Do you mind if I sit down for a minute? I didn’t think so. Boy am I tired. I never knew a Gospel meeting was such hard work. Man do you remember when they lasted 4 weeks instead of 4 days? Man how did you do it sitting on these hard pews every night for 4 weeks. That makes my back hurt, not a constant pain but there is a twinge that I get every now and then. I guess it comes from my flat feet. You know my dad had flat feet and I have them and if you look at Rylan you will see that his feet are as flat as a fritter. He will probably have the same problem. But you know they say a lot of that comes from having so much weight on your body. And to be honest I am not really all that big, but that’s the price you pay when your body was built by Krispy Kreams. Boy I sure miss That place. You know it’s hard moving to a place where you can’t get good doughnuts. But who am I kidding. I have never lived in a place this small before and the restaurant situation, well let’s just say there is the Plantation on Sunday and then the Frosty Front on Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and then the Plantation opens up again on Thursday. Well we could use a little variety. I mean I can’t even have it my way anymore since they closed down Burger King now we can’t even smell the new tender crisp bacon cheddar ranch cooking. Boy I would love to be able to smell a Cracker Barrel, or Logan’s, or Red Lobster cooking. But I can’t smell much right now because I have a terrible sinus headache. I can’t breath a bit out of my nose. We have a lot of trees in our yard and we all know that Trees bring shade, tree swings and of course pollen. You need to open up the windows because the house is so hot but you can’t because the pollen will get all over everything and you can’t turn on your Air Conditioner because you can’t have that Electric Bill get to high so you just beg for a church to have a Gospel Meeting so that you can go sit in their Air Conditioned Building but to be honest with you I never knew how much work was involved in having a gospel meeting…
OK you probably think that I went a little overboard here with my illustration but does that sound a little familiar? I mean have you ever been there? Been in a place where you were feeling down and depressed and the only thing that brought you joy was your ability to gripe and complain?
It has always intrigued me to what level we who profess to be Christians are willing to carry out the commands of God. I believe that there are sins that we keep away from at all costs, like murder, or stealing but then there are some that we just gloss over. You know if it doesn’t hurt anyone then it’s not that big of a deal. I believe that complaining or if you have a King James Bible Murmuring fits into that gloss over category.
We are told in Scripture that every day should be a day of Thanksgiving. If you have a Palm Pilot or a date book or a calendar on your refrigerator everyday should have Thanksgiving on it. Listen to what the Apostle Paul writes to the Church in Colossi. 2:7 Let your roots grow down into him and draw up nourishment from him, so you will grow in faith, strong and vigorous in the truth you were taught. Let your lives overflow with thanksgiving for all he has done.
3:15 And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body; and be thankful.
4:2 Continue praying, keeping alert, and always thanking God.
Now I know that there are some here today that have never read that before and didn’t know that was in there. I know that there are some here today that have probably read it and forgot it as soon as it passed from their eyes. And I know that there are some here today that are struggling to live a life of thankfulness.
Well whatever group you find yourselves in today I want to give you a little reminder. Over the next few weeks we are going to look at some diseases that effect the Christian. And when I say diseases I am not talking about physical diseases like the flu or mumps but instead I am talking about Spiritual diseases, a disease of our heart and their cure.
I also want you to know that I am a realist. Today as we talk about having a heart of discontent I don’t expect for your week to immediately become all gumdrops and lollipops, just like next week when we discuss our inability to forgive I won’t expect us to wipe our slate completely clean. But this is what I do expect, GROWTH. I believe that it is my responsibility as your pulpit minister to make you question your lifestyle, your relationship with God and your belief in that same God so that you will have the opportunity to grow. Grow closer to God and be a living example of what Paul talks about in Romans 12:2 so we are not conformed to this world, but transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what the will of God is, that which is good and acceptable and perfect.
Our text today comes from I Corinthians 10:1-12 Lets turn there and read together today.
Instead of remaining continually grateful for their deliverance from Egypt, how soon did Israel start to murmur and complain? Well as Paul gives us this brief history lesson we see that they were not in the Wilderness very long and they forgot that they were no longer slaves, but Free men and women, Free to make their own way in life, Free to live in the promise land and unfortunately free to gripe and complain. Look again at verse 10
Nor grumble, as some of them did, and were destroyed by the destroyer.
