Spiritual Danger of an Entitlement Attitude

[Rick Shabi] Well, good afternoon, everyone. Good to see all of you here today. I see we have some visitors. It's that time of year when people are traveling to be with family at Thanksgiving, a nice time of year. It's always one that I've enjoyed, the Holy Days, of course, but these secular holidays as well. So welcome to you. Kinsey, really good job on the special music. So thank you for that. Welcome to those on the web with us as well today. 

So as we come into these times of year and we talk about the times that we have Thanksgiving, typically we talk about how to be thankful to God, right? It is a time of year that we are thinking about God, I hope, and realizing the blessings that we have and the gratitude we should have to him all the time, not just on Thanksgiving Day. Gratitude is one of the things we have toward God every single day of our life. And as we come into this time, I know it's a time for family. You probably are thinking of the meal that you're going to prepare, a lot of physical preparations going on. 

I hope that we use this time too to think about the spiritual Thanksgiving that we should have and the spiritual aspects of this day. And there's a lot of scriptures that we can read. I'm not going to read through them today, but you can spend some time this week maybe going to Google and just typing in Thanksgiving or gratitude verses in the Bible and just preparing your heart for what we're doing there as well. I'll just mention one here this morning. It's in 1 Thessalonians 5. And in that section of verses and verses, I think it's like 16, 17, 18, God says things like, “Rejoice always.”

And even in our times of trial and at times of the times that we might have some difficulty, we still rejoice before God because he is working with us and we know what he has in mind for us. Paul says there to “pray without ceasing”, always in contact with God. The more the Holy Spirit leads us, the more we are in contact with him in every part of our day. And then the last of those three verses in there, “in everything, give thanks”. Not just one day of the year, not periodically, but every day we should be thinking about Thanksgiving.

Good time of the year right now to focus on it. But it's also a good time of the year to do something other than just think about Thanksgiving. That should be on our minds. But maybe we had twisted around a little bit. And just like we do with the Holy Days as we come to him each year, we examine ourselves a little bit and ask ourselves some questions. Are we grateful? Could it be that I've lost some of the gratitude toward God over the years? Am I beginning to take things a little bit for granted? And maybe some attitudes or whatever are seeping into my life that I may not be aware of.

Because ingratitude is the opposite of what we've been called to. Ingratitude is the opposite of what the Holy Spirit should be working in us. It's the opposite of agape and having strong faith in God. And it's a good time to look at the other side of it as we lead up to Thanksgiving. Certainly enjoy the Thanksgiving holidays. Certainly, enjoy your family and all the things you do on that day. But maybe think of that as well, because we do need these times where we look at ourselves and just where are we.

God is very clear about what some of the telltale signs of ingratitude are. So let's talk about some of those today, just as we think about where we are in life and look at ourselves personally. Let's go to probably a very familiar set of verses in Romans 1. You're familiar with that chapter. As Paul begins writing to the church in Rome, he gives the details of what led to this gentile mentality. People that are apart from God, how they handle things, the way they become. It's quite a list that Paul puts together here, quite a graphic list, if you will, as well. It talks a lot about the world we live in today as gratitude toward God or even the thought of God has gone out of our national and even international existence. You see the world becoming more and more depraved, more and more violent, more and more hateful in every aspect of the word. Let's look at verse 21 here in Romans 1. And then a few of those traits that we might look at in a little different way than just reading it from the King James or New King James version. 

Romans 1:21 It says, “Because although they knew God, they didn't glorify him as God, nor were they thankful. But they became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools.” 

So you have twice there in those verses God saying, foolish, foolish, foolish hearts were darkened. And because of this thing, because of the way they became, because they didn't glorify God, they became fools. We're going to see that word fools and foolish a couple of times today. And when we see that, we might think back to those verses. And when God says, this is what happens when people forget me. And I know we're all in the Church. And as Paul goes through these verses here, the succeeding verses, there's some pretty heinous and hard core attitudes that are there. And I don't think it meant it, well, I hope. Most of us aren't into those situations that talk about the sexual depravity and the hardcore things that Paul is talking about here.

I guess if we were looking at those lifestyles, maybe the one thing that could be is pornography. Some are addicted to that. The Holy Spirit does give us the power to overcome. And we can be thankful to God we do have that power and use it if that seems to be any of the problems that anyone has. But let's look at some of the things that are sitting down here in verse 28. And I'm going to read verses 28 and 29 from a different translation. We get used to reading the scriptures and some of the words. We just get used to hearing all the time.

So as I was looking for other translations, I came across a translation called the International Children's Bible. And I thought, what is the International Children's Bible? What's that about, right? So looked it up, and it's an actual translation from the original transcripts, but written in more of a third and fourth-grade language so that as children are reading the Bible, they might understand it. Or as parents are working with their Bible, with their children, they might understand it. And it's interesting the words they use to describe to children, what are the effects of having this ingratitude toward God, of allowing some of that to seep into our lives, of not glorifying God in the way we should with our lives, especially for you and me. Because even though we can look at those verses and say, oh, that's for the world. That's talking about the Gentile world. That's talking about the world we live in today. And that's true. But all those things can happen to us, too, if we let down our guards a little bit and forget who we are and what we're supposed to be doing.

