I want to preach a message this morning entitled, "Waah". I could have titled it, "Stop griping, complaining and whining". I believe in the body of Christ that we're blessed. Jeremiah 31:16, Thus says the Lord, "Refrain your voice from weeping and your eyes from tears for your work shall be rewarded, says the Lord, and they shall come back from the land of the enemy for your work shall be rewarded".
Father, we thank you that you are faithful. Jesus we thank you for how good you are. Lord, as we study your word, we ask in Jesus name that God, you would have your way in us and that we would decrease and you would increase.
There's a story about a cowboy out west who was driving down a dirt road and his dog was riding in the back of the pickup truck, his faithful horse in the trailer behind it but he failed to negotiate a curve and he had a terrible accident. Sometime later a highway patrol officer came on the scene who was an animal lover. The first thing he came upon was the horse and the horse was in terrible suffering and realizing that he would never be able to recover from its injuries, the officer pulled his service revolver and quickly put the horse out of its misery. As he walked around the back of the truck, he saw the cowboy's dog lying there very much in the same condition under the trailer so the officer put him out of his misery as well. As he began to search the area for the cowboy, he didn't find him around the vehicle or the trailer and he saw that he had been thrown from the truck and as he walked over to where the cowboy was laying in the brush and saw him suffering from multiple fractures and was in great pain, he said, "Hey, how are you doing? The cowboy said as he saw the smoking revolver, "I've never been better in all my life".
It's amazing what complaining can do sometimes, how it can have an effect in our life. It's important to know the difference of when it is ok to complain and when it's not. When we were working at Real Life Children's Ranch, we used to have the children who had come out of a lot of hard life situations. Every once in awhile they would not be getting their way and they would say, "You know what, Uncle Marvin, I don't like this, I wish I could do that, I want to do this", and finally they'd look at me sometimes after I said No and they'd say, "That's not fair". I'd look at them and say, "Waah". It was beautiful, because sometimes the kids would just start whining all the time and we'd walk up to the refrigerator
and pull out a piece of American cheese and toss it across the room and say, "Why don't you have some cheese to go with that wine"?
Philippians 2:14-15 says, "Do all things without complaining or disputing that you may become blameless and harmless children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation among whom you shine as lights in the world".
Last night I had the privilege of some of the boys from the ranch to stop by. Two of the boys were placed with a family in Chicago, isn't that a marvelous thing? Two of the boys had flown out of Ft. Lauderdale and so the other boys in that family had gone with them to say goodbye and there were a couple new boys in the house so my wife and I cooked some dinner for them. I was the big hamburger cook, flipping them, and made about 18 hamburgers on the grill. One of the new boys came in, it was interesting because this 8 year old boy in all his life had really not been fed very well. He wasn't starving but it was amazing because the night before was his first night at the ranch and they had asked him if he would like to go back for 2nds and he said, "Really, I can do that? Because we never really had enough for 1st's". So last night as we were standing in line, this boy had been through so much trauma in his life, all the boys just started crowding around and that boy put his hands over his head and got real fidgety and nervous and didn't know what to do so we just put a plate in his hand and told him, "It's going to be ok". Anytime he had ever been in a situation like that before he got hurt and beat.
Last night I was in my kitchen and watching him as we began to serve and I gave that kid a hamburger and filled his plate. That boy came back, he wanted another hamburger and more potatoes and he ate as much as I did. How many of you know that will put things into perspective sometimes with the things we complain about? You see why I was a little emotional when I got up this morning. I was thinking about last night, how we are so blessed and how many times as Christians we can forget the things that God is doing.
The Bible says to do all things without complaining and without disputing.
In today's society, the people of God must guard against a sense of ungratefulness and a sense of entitlement for our life. It's important that we realize that God has done a great thing. Listen, in the things that God is about to do in our lives and through our lives, the trials and tribulations that we go through are nothing compared to the power of our God. He is able and He is faithful. Complaining in our society has become an art form, the louder you complain, the more attention you get. Complaining has become such a form of blackmail that people will even pay you to go away just to stop your complaining. If you don't believe me look at our court systems. People will complain about a lot of things.
