Stop Complaining
- David Fairchild
- Jun 27, 2004
- Series: Philippians
14 Do all things without complaining and disputing, 15 that you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, 16 holding fast the word of life, so that I may rejoice in the day of Christ that I have not run in vain or labored in vain.
INTRODUCTION
Question: When will you be happy?
I’ll be happy when ______? What is the ______ to you? Most people think it is money, or a relationship. Some think it is a new job, a new car, a new house, a new wife or husband. Some think it’s when they get in a certain type of physical shape, or when they can start their hobby. What is it for you that you think will make you happy?
If it’s money, what does that figure look like to you? 10k in the bank? 20k…50k? Is it when your entire retirement is fully maturated? Is it when you have enough to pay off your bills? Is it when you can afford to buy the shoes you want, the clothes that are actually in style instead of at Ross? Is it when you can get the things you want without charging it?
What are the things you want? What does that look like for you? If it’s a car, be specific. If it’s clothes, what brand? If it’s a house, what size home and in what neighborhood?
Will it really make you happy, will it stop you from grumbling and complaining, and will it make you more delightful and content so that you no longer argue and dispute with other people?
What external circumstance can change your internal state?
Some of you have taken the high road this morning and have brushed what I’m saying off because you think you have conquered your materialism with your own two hands. You might even be giving the right answers to these questions, but not because you actually live them, but because they are the right answers. “I don’t need things to make me happy, I have Jesus.” It might be the right answer, but I’ll bet it came from the wrong person. Just a guess.
Why? Because what we see in our culture and in each of our lives would speak to the contrary of the “right” answer.
Let me throw some statistics out there and see if this sounds more realistic.
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81% of us want more than we earn
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94% of us think we're too materialistic, yet…
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89% of us expect to 'have it all'
Per capita, we are the richest and most affluent nation that has ever existed. Yet we are also the most depressed people in the history of the world. We are also the most bored and discontent. We have the highest suicide rate, murder rate, and committed insane in institutions than any nation.
There are 90 nations in this world that the average person spends less on themselves per year than we spend on our garbage bags.
More people declare bankruptcy than graduate from college each year in our country.
In our nation there are 2X as many malls as there are high schools.
In the mall right now only 25% of the people that are there know why they went and what they needed to buy. The other 75% went for therapy with their credit card trying to get happy. And the physiological effect of their happiness only lasts about 15-20 minutes. This is why we have buyer’s remorse.
The average American has 8K of debt on their credit card. They bought stuff they didn’t need, to make people they didn’t like impressed, and it didn’t work. Some of you say that you don’t buy clothes to impress other people? Really? Where do you get your fashion sense? From other people. The people you identify with, your tribe, follows the same trends you do and is influenced by the same band, or store, or friend, or famous figure that you are. Your demographic group is on every major companies radar and they often know more about what you like and can articulate it better than you can. They market the heck out of you in a way that you will buy.
The average American spends more on shoes, watches and jewelry than they will spend on themselves or on their kids for education.
Over the last 20 years, the number of things in the supermarket has grown by 200%. Have you looked at the serial isle? Tell about the Russian story.
We work more hours than any other nations. Why? So we can buy more things than any other nation. But we have less time than any other nation to enjoy the things we worked so hard to get! We have the worst vacation schedule of any nation. Most Europeans take off 1-3 months off for vacation, we take off an average of 2 weeks if we’re fortunate to work for a company that gives us paid vacation.
The average parent spends 6 hours of week shopping and 40 minutes playing with their children.
From 1970-1999 divorce and teen suicide has tripled.
The United States is only 4.6% of the world’s population but it uses almost 40% of the world’s resources.
We are born consumers. But our consumerism doesn’t stop with just things. We consume sex just like we consume goods.
We spend more on pornography than we spend on rock, country, hip- hop, the opera and all forms of musical entertainment combined. That is the great American past time.
In sum total we spend 32 Billion dollars on pornography each year. That is more than pro baseball, basketball, and football combined.
When are we going to be happy?! We’ll be happy if….We’ll be happy when…
As consumerists, we are 10 times more depressed and 40 times more violent that we were in the 1950’s. We have purchased the great American lie that personal possessions and affluence means happiness and freedom.
