August 6, 2020
Our trip to western North Carolina last week was wonderful - thank you for your prayers. Usually spotty cell phone signal is a decided negative, but on a vacation it can be a feature rather than a bug. It was nice to unplug and disconnect, read some Agatha Christie novels, put together a puzzle, take in the vistas of the Blue Ridge Mountains, play in waterfalls, and enjoy the rest and refreshment of cool evenings and ice-cold water.
But down the mountain, back on the flatland, school starts in less than a week. Which means the temptation to grumble and complain has reared its ugly head in our family’s hearts (and probably yours?) in spades - especially during a pandemic-induced mask mandate and new health protocols everywhere you go. Complaining is a “respectable sin” - everybody’s doing it, and you can commit it without anyone knowing, with a smile on your face and a bitter scowl in your heart - though eventually it seeps out in our words and attitudes.
God is not unclear regarding His thoughts on complaining: “Do all things without grumbling or disputing . . .” (Philippians 2:14). So how does a Christian put to death the sin of complaining? There is no magic bullet - but by remembering these three truths, God by His Spirit enables us to strangle the life out of this enemy of our soul.
Remember the evangelistic impact of an uncomplaining spirit. Paul goes on to write in Philippians 2:14-15, “Do all things without grumbling or disputing, that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world…” When we refuse to complain, particularly during a time like the one in which we live, Paul says we stick out like a star in the night sky. A quiet spirit is provocative – it provokes attention, it provokes questions, so that in the words of I Peter 3:15, we are able to share the reason for the hope that is within us with boldness and gentleness.
Remember that your complaining is always against God. If you know the history of Israel, its Exodus and wilderness wanderings, then you know that complaining and grumbling was one of the besetting sins of God’s people of old. In Exodus 16, when Israel complains for its lack of food, Moses tells them something vitally important: “. . . the Lord has heard your grumbling that you grumble against him – what are we? Your grumbling is not against us but against the Lord” (Exodus 16:8). To kill complaining, you have to see it as ultimately against the Lord.
— It impugns the love of God. If you really loved me, God, you wouldn’t make me go through such hard circumstances! That’s what Israel said when refusing to enter the Promised Land: “Because the Lord hated us he has brought us out of the land of Egypt, to give us into the hand of the Amorites, to destroy us” (Deuteronomy 1:27).
— It assails the power of God. In Numbers 11, when Israel complained about not having meat, God tells Moses that He will provide meat for a month. And Moses talks back to God: “The people among whom I am number 600,000 on foot, and you have said, ‘I will give them meat, that they may eat a whole month!’ Shall flocks and herds be slaughtered for them, and be enough for them?’” God answers, “Is the Lord’s hand shortened? Now you shall see whether my word will come true for you or not” (11:21-23). Complaining accuses God of being powerless to change our situation.
— It questions the wisdom of God. In Numbers 21, Israel spoke against God, “Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this worthless food.” There was food – but they were sick and tired of it. God’s wise provision for them wasn’t good enough for them. His ways were stupid, only leading to death.
— It attacks the justice of God. Israel forgot that the reason they were wandering in the wilderness was due to their own sinful rebellion. They thought they deserved far better, when in actuality they deserved far worse. “Why should any living mortal, or any man, Offer complaint in view of his sins?” (Lamentations 3:39).
We must strive to see the sinfulness of our sin, so that we will hate it enough to kill it.
Remember that Jesus died for your complaining. In Mark 14:36, we read this: “Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.” In the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus affirms the love of God His Father, the power of God who is able to change His circumstances, and the wisdom of God whose will is always right. He submits to the God who is able to change His circumstances, but who sometimes isn’t willing. He was the spotless, sinless Lamb of God. Yet notice what Jesus wanted removed from Him: a cup - the cup of God’s wrath. Jesus knew that God was completely just – and that He was about to have the sin of His sheep reckoned to His account, imputed to Him, and then God was going to punish Him as His people’s substitute. He was about to bear the sins of His people in His body on the cross. It’s as we remember that Jesus died to forgive our complaining and grumbling and to free us increasingly from a complaining and grumbling spirit that we are enabled more and more to consider ourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ, and so refuse to allow sin to reign in our mortal bodies, to obey its lusts and passions.
It will be easy to find things to complain about in these coming days, weeks, and months. But remember the words of the great Puritan John Owen in his classic The Mortification of Sin: “Make [killing sin] your daily work; be always at it whilst you live; cease not a day from this work; be killing sin or it will be killing you.” Let the poetry of Henry Francis Lyte fill your heart: “Soul, then know thy full salvation, Rise o’er sin and fear and care. Joy to find in every station, Something still to do or bear. Think what Spirit dwells within thee, Think what Fathers smiles are thine, Think that Jesus died to win thee, Child of heaven, canst thou repine?”