is exercise reasonably and consistently it increases lungs process the air hearts will grow stronger you're given more stamina strengthens the bones lifts up can lift a person out of depression relieves anxiety and stress all the benefits of exercise far outweigh the negatives that is uh sore muscles aching back and and all the rest so exercise reasonably and consistently also avoid caffeine did i say that i did avoid caffeine and colas not too many smiles now drink drink more water let me ask you a question would you shower in colder beverages or caffeine no you wouldn't you shower in what because it's clean it cleans you and that's what that's what we should be putting down our throats and cleaning out the body yeah we are 70 water this is just a piece of trivia 70 water do you know how much water the kidney processes in a day 47 gallons of water in a day without without water we would be more wrinkled than a california raisin and so we can be grateful for water drink lots of water they say seven eight glasses a day as it goes in it comes out i'll say no more also plenty of sunshine and living in california it's easy to get a lot of sunshine of course enjoy the great outdoors getting lots of sunshine improves the sleep it kills germs it gives skin to a healthy glow it elevates the mood it gives the body allows the body to manufacture vitamin d which enables a body to pick up calcium in building bones helps with other symptoms just 20 minutes a day is all we really need for those good things temperance that's just a moderation of good things and abstaining from those things that are harmful you know the word moderation today is as popular as the word wholesome it was that dr hans seeley that said the human body the human body like tires on a car or a rug on a floor wears longest when it is worn evenly and so temperance moderation fresh air always the best fresh air air is the breath of life you know you know we're dependent on it for oxygen and to operate the powerhouse of ourselves that our powerhouse of ourselves is called mitochondria and it's the mitochondria that is the backbone of every activity carried out in our bodies and fresh air helps with that of course rest sleep well relax when you need to and always remember the sabbath day to keep it holy rest allow your body and rest allows your body and mind to renew and to repair it strengthens your immune system it adds length of years sleep well to sleep well get exercise regularly eat light at night and of course go to bed with a clear conscience and only jesus can help us with that and then the last one is trust trust in divine power rest in god's forgiveness abide in his love know that he'll take care of your needs and it also helps to maintain somewhat of a good sense of humor it's easier friends to maintain good health than to regain it someone said people will spend their health to acquire wealth then they'll gladly pay all of their wealth to regain their health there's no point in doing that so the question is why die before our time god wants us to burn us brightly wants us to burn brightly for as long as we can for as long as we'll last what do you say out there yeah amen to that surely so be fit to live be fit to live and it will help maintain enthusiasm so you don't burn out the second lesson i want to talk with you about is simply this never give up never give up galatians 6 9 says and let us not be weary in well doing for in due season we reap if we faint not so don't give up there's a difference between desisting and persisting so what is desisting desisting just simply means quitting to cease and to desist that's what it just to quit so have you ever been treated unfairly unkindly and you've wanted to quit do you know people with a cease and desist attitude decease desisting it means quitting but persisting persisting simply means going on even when things aren't going as planned even when you're not being treated the way you want to be treated someone said it's a lifetime persisting as a lifetime commitment achieved through daily devotion to duty daily devotion to duty you know we all go through life's turning points and life's turning points tend to be the greatest teachers of persistence now we have all of us have life's turning points some of the positive turning points in life when you get baptized graduating from high school or college maybe getting a pay raise at work or being promoted at work or getting your first job maybe for others that's you know married and having children and or maybe starting a business so these are positive turning points in a person's life but there are the sad ones the difficult ones and these ones are the ones where where we're challenged to persist like losing a job going through a divorce experiencing a financial setback or maybe even health setbacks uh losing a loved one to death these are life's turning points and they can be the greatest teachers of persistence you know i was in my early twenties and i've shared some of this with you before and i was working out my visa issues with the united states had to renew my visa i went up to canada then i came back down into the united states and when i reached the border i wasn't allowed to come back into the united states and the guy that i met at the border he'd gotten out of the wrong side of bed he thought i was treating me like a criminal he yelled and was angry at me he searched my car had me come into the immigration office and would just give me a very hard time and i asked to speak to the supervisor supervisor didn't do anything about it and this man prevented me from going back into the united states and it was a big issue i had potential work in the united states jennifer was in the united states what am i going to do about jennifer and so he said you need to go back to the canadian go back to canada so i went back to canada when i got to the canadian border they said why you they looked at my pa why are you back so soon i said well i wasn't allowed to go back they said why weren't you allowed to go back i said i don't know why they didn't tell me why they just told me you can't come in and so they said well if you can't they won't let you in there what makes you think we're gonna let you in here i thought oh no i'm in big trouble and there's no there's nowhere to live between the the american and canadian border it's just a line you know this is just a line fine line so they sat me down they did some interrogation they talked to me and