This consumerism gives rise to horribly unstable life. We become slaves of the things we purchase to serve us.
We are driven to buy things to make us happy and in doing so, we charge up our credit cards and increase our debt and live with a fear of loosing the things we don’t even own. We can’t rest or be secure in the fruit of our labor because we don’t own the fruit!
And the companies that market you know this. They know that if they keep extending credit to you, you’ll keep buying the things their telling you you’ll need.
They appeal to your selfish nature by appealing to your personal taste and preference. We live in a culture where comment cards are in every legitimate business. Customer surveys to see what you like or don’t like are recorded and analyzed. Your opinion is important to them. Why? Because from your opinion their going to be better able to market your felt needs the next time you walk through their door or answer your phone. Their interest in your opinion isn’t out of the goodness of their hearts, it’s because they want you to tell them how to better sell you.
You live in a culture that breads this in you from the moment you are able to formulate your first thoughts. From advertisement on the back of your serial box to your first cartoon you watched with all the serial and toy commercials between the shows.
Our kids grow up in a constant state of discontent. Continually dissatisfied with the way things are. This discontentment stems from many sources, one of them consumerism, another is that as we have smaller families, kids are no longer forced to share and work around the families schedule. They now dictate the schedule of the family and are accustomed to mom and day doing and serving them each and every day.
If you combine this with affluence and materialism, it leads to selfish, self-centered children who are never happy with what they have. The parents work to provide more things for the kids, and the kids are not parented, not disciplined and have two slaves working 60 hours a week to keep up with their felt needs. The parents, instead of taking their hand to the kids backside, usually buy them things to stop the conflict and make them more manageable. What do you think this produces?
It produces kids that have no desire to grow up because they like the adult world doing for them. When they become adults and don’t get what they want, discontentment increases along with frustration, anxiety, anger, and complaining. You may be one of these adult children I’m speaking about and not even know it.
Discontentment breeds impatience, which is another mark of our times. Long lines, interruptions, rude people, high prices, traffic jams, terrible drivers, and crying babies. The last two have now become a violent epidemic as we have “road rage” at an alarming increase, and abused babies which are often the target of this kind of impatience.
Then mounting discontent produces the so-called “mid-life crises.” Where a person realizes that there is less life ahead than behind, and the dreams of getting everything you wanted, when you wanted it are starting to fade. But you try mightily in your “crisis” to make one last go at it before you fade off.
You are taught early and often that personal happiness, though almost unattainable, is the supreme goal and object of life.
And it isn’t just goods and sex we consume. This constant drive to consume and buy more has found its way firmly in the church, especially in the churches of Southern California.
This consumerism that always breeds discontent is more common in our church than many of us would dare admit.
Since you live in a culture that asks you “How am I driving?” on the back of every truck. Since you live in a society that elevates your personal vote, your personal choice, and your personal freedom to new heights each day, is it any wonder when you come to church, or live in a community of God’s people, that this kind of selfish, self-serving, demanding, consumeristic ideology has shaped you into what you are this very morning?
You want more singles in your church that you can connect with. You want more couples in your church for you and your spouse to hang out with. You want more kids in the church so your children have more choices for friends. You want more older people so you don’t feel so out of place. You want more younger people so you can feel more comfortable. You want a more convenient time because 11:30 is too late. You want a more convenient time because 11:30 is too early. You want less preaching and more music. But you want your music to fit your style and taste so it’s catchier for you. You want less teaching about sin, more teaching about love. You want less theology. You want more theology. You want me to have shorter sermons that are funnier. You want me to keep my sermon length but be more serious.
Do you get the point? These are all comments that I have heard from you or others next to you since the beginning of this church.
The fact that we don’t give you a survey card when you walked in and didn’t ask you how we could change things to better suit you should have been a tip-off that we refuse to allow God’s church to be ran by or consumed by consumers and not worshippers.
Now I’m going to hit you with this before we begin in the text, and I know this is a much longer introduction that usual, but you don’t have a comment card to voice your complaint so I’ll keep going!
God does not exist for you, you exist for Him. The church does not exist for you, you exist to be the church. The church is to be a faithful bride to her husband who is Jesus Christ. I do not exist to be your friend, or your drinking buddy, I exist to be your pastor. The world does not exist for you and you are not the center of it. I know that hurts to hear, but I love you enough to give you the news flash.
