Triumphing Over A Complaining Spirit

Having a more Thankful Heart

Introduction: We all are familiar with complaints. People complain about bad weather, poor health, and lack of sufficient funds. They cry about their rights being violated, the mistakes of their civil authorities, and the poor performance of their cars. We complain about bad coaching and horrible refereeing. The list of people’s complaints is practically limitless. We rightly become tired of hearing others’ complaints, unless they are ones we agree with, then we join in the grumbling and criticizing. It perhaps would be easy for us to conclude, notwithstanding our own voices being frequently added to the critical cries, that complaining is wrong. However,

As the true character of a man is manifested by his loves, so it also reveals itself through his complaints.

March 2019, A recent survey found the average person complains three times a day. In 2021 it was recorded that we have 331.9 million people in the US. multiply that by 3. That is 995.7 million complaints a day. Now realize that’s the average. So if we take the high number of 6 we are talking about 2 billion complaints a day. And less than half of us think we could go a whole day without one complaint. Here are the ten things we complain about the most, according to this survey:

1. Bad customer service.

2. Telemarketers and robocalls.

3. How we look

4. Feeling cold/hot

5. Packages or letters that don't show up on time.

6. Traffic.

7. Trouble connecting to Wi-Fi.

8. Litter, and people who litter.

9. The weather.

10. People who cut in line.

Remember last week we attached criticism to people. We are depositing more hurt and hate into this world than love. So imagine if you use the same average of 3 complaints a day with 2 million people, that's 6 million complaints a day. God was not wanting that to be normal in the promised land. He was determined to break the cycle and transform us into a people of thankfulness.

Numbers 11:1 (NKJV)

Now when the people complained, it displeased the Lord; for the Lord heard it, and His anger was aroused. So the fire of the Lord burned among them, and consumed some in the outskirts of the camp.

When we place it on the screen, ( The People Complained)

Complaining is a Sin

“Yes, it is. Complaining is a sin. The word sin literally means “missing the mark”; or “failing in regard to God’s holy standard and just demands.” So equating complaining with sin puts complaints in a dangerous category. Maybe you’re thinking to yourself, “Wait a minute; complaining’s not a sin. I mean, it may not be a great thing, but a sin? I mean, stealing and”“lying and blasphemy—sure (because they’re obvious sins), but complaining? I mean … who am I hurting? Who am I really hurting when I complain?” Well, first of all, you’re hurting yourself!

When you complain, you are choosing a response that do you harm rather than good. Our complaints may lead to anger, bitterness, and even depression. God loves you. He doesn’t want you hurting yourself. What hurts you, hurts Him; so complaining hurts you both. Beyond this, when you complain, you’re not just hurting yourself but God as well. God is directly affected when He hears our complaining and our wrong attitudes, because complaining questions God’s sovereignty!

The Lord heard the complaints and it angered him

To complain is to say in effect; “God, You blew it! You had a chance to meet my expectations, but You couldn’t handle it! Nice try, God, close—but not close enough.” So complaining definitely injures us and the Lord. In addition to that, we hurt the people around us. We affect others with our overpowering thought processes. If your friends and family hear you complaining all the time, you are bringing them down.

“But they do the same thing,” you say. OK, then, y’all are bringing each other down. My point is only that complaining hurts far more than just you. It hurts God and those who hear it, and that’s not right. So, no doubt about it, complaining is a sin.”

Complaining is a choice to choose a response that does you more harm than good”

In Numbers, The children of Isreal complained about their hard life. How they had it so bad that they really cannot believe this is what they came out here for. Like we mentioned last week they are losing sight of their vision. When I was in my master’s program there were several days and long nights after working all day to come home and read several chapters and write 15 to 20-page papers, But I kept my eyes on the prize or my purpose.

Complaining is expressing dissatisfaction with a circumstance that is not wrong and about which I’m doing nothing to correct. Complaining is talking about something that is not broke. Because if its broke why don’t you fix it?

First complaining is talking about things that are not wrong. If something is wrong then it’s okay to express dissatisfaction. It’s okay to tell your wife that we need to spend more time with the kids. it's okay to be dissatisfied when the manager at Popeye’s who was rude every time you go through the drive through, It’s okay to contact head quarters on her. Speaking with the leadership of your church about a particular concern that we need to address. But if you go tell your mamma about how your wife is treating your kids, or you put on Facebook not to eat at Popeye's because the management is rude and hateful, or this church is horrible because the leadership has no clue. That’s complaining and it’s a sin.