I don't quote a lot of secular songs but there's a song by the eagles entitled, "Get over it". The song says, "I turn on the tube and what do I see, a whole lot of people crying, don't blame me. They point their crooked little finger at everybody else and all the time feeling sorry for themselves, a victim of this, a victim of that, your momma is too thin and your daddy is too fat". Then the songwriter says, "Get over it. You say you haven't been the same since you had your little crash but you might feel better if I gave you some cash. You don't want to work, you want to live like a king, but the big bad world doesn't owe you a thing, get over it". You know I don't know if these guys are saved or not but this is good preaching. Its says, "You drag it around like a ball and chain, you wallow in the guilt, you wallow in the pain, you wave it like a flag, you wear it like a crown, got your mind in the gutter bringing everybody down, you complain about the present and you blame it on the past, it's got to stop sometime, so why don't you quit, it's time to get over it".
I want to tell you, although "Get over it" isn't necessarily the thing that God would say when you're going through hurt and pain, He does have the power to get us through those trials. The truth is that many times we gripe when we don't have what we need and when God proceeds to give us our need, we gripe because we don't have what we want. When God begins to give us what we want, we gripe because we've discovered that there's something else that we want more than what he just gave us. How many of you believe that describes America pretty well?
I want you to listen to me this morning, everything that the Lord does is redemptive and healing. Life is full of ups and downs and many times it doesn't go the way we think it should. Our culture today is never satisfied, we even get mad at God when we go through the hard times and the difficult times. Many today, even Christians live in the realm of past hurts. They live in regrets for things that they've done and things that has happened and they never recover from it. They'll reminisce about them and talk about it over and over in their heads and with their friends. I want to tell you that the Christian life should never be like this.
The truth is that God will heal the hurts of the past, He will bring good out of the wrongs that have been done to us. God forgives our mistakes, He helps us to learn, even when we are suffering from the consequences of things that we've brought upon ourselves. How many of you have ever done stuff to yourself and you knew you should have been reaping what you sowed but you were being blessed instead? In this message I want to be healing and redemptive but I also believe that in the body of Christ there are times we need to come to places of repentance when we forget to acknowledge God for how faithful he has been.
I want to tell you that not all complaining is sin. Before we go any further, we can get so religious that when people pray about needs in their life or about hurts that they have, that when they begin to share the need we look at them and say, "Brother, you shouldn't be complaining like that because God is good". How many of you know that a complaint is simply an expression of discontent, hurt, fear or regret and the truth is that we can always take those to the Lord. We should be able to take that to each other. We should be able to bring our hurts, our fears and our trials and begin to talk to each other. That's not complaining. When you're going for a solution in the midst of your trial that's not a complaint, that's a request to God for help and that's a wonderful thing.
Psalms 142:1-2 says, "I cry out to the Lord with my voice, with my voice to the Lord I make my supplication. I pour out my complaint before Him and I declare before Him my trouble". It is ok to express our trouble and our discontent. It's even important that we seek the council of friends and family. How many of you believe in the body of Christ, when people are going through their hardest times we should be the ones they can come to for help and for council?
There's two responses that we can have to life's twists and turns. Number one is we can stand firm in faith and hope in God knowing that He is more than able and knowing that He is well or we can grumble and complain and live in discontent. Our key verse in Jeremiah 31:16 says, "Thus says the Lord, refrain your voice from weeping and your eyes from tears for your work shall be rewarded, says the Lord." How many of you believe that God is a rewarder of those that diligently seek Him"? He is. Murmuring and complaining are never rewarded by God.
What I want us to look at are some important points about complaining. Number one is that complaining gets you nowhere. The truth is that complaining keeps you going in circles, it paralyzes your forward momentum. We keep looking back to the problem or the hurt or to the past of where we were and we camp out there remembering the pain and the lack and we never move on to the abundance of what God has. The children of Israel are a perfect example. God provided for them, He kept them safe and He delivered them out of slavery. When the children of Israel were making those bricks for the Pharoah so that his projects could happen, the Israelites knew in their hearts the promise that God had for them in the future, I'm sure there were times in that land when they said, "God I trust you, I believe that you're going to deliver, you promised you would send the deliverer". Then He did.