I tell you these things because though each of you may know this intellectually, most of you do not know these things practically and I want you to know I understand, but we have to change from our consumerism and be made into true worshippers of God.
From Adam on we have been complaining and blaming other people for the things we do or the things we don’t do. Paul knows this is the case and his desire as their loving but serious pastor, is to tell them the truth about their nature, and to call them to be aware of it, and he gives them a command in the form of a negative.
I took you through the excurses of consumerism because I believe it is a major factor for why we act the way we do, and it shapes how we treat our parents, our spouses, our children, our bosses, and it certainly affects our attitude with one another in God’s family and in God’s house.
Paul says this to the complainers in the Philippians congregation and to us. He is going to tell them what not to do and then give them 3 positive reasons for obeying his command.
STUDY
Verse 14- Do all things without complaining and disputing.
Paul is thinking of verse 12-13, which Paul told us we are to work out our salvation with an attitude and posture of fear and trembling before a holy God. Absolutely everything that is done in that process, which is our lives, should be done without complaining or disputing.
In other words, we are to work out our salvation with fear and trembling and without complaining and disputing.
The word complaining in Greek is gongusmos which means to make a guttural grumbling sound when you are disgruntled and frustrated. It’s the kind of murmuring that is behind your back and when you’re not look or can’t understand what their saying under their breath.
It’s a negative response to something you feel is unpleasant or inconvenient for you. But it comes from a self-centered attitude that it is undeserved. It’s the same kind of grumbling in 1 Corinthians 10:10 that Paul used to describe the Israelites who grumbled and where “destroyed by the destroyer.” 14,700 grumblers were destroyed and not allowed to enter the promise land because Korah and his company murmured against Moses and Aaron were murmurs against God.
Now at this point a moralist would just stop and tell you that you are terrible for complaining and disputing. You’re in danger of hell if you don’t get your act together. You need to just quite complaining and arguing and get along. I am not that optimistic that you would listen if your only motivation was your own feeble hands.
I recognize that a heart that is discontent will complain and murmur. I also realize a heart that continually murmurs and grumbles against God will eventually argue and dispute with Him. So it is ultimately a heart issue not a strength or a morality issue.
This is where it is important for me to tell you that if you have lived as a consumer for too long and sought after other pleasures than God, sought after other peace than with God, or sought after other worship that to God, you will never change until you find your utmost satisfaction in God. You will never stop being discontent until your full contentment comes from glorifying God by fully delighting in Him. You will never stop disputing with God and with others until you see the purpose of your life is full contentment and happiness in Him and Him alone.
We don’t come to God and approach Him expecting joy so that we can have joy in other things. If that were so, then God is not the ultimate end, but other things are.
You are here, and you exist because Jesus is the ultimate goal of our existence. Our happiness in God is why we are created, why we live and move, why we come on Sunday to lift our voice, lift our eyes and ears, and lift up Christ in all His beauty.
Each of us are without a doubt a worshipper. We will either worship something, or someone. It can be a pet, a job, a girl, a sexual feeling, a meal, a band, or many other things. The human heart is an idol factory. We give ourselves to idols willingly because we are built to worship. What are you worshipping?
God is a loving Father and we are His kids. He, as a good Father, has given us all kinds of gifts, and we takes those gifts and worship them instead of Him. They we are miserable because after the excitement wears off and we want to get a new one, a better one, a bigger one, a faster one.
Your goal is not be a moral person. I am not into moralism. You are to be a worshipper of God. That is your purpose and that is what kills grumbling and discontentment. Worshipping God gives us happiness and joy and delight that every other thing on this planet will not give us. And when we expect those things to make us happy, we grumble and dispute.
Should you be a hedonist? Yes, but the object of your affection is God not us or things or others. God allows us to be completely and totally enveloped in pleasure, but it is Godly pleasure because it comes from the wellspring of the only true pleasure that ends in happiness instead of death.
3 Reasons for obeying:
Verse 15a- that you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without fault…
Verse 15b-16a-…in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast the word of life,
Verse 16b- so that I may rejoice in the day of Christ that I have not run in vain or labored in vain.
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