Let me read verses beginning with verse 29. From that Bible, you can read along in the Bible in your lap. Verse 29 says they are filled. They became fools. And then God goes on and defines all these things. 

Romans 1:29-31 It says, “They,” those who don't glorify God, “who forget God, they are filled with selfishness. They are full of jealousy, fighting, lying, and thinking the worst about each other. They gossip, and they say evil things about each other. They are rude and conceited and brag about themselves. They don't obey their parents since they resist authority. They are foolish. They don't keep their promises, and they show no kindness or mercy to other people.” 

Basically, it's all about them. What do I want? What's best for me? What do I get for what everything that I do? What Paul is talking about here, we'll talk about it in the nth degree in the New King James, the King James Version. But at a child's level, and as a basic level that maybe we're at, maybe we see ourselves in some of those things I just read. Do we do those things? Do we kind of let that happen? And then when we start doing those things, they become part of our lives. Do we realize, boy, there's a little bit of forgetting God in our life that's going on?

There's a little bit of an attitude of ingratitude coming into our lives. We better watch what's going on, because that's not what we were called to. That's not what the Holy Spirit leads us to. That's not agape. That's not faith in God. That's not trust in God. That's not recognizing that God is working with us to have us become what Jesus Christ was like. If you turn with me to 2 Timothy, there's another section of scripture there, in 2 Timothy 3. Talks about attitudes in the last days. And certainly, wherever we are in prophecy, we are close to the last days, if not in the very last days. And as we read through some familiar verses in this chapter, we recognize the world around us. We see the things that are written there in the Bible in your lap. But again, let me read it from the Children's Bible, because we may look at those things and the words that are used in 2 Timothy 3 and say, oh, that's not me. That's not me. Or just get comfortable with those words and think, oh, that's for the world. That's what they are and whatever. But no, it can be us as well. So let me read from that same translation of the Bible, beginning in verse 1. 

2 Timothy 3:1-5 “Know this, that in the last days, perilous times will come. People will only love themselves and money. They will brag and be proud. They will say evil things about each other. They will not obey their parents. People will not be thankful or be the kind of people God wants.” It's kind of an interesting way to put that, isn't it? “They will not have love for others. They will refuse to forgive others. And they will speak bad things. They will not control themselves. They will be cruel and will hate what is good. In the last days, people will turn against their friends. They will be conceited and proud. They will continue,” and I thought this was very good the way they phrase this, “they will continue to act as if they serve God, but they will not really be serving God.” 

Now, that can be you and me, right? We can't act like we're serving God. We can do things and do all the check off the boxes, I often say. We can come to every Sabbath service, every Holy Day service, pay our tithes, go through all the physical aspects of living the Christian life, but really not be serving God at all. We could lull ourselves to sleep by the physical, but forget God didn't call us to just do the physical. That's part of it. But it's the heart. Are we really giving ourselves to Him? Are we really yielding ourselves to Him?

Is His truth and His spirit really changing us and molding us into who He wants us to be? The same type of attitude, the same type of the way we behave and act in all situations that Jesus Christ did. They will continue to act as if they serve God, but they will not really serve God. As I read that, I had to think, could that be anything that I'm doing? What do I need to do? We might think, are we just doing that? Do we forget God at some level? We might go through our course every day, and we are thinking that we're living God's way of life, but maybe not the 24-7 way that God wants us to do. This verse goes on there then, saying… 

2 Timothy 3:5 “Stay away from those people. They are led to sin by the many evil desires they have.” 

The many evil desires they have. Those evil desires that we're supposed to be putting to death. Those evil desires that come into our mind or how we think it can be, and we maybe allow them to grow, but no, we're supposed to be. That's not us. That's not the way life is supposed to be. That's not what God has called us to. As we read through those two sections of scripture, pride.

Shows up quite a bit of time. Quite a bit of the time there. Conceit. Always talking about me. What is it for me? What do I want? How do I get what I want? They're fooling themselves. And we think about those things, and we realize that when we have gratitude, true gratitude, we recognize God as a source of everything we have and everything will be. It is a humbling thought to recognize that and think of that every day. Everything we do, everything we are, everything we ever will have or ever will be, literally, is due to God. So we owe him everything. But when we think we're so smart, look what my hand has done. Look what I've done. Look how much I've done. And we start thinking about ourselves.

All these feelings, all these feelings of ingratitude can come in. Always, always in life, we have to remember God is working with us. Sometimes things are really good. Sometimes things aren't so good. And in those times that things aren't so good, when trials come, when persecution comes, when we find ourselves in situations that are just not palatable, are we patient?

Like we heard in the sermonette, do we wait for God? Do we appreciate the fact that we know he's working with us and that we need these things? Because God will show us what we need. He will reveal what is in our nature and in our attitudes and our character that needs to be cleaned up, that needs to be improved, that needs to be put out. So we don't get mad about those things. We realize I need to look at myself. I need to pay attention to what's going on here.

