INTRO
A number of weeks ago, I jokingly said that everyone in my family had a license for something in life. The one license my folks said was solely mine was the complaining license. Dad would say: “Stop your fussing;” and if I didn’t, he’d pick on me and saying: “I don’t like this, and I don’t like that; I don’t like this, and I don’t like that.”
I don’t know why from a very young age, I had an early onset of grumbler’s syndrome -- but I did. Thankfully, I’ve grown most of that. However, I don’t know if I would had it not been for the grace of God. Even so, I grumble from time-to-time -- and I think that’s normal. I bet you grumble once in a while too. But to live that way -- as in a permanent state of being -- is all together something different.
Have you ever noticed some folks are miserable -- all the time? It’s kinda like, no matter how nice you are to them, or despite how great life can be, they just find something to grumble about -- it’s like their baseline mood is one of permanent unhappiness? I think it’s safe to say we all know people like this. Some of them live nearby, run businesses, or work beside us… or, maybe they’re related. And unfortunately, there’s lots of people within the universal church who hold grumblers licenses.
So, let me ask you a question. Do you think chronic complainers are just miserable because that’s the way were born? Or, is there maybe something more going on -- say, something spiritually off-center? Personally, I think it’s the later. I believe the ways in which we view and live life: whether from a state of grumbling, or from a state of joy, begins with the heart. This morning, we’re going to peer into the history books and see what happened when Israel grumbled too much, and the consequences of their attitudes of heart. And as we’re looking at that, we’re gonna see what that all means for us, and how like Israel, we each have the choice; we can either choose life, or choose death. So with that, please turn in your bibles to Deuteronomy 30:11-20.
FILLING THE GAPS FROM LAST WEEK
Let’s fill in the gaps from where we left off last week before we move ahead. Last Sunday we encamped with Israel at the base of Mt. Sinai and heard the ten laws from which all-human laws have derived. However, while Moses was atop of the Mountain with God, the people rebelled and fashioned an idol to worship -- despite God’s command to do otherwise.
God’s anger burned, and again he wanted to smite his people; he wanted to start over in a matter of sorts by creating a new family with Moses as its head. Moses pleaded with God and asked him to stay his wrath. God obliged. God rewrote the Ten Commandments on another set of stone tablets, and commanded Israel to place the tablets in the Arc of the Covenant. Israel obeyed, and did as God commanded. From that time, God’s law and the Arc of the Covenant resided within the Holy of Holies -- the location where God’s presence would dwell among the people. Ex 33:10 states: “Whenever the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance to the tent, they all stood and worshiped, each at the entrance to his tent.”
God dwelled among his children, provided for and guided them, and established them as a people set apart. Despite God’s presence; notwithstanding his provision, and regardless of God’s leading, the people still found ways to grumble -- and they grumbled often.
They complained about their living conditions, food, water, this that and everything: Numbers 11:1 says, “The people complained about their hardships.”
But the most egregious of all these was this: the people grumbled about their state of being. And in their misery, they longed to return to Egypt, rather than to move forward with God towards the new life and blessings he had in store for them. Let me explain….
But God knew it was time for the people to move from their place of complacency, restlessness, and grumbling, and into the Promised Land. So, the Lord said to Moses,“Send some men to explore the land of Canaan, which I am giving to the Israelites. From each ancestral tribe send one of its leaders.” And so, at the Lord’s command, Moses sent them out from the Desert.
They came back after 40 days and gave Moses this account: “We went into the land to which you sent us, and it does flow with milk and honey! … However, the people who live there are powerful, and the cities are fortified and very large.
Then Caleb silenced the people before Moses and said, “We should go up and take possession of the land, for we can certainly do it.”
But the men who had gone up with him said, “We can’t attack those people; they are stronger than we are.” The fearful men spread a bad report among the Israelites about the land they had explored. They said, “The land we explored devours those living in it. All the people we saw there are of great size. We saw the Nephilim; and we seemed like grasshoppers in our own eyes, and we looked the same to them.”
Numbers 14 and Deuteronomy 1 say that because of this, all the people of the community raised their voices and wept aloud. All the Israelites -- for the exception of Joshua and Caleb -- grumbled against Moses and Aaron, and the whole assembly said to them, “If only we had died in Egypt! Or in this desert! Why is the LORD bringing us to this land only to let us fall by the sword? Our wives and children will be taken as plunder. Wouldn’t it be better for us to go back to Egypt?” And then they said to one another, “We should choose a leader and go back to Egypt.”
Only Joshua and Caleb trusted God. They believed they could move forward and take the land with God leading the way. Caleb and Joshua chose to look at life optimistically and trusted in God for their livelihood. They choose life with God, instead of allowing their conditions to dictate the rest of their lives. However, the rest of the people didn’t see things this way. It’s like they looked at life with the glass half empty, and failed to look to God for their livelihood -- even though he lived right within their midst.
Okay, let’s pause for a second, because this is important.
Moses had said to the people -- before they spied out the land: “Do not be terrified; do not be afraid of them. The Lord your God, who is going before you, will fight for you, as he did for you in Egypt, before your very eyes, and in the desert.”
