Overcoming Grumbling With Gratitude

And maybe I should start off by saying to you that I am a grumbler. I say that at the risk of you changing your opinion of me, because I am your pastor. But it’s true. I have to fight against that sin in my life.

Then again, maybe some of you already know that about me. You’ve spent enough time around me when my guard isn’t up and you’ve seen it. The thing is, though, I’ve spent a lot of time with some of you, too, and if you’ve heard me being a grumbler, I have heard some of you grumbling.

So we start this morning the awareness that we are all sinners, we are all fallen, we are all grumblers at heart, and we need help. As with so many other problems, God provides us with help in His word. How do we overcome grumbling with gratitude?

[SLIDE: THE SYMPTOM OF GRUMBLING]

1. The symptom of grumbling

Notice with me first the symptom of grumbling.

Grumbling is a theme throughout the Bible, especially the OT. Within the OT, grumbling shows up often among the Israelites especially as they wandered through the wilderness. That period of Israel’s history after they had been rescued from captivity in Egypt and before they entered the land. They walked through the desert many days and weeks. They got thirsty and hungry, and they started feeling as though they’d rather go back to Egypt and be slaves than belong to God and have to suffer some discomfort. The word “grumble” occurs 21 times in the book of Numbers where these stories are found.

There is one story I’d like to bring your attention to. Will you turn with me to Numbers 21:4-9?

“From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom. And the people became impatient on the way.” Note that, church: grumbling starts with discontent, dissatisfaction, a lack of happiness.

But the Israelites go straight from discontent and dissatisfaction to grumbling and complaining, verse 5: “And the people spoke against God and against Moses, ‘Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this worthless food.”

What does God think about our complaining? How does He respond to Israel’s grumbling? Verse 6: “Then the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died.”

So now we can say what grumbling really is. What is grumbling?

[SLIDE: WHAT IS GRUMBLING?]

What is grumbling?

To express your unhappiness with someone or something in an unkind or justified manner.

Grumbling — or complaining — is to express your unhappiness with someone or something in an unkind and unjustified manner.

When you put it like that, we immediately see that most of us are guilty.

“My boss doesn’t care about me. All he cares about is the bottom line.”

“Of course my husband hasn’t taken out the garbage; that would mean that he actually cares about me.”

“Of course my wife doesn’t want me to go fishing today; she cares more about having me at home to cross things off her list than my happiness.”

“Things at church are just not the way they used to be. Everything’s different. I don’t like the way things are now. I am unhappy. I might change churches just to send a message.”

“I’ll never be financially secure. God doesn’t care about how I struggle to make ends meet. If He did, He’d actually show up for a change and help me.”

This is grumbling.

Notice with me the underlying sickness of grumbling.

[SLIDE: THE UNDERLYING SICKNESS]

2. The underlying sickness: unbelief

Every symptom has a root cause. What is the root cause of grumbling? What, according to the Bible, is the underlying sickness that produces the symptom of grumbling?

Consider what you’re really saying when you grumble. If I grumble and complain, I’m grumbling and complaining about my circumstances.

But, who is in charge of my circumstances? After all, we Christians say we believe that God is sovereign — in control of all things! Proverbs 16:33, “The lot is cast into the lap, but its every decision is from the Lord.” Proverbs 21:1, “The king’s heart is a stream of water in the hand of the Lord; he turns it wherever he will.” And most of us know Romans 8:28, “And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose” (ESV).

But if we say we believe God is in control, if we claim that we know that God is sovereign over the affairs of our lives, then that means that my circumstances are exactly they way He wants them to be.

And if we also believe that God is infinitely good and wise, then my circumstances are not only exactly as God wants them, but my circumstances are also exactly as I would want them if I knew all things and all factors like God does.

When we grumble, and when we complain, we are really saying “God is not with me. God does not care about me. God is not working all things for my good, as He promised. He has let me down. He is not to be trusted.”

That’s the symptom of gratitude, and the root cause, the underlying sickness of unbelief.

Is there a way out? Notice with me next, Choosing gratitude.

3. Choosing Gratitude

What would a Thanksgiving sermon be without some corny preacher jokes?

There was a farmer from the country who took a journey to a big city. In the city, he found a restaurant where a lot of city-folk ate. It was different from the mom-and-pop diners he was used to. But he ordered his foot and took of his cap and picked up his silverware to eat.

But before he actually began to eat, he paused — and what do you think he did? That country farmer prayed, thanking God for his food.

The strangeness of that country farmer praying before he ate in an upscale restaurant in the big city was very noticeable. And a young man across the restaurant had been watching him, mocking him in his head. Then he spoke up: “Say, old man” — young people, don’t ever begin a sentence with those three words — “say, old man, back where you come from does everybody pray he eats?”