That isn't what I read in the Bible of a person like God. That needs to be buried along with the rest of me. You know Job, Job was a man who we could look at who kept his faith in God. Let's just look at one verse in Job, in Job 12. I'm sorry, it's not Job 1, it's not Job 12, Job 1 verse 12.

Sorry, not Job 1:12 either, 1:21 when I look at my notes here. So same numbers in reverse order. So, but you know, Job went through a lot and here early on in the book of Job, he lost everything, right? I mean, he literally lost everything. I mean, if that happened to any of us, what would we do? We think God has completely left me. I don't know why I'm even dealing with God anymore. He obviously hates me or whatever, or I can't trust in him. But look what Job says in verse 21 here. He said, after all this has happened to him, he lost everything. 

Job 1:21 “Naked I came from my mother's womb and naked shall I return there. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.”

Bless his name anyway. Bless his name always. Even when he takes away. And what did Job learn from God taking away? There was something that Job needed to learn through that. You know the lesson of Job. If God hadn't taken it away, Job would have continued to be self-righteous. That was so evident in everything that we see in all those 40 some chapters of Job.

But God was mindful of him. He needed to see and Job, blessed be God. He's working with me. There's something I need to look. Am I being grateful? Do I always bless what God has done? Do I always glorify him in what is going on? Well, how we handle change in our lives sometimes, how we handle rebuke sometimes, how we handle things when they don't go the way we want sometimes can reveal who we are.

Do we know God is in charge of our lives or do we let ourselves, our egos, or whatever else it is, get in the way of just letting God lead? It is Jesus Christ who is the head of the church. It is Jesus Christ who leads the church. And our job is to follow him in whatever position we're in. But sometimes when things don't go our way or there is change in some area, something can be revealed in us. And sometimes God allows that change to occur just to see how we'll respond.

Do we accept? Do we go on with it? Do we realize God is perfecting us and we have just more than one way to be perfected as however he says? Or could we maybe, could it reveal something that's in us that, whoa, I didn't handle that the way I should have. And I'm not handling it the way I should have. Change, change can maybe trigger this episode or an episode of ingratitude or reveal something in us.

Certainly, it does that in the world, right? The world around us is a mess, an absolute mess. Every word that you read and the New King James Version or King James Version you were reading, it is all that and more. There is no more complete definition of what ingratitude is and what's wrong with the world today than what everything that you read. That is a result of just forgetting God, going against God and I want everything my way. Everything about this ingratitude defines what's around. All the people who have all these various sexual deviances, it's got to be what I want and you have to accept what I want.

Everything that's going on in the judicial system is all I want, I want. This is the way I want it. And then you see change come and there's a switch and there's a switch in things in the world and we know that that's the world. We know that's not the true, that's not the way but God hasn't called us to eat out of that tree of the knowledge of good and evil. That's what the world does. We eat out of the tree of life and live the way God wants us to live but if we're not careful in a time of lawlessness like we live in right now, ingratitude can creep in. All these attitudes of the world can creep in. Maybe not as dramatically as the world around us is having it but they can creep in and we can see it among ourselves and we maybe look at ourselves and say, whoa, I have done that a little bit. 

Man, I am letting myself do that a little bit more than I should have. I need to catch myself and go back and look at who I am and how I am and ask God to forgive me and give me his spirit to become and realize and remember he's the one who leads. He's the one who's working with every single one of us if we let him and if we let him lead us. All these things we see around us, they're lawlessness, right? Lawlessness, they even say it in the news, right? Living in a time of lawlessness. Maybe with something recent in the United States, there'll be some attempt to bring that back but it is a time of lawlessness and Christ says in a time of lawlessness, the love, that's the agape, the love of many will wax cold.

Now he's not talking about the world and the agape because it's true Christians that have the agape. Agape comes from the Holy Spirit in you, the real Holy Spirit, not the world talks about in their churches but the real Holy Spirit that God gives us when he calls us, we're baptized and he puts the Holy Spirit in us.

The love of many will grow cold. They'll allow these other thoughts to come into their minds. They'll kind of forget God in all the time of good times and they'll get involved in the world and all these other things that go along with it that might drive us away from God because Satan is very clever. Those things can allure us, those things can take us astray and we forget who we are and just maybe pat ourselves on the back. I do come to church every Sabbath. I do tithe. I do go to every Holy Day. But what about the heart? Where is it? Where is it? Are we just going through the physical motions or is the heart continually being with God?

So in gratitude, as I thought about this, one of the things they talk about in the world is an entitlement attitude. And one of the things that if you read some of the things, everyone's entitled, right? Everyone is entitled to something. Every little group is entitled to something so we have a government that's completely out of control as we try to fund every interest because everyone is entitled to everything.

Whether that's true, majority or not. And so again, we live in a world of mess. So as I looked at this entitlement, I have to think that comes from ingratitude. Might be the first sign of ingratitude, full scope, but an attitude of entitlement can be ingratitude but it can lead to ingratitude. It might be the first step if we look at who we are because entitlement is all around us. Let me give you the definition as it was in a psychology thing, just a simple definition of an entitlement mentality. It encompasses two primary attitudes. One, I'm exempt from responsibility. Can't hold me accountable for that. And two, I am owed special treatment. I should be treated differently. You owe me something.

