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An Unthankful Life

Stop grumbling and complaining and rejoice and thank God for his goodness.

Introduction

I want to begin by actually playing a little game. It's called the Opposite Game, and the way it works is I'm going to say a word and then you're going to try and guess the opposite, but particularly the opposite that I'm thinking of. So it may not be the one that you think but you're trying to guess what you think I think the opposite is of the word. Some are easier, some are a little more complex but it will be kind of fun.

The word is thankful. What's the opposite? Here's what I think the opposite actually is—grumbling, complaining, and whining. Thankful is very active, I'm a thankful person, I'm responding. The opposite I think is knowing that there is around you all these good blessings but what you do is instead of being thankful you complain and you whine and you grumble. That's what we're going to focus on today.

I have three reasons to preach on the opposite of thanksgiving. Number one, it is one of the most acceptable sins in the church. Grumbling and complaining has become not only a national pastime as a nation with all the blessings we have, people can focus on the things they don't like and can spend a lot of time complaining and grumbling. But it's sort of percolated into the soul of the church. Many people in many churches feel like it's not only their right but their responsibility to complain about anything they don't like. We say things like, "Well, I don't like that music. I don't like that particular song, I don't like the key it was played in. I don't like the way the person arranged it. I don't like that message. I don't like the fact that the pastor went two minutes over."

We pick things apart and it's become so much a part of our culture we have to be careful it doesn't become part of our church. Because there's a poison to the complaining, negative spirit. That's true in your home, in a relationship, in the church, in your work place. If you've ever been somewhere where there's this negative, critical spirit, it is poisonous, it's damaging. So it's often acceptable and it shouldn't be.

Second reason we have to deal with this, it is like weeding a garden. Have you ever worked in a garden, pulled some weeds, and you're so glad when you're done because you'll never have to weed it again. Because the weeds will never come back. I mean, I pulled them out once, right? No, they grow back and they grow back, and the weeds of sin just keep coming back up through the soil of our lives. In the church, one of the most powerful sins that seems to come up and strangle the church is this critical, grumbling, negative spirit. So we're going to address this because it's like weeding a garden.

Thirdly, we're going to deal with this because God takes grumbling very seriously. The Bible talks about it a fair amount. In the history of God's people, this was one of their most profound and returning sins that came again and again and again. If you have a Bible, turn to Exodus chapter 15. We're looking at passages in Exodus 15-17 and then we will go to 1 Corinthians 10.

A history of grumbling

For 400 years the Israelites were in Egypt. At first it worked out really nicely. Joseph brought his family down there but they multiplied and grew and then the Pharaohs didn't remember Joseph and they began to oppress the people of God. To the point where they were actually turned into forced labor, all of God's people were slaves of Egypt. They were not only enslaving them, they weren't giving them the resources they needed to do the work they were going to do, and they were killing their sons when they were born because they were multiplying too much. It was oppressive.

But God stepped in and set them free through miracles. He called them out of Egypt, God parted the Red Sea, and they walked across on dry land. God had a pillar of fire that went ahead of them in the nighttime and a pillar of smoke in the day. God was with them doing miracles.

Finally, after 400 years of being in Egypt, they are finally set free. Now three days have gone by. 400 years in Egypt, now they've been set free for three days. I want you to see their attitude and their spirit.

(Read Exodus 15:22-24)

So the people grumble against Moses saying, "We want something to drink," there's nothing to drink. They start to whine. Miracles, God parts the Sea, pillar of fire, pillar of smoke, and they're complaining, grumbling, with all of God's blessings around them.

It continues in Exodus 16:3. Israel is saying, "This desert is so bad we wish we would have died in Egypt. There we sat around pots of meat and we ate all the food we wanted, it was so great, we loved Egypt, it was so great back there, back when they were killing our boys and back when they were enslaving us." But they had plenty of meat to eat, and that was great. Right? "But you have brought us out into this desert to starve this entire assembly to death." They're complaining. They don't even remember their history and what they are coming from.