Grumbling and complaining was one of the reasons that some of the Children of Israel were destroyed in the Wilderness. If God saw it as an offense worthy of death in the Old Testament then it must be higher on the list of offensive things than we give it credit for.
With that in mind I want to give you some reasons that I believe that God expects us to live lives of Joy, devoid of murmuring and complaining. You see gratitude is not optional. To be an ingrate, is to be disobedient; and, to be disobedient is to be lost.
The first thing we must do is Remember To Never Forget
The Psalmist writes in Psalm 103:2 "Forget not all His benefits."
We all live with a lifestyle of “what have you done for me lately.” This week I was scrolling through the channels and I heard this man with a thick southern drawl on the TV and so I stopped. You know I am always interested in how we southerners are portrayed. The Show was Texas Justice, and the premise is a Judge from Texas who hands out justice southern style. Well I am not recommending the show it was pretty bad but there was a young woman on the show suing an older woman for $10,000.00. It seemed that this older woman had dented the younger woman’s car fender and that was the cost of the repair. It seemed simple enough but what we found out later was that the Older woman had welcomed the younger woman into her home 12 years before, Took care of her, fed her, clothed her, made sure she had the chance to go to school and even bought the young woman the car in question. When that revelation was made I just turned the channel.
Now as ridiculous as that sounds if we were to be honest we do the same thing with God. We sing Count Your Many blessings, but we are a lot happier counting the bruises.
In society, and churches we date matters from a given tragedy. "That happened the year of the tornado," or, "the year I had rheumatic fever ." Instead of dwelling on the blessings, that happened in the year that God gave me a job, or God gave us a son.
I remember in the 3rd grade I was having trouble seeing the Blackboard so my mom took me to the doctor on the Naval base and sure enough I had to wear glasses. Now on a military base back then you didn’t have all of the frame choices that you have now. As a matter of fact I only had two. Black horn rimmed glasses or Brown horn rimmed glasses. But I learned to be thankful that year for those glasses, because they kept the boys from fighting with me and the girls from kissing me.
The great Biblical Scholar Matthew Henry wrote in his diary he day that His house was robbed, "Let me be thankful first, because he: never robbed me before; second, because although he took my purse, he did not take my life; third, because although he took all I possessed, it was not much; and fourth, because it was I who was robbed, not I who robbed."
Do we really believe God when He leads the Apostle Paul to write in Romans 8:28 that "all things work together for good to them that love God."
We live out that belief when we remember to never forget.
Second we need to dwell on the blessings we do have rather than on what we don’t have.
Again the Bible says this " And if we have food and covering, with these we shall be content." 1 Timothy 6:8
"being content with what you have; for He Himself has said, "I WILL NEVER DESERT YOU, NOR WILL I EVER FORSAKE YOU," Hebrews 13:5
But, so often we don’t remember the things God has blessed us with.
A friend of mine lost his two year old son when he was struck by lightening, and as a memorial to him they gave the church where he was working a sizable gift in memory of their son. When the elders announced the gift apparently a mother whispered to her husband, "Let’s give the same amount to this church in honor of our son." The husband replied, "Our boy didn’t lose his life." And the mom said, "That’s the point. Let’s give it as an expression of gratitude for sparing his life." This mother had not lost sight of the fact of what she did have.
Have you ever tried to do what we sing. Have you ever tried to count your many blessings? This week I tried to compile a list of some of my Spiritual Blessings and Physical Blessings. See if your list sounds anything like mine.
Spiritual blessings:
God, God’s son, The Holy Spirit, This Body of Believers, The whole Body of Believers, The Bible, The Promises of Help and Comfort and Mercy and Grace and Peace and Strength and Help, the sustaining hope of heaven, My conversion that allowed me to become a part of the Holy Priesthood as Peter calls all of us and the promise of forgiveness.
Then there are the Physical Blessings
Trista, Trafton, and Rylan, My parents and Brother and His family, My Mother and Father in law, My brother and sister in laws, Grandparents who are still alive and those who have gone on before me, Good friends I have here and Good friends I have across this country, my health, the food and Shelter that God has provided me, Clothing, cars, computers , books, things used for entertainment like TV, Playstation, and Golf clubs, our dog Hopscotch, the ability to look out the back door and see turkeys, deer, and the occasional owl, my freedom, the beauty of the world, the rebirth at Spring and every season that follows.