You owe me something but I don't owe you anything in return. Because I am, just because you owe it to me. I deserve it. And that kind of sums it up in a way, doesn't it? When you look at the world around us, we see that attitude that is there. We probably have encountered it in, if you work in workplaces, we might have even encountered it in some of our attitudes. It's all around us. It's an attitude of it's all about me and what I want and you owe this to me.

So we have a society that will blame others. I, you know, it's my parent's fault that I'm this way. It's the rich’s, it's the rich. The people who are rich's fault, right? They owe us. They're not paying their fair share. It's their problem. It's the government's problem. It's how we were treated back centuries ago. It's society's problem. It's everyone else. It's the justice department's problem. It's the government's problem. They owe us. They owe us all these things. Even when you look at unbridled immigration, it's the attitude of “you have it, I want it, I deserve it.” And so that's the extent in the world. It's all around us as we look at what's going on. And if we don't watch ourselves, we can kind of fall into maybe that same mentality when something happens that we don't like what happens.

Basically put, the title mentality is self-centered. That's not what we were called for. We were called to be God-focused, focused on His will, focused on what Christ wants, and that we pray, do, live, strive for His will to be done in our lives, whatever that means. Wherever He says to go, we go. Whatever He says to do, do. Put self beside, have a grateful attitude that leads us to obedience, that leads us to learn, that leads us to trust God in everything.

And so we could look at a few examples here in the Bible, and let's do that. Couple examples and we'll see Christ's own words on these things, but let's look at a couple of examples in the Old Testament. A people who may have had, well, who did have that entitlement attitude and who completely obliterated any concept of gratitude for what they were given. You know, in the Old Testament, God says these things were given as examples to us, so let's go back, and the first person we're going to look at is Absalon. Absalon, King David's son. And we find the story of him or the accounts of him in 2 Samuel, so let's go back there for a second. Absalon, you will recall, a son of David.

He was a good-looking kid. One of many sons that David had. He, his sister Tamar, was accosted by his brother Amnon, and Absalon killed him in defense of his sister. And as a result, he was banished from Israel during that time. Well, after a few years after his banishment, he kind of wanted to come back into Israel. David said he didn't want to see him. King David was on the throne at that time. He spared his life, just leave. So he was banished, but let's pick it up in 2 Samuel 14:1.

And here we have Absalon wanting to come back in. Been away for two years, I miss Israel, I miss being in the king's court, I miss all these things that life was before. And you would think that as he thought about those things, look what I gave up, look what I gave up as a result of that.

So anyway, in verse 21 here, Joab came to King David to plead the case for Absalon. 

2 Samuel 14:21-24 “The king said to Joab, ‘All right, I've granted this thing. Go therefore and bring back the young man Absalon.’ And Joab fell to the ground under space and bowed himself and thanked the king. And Joab said, ‘Today your servant knows that I have found favor in your sight, my lord. O king, and that the king has fulfilled the request of his servant.’ So Joab arose and went to Geshear, and he brought Absalon to Jerusalem. And the king said, ‘Let him return to his own house, but don't let him see my face.’ So Absalon returned to his own house, but he didn't see the king's face.” 

And then it talks about just how what a presence Absalon was. Everything good about him, he was kind of like the premier movie star of Israel at that time, right? And so with that, he's the king's son. Well, he did live there for two years, and he didn't see David at all. But David showed mercy on him, let him come on back into the fold here. And in two years, Absalon didn't want to be that way anymore. He wanted to see David. He wanted to be part of the king's court again. And so in a way, he forced Joab to go to David again. Joab didn't want to do it. It was enough that he was back in Israel, back in his own house. But Absalon pushed the envelope a little bit, set Joab's field on fire, made Joab come and see him. So Joab goes, and he talks to David again. Look at chapter 15, and verse one.

David did allow King, or not King, Absalon back into the court. He was part of Israel's society again. But then look how he did that. He got everything he wanted. Absalon should have been very grateful and satisfied for what the king had done for him. But in verses one through seven of chapter 15, we see a different thing.

He was a king's son. He thought that he deserved more than just being there. And he turned what should have been gratitude into something much different than gratitude. 

2 Samuel 15:1 “After this had happened,” in chapter 15, “that Absalon provided himself with chariots and horses and 50 men to run before him.”

What is he doing? What is he doing to magnify himself, to build something for himself? David just allowed him to come back in. He didn't say fortify yourself, you're here. You're here by mercy. 

2 Samuel 15:2-6“Now Absalon would rise early and stand beside the weight of the gate. So it was whenever anyone who had a lawsuit came to the king for a decision, Absalon would call to him and say, ‘What city are you from?’ And he would say, ‘Your servant is from such and such a tribe of Israel.’ Then Absalon would say to him, ‘Look, your case is good and right, but there's no deputy of the king to hear you.’” Putting himself in a position that probably he was, well that he wasn't given. “Moreover, Absalon would say, ‘Oh that I were judge in the land and everyone who has any suit or cause would come to me, then I would give him justice.’” Kind of moving things in a long way that isn't what his place was to be. “And so it was whenever anyone came near to bow to him that he would put out his hand, take him, and kiss him. In this manner Absalon acted toward all Israel who came to the king, so Israel stole the hearts of the men of Israel.”