Even Moses complained Numbers.11.10-15

Numbers 11:10–15 NKJV

Then Moses heard the people weeping throughout their families, everyone at the door of his tent; and the anger of the Lord was greatly aroused; Moses also was displeased. So Moses said to the Lord, “Why have You afflicted Your servant? And why have I not found favor in Your sight, that You have laid the burden of all these people on me? Did I conceive all these people? Did I beget them, that You should say to me, ‘Carry them in your bosom, as a guardian carries a nursing child,’ to the land which You swore to their fathers? Where am I to get meat to give to all these people? For they weep all over me, saying, ‘Give us meat, that we may eat.’ I am not able to bear all these people alone, because the burden is too heavy for me. If You treat me like this, please kill me here and now—if I have found favor in Your sight—and do not let me see my wretchedness!”

Look at Moses who succumbs to the Israelite complaining and then he complains, but look who he took his complaining too. “The Lord”

The children of Israel were complaining and had nothing to complain about and were headed to a land that was already fruitful, with housing already set up all they had to do was be obedient and thankful.

If you are a person who always has a but then you are showing symptoms of a complaining spirit.

The Manna was a test as God mentions to Moses in Exodus 16:4, how manna was a test to see if the people will follow His instructions.In addition to sustaining the Israelites’ physical needs, manna served to expose the Israelites’ weakness and lack of trust in God—demonstrating their need for spiritual food. After God rescued them from slavery, the Israelites complained of their hunger, at times claiming that they would prefer to die in slavery rather than dying of starvation Deuteronomy 8:2–3

Deuteronomy 8:2–3 NKJV

And you shall remember that the Lord your God led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness, to humble you and test you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the Lord.

Exodus 3:7-10 God said, “I’ve taken a good, long look at the affliction of my people in Egypt. I’ve heard their cries for deliverance from their slave masters; I know all about their pain. And now I have come down to help them, pry them loose from the grip of Egypt, get them out of that country and bring them to a good land with wide-open spaces, a land lush with milk and honey, the land of the Canaanite, the Hittite, the Amorite, the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite. “The Israelite cry for help has come to me, and I’ve seen for myself how cruelly they’re being treated by the Egyptians. It’s time for you to go back: I’m sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people, the People of Israel, out of Egypt.

It's no different today. God hasn't changed what He does about murmuring. He judges it. So, if we decide to live like the Israelites did, then God will treat us like He treated them. Or, if we choose murmuring as our lifestyle, then back to the wilderness we go. But you say, "There is no wilderness around me." You're right; God doesn't thrust us into a physical wilderness anymore, but He does cause our lives to become like a wilderness-a desolate, dry place like a barren desert.

A bad attitude can literally block love, blessings, and destiny from finding you. Don't be the reason you don't succeed.

It’s time for a change, let’s look around and be thankful

I’m not here to beat you up, but to prepare our minds to appreciate a thankful spirit. Here are 3 ways to keep you from complaining:

Ephesians 5:15-21-Thankfulness

“A spirit-filled heart is always thankful whether it’s good or bad”

As a waitress will tell you, the number of thanks and the amount of the tip do not necessarily match up. The kind of life-changing heart attitude that God desires is much deeper than surface verbal gratitude.

Ephesians 5:15-16 See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, 16 redeeming the time, because the days are evil.

Point 1 - (15-16)-Be aware of undesirable influences, while making our time valuable

15 to “walk circumspectly” is to step gingerly. We should watch our path to avoid contact with undesirable influences.

In verse 1 of numbers 11, ‘Now the people became like those who complain of adversity in the hearing of the Lord. We look at our adversity ( look in the book“I hurt for friends who want desperately to be parents, yet God has not allowed them, up to this point, to have children. Some long to be married, yet God has not provided the right mate. I could go on and on with examples. But hear this: Every one of us has a measure of adversity, and God Himself is the one who measured it out. And for that reason, every person has something in his or her life that God doesn’t want to hear complaints about.”

‘Walking circumspectly means considering how it is going to affect others.

David Martyn Lloyd-Jones

5:16 “redeeming the time” means taking advantage of opportunities for service. (If you’re busy serving, then there’s no room for complaining.) We each have a limited amount of time on this earth Paul exhort us to use as much of that time as possible for advancing Christ purpose in this world.

It is better to lose anything than to lose time; we can recover lost money, but time is irrecoverable.