So then God does something amazing. He lets sort of heavenly cereal fall from the sky and he gives them food called manna. Every night it falls down, six nights. The seventh day it doesn't, on the sixth night they can gather twice as much, and they had food to eat. Here's what we read about that manna in verse 31. "The people of Israel called the bread, manna. It was white like coriander seed, and tasted like wafers made with honey." God not only gives them heavenly cereal and food every single day, it actually tastes good. Free meal every day, it tastes good. Now you've got to be thankful, they're thankful now. I mean, heavenly bread, how can you not be thankful. Of course now the grumbling is done, right?

(Read Exodus 17:1-4)

They were about ready to kill Moses and Aaron. Now, God is doing miracles. God is raining cereal from heaven every day, and it tastes good and it's enough to sustain them. So you know what happens later in chapter 17? God brings water out of a giant rock. This rock starts spewing out fresh water. Now they got bread from heaven, he gives them meat in the form of birds, and they have water coming out of a rock. Now they'll be happy, now they'll look at all the good things they have and say, "Oh, God, we're so thankful, we could never complain and grumble again because you have been so good." Right? Wrong. It just cycles again and again.

As a matter of fact, every morning God rains down delicious cereal, they eat the manna. You know what they start complaining about now? We don't have enough variety. We walk into a store and you've got a row of hundreds of kinds of cereal. But they start complaining, there's not enough variety. I mean, can you imagine these people, God is providing all they need and they are complaining there is not enough variety. It's unthinkable. I mean, it would be like somebody standing in front of a refrigerator, opening it up, having it be full of all kinds of food, and saying something like this: "There's nothing to eat." I mean, could you imagine? Can anyone in your wildest imaginations imagine anybody looking into a cabinet or a refrigerator full of food and say there's nothing to eat? I mean, where do these people come from? It's people.

In 1 Corinthians 10, now 1,600 years have gone by and God is speaking through the Apostle Paul to this church in the city of Corinth, and he is giving them a little history lesson. He's reminding them about this very time when they were in the desert in those forty years, and God is pointing out their sins, the recurring, perpetual sins that over 40 years kept coming up again and again and again. I want you to notice these four sins. God says to the people through the Apostle Paul, "Do not be idolaters as some of them were, as it is written, 'the people sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in pagan revelry.'" God's saying, "In the wilderness wanderings you got into idolatry and that's sin, stay away from that." Verse eight, "We should not commit sexual immorality as some of them did, and in one day 23,000 of them died." God says, "I take that seriously." Verse nine: "We should not test the Lord as some of them did and were killed by snakes." And here's the fourth one. "And do not grumble as some of them did and were killed by the destroying angel." Then we read this, verse 11, "These things happened to them as examples and are written down as warnings for us on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come."

1,600 years later God speaks through the Apostle Paul and says to look back at all those years, and learn from their bad example, and don't be like that. I think actually of all those sins that are listed, the fourth one is actually the climax of that whole thing. The worst of Israel's sins was the grumbling because it happened over and over and over and over. It became like a national pastime, and it broke the heart of God, because God is looking, saying there is so much for you to be thankful for and all you seem to be able to do is complain about what you don't have and what you want, and you're not thankful for what you have.

Is grumbling sin?

Now, I want you to look at what's happening in these passages. From the three Exodus passages to the 1 Corinthians passage, here's what's happening: The presence, glory, and goodness of God was right in front of them—the Red Sea parting, miracles, bread coming from heaven, water coming out of rocks. Their response was grumbling and complaining when they should have been thankful. They were overcome with a complaining and whining spirit. So here's my question for you: Is grumbling, complaining, and whining always sin? Is it always sin? Here's my answer: Yes, always, always.