I remember years ago, I mean literally decades ago, reading that and that has stuck in my mind. Absalon stole the hearts of the men of Israel. What a heinous thing for him to do after all that he had been given to try to set him up and then as you know the story he actually went to war with David. He actually tried to overthrow the kingdom and take it over for himself. Stole the hearts of the men of Israel and people bought it and they followed it.

Where was gratitude in this? Where was Absalon? Somewhere along the line he turned mercy into, I'm entitled, I'm the king's son, I want to take over. I want to do what I want to do. It was all about him. There was no thought of David at all. It was complete pride. It was using the position as king's son to turn the people against the king himself. What about that? If we look down at verse 31, you know as you go through the story and you can read the whole story of what happened and transpired, Absalon lost his life. But there was quite a thing. David left the country. We had powers that be in Israel involved in all this thing. And as David was fleeing and he heard that one of his trusted advisors were there working with Absalon, verse 31 I think is very interesting that a word that I told you to remember before shows up. 

2 Samuel 15:31 “Someone told David saying, ‘Ahithophel is among the conspiracers with Absalon.’ And David said, ‘Oh Lord, I pray, turn the counsel of Ahithophel into foolishness.’”

Oh, ingratitude, this mentality that I have what you want and I deserve it and I can get it and I let myself go away, move on with these things. It's just something so heinous to God. And God answered David's prayer. Eventually, Ahithophel hung himself. Absalon, you remember, was hung by the tree when he was riding and he got caught up with his hair. Ingratitude, an entitlement mentality. It leads to division. It leads to strife. It leads to death.

It's absolutely not. It's absolutely not the way of God. It absolutely has no part in a person's life who God, who is letting God lead him. It is the antithesis of the Holy Spirit and all those fruits of the Spirit that God expects us to be developing. And it starts ever so subtly. It just doesn't appear overnight. We can just let little thoughts come into our minds. Little things thinking this and that like Absalon did. After two years, I want to be back. Okay, and then after another two years or three years or whatever it was, I deserve this. Why am I doing this or why am I having to go through this?

And then you have a huge problem on your hands. That's where self-examination comes in. What are we thinking? What are we doing? Are there any of those signs that could be in me? Or any of those signs of ingratitude that we read in Romans? Second Timothy, that you can read in Galatians 5:19, the works of the flesh. Any of those things, even a little bit in me. Am I doing things today differently than I was doing a year ago or two years ago or five years ago? Has something changed in my thought process? Do I longer know the truth? Do I longer kind of compromising the truth or kind of making God say what I want him to say?

You know, David, a man after God's own heart, he didn't see any of this coming. He didn't see any of this coming at all. It took him completely by surprise when Absalom did that. You know, that's a feature of the people of God because they don't see the evil in other people. They don't see what's going on sometimes until it's too late. You begin to recognize it. Sometimes it takes a while to figure it out. But David didn't see it until he was told flee. Absalom has an army. Absalom's garnered a tribe against you. And he had to flee the palace from his own son because the people of God don't expect that of other people of God. David never expected that from his son. You know, if we look at Psalm 30, but you know, David never blamed God. Not once during that whole process did he tell God, what are you doing? Haven't I honored you? Haven't I done the things that you wanted me to do? Haven't I repented? I realized that I had done all these things wrong, but I turned my heart to you. He didn't do that at all. And then Psalm 30, he records some interesting verses. The kind of should be in our hearts as well. 

Psalm 30:1-3 He says, “I will extol you, O Lord, for you have lifted me up. And you haven't let my foes rejoice over me. O Lord, my God, I cried out to you and you healed me. You brought my soul up from the grave. You have kept me alive that I should not go down to the pit.”

Sing praise to the Lord, you saints of his, give thanks at the remembrance of his holy name, for his anger is but for a moment, but his favor is for life. There can be some tough moments. We may think God is angry with us. He's not unless we've really done the things to make him angry at us. His favor is for life. Weeping may endure for a night, but joy comes in the morning. 

Psalm 30:11-12 “You've turned for me, my morning into dancing. You've put off my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness. To that end, that glory may sing praise to you and not be silent. O Lord, my God, I will give thanks to you forever.”

Forever. That should be in our hearts, no matter what is going on. Always knowing God is in charge, always knowing he will deliver, waiting on him. Never trying to take matters into our own hands and change the thing and think, what is in this for me? In gratitude, an attitude of entitlement, it will lead to strife. It will lead to division. That's not of God, we know that. It's the opposite of unity. It's the opposite of harmony. It's the unity of all following God and letting Jesus Christ lead where he wants us to go. And it will lead to death if not checked.

Let's look at another man, second Kings. Second Kings chapter five. This is Naaman. Naaman, you will remember, not part of Israel. He comes down with leprosy. Leprosy and he hears that in Israel, there's a prophet who can ask the God of Israel for healing. And so he decides to go there. But when he goes there, given his stature and given his position, he expects that he's going to be greeted with that respect. And when he goes there and he knocks on the door, he isn't really greeted the way he thought he would be. And so he has a reaction to that. Like, don't they know who I am? Don't they understand what I do? And this is the way I'm treated. 