John Chrysostom

17) Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is. 18 And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit

Point 2- (17-18)- Having Wisdom is Key to a thankful Spirit

(Being filled with the Holy Spirit makes you Thankful)

5:17 “do not be unwise, but understand”: discerning. The will of the Lord is not a matter of feeling, or emotion, but of Mental understanding, applying our minds to scripture. 5:17. Rather than being foolish or “unwise”, Christians are to “comprehend intellectually” what the Lord’s will is. Only after one understands what pleases God (v. 1) can he carry it out in his life.

Ephesians 5:18 (NKJV)

And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit,

5:18. Going from the general to the specific, Paul explained how wisdom, as an intellectual and spiritual capacity, works out in one’s conduct. Verse 18 includes a negative command and a positive one. The negative is to abstain from getting drunk on wine with which there is incorrigibility. All these give the idea of profligate or licentious living that is wasteful. In this verse the literal sense of incorrigibility seems best, for a drunken man acts abnormally. Rather than controlling himself, the wine controls him. Conversely, the positive command is, Be filled with the Spirit. Thus a believer, rather than controlling himself, is controlled by the Holy Spirit. It may be more accurate to say that the Holy Spirit is the “Agent” of the filling (cf. Gal. 5:16) and Christ is the Content of the filling

God is asking us to choose His Spirit to fill our minds with good and merciful ways of thanksgiving. (To be Thankful)

Col. 3:15 And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body; and be thankful.

Thus in this relationship, as a believer is yielded to the Lord and controlled by Him, he increasingly manifests the fruit of the Spirit

Point 3- (19-21)- Results of a spirit-filled heart

Ephesians 5:19–21 NKJV

speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another in the fear of God.

Three characteristics of Spirit-filled people sharing and worshiping together are given in the final verses of this passage (19, 20, 21).The early church, Spirit-filled, was a singing church. The dominant theme was joy. It was a thankful church. Knowing who God was, and what He had done; keeping at the surface of their awareness the fact that they were the recipients of unmerited mercy and grace, gratitude was the keynote of their life. They saw themselves all “in the same boat,” so they respected one another. Struggle for status was not yet pronounced, so they willingly submitted to one another in the fear of the Lord. Hymns today

If you’ve heard two hymns in your life, chances are you’ve heard “How Great Thou Art.” In terms of popularity, it’s generally considered second only to “Amazing Grace”. Covered by everyone from Elvis to Carrie Underwood, the beloved hymn didn’t start its life as a song. It began as a poem, a Swedish poem at that.

Complaining is an attitude choice that if left unchecked will wither my capacity to experience Joy and genuine Thankfulness

We think that more money will make us happy, but we soon will learn it does not. More of anything other than God will never fill that longing for fulfillment He has placed within us.

Here is what a thankful heart will say Thank You, Lord, Thank you for life that I can use to serve you, Thank you for the breath that I can use to praise you, thank you for health, and strength. Which one did you choose today?

Hebrew 13:15- “ Continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is the fruit of lips that give thanks to His name”

I Thes. 5:18- “ In everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you”

Ask these questions

Am I a thankful person?

Am I seeing the blessings of thankfulness in my life?

Am I choosing thankfulness over complaining moment by moment?

Closing

Don’t be the reason you don’t succeed. let's look around and be thankful.

Be careful for nothing, prayerful for everything, thankful for anything.

Dwight L. Moody

If you can’t be thankful for what you have, be thankful for what you have escaped.

Anonymous

This text connects back to the prayer Paul wrote in chapter 1:3 how he is thankful for every spiritual blessing in the heavenly place.

Psalm 13:1–6 NKJV

How long, O Lord? Will You forget me forever? How long will You hide Your face from me? How long shall I take counsel in my soul, Having sorrow in my heart daily? How long will my enemy be exalted over me? Consider and hear me, O Lord my God; Enlighten my eyes, Lest I sleep the sleep of death; Lest my enemy say, “I have prevailed against him”; Lest those who trouble me rejoice when I am moved. But I have trusted in Your mercy; My heart shall rejoice in Your salvation. I will sing to the Lord, Because He has dealt bountifully with me.

Faithlife Study Bible Psalm 13

The psalmist feels alone and isolated. He feels Yahweh has abandoned him, and he has no friends to counsel him

Faithlife Study Bible Psalm 13

The psalmist laments because his enemies have been successful. While their success presents physical danger for the psalmist, this expression also presents a crisis of faith: As the righteous and just judge, Yahweh should not allow His enemies to be exalted (