In spite of this, the people failed to trust the Lord God, who had gone ahead of them on their journey. We’ll never fully know, but maybe they thought is was easier to wallow in their depravity, instead of relying on God for their livelihood. It’s like they chose not to look forward into their newly called life with optimism. Instead, they choose to rest in their grumbling. But little did they know that their attitudes of the heart and grumbling were leading them to death -- spiritually, and literally.
WANDERING FOR 40 YEARS IN THE DESERT
Like my dad to me, God kept telling the folks to stop their complaining. But they wouldn’t listen. Truthfully speaking, God said “enough is enough” and “had it” with the people’s grumbling, their lack of faith and vision. It was like, in their hearts, the people had chosen death in the dessert, rather than life with him. And that’s what God gave them.
Numbers 14 says: How long will these people treat me with contempt? How long will they refuse to believe in me, in spite of all the miraculous signs I have performed among them? How long will this wicked community grumble against me? I have heard the complaints of these grumbling Israelites. So tell them, ‘As surely as I live, declares the Lord, I will do to you the very things I heard you say: In this desert your bodies will fall. Not one of you will enter the land I swore with uplifted hand to make your home, except Caleb and Joshua. As for your children that you said would be taken as plunder, I will bring them in to enjoy the land you have rejected. But you—your bodies will fall in this desert. For forty years—one year for each of the forty days you explored the land—you will suffer for your sins and know what it is like to have me against you.’
God’s word to the Israelites is not just a fanciful story in some book that only applied to a people long ago. No, it is historically accurate. But more important than this, it underscores the importance of our attitudes towards, and moving forward with God towards the life he promises -- if only we’ll take that step in faith, anticipation and joy. But it also accentuates another truth -- we cannot live in the past, because bondage awaits if we walk backwards to our former lives.
For forty years, the first generation out of Egypt grumbled in the dessert and longed for the years long passed. That generation of grumblers died in a desert of depravity. But during that time, God raised up a new generation who choose to live with joyful hearts, with their God, and into the future he promised. It was to that Generation that God said,
THE CHOICE: CHOOSE LIFE, OR CHOOSE DEATH
Unlike the second generation, the Bible indicates the generation that came out of Egypt looked at God with scorn… in other words; they were stubborn and had defiant attitudes. They wanted to live and worship they way they choose, and not in the ways God commanded. They chose to not believe in God, despite the miracles he performed within their midst; and I think here’s why.
Numbers 14:24 says Caleb had a different spirit and followed God wholeheartedly. Let me repeat this last statement, because it’s really important: Caleb had a different spirit and followed God wholeheartedly. But the vast majority of the first generation had a spirit of antipathy towards God, and chose not to follow God with all their hearts, souls, mind, and strength. Sure, they were the children of God, but they chose instead be people in name only -- and not in the strength and power of God -- kind of like Christians who truly deny the Spirit of God to dictate the course of their lives. They acted like believers, said all the right things and acted religiously; but in truth, they denied the true power of God to transform their lives and to move them from one place to the next.
And because of all of this, or as a result of the following, they chose to live in a permanent state of grumbling. I guess you could say they died according to the way in which they lived.
Think of someone you know that lives in a state of perpetual grumbling -- Christian or otherwise. Ask yourself: are they happy? Are they living a good life, or are they miserable? But more important, how’s their faith? Are they growing, or are they simply dying? I can tell you, the folks I know that live as did as that first generation: in a permanent state of grumbling and complaining without the Spirit in their life -- they exist physically, but spiritually and emotionally, they’re dead inside. And to be truthful, this sadness me. I wish we could wave a magic wand and change these folk’s hearts, but we can’t. Only the Holy Spirit can change their lives.
If we say the Spirit lives with us -- like in Caleb -- then we too need to be like him follow God wholeheartedly -- without condition. We’re called to encourage, love, and live with such a joy that people will see us living for God, and want the same for themselves.
Some of you have heard me talking about my good friend Beatta. She like a spiritual mom to me. The light and Spirit of Christ radiates from Beatta like no other person I have met. Some have said Lois Jacobsen is such a person. Many years ago I wanted to go back into the Navy as a chaplain -- and even to this day people spread rumors that I am headed back that way -- rest assured I am not. I’m not going anywhere -- and that’s because of Beatta. She said to me a number of years ago: “Jason, move forward into the Promised Land with God -- and discover the blessings he has in store for you -- a promised future filled with milk and honey.” See, Beatta told me that the Navy was my Egypt -- it was a place I was not to return, but rather a place God sent me from -- so that I could travel forward with him into the future.
This is my point… we can be like Beatta for so many in our communities. Like Beatta, Like Caleb and Joshua, we can chose to live with a different spirit and wholeheartedly follow God into the promises he has in store for us. When we do, life opens like at no other point before. True miracles happen, and we start seeing life for the way God intended.
Friends, God is saying to us all -- choose life -- choose life with me and move forward into the Promised Land. What’s your alternative, he might say? God says: choose life. That’s the whole point of this message. If we say we are Christian, then let us each live with a renewed spirit and wholeheartedly follow God. Choose life today. If you don’t know what it is to truly live -- seek God into your heart, maybe for the first time, and ask God to help you live with a different spirit and wholeheartedly follow him. Choose life in the Promised Land, and discover what waits for you on the other side of joyful reality. Amen. Let us pray.