2 Kings 5:9-10 “Naaman went with his horses and chariot and he stood at the door of Elisha's house. And Elisha sent a messenger to him saying, ‘Go and wash in the Jordan seven times and your flesh shall be restored to you and you shall be clean.’”

Look at his reaction. He came there, he asked to be healed. Elisha didn't come to the door himself, but sent a messenger. He got kind of offended by that. He just gave him something he didn't want to do. What? Go wash in the Jordan river, just heal me. Don't you know who I am? Look at his reaction in verse 11. 

2 Kings 5:11 “Naaman became furious, furious. And went away and said, indeed, I said to myself, ‘He will surely come out to me. Surely he will stand and call on the name of the Lord is God and wave his hand over the place and heal the leprosy.’”

That's what I expected. Didn't happen that way. And Naaman was offended. It didn't turn out the way I wanted. I wasn't handled with the respect that I thought I deserved. Sometimes when things don't go the way we want, how do we react? Do we get mad? Do we pause and think, okay, I'm following God. Don't know what this means, but we'll just kind of accept what goes on. Do we react with pride? Who do you think, don't you know who I am? Don't you know what's going on? I shouldn't be handled that way. It made him angry. Anger, anger like Naaman had here. If we have that, when something doesn't go the way we want it to, or if we're not treated the way we think we should be, or if we're told something we don't like to hear, if that's the reaction, it can be a sign, it can be a sign of an entitlement attitude. It's all about me first rather than what God wants first. An attitude of ingratitude. If we look at James, keep your finger there in 2 Kings. We'll be there and go back there in a minute. But in the book of James, James 1, verse 19, he gives this admonition to Christians, to you and me.

James 1:19 “So then my beloved brethren, he writes, let every man be swift to hear, should listen,” always listen to both sides of the story, right? It's one thing I think we all keep learning. The first one you hear might sound right, but there's always another side of the story, the truth is somewhere in there as we work with people. “So then my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, and slow to wrath. For the wrath of man doesn't produce the righteousness of God.”

Wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God. That's not the reaction of a man of God. If you remember from last time I spoke when we talked about righteousness, it talked about in the New Testament, it's a condition acceptable to God. Not just merely, and I shouldn't say merely, not just obeying the commandments, not going through the physical things, but in a condition acceptable to God, full of faith with our heart, mind, and soul focused on God.

For the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God. Something we control, something that gets weeded out as we have the spirit of God, and we understand what he's doing, and let that spirit in us. We go to the book of Ecclesiastes, Mr. Japhet was in Ecclesiastes, and he read a verse that I want to read as well. 

Ecclesiastes 7:9 Says, “Don't hasten, don't hasten in your spirit to be angry.”

Don't let that anger well up, control it. If that's part of it, ask God, I mean, it is a time to be angry, righteously angry, but not just because something didn't go the way we wanted or not the way we expected, or because some change that we don't really want to be affected by. “Don't hasten in your spirit to be angry, for anger rests in the bosom of,” Wow, there's that word we read in Romans 1. “Anger rests in the bosom of fools.” 

Who has lost the concept, the reality that we glorify God in everything we do, who have forgotten to be thankful to God in everything, even in the bad and trying times, remembering who we were, remembering the plan that he's given us, remembering where we're going, and understanding fully and trusting in him faithfully, that whatever he puts us through is for our own good. Things that we need to overcome he will reveal, and have to come to grips with those sometimes. Anger, you know down in verse 13, by the same chapter, 

Ecclesiastes 7:13 “Consider the work of God, for who can make straight what he has made crooked? In the day of prosperity be joyful, but in the day of adversity consider, surely God has appointed the one as well as the other, so that man can find out nothing that will come after him.”

Consider, remember, catch yourself, remember who we are, and be thankful during that time. Well, let's go back to 2 Kings. We're in 2 Kings 5. We have Naaman who's quite angry. Elisha didn't come out, he gave me some command, I expected he was just going to kind of, as it puts, wave a wand over me and I was going to be healed of the leprosy. That's kind of what I expected, it didn't happen the way I want. How dare Elisha, right? How dare Elisha not treat me the way that I expected to be. But to Naaman's credit, he relented and he listened and he just didn't go away mad. If we go down to verse 13 of 2 Kings 5, his servants came to listen to him and they made him aware and he listened to them, he could have said to them, you're my servants, get away from me. I don't have to listen to you, but he did. 

2 Kings 5:13 “His servants came near,” verse 13, “spoke to him and said, my father, if the prophet had told you to do something great, wouldn't you have done it? How much more then, when he says to you, wash and be clean?”

Yeah, why aren't I doing it? Why aren't I just doing what I was told would be done? I just need to do what I was told. If I believe that they can heal leprosy and that the God of Israel can heal leprosy, why aren't I just doing it? So he did and he was healed. And there's a lesson in that. How do we just do what God has us do?