What I mean by grumbling, complaining, and whining is this: When the goodness of God is right in front of you, when God is blessing you, when he's present, when he's caring for you and all you can do is focus on the things you don't have or you want and you can't stop and thank God for what you have, that's a grumbling spirit. That kind of spirit destroys a local church, it poisons a home, it crushes a marriage, it makes a workplace unbearable. Because there are so many things we could be thankful for and we get fixated on what we don't have and what we want and we complain and grumble. We have great blessings in front of us and we pick out the one thing that we don't really like and we pick it to pieces. This happens in churches, it happens in homes, it happens in a lot of places.

Express real concerns the right way

When I preach a sermon like this, invariably for the last 20 years, I will have five to ten people who will write and will say, "Oh, I know what your message was really about, you don't want people giving you input, you're trying to shut down conversation, you're trying to keep people from giving input to you because you don't like other peoples' perspectives." Let me tell you, that is not true at all.

Here's the question: Is it appropriate to express real concerns in our relationships, homes, church, and other places? Is it appropriate to express real concerns the right away? Here's the answer: Yes, always. We invite that, we want that. We're not a church where I make all the decisions and run things as the lead pastor.

We have something called a leadership team made of men and women who are part of this church who love Jesus, who love this church, who love this community, and on the leadership team there is only one voting member who is a pastor, all the rest are members of the congregation or volunteers. They give wise input on all kinds of stuff.

We're trying to create a church culture that loves input and that loves your perspectives; we love people bringing their concerns. But based on the Bible passages we have been exploring I can also see that we don't like grumbling, complaining, and a negative spirit. They're different things. Again, based on the Bible grumbling and complaining is always sin. Bringing a valid concern the right way is a gift. So we stay away from the sin and we do what is right and good.

What to consider when giving input

So then how do we do this? How do we live out the Bible's teaching on grumbling in a practical way? How do we express real concern without being negative, like the children of Israel? If you say, "I have a concern about something, I have something happening in the church that I'm concerned about, how do I bring my input? How do I share that?" Let me show you how to do it. There are four things to remember.

Number one, you do it at the right time. You pray, "Lord, what's the right time?" So if there's something that happens on the stage on a Sunday morning, maybe there's a song that you didn't really particularly like and you want to express that, you don't come running up between services and accost our musicians. If you want to bring a concern and it's about your personal tastes, don't bring it, but grow up and stop being so self-centered, because the church is not all about you.

Here is why we exist. We exist to glorify God, we exist to grow believers into maturity, and we exist to reach the world with the gospel. We want to help as many people as possible become totally committed to Jesus Christ. We don't exist to scratch your itch wherever it happens to be this week.

If you complain because it doesn't go your way, gently, grow up. We should be stretched, we should be trying things that stretch us. Because God wants to reach out to a world that's broken and hurting. That will stretch us. So here's the thing. You come at the right time. If it's your personal whim, your personal style or taste, just don't bring those things because we're not going to make the church exactly what you want all the time, that's not why the church exists. We need to get beyond that.

The second thing to consider: bring it with the right spirit. Here is the right spirit: gentle and humble. If you're married and you're talking to your spouse, if you're dealing with a family or workplace, and you're bringing a valid concern—not a personal taste thing—and you've come with the right heart, then you come with a gentle humility. You don't come to win, to blow someone away. You come to restore and to help with a gentle and humble spirit.

Third, you go to the right person. The right person is only the one to whom it relates. So if you didn't like something I said in my sermon and you go out for coffee after the service, and you're telling ten different people what you didn't like, those are the wrong people. They can't fix it, they can't change it. If it's a personal taste thing, get over it, don't deal with that kind of stuff, that's the grow up moment for you. But if you say, "Boy, I was really concerned about something," the person to bring that concern to is me, the pastor.

Fourth, you go with the right response. Here is the response: you share what's on your heart, you pray that God will do something good through it, you trust in the Lord, and you move on. You don't lock down and decide I can't let it go and I'm going to keep complaining. There are people that week after week for years are talking about the same thing that they're upset about. You share it, you pray, you trust the Lord, and you move on with your life. That brings health in homes and in churches.