The farmer waited until he was finished chewing and swallowing his food. Then he took a large drink of his water. And then quietly said, “The hogs don’t.” [Herschel H. Hobbs, My Favorite Illustrations, p254]

“Gee Pastor Dustin, that was great. Do you have another one?” I do.

One morning at a Baptist church, a man went forward and knelt to pray after the sermon and asked God to please send him $100. He didn’t say what it was for, but he did say it loud enough for some people to hear it. He was a sincere man, and the deacons of the church knew it. So they decided to take up an offering among themselves. They managed to come up with $75 for the man, which they put it an envelope and gave to him the next Sunday.

At the end of the service, the man was down at the altar again. He was asking for money again. But the deacons were surprised to hear what he said this time. Instead of just saying, “Lord, please send me $100”, he thanked God for providing for him, but then added, “and please send it through the Methodists this time. Those Baptist deacons kept $25 for themselves!” [Hobbs pp254-55, modified slightly] Those Baptist deacons might have preferred to hear the man grumble and complaining rather than preferring the Methodists!

Obviously, if grumbling is bad, we need to be a grateful people. We need to overcome grumbling with gratitude. But there’s one obvious problem: what if I don’t feel grateful?

What if my feelings at this moment are actually working against me being grateful? I feel deprived. I feel neglected. I feel uncared for. I feel unsafe. I feel stressed. And these feelings make gratitude difficult.

And at this point, we might be tempted to say something like this: “I don’t feel grateful. God wouldn’t want me to deny how I feel, would He? After all, I can’t help how I feel, right?”

But, what if we could transcend how we feel? What if we could act independently of how we feel? Because the reality is that gratitude is not a feeling; thankfulness is not an emotion. Gratitude is a virtue. Gratitude is a mindset, an attitude. And while we cannot change our feelings right away, in the moment, we can change our mindset.

How do we do that? How do overcome grumbling with gratitude by choosing the mindset of thankfulness? We need something that fuels gratitude. We need to fan the flames of gratitude. As Christians, we have plenty of fuel for the fire of gratitude. Specifically, two.

[SLIDE: A. WE CAN BE THANKFUL BECAUSE…]

A. We can be thankful because of who God is for us

We can be thankful because of who God is for us. In our prayers, we thank God for a lot of things, but we rarely thank Him for who He is.

But isn’t that weird? When I think about how I try to express gratitude to my wife, I thank her for all she does for me, sure, but that’s not all I do. I also thank her for the kind of woman, the kind of mother, the kind of wife that she is. I want her to know that I appreciate all that she does, but also I want her to know that I appreciate the kind of person she is.

Have you ever paused to consider who God is and then thank Him? The prophet Daniel did this. In the OT book of Daniel, the prophet Daniel is about confess sin to God and ask for God’s mercy. We would rush right to those two things, and we would skip what Daniel does first. But notice how Daniel begins his prayer:

[SLIDE: DANIEL 9:2-4]

Daniel 9:2–4 ESV

in the first year of his reign, I, Daniel, perceived in the books the number of years that, according to the word of the Lord to Jeremiah the prophet, must pass before the end of the desolations of Jerusalem, namely, seventy years. Then I turned my face to the Lord God, seeking him by prayer and pleas for mercy with fasting and sackcloth and ashes. I prayed to the Lord my God and made confession, saying, “O Lord, the great and awesome God, who keeps covenant and steadfast love with those who love him and keep his commandments,

Only then does Daniel ask God for what He wants. Jesus also tells us to prayer this way. Jesus taught us to pray this way. “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed by thy name.”

There’s a popular acronym that some of us have seen at some point. It’s four short letters to help you remember how to pray. The acronym is Acts, A-C-T-S.

[SLIDE: HOW TO PRAY?]

How to pray?

A: Adoration

C: Confession

T: Thanksgiving

S: Supplication

Adoration comes first — adoring who God is. “God, thank you that you are always perfectly just and perfectly righteous. We thank you for your goodness, your love, your grace. Father, we stand amazed by your perfect holiness. Your glory leaves us breathless.” That is adoration. That is what it looks like to thank God for who He is.

The apostle Paul models this for us in his letters. Just one example from 1 Tim. 6:15-16, and notice how Paul focuses completely on the characteristics of God rather than what God has done for us.

[SLIDE: 1TIM 6:15-16]

1 Timothy 6:15–16 ESV

which he will display at the proper time—he who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone has immortality, who dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see. To him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen.

This is tough for us, because we are practical people. We want to come to church and get our five tips for a better week out of the sermon. We don’t want to take the time to listen to preaching on the attributes of God, his holiness, his justice, his righteousness, his glory — we fail to see how these are relevant to our daily lives. “Give me something I can use,” we say — not realizing how foolish we are to think that way. We’re basically saying, “I don’t want to learn more about you, God. I just want to hear about what you can do for me.”

