Sermon Tone Analysis

Not Grumbling or Disputing

Text: Philippians 2:14-16

Thank you for being here on this first Sunday of the new year!

Each year the New Year gives us an opportunity to restart the calendar.

But I really hope the new year is more than that.

That it is a time to reevaluate our priorities and realign our lives with God’s will.

Let’s use the new year as an opportunity to Restart our approach to how we deal with the events and challenges in our lives.

To live as the Word of God commands us so that we can be God’s light in the devil’s darkness.

As I urged us last week — let us shine the Light of the Gospel into the darkness of this present age.

Be assured that the enemy of the Light, satan, will do everything he can to extinguish our light,

He will bombard our lives events and challenges to get us to take our eyes off Jesus.

I will tell you right now that I have some understanding of what it means to face adverse events (at least that is how I understand them) and challenges.

Pastors are not strangers to challenges in our lives.

In fact, I and my family have faced a few in the past couple of years.

And we are facing a few right now.

There’s just nothing quite like having your life turned upside down.

Friday afternoon at our New Year’s Eve Fellowship I was talking to Diane Shaffer’s daughter Jody Walker.

I was talking about her and her mom’s plans to soon move back to Florida.

She said she thought the move would give her and her mom some stability and calm in their lives.

She was looking forward to that!

I said, “Sister Jody, you know better than that!

You know from experience that life is always in a constant state of upheaval.”

In her life Jody has faced cancer, an inability to have children, the adoption of 2 boys who have presented their own challenges (as all children do), her husband just died a few years ago, her father and other inlaws just died a few months ago.

She started a new career as a nurse during a pandemic.

Yeah, just a walk in the park!

But I do understand what she longs for.

Like her I would LOVE to experience some stability and calm in my life.

Wouldn’t you?

I’m just afraid that any long-term stability and calm are unavailable on this side of eternity.

On this side of eternity we experience constant change and continual chaos.

My opinion is that if such things as stability and calm occur in our life at all they are only for brief periods and then they evaporate.

That’s been my experience — maybe your life has been one long unbroken stretch of stability and calm.

If so, you should definitely be down on your knees thanking God.

So, what if your life isn’t all peachy-keen calm and cool?

How do we deal with disappointments?

Health crises?

Family drama?

The death of a loved one?

The loss of a job?

Retirement can be stressful (but I’m sure Sister Patty will learn to cope — that’s what her daughter Terri is there to help with!).

Every day, life presents us with fresh opportunities wrapped in the disguise of challenges or difficulties.

Writing from prison, and yet somehow, writing with joy, writing under the anointing of the Holy Spirit, the Apostle Paul tells us how to live our lives in our text (AMP 2015):

Philippians 2:14-18 Do everything without murmuring or questioning [the providence of God], 15 so that you may prove yourselves to be blameless and guileless, innocent and uncontaminated, children of God without blemish in the midst of a [morally] crooked and [spiritually] perverted generation, among whom you are seen as bright lights [beacons shining out clearly] in the world [of darkness], 16 [holding onto AND] holding out and offering to everyone the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I will have reason to rejoice greatly because I did not run [my race] in vain nor labor without result.

17 But even if I am being poured out as a drink offering on the sacrifice and service of your faith [for preaching the message of salvation], still I rejoice and share my joy with you all.

18 You too, rejoice in the same way and share your joy with me.

It is that first verse that I want us to consider this morning:

Do everything without murmuring or questioning [the providence of God],

So short!

So easy to understand!

And yet, so difficult to live!

Prayer

Not Complaining

First of all the Apostle Paul tells us not to complain or as the word is translated in the KJV — do not murmur.

This is a very serious problem!

As I said last week, I believe complaining is the national past time for those who live in this country.

We are a nation of complainers.

But, scripture tells us very clearly that complaining or murmuring will bring the judgment of God.

Turn with me to 1 Cor 10

Read with me what verses 1-5 say as they talk about ancient Israel in:

1 Corinthians 10:1–5 (NLT) I don’t want you to forget, dear brothers and sisters, about our ancestors in the wilderness long ago.

All of them were guided by a cloud that moved ahead of them, and all of them walked through the sea on dry ground.

2 In the cloud and in the sea, all of them were baptized as followers of Moses. 3 All of them ate the same spiritual food, 4 and all of them drank the same spiritual water.

For they drank from the spiritual rock that traveled with them, and that rock was Christ.

5 Yet God was not pleased with most of them, and their bodies were scattered in the wilderness.

These were people given so many blessings!

As it says:

They were guided by a supernatural column

Smoke by day

Fire by night

They were delivered from Egypt’s armies when God supernaturally divided the Red Sea and let them walk across on dry ground

Through these and other divine interventions they were “baptized” into relationship with God

God gave them supernatural food

Not just manna 6 days a week (with the 6th day being enough for 2 days) but the living Brad of God’s Word, teachings on how to live - the Torah, the Law

As Jesus told the devil when Jesus was tempted:

God gave Israel His Word while they were in the most unlikely place for instruction in holy living — in the wilderness.

He will do the same for us.

This year we may be going through tough things, tough times — but IF WE WILL LISTEN, He will give us spiritual bread that will feed our souls.

Tuesday morning during prayer I walked by this Bible on the Communion Table: God gave me Psalm 119:71

So, don’t discount tough times.

During such times we seem to hear God the best.

Israel was blessed as God gave them physical AND supernatural water:

When Moses struck the rock and water poured out

That water symbolized the outpouring of the Holy Spirit

The people were blessed in so many ways.

But God was displeased with MOST of them.

Why was God displeased with MOST of them so that their bodies were scattered in the wilderness?

God tells us in vs. 6-11

Because, among other things, they murmured, grumbled, complained — the questioned God’s ways and and God’s plans.

God hates murmuring and complaining.

He hates for us to fret — to worry about, to be annoyed about, to complain about ...

The things we think are unfair.

On Tuesday the Lord led me to that idea presented in:

So God has a mandate for us in 2022 — stop grumbling, stoop complaining, stop murmuring.

Instead do what:

Not Arguing With or Questioning God

Not only did Israel murmur against God, they questioned His providential care.

When Israel heard the report from 10 of the 12 spies about the land God was giving them, scripture says:

Vs. 3 - Why is the Lord ...

They questioned God.

They questioned His deliverance, His provision, His plans for the future.