Here has been my observation: We have people that are always here at Shoreline that I call "spiritual explorers," trying to understand who Jesus is and they're learning and they're trying to figure it out. Is the critique coming from them? Not at all. We get no critique from people that aren't followers of Jesus, they're just glad to be here and kind of checking thing out, want to stay here, keep learning. Second, new believers, is it coming from brand new Christians? Not at all. How about long time members of Shoreline? No, not coming from there either.

Here's where the critiques are coming from: people who have been coming to Shoreline from a strong church background somewhere else. They're coming in to Shoreline saying, "Well, I wish that Shoreline was like my old church, I wish that our pastor would preach like my old pastor, I wish our music would be like the church I came from." I mean, you name it, there's complaining that we're doing it wrong and how we should change how we're doing things.

So I share that so that you can understand that at Shoreline there is a great spirit. So if you're new and coming from another local church and you don't have a great reason for leaving that church, it would be fine if you stayed there and helped them grow and move forward. But if you feel like God is saying, "I'm releasing you from there, I want you to be in a new place," that's great, but don't come here thinking that you're going to make Shoreline like the other church.

Next thing, an invitation for input. We want input, we desire input. As a leadership team, as pastors. So if you come at the right time in the right spirit to the right person with the right response—not about a personal little nit-picky thing but about a real, genuine concern—we will do all we can to listen and to receive.

'2:14 it'

The last thing, a spirit of thankfulness. The key antidote to a complaining, grumbling spirit is a spirit of thankfulness. Notice God's goodness. See what he's doing, celebrate it. The people of Israel had all these miracles and they were complaining about, "We don't like the flavor of the food." People will nit-pick and complain, "In that one song the person's voice wasn't quite the way I like it." And you go, "That's grumbling." That's when you have all these good gifts of God and you're going to nit-pick—"That song's kind of old, I wish we wouldn't sing it, I can't worship, that song's from the 1970s, I'm a 2012 person." Then you've got to go tell your friends what you didn't like about it. That's grumbling. That's sin. That's wrong. That needs to stop. So begin to be thankful. Say, "God, you are so good to me, in my home, in my community, in our church." God is so good, he's blessed us so much.

The week I became a Christian I was on a houseboat in the Sacramento Delta, and there was a little term they use at the beginning of the week. All week long they used this term: "2:14 it." What it meant was Philippians 2:14, and it says, "Do everything without complaining or arguing." One other version actually says, "Do all things without grumbling or complaining." So the whole week on the houseboat, even before I became a Christian, some people would be complaining and whining about something, and other people would say, "Hey, 2:14 it." Which means shut your mouth, stop complaining, and help. Now, I wouldn't say that to you, that's what they were saying back on the houseboat. But what about for us? When you hear yourself start to complain, when you hear yourself start to grumble, why don't you say this to yourself, just say, "Hey, 2:14 it." Just stop.

Conclusion

God has been so good. Jesus died on the Cross, he rose again, he broke the power of sin and death. He gave his life for us, and if you are a Christian, you have every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms in this life and for eternity. Pretty good stuff. Let's focus on that and say thank you, Lord. Maybe if you're close enough to somebody else, if you have enough relationship and they start running down the road of grumbling, you might look at them and just say, "Hey, listen, would you please 2:14 it." If they weren't here today and they say to you, "I don't know what that means," say, "Let me show you in my Bible." Stop grumbling and complaining and rejoice and thank God for his goodness.

Kevin Harney is the Lead Pastor of Shoreline Community Church in Monterey, CA. He is the author of Reckless Faith and Organic Outreach for Families.

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Sermon Outline:

Introduction

I. A history of grumbling

II. Is grumbling sin?

III. Express real concerns the right way

IV. What to consider when giving input

V. '2:14 it'

Conclusion