finally they said okay you can go in and so i caught when as soon as i found a pay phone i called jennifer i said you won't believe it i can't get back into the united states and i don't know what to do and i said i'm going to try to go to the the embassy and try to get this worked out and i knew someone that lived in the montreal area and i was in quebec if you know quebec quebec is the french-speaking province of canada and i don't speak french but i knew a family that lived there actually a friend that i had canvassed with in the summer when when i was in college and i asked her can i just for a couple few nights can i stay with you guys i've got to work out this immigration issue she said sure come on come on over so i i stayed there with the with the family and couldn't work out the issue with the immigration they said you know uh you've gotta book an appointment you gotta come back in several months so i said you know do you i don't know should i just go go i don't know where to go i didn't have really i had a car didn't have much money and um this whole experience was an interesting experience i mean i didn't you have to understand my mindset at the time i had come to america that and i didn't want to come to america god had called me to ministry and i didn't want to do ministry but things had changed and i and i had been accepting and god had opened the door and things looked like they were going to go okay then all of a sudden it all came crashing down and i was asking god what is going on what is happening i've gone through all of this now to just turn around and what's what's this all about and it was a real chat spiritual challenge for me and um and the family said you can stay while you're working out the issues and when i went back in to work out the issues you know for three months i was in quebec i was i heard french all around me and to this day i don't remember a bit of it i certainly don't have the gift of tongues i can tell you that um but i was there and they uh they were so gracious and so kind um i bought it i had to go back they told me you got to go back to australia immigration said work it out back in your home country so i sold the car i had to the young man in the home he needed a car so i sold in my car and bought me a plane ticket went to melbourne stay with my sister hey could you take a poor lonely brother back can you take him in sure bro come on so i stayed with my sister in melbourne worked try to work something out with immigration they said you're gonna have to wait a year come back in a year so i went back to adelaide australia where my my folks are i said i never thought that at the age of 23 i'd be moving back in with my parents and so would you take me back in we'll take we'll take you back in we'll get you worked out so i found work um jen and i were communicating and this was a real test on our relationship what was going to happen would i ever be able to get back and after a year uh things still didn't work out and up to this point i had no idea why i couldn't go back to the united states obviously today everything's worked out i'm here everything's good and i'm here legally just so you know um but uh everything worked out well by god's grace but jen and i prayed and it tested it tested our resolve for one another it tested my persistence with what is god doing with my life here and um i'm working at a at a at a gym i'm selling memberships to a gym it's like lord i went to college for three and a half years is this i'm okay okay to do this if this is what you want me to do but it seems like this is a big turn around the thing i didn't want to do i'm now wanting to do and now that i'm ready to want to do it you're not you're not having me do it and um so it's really a test of persistence jen and i prayed and ultimately i decided to go to canada to work as a literature evangelist door open for me to go and jen and i were able to connect and um and we ended up getting married in the united states that's another story i don't i got to tell you how that happened i was able to go into the states to get married let me tell you it real quick because because it's a because it's a part of the story um what are we going to do we're going to get married we have to get married in your hometown in north carolina sure but let's have a backup plan just in case we can't get married in north carolina we'll have one here and invite people here okay let's do that i was told if you're going to go into the states go through the detroit tunnel because the the immigration officers are friendly like that's not well that's nice but it's not going to well we'll see we prayed a lot about it we went down i was with my brother he was with me at the time went down uh jen was down in north carolina getting ready for the wedding went down to the uh into the tunnel through detroit from from canada and we were greeted and when you when you tell a person you're from australia you're always sent inside to fill in a card and to get a stamp in your passport so that's what happened i and they gave me a green card and there were questions on the card name and all of that there was a question have you ever been denied entry into the united states and i said i said i can't i'm not going to lie but i can't leave a blank i've got to put down the right answer and i know it's over right here so i wrote down yes and i they wanted the date i put down the date actually there were multiple dates i could put down i've been denied entry here here and here and here and i and i gave it back to the immigration officer and i said oh lord this is all in your hands it's up to you and he he took the green slip out of my passport he opened a drawer put it in the drawer shut the door handed me my passport and said enjoy your time in the united states i said praise the lord so so being the person i am i found the nearest pay phone my brother and i pulled over found a pay phone called jan got on the phone jen i got i got news for you i made it into the united states [Laughter] and so we pray and we praise god uh for that it was a miracle we got married in north carolina that whole episode that whole episode was a major challenge was a major turning point not only in my life but in jen's life and it would it would turn the course of things the way i thought they were going to go it would turn the course of everything our children were born in canada the first maga book program canvassing summer program began in canada