Sermon Tone Analysis

No complaining.doc

SD 20

September 2, 2007                                                                                           File: E

*8*The Joyful Christian Part 5

No Complaining

(from sermon outline by Rick Warren)

 

Philippians 2:14-15

 

We have been talking about the joyful Christian.

Learning how to maintain joy in a joyless world!

Elton Trueblood said once: “The Christian is joyful, not because he is blind to injustice and suffering, but because he is convinced that these, in the light of the divine sovereignty, are never ultimate.

The humor of the Christian is not a way of denying the tears, but rather a way of affirming something which is deeper than tears.”[1]

C. Swindol—“A few things in life are absolutely tragic, no question about it.

First among them is a joyless Christian…”

 

The joyful Christian is a contagion on society!

An infection that ought to spread…to every sour soul!

Our text this morning deals with complaining and arguing.

Read text:

NLT /“In everything you do, stay away from complaining and arguing, so that no one can speak a word of blame against you.

You are to live clean, innocent lives as children of God in a dark world full of crooked and perverse people.

Let your lives shine brightly before them.”/

/ /

*8*/NO COMPLAINING/

 

Complaining kills joy!!!!

      It takes it from you and from everybody around you!

But it is hard work to not complain---Everybody does it!

The weather:

            The government

                  The IRS

                        The economy

                              The kids

                                    The parents

                                          The …..

Bad news makes headlines…we are bombarded by the negative…with what is wrong… and if you let it, we become conditioned by it and become complainers ourselves…joyless…

 

Our text tells us that God wants Christians to be different—

      Shining like stars in the dark night…

 

*8 *Here are some common types of complainers---maybe you have seen them!

Maybe you are one…Don’t point any fingers please!

*8**1.

The “Whiner”*

These people wake up negative…the “rise and whine”

David in the Psalms is often found whining…

*Psalm 73:13* (LB) /"Have I been wasting my time?

Why take all the trouble to be pure?

All I get out of it is trouble and woe."/

The tell-tale sign of the whiner is:  "It's not fair.”

“I don't deserve this.”

“Everybody else gets all the breaks."

Matt.

20:11-12 (GN) /"They took their money and started grumbling against the employer ... `We put up with a whole day's work in the hot sun -- yet you paid them the same as you paid us.'" /

 

Life is not fair.

God never said it is going to be fair.

As long as you complain about the fact that life is not fair it only makes you more miserable.

But it will never change the fact that life is not always fair.

*Complaining does not work.*

It doesn’t help to make anybody happy!

 

*8 **2.

THE MARTYR*

Their favorite phrase is:  “No body appreciates me…”

“I work my fingers to the bone…and nobody notices…”

 

Moses was playing this role in Numbers 11:11-15 (LB)

/"Moses said to the Lord, `Why pick on me, to give the burden of a people like this?

I can't carry this nation by myself!

If you're going to treat me like this, please kill me right now -- it will be a kindness!

Let me out of this impossible situation!"/

These people are pros at having pity parties.

When they are sick or under pressure they want everybody to know about it.

How do you react when you don't get your way?

Do you mount a complaining campaign?

*8 **3.

THE CYNIC*

Favorite phrase:  “Nothing will ever change!”

“Eyore” (Winnie the Pooh)  “Puddleglum” (Narnia)

 

Solomon in his old age became one of these—

*Eccl.

1:2-4,9* (GN)/"Life is useless.

You spend your life working and what do you have to show for it?

The world stays just the same ... what has been done before will be done again."

/

 

Be careful as you age that you don’t become cynical and harsh and complaining!!!  Maintain your childlike faith!

Even when you get old!

 

*8 **4.

THE PERFECTIOINIST*

Nothing is ever right for this person---no matter how hard you try they think you should have done better…no matter what idea you come up with they have one better...

 

*Favorite phrase:* "Is that the best you can do?"

A perfectionist is a person who takes pains, and gives them to others.

*Proverbs 27:15*/ "A nagging wife is like water going drip, drip, drip on a rainy day."/

*Proverbs 21:19*/ "Better to live out in the desert than with a nagging, complaining wife."/

This *refers to husbands, too!*

   Nagging perfectionists.

Nothing is ever right.

Always arguing.

Nothing destroys the warmth of a home faster than complaining.

Nothing destroys the harmony of a marriage faster than complaining.

Nagging doesn't work.

It just makes everybody upset.

If your kids are complaining continuously, ask yourself where they might be learning it from…do you complain against them?

*Okay—*we all probably can find ourselves in these categories at times…so what do we do about it!

*8**HOW DO WE CONQUER COMPLAINING?*

The Bible says "Do everything without complaining and arguing."

How do you do that?

*8 **1.

ADMIT IT IS A PROBLEM    *As with any bad habit (ANY SIN) you have to start by admitting that it is wrong!

You will never change a behavior that you excuse!

Admit it is a problem for you, not for other people, but for you.

*Proverbs 28:13* (LB)/ "A man who refuses to admit his mistakes can never be successful.

But if he confesses and forsakes them, he gets another chance."/

It is often the hardest to recognize this in ourselves because it has become so second nature (first nature)—ask yourself: How much of my speech is filled with griping, grumping, complaining, arguing, and saying "life stinks."