He raised up Moses, who was a type of Jesus Christ, to come out and set those people free out of slavery, to carry on God's plan for them. On their way out, He parted the Red Sea and He defeated their enemies. Think about this, a bunch of slaves with nothing to their name began to walk out of the world's superpower.
They walked up to the Red Sea and with no guns, no weapons of their own that would stand a chance against the world's superpower of that time, God came down and took care of their enemies. As they crossed over on dry land, the enemy got swallowed up by the sea. How many of you believe God can take care of our enemies?
So Israel comes out of slavery and they come into a place of wilderness. Now they're out of slavery and on their way to the promise but in the middle they began to complain. They complained that they didn't have enough to eat so God sent manna. How many of you would be fairly amazed if bread began to rain out of heaven and appear on the ground? You could just pick it up and eat it and it was like honey. They began to complain because they didn't have enough to drink and God brought water. They came to another place where they needed something to drink and the water was bitter. How many of you know that life can get bitter sometimes? They were in the midst of their wilderness when they came upon some more bitterness in their life but God took that bitterness and made it sweet and they had plenty to drink so that it satisfied them. Somehow in the midst of all that when they were wearing clothes that never wore out and shoes that never saw any wear and tear, they began to complain. When they got on the threshold of the promised land to enter in, God took them right to their promise and said, "I want you to go and look at what I've got prepared for you".
As they began to peer into that promised land, that promise wasn't everything that they thought it would be and they got afraid and began to complain against the same God that had set them free out of slavery, at the same God that had opened the Red Sea, at the same God that led them by a pillar of fire at night and a cloud by day, the same God that provided food for them and clothes that never wore out and God led them right to the promise when they didn't know the way. There they were on the threshold of it and began to complain because it wasn't what they thought it would be.
The truth is that a lot of us even as Christians can be a lot like Israel. God can provide and lead and guide but sometimes the things aren't good enough. When we finally receive God's promise we don't like it because it didn't look like what we thought it would. What happened to Israel can happen to us. The Israelites on the cusp of their promise decide it wasn't what they wanted and they wound up wandering in the desert in the same place for 40 years. How many of you have ever seen the geography of that land? They should have entered in long before those 40 years were up but they wound up living in the desert.
Complaining can cause us to miss out on God's best. The truth is that you can go too far, you may still be God's but we can waste our life and miss out on His best for us. Numbers 32:13 says, "So the Lord's anger was aroused against Israel and He made them wander in the wilderness 40 years until all the generation that had done evil in the sight of the Lord is gone". I know this isn't a laughing type of message this morning but I want to speak into the life of this church. I have felt this burning so strongly in my heart for a long time, the Lord speaks this to me regularly but listen, how many of you understand that God has a great plan for your life? How many of you believe that? The truth is this, many times in the midst of God's blessing, in the midst of God's teaching, in the midst of God's beauty of what He's doing and it may not always be easy, instead of recognizing the wonderful, powerful things that He has done and that He is God and that He loves us and cares for us, we begin to get our minds off of those things of who He is and what He has done and we begin to complain about what we don't have and we begin to waste the promise that God has for us.
I want to speak this to us as a church, How many believe that we are on the cusp of receiving from God what He has for us as a church. To some of you, it may not look like what you thought it would look like, it may not smell like you thought it would smell like but I want to tell you that what God has is a marvelous thing. You must remember that He is a good God and faithful. Complaining is evidence of unbelief in God Himself. Regardless of our situation, whatever we face, whatever our dissatisfaction with life, complaining is an expression of unbelief towards God's order and His plan for our life and we must be very careful of it.
