I don’t see myself as a chronic complainer, but as I prepared this, I’ve noticed how much internal dialogue of mine is grumbling!

We were walking to the park, and said to my wife, “Ridiculous, today is like 30 degrees and two weeks ago it was snowing!”. I didn’t realize it, but it was grumbling and complaining. I don’t see myself as a complainer, but boy does it ever come out so naturally and spontaneously sometimes! That sent me emotionally into a wilderness experience, and robbed me of the joy that should come from the gift of a warm day!

How about yourself? Do you realize how often you complain? Do you ever catch yourself or others catch you? Do you wish you could control the inward stewing and outward complaining that just turns you into a dry, barren and hard wilderness?

I want to use the story of the Israelites to illustrate how complaining sends us into a depressed desert wasteland and how gratitude reverses this!

The Story of the Israelites Show Us The Power of Our Attitudes

After they had been delivered from Egypt through God’s mighty miracles, they were led to a mountain, Sinai, where God spoke vocally and gave them the 10 Commandments, then they were commanded to leave and move toward Canaan. And after travelling 3 days, they begin expressing their grumbles through complaining!

Before we move forward further, let’s tackle a definition for “grumbling”.

My definition of ‘grumble’ is: this inward, guttural, negative emotion that comes out in different ways in different people. Like a volcano, as one of the ways the magma appears in some of us is when grumbling appears as complaining. Essentially, it’s negative and sinful emotions that are expressed.

So here they are travelling to their land flowing with milk and honey (which we know eventually through their grumbling will be sent back into the wilderness, but here they are travelling and now complaining).

The story is found in the Bible of Numbers 11:1.

THE BADNESS OF COMPLAINING

“Now the people complained about their hardships in the hearing of the Lord, and when he heard them his anger was aroused. Then fire from the Lord burned among them and consumed some of the outskirts of the camp. ² When the people cried out to Moses, he prayed to the Lord and the fire died down. ³ So that place was called Taberah, because fire from the Lord had burned among them.” (Numbers 11:1-3).

Clearly, God dislikes complaining, and very much so, as we see anger and fire here.

May I just say, complaining is sin, corrupt, wrong or to use a modern word, “bad”. In this passage we get a glimpse of how bad complaining really is.

It’s easy to just ‘write-off’ complaining, because it’s just words, sounds projected from our mouths that disappear after the breath from our lungs runs out. What’s so bad about words?

Complaining is inherently bad: We need to know what complaining is first. Our passage here doesn’t exactly tell us the meaning, but if we string the verses from the whole of the Bible, my personal working definition of what the Bible might mean by complaining is:

“Complaining is a verbal expression of a dissatisfied heart accompanied by a disbelief in the providence and promises of God.”

I know there’s a lot in that!

Let’s break that down a little.

First, it is words, certainly, a verbal expression.

Secondly, it’s a heart that is dissatisfied. With what? Some misfortune. With one’s lot in life, where we expect more.

You say, ‘Isn’t it okay to not be satisfied with any misfortune God allows in our lives?’ This is why, I say it’s accompanied with disbelief that God isn’t over this one misfortune—providence—and that God won’t work things out for us based on His promises in the Bible—the applicable promises of God!

So, back to the Israelites. This means they were dissatisfied. With what? It doesn’t say. We can only speculate, but it says their “misfortunes”. So, that’s the circumstances or situations we are in. Usually, complaints are about things or circumstances that aren’t morally wrong, but simply circumstantially trivial things, “Dang left stupid tire, it always goes flat!” It’s not a moral thing we are expressing dissatisfaction for. Perhaps, the Israelites were complaining, “Seriously, why has every one of these days the past 2 weeks been blue skies, I need rain to wash the bird poop off my tent! Dumb middle eastern weather!” They were dissatisfied with their circumstances.

This is not legitimate dissatisfaction, like, “Waiter, this steak was supposed to be rare, and it’s well done. I personally don’t like it and would kindly request another steak cooked rare, please.” That’s legitimate and you’ve done something about it with politeness.

Here the complaining comes when it involves these misfortunes, which are not right or wrong, but simply circumstances that are not our preferences…the weather, why Tim Hortons doesn’t have the same menu as Starbucks yet, when the gas will do down, etc.

The Israelites dwelt on their circumstances and how it didn’t measure to their preferences, and by it expressed their disbelief that God wouldn’t care for them in the desert. Psalm 73 reports this instance and it says the Israelites were in the wilderness, verse 22, “because they did not believe in God and did not trust his saving power.” (Ps. 73:22).