Just do what God has us do, whether it's what we expected, whether it's what we wanted or not. Just do what he says. Life is pretty simple when you just put it in words. Our calling is pretty simple, but that does take time. It does take a step back. I'm feeling these feelings that I don't want to feel and realize God is in control. There's a reason for everything that goes on with us. He loves us. He wants us in his kingdom. And there will be times that that time isn't so pleasant and we will have to look at ourselves, how do we, how are we doing? And how are we reacting? And are we glorifying God and are we following him in everything?

So we have a couple of extreme examples herein, in Absalom and Naaman. But could those attitudes creep into the church? Could they creep into our lives?

Well, they could. Well, they could if they crept into many people's lives over the years and somewhere along the line, they find themselves no longer a part of the body of Christ. Whatever it was that made them mad, whatever it is that made them go away, somewhere along the line, they thought I wasn't treated the way I should be. I didn't get what I expected to get. This made me mad. This made me mad. Therefore, I'm leaving. I'm going to throw away the promises God has made. I'm going to throw away what he has called me to because I didn't get what I wanted. And it wasn't the way I wanted it to be.

You know, I look at sometimes on YouTube and I see people who have an issue with the church from way back decades ago. And there's always something where they were treated wrong. They were treated wrong. And I think, really? You gave up everything God said because you thought you were treated wrong. You just didn't stick with it. You just didn't ask God to solve the situation, resolve the situation, to give you patience, to keep looking toward the kingdom and just moving toward that no matter what happens in your life. We have to do that. We have to keep in mind always that vision of what God has called us to and not let things, responses, rebukes, changes, whatever it might be, take us away and allow the thoughts of “not fair, not what I expected, not going to accept it.”

Can't let that happen. Can't let that happen, have to catch it, so do we think the church owes us something? Do we think God owes us something? Maybe we set up chairs in our local church area for 20 years. God owes me, look what everything I did. Maybe we did this, maybe we did this. All these things, like it says in Matthew 7 when the people come to Christ and say, didn't we cast out demons in your name? Didn't we do all these things in your name? Didn't we do, do, do, do? And he says, forget it. Get away from me, you human.

You practiced lawlessness. You didn't listen to what I had to say. You didn't do it for what I said. Now that's the people of the world, but it can happen to us as well. Does God owe us anything? Absolutely not. We owe him everything. In Luke 17, Christ talks about servants. And when you read through verses 7 to 10, you see what his thought process is on serving. The serving we do to God. The serving we do as we follow him. 

Luke 17:7-8 Christ's words, he says, “Which of you, which of you having a servant plowing or tending sheep will say to him when he's come in from the field, ‘come at once and sit down to eat?’” Doesn't sound unreasonable, right? But he goes, does that happen? If they're your servant, is that what you say? Oh, come and sit with me. “No, he will rather say to him, ‘prepare something for my supper and gird yourself and serve me till I have eaten and drunk. And afterward you eat and drink.’” 

Your job is servant. You serve the master. Do you just keep doing what he says to do, whether you want to do it or not. That's the job you and I have serve him in whatever he says.

Luke 17:9 “Does he think that servant, does he think that servant because he did the things that were commanded him?” 

I think not. It's his job. What we were called for. Does God give us the Holy Spirit? Yes. Does he every day say good job, pat me on the head, duh, duh, duh, duh, duh. No, it's our job when we work for God. When we serve God, we do what he has to say. And he has a reward that he says he will happen, not for the works we have, but because he gives us and we live under his grace. He's given us much and we learn to serve him the way Jesus Christ serves us. 

Luke 17:10 “Does he think that servant because he did the things that were commanded him? I think not. So Christ says, ‘So likewise, when you have done all those things that you're commanded say, we're unprofitable servants. We have done what was our duty to do.’”

What more do you want us to do? If we are profitable servants, not just what you tell me, keep doing it more. Keep doing what God wants us to do. Keep searching, keep doing the will, keep doing what he wants us to do. Never letting down, never getting lazy, never thinking I've done enough. We've never done enough as long as God has us doing things. Let me read what a couple of commentaries say about those verses. Adam Clark, he says, ‘It's never supposed that the master waits on the servant. The servant is bound to wait on his master and to do everything for him to the uttermost of his power. Nor does the former expect thanks for it, for he is bound by his agreement to act in this way because of the stipulated reward which is considered as being equal in value to all the service he can perform.’ Another commentary says, ‘It's the obligation of each disciple, you and I are disciples. It is the obligation of each disciple to serve the master without expectation of release or reward. His followers must give complete obedience to him no matter what trials come upon them. And like him, they must conquer their own human nature by suffering, by suffering.’ Now Christ suffered. Hebrews 5:8 tells us he suffered. He became perfect through the suffering that he did. So why would we be any different?

So in gratitude and this entitlement thing, I deserve this, I deserve that. You didn't do this God, you didn't do this God. It's the enemy. It's the enemy of gratitude. Entitlement, thinking we deserve, we know better, we have more, that doesn't come from the tree of life. That comes from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. A tree you and I are not supposed to be eating of. We're supposed to be coming out of the world. We're supposed to be eating of the tree of life and letting God develop the fruits from that tree, not the fruits that are there on the tree of the knowledge of good and evil on the fruits that are well described in Galatians 5:22 that include agape and faith and love and joy and peace that lead to the unity and harmony that God wants us to do. That's what we're supposed to be doing.