when we were there a lot of things changed the way i thought they were going to happen god god turned it all on its head my brother got baptized my time in australia i couldn't figure out why i was there it was until later that i found out why people were making decisions for jesus through the associations i had with them and it was an incredible thing i had no idea was going on at the time i was just distressed about the whole experience but god was using that time that moment to bring people to him and i didn't find that out till later but our it's it's in those turning points those moments that we learn persistence even with our in our relationship with god because we don't know what's going on we have lots of questions but he says trust me and we hold on we persist and so don't give up don't ever give up keep moving forward don't die until you're dead as someone said persist and god will bless you and god will keep you and god will help you the last thing i want to share with you lesson i want to share with you here this morning is really a lesson on legacy on destiny and legacy and it's simply this be benevolent be benevolent second corinthians 9 8 says and god is able to make all grace abound towards you that you always having all sufficiency in all things may abound to every good work that's a powerful promise there is a difference friends between making a living and making a difference i'm doing full circle now coming back full circle first message we talked about king solomon who was making a living he was making a living making a living and making a difference in two different things making a living is necessary to sustain living and we must but no matter how much money a person earns in a lifetime those assets essentially become the property of someone else when we die making a difference however making a difference is about legacy what we leave behind it's about how others will remember you someone said death only closes a person's reputation and determines it as good or bad so legacy is about making differences about legacy it's about how others are going to remember you one of my mentors he told the story about his maternal grandmother his maternal grandmother lived most of her life in a small town called newport tennessee which is in the area of the great smoky mountains eastern tennessee and this lady had little formal education and she was a housewife all of her adult life she lived through four wars the great depression the accidental death of her younger sister and the agonizingly slow death of her husband of 62 years so my mentor visited his grandma he needed to get over there say hi hadn't seen her for a while so he went to go see her two months before her 80th birthday and they sat on the porch and they talked family and he would uh he would chart a family tree as she would talk about relatives dating all the way back to the civil war he said it was such a refreshing and enjoyable time and at one point toward the end of the conversation she turned to him her grandson and said i haven't been real successful in life i admit i haven't done a lot of things you know gone a lot of places or had a lot of money but if i've done nothing else i've tried to raise my three children the best i knew how by setting a good example for them and my grandchildren so the conversation ended they left about he left about an hour later they drove home they got home late that evening the phone rang they recognized there was something wrong it was his mum he'd called grandma had just passed away died of a massive stroke an hour after they had left her place they were on the way to the funeral and he my mentor friend was thinking uh thoughts he was thinking about his grandmother and he thought about what she said how she said that she hadn't been real successful in life hadn't done a lot of things being a lot of places made a lot of money and he thought to himself that grandma was grandmother was a success more than she knew because she was honest because she had integrity because she modeled those qualities that are necessary to be modeled to those who are closest to her her kids and her grandkids and she did make a difference in her life that was her legacy that was her legacy making a difference friends is far more important than making a living and we have to keep everything in proper perspective you make a difference by passing on life lessons to others by sharing them how you succeeded and how you made your way through that's how we leave our legacy by part making a difference by passing things on to others it is the intangible spirit that we have that actually has a greater influence on the mind of others after we're gone than the tangible things that we had the things that we had done it is the memory that we leave in people's minds and your legacy is best secured when you help others burn brightly for jesus as well because that legacy will never die you know some of you may be familiar with the song i'm certainly not going to sing it find us faithful it was a song sung by steve green and it says oh may all who come behind us find us faithful may the fire of our devotion light their way may the footprints that we leave lead them to believe and the lives we live inspire them to obey money without morality leads to greed money with morality leads to generosity a life without the spirit of grace leads to meanness a life with the spirit of grace always leads to kindness your eulogy if you were to have one and jesus doesn't come back first your eulogy won't be based on how you earned your living but based on the reputation you earned while living so live for the glory of god live with integrity be a source of inspiration to others [Applause] let your influence be a reflection of the creator god and shine brightly for him making a living is about material success which does which is something we need to do but making a life is about true success making a difference is true success which continues to live on in the minds of others so the question i leave with you here this morning is will your legacy be lowly or will your legacy be legitimate will your legacy be lowly or will your legacy be legitimate i encourage your friends burn brightly for jesus may god help us god bless you today [Applause] [Music] you

Channel: Sacramento Central Seventh-day Adventist Church

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Length: 28min 30sec (1710 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 07 2021