Truly, to be dissatisfied with our circumstances because of our own personal preferences, is bad. To bemoan a circumstance, which is small or uncomfortable, while rejecting that God will care for us and work things out for us—is bad! Unbelief is behind it all, and it’s the cardinal sin.  

It’s Bad to God: No wonder, God responded the way He did. It says complaining was in the “hearing of the Lord”.

We often think complaining is only heard by our own ears when we mutter to ourselves or to others. But, it ascended directly into the Almighty’s ears. He hears every word spoken. Good and bad. Next time we are complaining, let’s picture the Lord in the room leaning into us with His ear, “I want to hear you my child, tell me.”

Not only does He hear it, but it touches Him emotionally. Verse 1, ”his anger was kindled.” And He consumed the fringes of the camp. That tells us, complaining is spiritually bad.

Question: “But I thought God loved us?!”

Answer: We can love someone and still be very angry with them. Look at our children. If I hear by son complaining, I feel for him in that moment, but if he continues, I get frustrated, angry with him, yet I still love him. God has a similar way of feeling toward us His children.

If you’ve been sent into a wilderness experience of discipline because of sin and bad attitudes, just know your God who has ordained a wilderness for you whether you brought it upon yourself or not, IS with you and nothing will separate how He feels about you!

It’s bad for us:

There’s this story, where Caesar of Rome, prepares a great feast for his nobles and friends. It rained, and it wrecked all the plans that he set. So, he commanded all his soldiers who had bows to shoot up their arrows at Jupiter, their chief god, as in defiance of him for that rainy weather. When they did, their arrows of course fell upon their own heads, so that many of them were very sorely wounded.

Here is a picture of us complaining. It’s an arrow shot up to God which returns upon our own heads. Complaining is bad for us, it’s hurts us, sends us into a wilderness or creates a wilderness, dry and barren in our hearts when we wallow in the sin of complaining. Takes all the water of life and joy and gratitude out of us!

It’s increasingly bad because we’ve been entrusted with the Glorious Gospel: Finally, it’s very bad for us who know of Jesus and believe in Him. We’ve received more grace and know more than the Israelites. Just think for a minute, God Himself has held back his judgement on us complainers, and offered the hand of grace by sending His most cherished thing—His Son—to die a gruesome death for complainers, and has, for free, wiped away the consequences of our sins and by his righteous sacrifice has earned for us a perfect righteous credit before God as though we had never complained against God a day in our life, and more He’s created a glorious realm called Heaven a place where all blood-bought riches and glory are waiting for us!

And yet while down here we complain, “Dumb, back tire of mine! Why can’t I have a nicer car! Why didn’t this car come with a better set of tires!”

Can we say now, Complaining is bad?

That’s a definition of complaining and why it’s bad. Let’s turn now to the attitude that replaces this one, gratitude. Thankfulness. Let’s see how good gratitude is.

THE GOODNESS OF GRATITUDE

Please turn in your Bibles to Luke 17:1-17.

“Now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. ¹² As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy met him. They stood at a distance ¹³ and called out in a loud voice, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!”

¹⁴ When he saw them, he said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were cleansed.

¹⁵ One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. ¹⁶ He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him—and he was a Samaritan.

¹⁷ Jesus asked, “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? ¹⁸ Has no one returned to give praise to God except this foreigner?” ¹⁹ Then he said to him, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.” (Luke 17:1-17).

Here we see the goodness of gratitude.

Jesus healed all ten lepers, men with skin diseases who lost their families and jobs. And when they all noticed themselves healed, surely they are were grateful, but one turned back, to express their gratitude to Jesus. And Jesus pronounces this healed leper “Well” This was a blessing on top of physical healing, it was likely was spiritual blessing, salvation and the abundant Christian life that came with it.

The majority in the world knows how good gratitude is, which is why every blog article on the internet that covers success, fulfillment and happiness talks much of gratitude. These 10 lepers all felt grateful and were happy surely. The went back to their families they got their jobs back, their friends, and so on. They were buzzing for years afterward I am sure, how good is it to be grateful! Good for the soul, good for the heart!

But, feeling grateful is not biblical gratitude entirely. Can you imagine a child taking something from you and eats the treat gleefully without even turning back to say ‘thanks’? That feeling of glee isn’t gratitude exactly—not biblically gratitude at least!

It includes expressing it back to God Himself. Just at the 1 healed leper had. After expressing his gratitude, he attained the extra spiritual blessing of wellness, how good is biblical gratitude then!

So, it’s good for us emotionally, and it’s good for us spiritually, as God makes us “well” in the spirit. So, there’s this inward wellness that comes from verbally expressing an inward feeling of gratitude to God.