When we become Christians, Jesus becomes our Lord. That means He becomes the boss of our life. How many of you are thankful that you're not in control of everything you do anymore? I'm so thankful because the truth is, I don't know what to do half the time and I'm so thankful. I remember when I was growing up, the first thing that hit me as soon as I had children and I was on my own and paying the bills. How many of you remember what that was like? When you're young you think you know it all but when you finally get what you thought you wanted, it's a whole lot different than what you thought it was. I remember saying, "God, I know I can go to my parents for advice but I've got to tell you that I don't know what I'm doing half the time". He said, "That's ok, I do. You made me the Lord of your life, right? That means although your Mom and Dad may not be telling you what to do anymore, I am and I'm going to help you and guide you and direct you".
The truth is that when we begin to complain about what is going on, we accuse God of not being good and of not being caring. Complaining is unbelief in God's Word and in His character. Romans 8:28 says, "All things work together for good to those who love God". All things. When we begin to complain about those times that we go through in our life that aren't really fun, we can tell God how we feel. How many of you know that's important? Complaining moves beyond the challenges of fear and uncertainty and beyond the challenges of just not liking where you are.
Complaining says, "God, I know that you're God but I don't care anymore about this, I don't like it and I don't want this anymore and I don't like that you're making me go through it". What that begins to say is "God, now I don't trust you, now I don't believe that all those things work together for good". You may not like being somewhere and you can tell the Lord that but there has to be a point as a Christian that we put our feet in front of us and say, "Lord, whatever you're going to do, I will follow you knowing that you will lead me, guide me, help me and that you're watching over me". How many of you believe He's faithful?
A great anecdote to complaining is gratefulness. Yesterday I never saw a young man more happy to have a hamburger. To me a hamburger is just a light weight dinner. You get those frozen hamburgers from Costco or Sam's Club for when you run out of time for dinner. I like to cook, you know that, I like to eat so you have to understand, even when I'm making a hamburger it's got to be a good hamburger with everything on it. I'm getting hungry right now, I've got some leftover hamburgers, I don't know how the kid missed them but I've got a few. That's lightweight stuff and that kid was so thankful.
I remember there was a time in my life that I couldn't afford the hamburger. I was telling Pastor Troy there was a time when I was training for ministry where all I could afford when I was in Phoenix, Arizona was "Arizona special". We could buy a can of refried beans for 50 cents and if we were really splurging we would get 2 cans of refried beans, then we got some processed cheese for a dollar and then we'd buy salsa and a bag of $1.00 tortilla chips and heat it all up. Every Wednesday night when we were in ministry school that's what we could afford and if someone had blessed us with a little extra money we'd invite a couple of friends over and share the "Arizona Special". I want to tell you we loved it and we ate like kings. You didn't want to sit next to us in Wednesday night service but we ate like kings. Listen to me, I remember when that's what I could afford and hamburger was the luxury. Thankfulness is an expression of appreciation for what God has done and our confidence that He is directing our life faithfully. I remember sitting there with "Arizona Special" and those chips, it was the best tasting food in the world, and we would sincerely pray, "Thank you Jesus".
Complaining is an offense to God. It says that what He has done and what He has provided isn't good enough. It doubts His faithfulness. When you want to fight that complaining in your life, begin to remember what God has done for you and begin to thank Him for it. Remember, He's never failed you. I want to ask you, as there ever been a time when God has let you down? Has he ever left you high and dry? The answer is No. Even when I didn't have enough money there were always refried beans and enough money for some cheese and salsa and we ate good and God is faithful. There will be times, not because we can't afford it because we can, now we'll buy just a little more expensive can of beans.
The good ones, not the cheap ones that smell like dog food when you open them. Some of you know what I'm talking about. How many of you have ever been there?
When you begin to thank God for what he does that becomes worship. Worship is more than singing a song, worship is more than coming to church and lifting your hands, worship is thanking God in the midst of even your hardest times because He is good and He is faithful. I want to tell you that you cannot whine and worship at the same time. You just can't do it. If you make the choice to begin to give Him all the glory and all the praise because He is worthy and He is good and wonderful, God will change your whining and complaining and will take that and turn it into a wonderful worship before Him. I want to challenge you, Christian, the next time you start whining and complaining just discipline yourself to begin to love the Savior.