So entitlement kills gratitude. And it can lead to something else. Let me finish with one more thing here as we conclude. It can be a deadly Christian malady. There's a lot of spiritual dangers in letting things creep into our mind and to our lives. And it's always good to do some self-examination and ask us questions from the very verses that God gives us in the Bible. We look back in Zephaniah. Zephaniah, fourth book from the end of the Old Testament. Zephaniah 1:12. Speaking of the end time, Zephaniah is primarily a prophetic book, one of the minor prophets. 

Zephaniah 1:12 He says, “It shall come to pass at that time. God says that I will search Jerusalem, I will search my people with lamps and I will punish the men who are settled in complacency.”

They've just gotten lazy. They no longer have that servant mentality. That mentality that comes from gratitude toward God. Whatever you say, whatever you want, however you want it to be, that's what we'll do. As much as you say to do.

“I will punish the men who are settled in complacency who say in their heart, “The Lord won't do good, nor will he do evil.’” 

He's just there. He's okay with it. Long as we're doing a little bit, he's okay with everything. This complacency is like that latency and attitude that you read about in Revelation three and verse 17. I'm increased, I'm rich with goods, I don't need anything. God likes me just the way I am. I don't have any other things to learn. I'm where he wants me to be. And we let this thing creep into our minds and the world around us can lead us into this laziness and this complacency. If we're not watching what's going on, if we're not watching ourselves and not allowing ourselves to just let down, for these people, their relationship with God has been strained.

It's enough that I go to Sabbath. Maybe I don't pray with the earnest, the fervency I used to. Maybe I don't fast anymore, don't need it. I'm okay, God's okay with me. I haven't been out killing people. I haven't been out committing adultery. I don't do any of those things that I read about. I'm okay. Job thought he was okay. God himself said, look, Satan, he's blameless. But there was something Satan or that Job needed to learn. Something we still need to learn if we're breathing and living, God wants us to learn with something. They're going through the motions. They pretend that they're with God, but somewhere along the line, they've forgotten God spiritually. In 1 Corinthians 15, we see the attitude of Paul.

Now Paul, Paul was one who suffered more than any of us can even imagine, right? He talks about how he was beaten. He was thrown off a cliff. He was stoned. He was all these things that happened to him. And yet he kept going. He never got bitter at God. He never thought enough is enough and whatever. He just kept doing what God wanted him to. 

1 Corinthians 15:10 He says, “By the grace of God, I am what I am. And his grace toward me was not in vain. But I labored more abundantly than they all.” He could have said, wait a minute, I'm the apostle. I've done all this. I just kept working. I labored more than any of them, he says. “Yet not I, but the grace of God, which was in me.”

If we could learn those words, if we could put those words in our heart, God, whose grace is where we are, that we know what we know and God has given us what he's given us. And keep doing his will, not letting down, not thinking enough is enough, letting God lead and we being willing to follow and not resist, not get mad, but just do, just do what he says.

2 Corinthians 5:15 “He, Christ, Christ died for all. That those who live,” that's you and me, “that those who live shall no longer live for themselves, but for him who died for them and rose again.”

We live for him. The focus is on him. If the focus becomes on me, if the focus becomes on what I want, what I deserve, how I think it should be, I need to do some self-examination. I need to look and see what is God's will and follow him. That's what we're here for. And serve wherever, however, as much as it is to follow every word of the Bible and not lull ourselves to sleep. Close in Philippians, Philippians 2. Jesus Christ did it. Jesus Christ set the example. He doesn't ask us to do anything that he didn't do himself. He was God.

And then he came to earth as a flesh and blood human being and you know how he was treated by the people that he came to. They resisted him, they rejected him. Why? Was he speaking on true things? Was he trying to lead them astray? No, the Bible tells because of envy. All those things you read about, all those things, they were jealous and they were envious of him because it was reflecting on them. Philippians 2, verse five. Let this mind let, see there's that, if is one of those big little words in the Bible, let. Let is one of those as well. 

Philippians 2:5-9 “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus, who being in the form of God, didn't consider it robbery to be equal with God, was willing to give up what his station there was to come down to serve us. But made himself of no reputation taking the form of a bondservant and coming in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross.” Whatever it takes, follow him. “Therefore God has highly exalted him and given him the name which is above every name.”

You know, as we observe Thanksgiving, enjoy it, be grateful, enjoy the time, but do take some time this week. Think about those attitudes of the gratitude and let's do some self-examination, that's how we grow. That's how we become more and more like Jesus Christ. Is there anything in us? You know, I always think back to what David said in Psalm 139:23, where he goes, search me, oh God, is there anything in my heart? Is there any wicked way in me? Let me know it. And that's the attitude we should have. Is there anything in me that's apart from you and then be willing and ask God, give me the strength to overcome that and put it away so that we become people who do glorify God in all that we do. People that are truly grateful to him and as we're grateful to him, we use, let him lead us by his Holy Spirit to develop all those fruits that he wants us to develop.