This is not an all encompassing list. God’s blessings are innumerable. Even the things we think are horrible at the time can turn out to be a blessing. This winter when Rollen was feeling worn down, and tired and couldn’t shake being sick, that was truly a blessing. It made him seek medical help which led to the discovery of his colon and heart problems which allowed him to get help and continue on with us.
We must truly learn how to dwell on the blessings we do have rather than on what we don’t have. And if we are honest we will see what we do have far out weighs what we don’t have.
And this is important when we realize how detestable our ingratitude really is.
Again the Apostle Paul is writing to our first century brethren, but this time to the church in Rome. He is starting the letter off with a discussion about all of the ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who suppress the truth in unrighteousness, and he gets to verse 21 and writes this statement as one of the many sins on the list of sins characteristic of the Gentile world.:
they did not honor Him as God, or give thanks;
I don’t believe that there are things in the scripture that just happen to be there. I believe that By God placing grumbling or ingratitude first it was a way of saying that our inability to give thanks to God for His blessings is the first step to these other sins which include idolatry, Homosexuality, a depraved mind, unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, envy, murder, and strife.
That’s why we must learn to Quit Complaining and Express Our Gratitude
We are commanded to express our gratitude in two different ways :
There is a verbal expression as seen in 1 Thessalonians 5: 18 in everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.
And again in Ephesians 5:20 Always give thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord
I believe our expression of gratefulness warms the Heart of our Lord in the same way that our complaints burden His heart.
I believe this because living in a house with two boys under the age of 5 can at times be very trying.
Trafton wants what Rylan has and Rylan wants what Trafton has but instead of sharing they are content to cry and complain. It gets very unnerving at times. But then there are those days that I have worked and worked on a particular passage. Struggled with it and fought with it all day and I go home and I am weary and tired and Trafton crawls in my lap and says, “Dad, I love you. And I am glad you are my dad.” It takes every worry and care away.
If God is truly my father then I am sure my relationship with Him is not that far from the relationship I enjoy with my children. God desires and longs for his children to express their love and gratitude.
Then there is an expression of your life as seen in Romans 12:1 I urge you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God
Paul encourages us to have the resolve that we offer our life as a living Sacrifice. In a life of thankfulness and praise we resolve to give God our love, our time, our talents, our money, our lives, our all. And if we are truly aware of the way that God has blessed us can we do any less than offer ever blessing back as praise?
We need to have the mindset of the Christian man who had to go to an accountant after he went out of business bankrupt. The accountant said that they needed to list all of the wealth that the man had so that they could figure the best way to pay his creditors.
The man replied, "I am a very wealthy man." And began to list his assets:
I have remission of my sins - Acts 2:38.
I have a mansion in heaven - John 14:2.
I have peace that passes understanding – Philippians . 4:7.
I have unspeakable joy – 1 Peter 1 :8.
I have a love that never fails - 1Cornthians 13:8.
I have a faithful wife - Proverbs 31: 10.
I have devoted children - Exodus 20: 12.
I have true, loyal friends - Proverbs 18 :24
I have songs in the night - Psalm 42:8.
I have a crown of life - James 1:12.
And I have a Savior who supplies all my needs freely – Philippians 4: 19.
God has given us so much that often we forget it is not the gift but the giver that is important.
We have become like the little child who has been pampered by an over-indulgent uncle bringing him candy each day. But one day the uncle forgot the candy and the little boy stomped off to his room and cried the day away. Why? The child is more interested in the gift than in the giver.
It is possible for us to have the same attitude toward God. We are so interested in the Blessings from God that when they do not come in the way we expect we feel compelled to gripe and complain.
Instead we need to be like the young bride-to-be who is grateful for her new engagement ring; but, she is much more grateful for the one who gave it to her. Apart from him, the ring means nothing. And in your life and mine apart from God all of His blessings mean nothing. Let us never separate God from his gifts.
George Herbert prayed, "Our Father, Thou hast given us so much. Please, give us one more thing .... a grateful heart!"