This is Biblical, this spiritual wellness or goodness that that attitude of gratitude brings us:

-Ephesians 5:18, 20, “be filled with the Spirit, […] always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” If God is leading you to become grateful, H will lead you to fillings of His Spirit.

-Philippians 4:6, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God and the peace of God which surpasses understanding will guard your heart and mind in Christ Jesus.” So, thanksgiving or gratitude gives us supernatural spiritual peace.

-it’s good for others spiritually, too! Philippians 2:14-15, “Do everything without grumbling or arguing, ¹⁵ so that you may become blameless and pure, “children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.”^[a] Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky” When we aren’t grumbling or complaining, we stand out, and when we are grateful people, we shine as stars leading people to believe in the same God we believe in who makes us that way!

-But, it is also good for God Himself! 2 Corinthians 4:15, “All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God.” God is glorified. Just as complaining displeases Him, so the opposite, gratitude pleases Him!

Gratitude is an attitude, which is the counter part of complaining, and it’s good for us: for our emotional lives, for our spiritual lives and the spiritual lives of others, and it glorifies God!

Now, to go from complaining to gratitude can be hard. It’s not an overnight change. It’s a life-journey! But here are few things that might help us have an attitude of gratitude.

HOW TO ENTER INTO THAT GOODNESS

It’s often easy to be grateful land say thank you to others and God when things are going well. But when circumstances aren’t going well, this is when we need help to still have a grateful attitude.

a) We need satisfaction and faith to have gratitude:

Christians are called to be grateful always, 1 Thessalonians 5:18, “give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus” In every circumstance, we are to have a grateful attitude! “God, thanks a lot for this flat tire!” No. How do we do it?

I mentioned that it is a feeling of gratitude expressed verbally. But, I believe it contains more. Let’s look at our definition of complaining and invert it for a definition of biblical gratitude.

So, gratitude, which perfectly replaces this could be:

It’s satisfied and returns its satisfaction through words as it’s accompanied with a belief in God’s provisions and promises.

An example, your back tire is flat, satisfaction and faith, “I am so happy with my car overall, God. I know that you’ve given this car to me, and you’ve chosen it and will provide me the means to fill the tires and get a new set of tires in the right time, because you oversee everything in my life and have promised to be my God even as car-owner!”

When have satisfaction for what we already have, and express faith in the providence and promises of God, we can’t help but be hopeful, happy, and grateful!

b) Allow God to Level up your Gratitude: Could it be that God is taking away some blessings and allowing misfortunate circumstances so that we learn to be grateful not in the physical things but in the spiritual things instead? “God thank you, that though you’ve taken some of my physical health away I still have my spiritual health! Thank you that I’m your child through Christ! Thank you for Heaven to come! Thank you for my forgiveness! Thank you that you are making me more like Jesus, day by day!” Those are spiritual blessings that we always have. And we can never learn to be grateful unless God challenges us and takes away typical things we are grateful for so that we learn to be happy in the spiritual things instead! It’s God’s way of growing us up into grateful adults.

c) Walk and Talk with Christ, the Ultimately Grateful One: Consult Jesus as He is the One who is the best mentor and example-He never complained, but always was grateful to God! As we go about our day and we are tempted to default to complain, let’s ask Him, Jesus, how do you see this situation? What should I be grateful about?” Just as the two disciples walked with Christ on the road to Emmaus and were saddened by the crucifixion after talking and learning from the resurrected Jesus their hearts burned and they were uplifted and rejoiced by the end. So, we walk with Christ moment by moment and tell Him what troubles us even if it’s a rock in the shoe, and let Him speak and teach, and change our attitudes.

Let me invite anyone here who hasn’t chosen to follow Jesus and receive from Him forgiveness of sins. If you feel you’ve lived a life of complaining and you see how bad it is to God, and you feel bad now. First know, God loves you! Even though you complain, even though complaining earns His anger and judgment—He wants to transform your life from the wilderness of complaining into a land flowing with milk and honey, the good land of gratitude. The only way, is if you confess your sins to Jesus, and believe He died in your place on the Cross. And trust Him, this morning, to transform your attitude for life! He will and He begins it when you believe in Him today. Simply express that to Him in prayer like this:

“Dear Jesus, I confess my sins of complaining to you. I see that it turns my life into a wilderness, and that it displeases you. Forgive me! I choose to turn from my sins and trust that you died for sins and can forgive me because of it. Change my attitudes! Make me a grateful person! I begin to practice my gratitude by saying thank you for the forgiveness of my sins and accepting me into heaven one day! Amen.”