And when we pray, we rush to our requests. We don’t have time to pause and express our adoration for who God is. But nothing could be more practical than knowing the kind of God that God is. And nothing can bless us or God so much as, out of that knowledge of who God is, we sincerely thank Him for who He is.

We can be thankful for who God is for us. And, we can be thankful because of what God has done for us.

[SLIDE: B. WE CAN BE THANKFUL BECAUSE…]

B. We can be thankful because of what God has done for us

Here’s the point: if your family is anything like mine is, when you gather for your main Thanksgiving meal, someone will pray beforehand, and that prayer will be a little longer and a little more involved and elaborate than most other prayers that come before a meal. We’ll thank God for our family, for the food, maybe for our country and the freedoms we enjoy. But there is one thing that is painfully absent from that prayer. Why don’t we thank God for saving us from our sins?

The book of Revelation tells us that in heaven God is praised first for who He is. “Holy, holy, holy,” cry the four living creatures who worship God at His throne, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come.” (Rev. 4:8 ESV).

But in heaven God is also praised for what He has done. “Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom of priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth” (Rev. 5:9-10 ESV).

On Thanksgiving, we’ll thank Him for our homes, our health, our friends and family. Those are great blessings and we are not entitled to them. But compared to Jesus, those are the small things. Why not thank God for the small things and the big things? “Worthy are you, our Lord and our God, for you were slain and by your blood you ransomed us from our sins and granted us eternal life.”

When I graduated from college exactly 20 years ago, my parents bought me a car. Now, yes, I realize that I was very fortunate and blessed, and I recognize that many of you may not have had that privilege. I was thankful for that car. It wasn’t a brand new car; but it was a nice car. It was a 1997 gold Chevy Blazer. It had leather seats and power everything and it had a CD player, which was a big deal back then.

But how weird would it be if I never mentioned the car? What if I drove the car, took care of the car, maintained the car, but when I thanked my parents for all that they did for me when I graduated, I never mentioned the car? Because, you see, my parents also gave me other, smaller things. Like a photo album scrapbook of college pictures, and maybe a couple nice shirts.

Wouldn’t it be weird if I bragged on the lesser things to my friends, but never mentioned the car? It wouldn’t just be weird. What else would it be? Ungrateful? Inexcusable? Just plain wrong? All of the above?

We thank God for all of the smaller things He’s done for us. I’m grateful to live in America. I’m grateful to have had believing parents. God did all of that for me.

Friends, when we thank God for who He is and what He has done, let’s not neglect the greatest thing He’s done.

Conclusion and call for response

Hundreds of years after the incident with Israel and the serpents, Jesus was talking with a man named Nicodemus. Nicodemus was a Jew and a high-ranking Jewish leader. Nicodemus was one of the only such men who actually came to believe in Jesus. When Nicodemus came to Jesus by night, because he wanted to meet him, Jesus made mention of the incident with the serpent.

“No one has ascended into heaven except he who descended from heaven, the Son of Man. And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life. For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:13-16 ESV).

Jesus was saying, “Nicodemus, when Moses made the bronze serpent and put it up on the pole, so that all they had to do was look at the serpent and be healed, Jesus is saying, “That is a picture of me. Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, that everyone who looks on it may live, in the same way I will be lifted up, that all who look at me will be saved from their sins.”

God knows we can’t save ourselves. Before trusting in Jesus, the Bible says we are dead in sins. Dead people can’t even take one step toward the doctor. So God has set things up so that the one thing we can do — simply look to Jesus in faith — is that only thing He requires of us. This is how the cross of Jesus Christ helps us move from grumbling to gratitude.

All the other things we are thankful for — they are mere drops in the bucket when compared with the inexhaustible riches of my salvation in Christ. When Christ was lifted up, He accomplished our salvation. “It is finished!”, he said.

And because of that salvation, I go from being an enemy of God to being a son of God. Because of that salvation, all my sins — past, present and future — are wiped away, and now God treats me as though had never sinned.

He’s given me His own Spirit to live inside me, I belong to Jesus and He belongs to me, forever.

And in this life He is committed to changing me, rooting out my sin and selfishness, increasingly being made more and more like Jesus.

It’s all a gift. I haven’t done a single thing to earn it! Not even my faith is something I did myself that earns salvation. Not even my repentance achieved my salvation. My faith and my repentance, God gave those to me.

Have you trusted in Jesus for your salvation? Coming to church doesn’t mean you’re saved. Trying to do right by others doesn’t mean you’re right with God. Praying alone doesn’t save you. You must repent of your sin and look to Jesus in faith, asking Him to save you. “By grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast” (Eph 2:8 ESV).

Church, we have much to be thankful for. We can thank God for who He is for us. We can thank God for what He has done for us. In this way we can fuel gratitude, so that we can choose gratitude instead of grumbling.

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