In Luke chapter 17, we're told of ten lepers who were healed by Jesus. All ten of them had to cry out, "Unclean" when people walked near them. How many of you were unclean in your sin in the past? Some of you remember what it was like. You didn't have to tell people you were unclean, they knew it because they saw how you were living, but today you've been set free. Out of those ten lepers only one came back. As he was on his way, he began to see because by faith God says, "Go present yourself to the priest and let him know that you are whole" because priests often functioned as doctors back then. They just had to confirm whether you were well or not. On his way that leper began to look down at the skin that had been falling off and fingers that had been falling off and all of a sudden he could look at himself and he was whole.
You want to know something, that leper wasn't even a Jew, he was a Samaritan, someone who had given up their right to the family of God and walked away, but when he saw that he had been made well, he came back and layed himself at Jesus feet and said, "Thank you". Jesus said, "Where are the other nine"?
It's interesting because sometimes as Christians, the longer we walk with the Lord we can become ungrateful because we can get used to the blessing. I want to challenge you this morning, be thankful for the blessing of God. Do you know why? Because if you'll be thankful when everything is going well then when things start to go bad you'll be thankful for the blessing and you'll be able to walk through it in victory knowing that God is faithful. Give thanks to God, learn to be truly happy and content with the things that God has given you.
Hebrews 13:5 says, "Let your conduct be without covetousness, be content with such things as you have, for He Himself has said, I will never leave you nor forsake you". Complaining robs us of the peace and satisfaction that comes from God's provision and with His presence. Listen to me, If we would simply be content in Jesus we would have nothing to complain about ever. Be content in Jesus.
You know what I've noticed, complainers have a powerful case of whiplash syndrome. Many people complain about things and then when they get what they want they complain that things were better when they had it the other way. The Israelites prayed for years and years, "God, would you set us free and get us out of slavery, get us out of Egypt". So the Israelites are marching out, walked through the Red Sea, it parted right before them and now they're on the other side, they're sitting in the desert and all of a sudden things aren't quite what they thought it would be and the Israelites are complaining to Moses, "It would have been better if we had been back in Egypt where we were". I believe God was up in Heaven listening, "Say What"? Whiplash Syndrome.
We had a kid at the ranch, his nickname was whiplash. Everyday he'd say, "I want to do this" and then later he'd say, "I don't want to do this, I want to do that" and he'd go back and do the same thing. We told him, "You've got to stop this, you're hurting and sending me through loops". How many of you have ever met some whiplash Christians? "Oh God, if you'd just do this for me" and then you get what you prayed for and all of a sudden you're saying , "it was so much better back there". God is up in Heaven listening, "Say What"? Every one of us has counseled people like that and we've been with people like that. How many of us have selective memory?
The Israelites got set free, now they're in the desert on the way to the promised land and all of a sudden things got a little bit difficult on the way to the promise. How many of you are receiving God's promise for your life? For some of you, all of a sudden, things are getting a little bit difficult and now you're thinking, "Maybe it wasn't so bad back there". Did you forget how miserable you were back there? Everything you used to complain about and now you want that stuff back that you were complaining that you had? Whiplash Syndrome.
Listen, complaining gives place to the devil. 1 Corinthians 10:10 says, "Nor complain as some of them also complained and were destroyed by the destroyer". For the Israelites, complaining led to doubt and then doubt led to disobedience. The truth is when we complain it can involve a curse of destruction. Why? Because the Israelites stopped obeying God and how many of you know sometimes when you are obeying God and things in life are difficult and God is teaching and doing something in our lives then we begin to complain and step out of God's will because things are too hard where we are. Listen to me, some of you are going through some stuff and you are on your way to what God has promised you in your life. I am on my way to the things of God, this church is on its way to the things God has promised us, but the truth is along the way things can get a little hard, a little difficult and you have to work through them.
God has allowed those obstacles so when you get to the promised land, you know what you're doing when you get there. The truth is that sometimes we get disobedient because we start to complain and begin to doubt so we step out from underneath the covering of what God has planned and then we bring destruction. The Israelites stopped obeying God, they began to worship Idols, they began to become sexually immoral, they began to rebel against the authority that God had given in their life. Their children disobeyed their parents, the citizens disobeyed the governing authorities. How many of you know that becomes a problem.
