Sermon Tone Analysis

Today we are concentrating our time on verse 14 and next week we’ll look at the next two verse, God willing.

Though I will put this verse in context at the end.

The first word is ‘do’.

It is in the form of a commandment – or technically, it is called an ‘imperative’.

This relates back to the previous verses about working out our salvation.

Do what I am saying, says Paul. Do nothing with grumbling or arguing.

This working out our salvation, remember, is about the whole community of believers going forward together.

Where is this complaining and disputing arising from?

What is it that causes these things?

Is it a lack of contentment?

a lack of love? a lack of peace?

Dissatisfaction with circumstances or people makes for angry people.

We have to be aware that these are roots that can destroy one’s joy and the joy of others in the great salvation of God.

It also gets in the way of being what we ought to be.

Complaining and disputing will make us ineffective as witnesses for Him.

Complaining or murmuring is what the Israelites did once they came out of Egypt, after witnessing all the amazing acts of God with the ten plagues, their deliverance from Egypt, the separation of the Red Sea and water coming out of the rock and food every day in the desert.

No, this was not enough for them.

No sooner had they left Egypt they wanted to go back and they starting complaining and murmuring and disputing and testing the patience of God who wanted to destroy them there in the desert to die and to choose Moses and his family instead.

ALL those who spoke against God died horrific deaths.

It is calculated that over one million of the children of Israel died in the wilderness by God’s judgment for their murmurings in forty years.

—Bowes

I, personally, think that this is an underestimate but all except Moses, Joshua and Caleb, who were over the age of 20 died in the desert through their disobedience.

They were such an ungrateful people as says

They forgot so quickly what God had done for them, how He had acted on their behalf.

But they didn’t like the change in their circumstances though they rejoiced at the time of their deliverance.

They were not content.

And this despite the suffering that they had in Egypt.

God heard their complaints:

And they did receive so much meat that it was coming out of their nostrils.

But whilst the meat was in their mouths judgement came.

Truly a crooked and perverse generation.

And that before God who was clearly visible to them in the pillar of fire by night and cloud by day.

You’d think that with such visible signs that such behaviour was not possible.

They had been at Mount Sinai where they trembled before God and perhaps this is another case of familiarity breeds contempt.

The fear of God was no longer before their eyes.

We would never be like this, would we? Were they not on the way to the Promised Land and we are on our way to our Promised Land in Heaven.

But what about our journey?

There are many pitfalls and troubles on the way but these do not compare to the pitfalls and troubles that we would have had if we had not been saved.

Before we were without hope, without God in this world.

Now we have God with us; carrying us; holding us; comforting us; leading us; and, yes, disciplining us.

The cure to complaining and disputing is thankfulness to God.

The cure to complaining and disputing is to be filled with His Spirit, to speak wholesome and spiritual words to one another, singing to the Lord in one’s heart and continually thanking Him for everything.

Again, we just heard:

A recent medical survey states that chronic complainers live longer than people who are always sweet and serene.

It claims that their cantankerous spirit gives them a purpose for living.

Each morning they get up with a fresh challenge to see how many things they can find to grumble about, and they derive great satisfaction from making others miserable.

I question whether those who complain actually do outlive those who don’t.

Maybe it just seems that way to everybody around them.

—Herbert Vander Lugt

Lack of thankfulness means that we are not content with our lot

Contentedness with everything we have.

Content with our homes, our food, our spouses, our Church, our lives.

It is enough that we have Emmanuel – God with us.

And that favourite Psalm of everyone that just does not ring true when we see the lives that have been led:

I shall not want means that I have no need of anything else.

I have all that I need.

Is that really true?

We, as Christians have to learn the lessons of the Israelites well for it is not just their disease but the disease of the Brit too.

All these things that we are dissatisfied about.

What is the cause of our complaining and murmuring and disputing?

Is it not a lack of faith in the Almighty God who is in control of everything?

Again the Israelites give us an insight into this:

Numbers 21:5 (NKJV) — 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 our soul loathes this worthless bread.”

They did not trust God despite all that they had seen with their own eyes.

And the bread they were complaining about and saying was worthless was this bread called manna; a miracle in and of itself but they could not see it.

Effectively they were saying that God was a liar; that He couldn’t be trusted even though their very experience dictated otherwise and they were throwing back in God’s face His goodness towards them.

Not only that it became a cancer – for one started complaining and by the end they were all complaining.

Lack of faith in the living God gave way to mountains of worry.

It is like the yeast that goes through our baking and everything gets infected by it.

But that was for them back then, right?

So why does Jesus Himself speak of these things if it were not that we are subjected to the same forms of sin?

Let’s hear what He says in:

Our forefathers did without sugar until the 13th century; without coal fires until the 14th century; without battered bread until the 15th century; without potatoes until the 16th century; without coffee, tea, and soup until the 17th century; without pudding until the 18th century; without eggs, matches, and electricity until the 19th century; without canned goods until the 20th century.

Now, what was it we were complaining about?

—Sunshine Magazine

Today we complain about slow internet connections!

We needn’t worry or be concerned for the basic necessities of our lives for who here has ever had to go without to the point their life was on the line?

Does God not provide?

Does God not give us the things that we need?

But sometimes we forget to come to God and ask:

Of course, this is not just about food and clothing and shelter but about our health, about our relationships, our families, about all the things that happen in our lives that cause concern and worry.

God always comes through but how God answers is up to Him for He rarely answers in the way we imagine but He comes through nevertheless.

Normally in an unexpected and marvellous way.

Why then do we worry?

How come we get concerned?

How then do we not trust Him?

Worry is sin for it is a lack of faith.

Worry is sin.

Oh come on that can’t be true surely?

Romans 14:23 says: “whatever is not from faith is sin.”

Faith, which is trust, is the opposite of worry.

Be thankful for what you have.

Put God and His Kingdom first; before TV, before breakfast, before food, before the newspaper, before computers, before pets, before books, before, before, before.

No more complaining, no murmuring.

Finally Paul says: no more disputing.

No more disputing.

Here we are not talking about general disagreements that we all can have from time to time but not to allow these things to fester or to get to the point where there is no longer any fellowship.

There is much on the way we could complain about especially about our fellow pilgrims, our brothers and sisters in Christ!

They are so annoying!