The truth is we have what we say and things happen according to our faith and if we reject God and choose the lie the enemy brings then eventually God will remove His hand and we will have what we say.
Numbers 14:27-29, God said, "How long shall I bear with this evil congregation who complained against me"? Now I'm not saying you're an evil congregation, here me now, I'm trying to teach things for your life, not about this church. "I have heard the complaints of the children of Israel, say to them as I live, says the Lord, just as you have spoken in my hearing so I will do to you". Verse 29 says, "The carcasses of you who have complained against me shall fall in the wilderness, all of you who were numbered according to your entire number from 20 years old and above".
Listen to me, ungratefulness has consequences and if you are going through a wilderness, I want to speak this to you, go through it, don't you dare die there. God's will is not for us to die in the wilderness, God's will is for us to press toward the promised land. You need to listen, a whole generation, think about this for a minute, from 21 years old to the oldest one in the group, an entire generation bought into the lie of the enemy that they were going to die in that wilderness, that God was never going to take them into the promised land. How many of you know that it is possible for the majority to be wrong? We don't like that in America, when we do that we vote people out of office. I'm not talking about politics but understand now, In America we have a weird way of thinking, it's different from God's way of thinking. A full generation missed God's blessing because they believed the lie and complained as a whole.
I want to speak to you as a part of the body of Jesus Christ that this generation, at this time, around the world as we live today, God is about to do some powerful, powerful things in all of our lives. As we see people come to Christ, as we receive the promises God has for our life, many people will miss God's best because they have stopped trusting Him and begin to complain against Him and they begin to believe the lie of the enemy that God brought them out to die in that place that is dry and hard. I want to tell you this morning, don't miss out on God's best for you. Don't do it. Don't be swayed by constant whiners and complainers around you. When they're going through the hard things, begin to speak faith into their life.
When you see others around you going through those difficult times, speak the life of Jesus to them, speak the life of Jesus to your spouse, speak the life of Jesus to your children. Whatever you're going through, choose to trust the Lord. I want to encourage you as Christians, don't be swayed by whiners and complainers. Why? Because the truth is whiners and complainers are only happy when they have something to complain about. How many of you have ever met someone like that? Life just didn't seem normal to them if they weren't complaining about something. Don't have anything to do with people like that because, hear my words, if they run out of stuff to complain about they'll start to complain about you so be careful. If you buy into what they're saying, you'll miss God. I want to close with this, AW Tozer said, "Whining and complaining are the steering wheels of manipulation and people use these methods to steer inconveniences out of their lives".
Aaron, the high priest, when he was in the wilderness, began to listen to those who were complaining while Moses was on the mountain. They said, "You know what, we missed God, Moses missed God and you need to do something for us, you need to make something that we can see and that we can worship", Aaron, because he listened to the whining and complaining found himself in Idolatry. He actually made a golden calf to worship and when the man of God came down off the mountain, he said, "What are you doing? Aaron said, "it just came out that way". Listen, things don't just come out that way. We do it because we didn't like what God was doing and we tried to shape and mold things to look like what we wanted. Moses came down from the mountain and the glory was so powerful and people couldn't even look at him. They were willing to trade the glory of God for gold, for something that looked like what they wanted in this world. God doesn't want us to identify with the things of this world, He wants us to identify with Him.
I used to think that people complain because they have problems but I've grown to realize that many people have problems because they complain too much. The Bible says that by our words we will be justified and by our words we will be condemned. We have what we say. I want to encourage you today. I know we joked about it at the beginning, "Waah", but I want to encourage you and believe that God has your best at heart. How many of you know that God has a good plan for your life?
Church, we need to know the difference between taking things to God in prayer and standing on His Word and loving Him and knowing when we're discontented and taking that to Jesus and complaining, to know the difference. The truth is if we do we will have what God wants for our lives instead of what the enemy planned. How many of you want God's best? Let's Pray.
