James MacDonald - Replace a Complaining Attitude
Summary:
Drawing from Numbers 11 and the Israelites' wilderness experiences, the preacher warns that murmuring and complaining—especially about life’s misfortunes—are serious sins that grieve God and reveal unbelief in the heart, just as they did for Israel. He emphasizes that we actively choose our attitudes in response to adversity, big or small, and that a lifestyle of complaining leads God to place us in spiritual wilderness, causing discouragement and poverty in our souls. The key takeaway is that complaining about circumstances that aren’t inherently wrong (while doing nothing to change them) is sin against God and ourselves, and He still hates it today as much as He did then.
Illustrating Murmuring
now grumbling or murmuring is, like, you know, they weren’t saying anything; they were just, like, that, you know? And I know you don’t have a microphone, but just kind of join me in the evil chorus. Go ahead, just—what does it sound like? Loud and clear, what’s it sound like? Yeah, right, right! Come on, you can do it better than that! Come on, do it like you’re at home! Right? Right? Right? I don’t want to mumble in church, but you know what I’m talking about.
And it could be anything. It could be anything as little as somebody cutting you off in traffic to some terrible news in the mail or by phone, or something happened at work. You could be saying it out loud or you could be saying it to yourself. And do you remember from English class «onomatopoeia»? Do you remember that? So, onomatopoeia sounds like what it is, like «drip, drip, » and murmuring is also that literary device that sounds like what it is. The focus isn’t upon the content of my fleshly speech; the focus isn’t upon the specifics of your foolishness; the focus is upon the meaningless words that flow. Jesus said, «Out of the heart, the mouth speaks, » the meaningless words that flow from my lips that reflect the unbelief that’s in my heart, and God hears it.
God’s View on Murmuring Today
Now, here’s kind of the thesis or the setup for it. Those of you who are like, «Well, God wouldn’t treat us like that today; God wouldn’t do that to us today.» But hang on, hang on, hang on! Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. While all of our sin is under the finished work of Christ, say «Amen!» Amen. Still, God has those same regards, those same thoughts about those things that separate us from Him. And while God wouldn’t put you into the wilderness physically speaking, I’m not sure some people aren’t almost in a physical wilderness, but God would certainly put us in a spiritual wilderness, which leads to that sentence: those who choose murmuring as a lifestyle.
And you have a lifestyle, right? Everything, yeah, have my lifestyle— that’s where I work. No, no, well, my lifestyle, you know, that’s where I live; that’s what I drive. Well, that’s part of it. That’s part of it. But I would suggest to you that a lot more important part of your lifestyle is how you handle adversity, how you handle disappointment—big things and little things that don’t go your way. All right? And murmuring is a very particular way of handling it that God still hates. And I believe that an immense portion of the spiritual poverty of God’s people is His placement of them in a wilderness place.
Why am I so sad? Why am I so down? Why am I so discouraged all the time? The heaviness that hangs over me is the outflow of those attitudes. And so, let’s go to a specific attitude. If you have kind of the general idea of it—and I hope that you do—let’s go to a specific attitude, one of the murmurings, if you will, and let’s just see if we can draw some more specific instruction for ourselves as we begin this series.
The First Wilderness Attitude: Complaining
So, the first wilderness attitude is complaining. Each message is going to be like a couplet. Now, this time, replace a complaining attitude with—and then next time, the attitude that goes in its place. Because it’s not like I’m just going to sit over here and think about nothing—how’s that going? I’m picturing the letters N-O-T-H-I-N-G! Yeah, but you’re still thinking about something; there is no thinking about nothing, and you’re always thinking about something. So, we have to have something to go in the place of complaining—that’ll be next time. But this time, replace a complaining attitude and jot this down if that’s helpful to you.
This is going to pinch a bit, as the dentist says without caring, right? You ever notice that the dentist is like, «This is going to pinch a bit»? He’s feeling nothing. Trust me. He’ll have eight more people in the chair today; he’s good with it all! But I actually do feel it because I’m not just the dentist; I’m in the chair with you on this—I want you to know that. So here it is: we choose our attitudes. We choose our attitudes.
We Choose Our Attitudes
And I can’t tell you how much time I used to spend arguing with people who said that wasn’t true. I don’t do that anymore. I remember a letter I got from a man who argued with me at great length. He thought about it—we don’t choose our attitudes; we don’t choose our attitudes—that’s wrong to say we choose our attitudes. And he went on about it at quite length, and I was more convinced that he was wrong at the end of the letter than I was at the beginning because I thought, «Well, he chose to sit down. He chose to pen this missive to me filled with a terrible attitude.» I feel like he’s illustrating his own point in the opposite.
You say, «Well, what do you mean by attitude?» Let’s get it clear. You know, I think definitions are helpful in learning, so just a little definition here: attitudes. Let’s start with this. Attitudes are patterns of thinking, okay? And whether you see it or not, whether I admit it or not, do you understand that we have patterns of thinking? We just have ways of thinking about stuff. And at this particular point in the year, I see you with your exciting jersey on. Would you like to stand up and turn around, just model that for everybody for a minute? Just go ahead— I know you talk; I know you want to do that.
But I got to just say, I kind of have a Cubs attitude. My Cubs attitude is, «Don’t get your hopes up; they’re going to disappoint you.» How many people have that attitude? «Don’t get your hopes up; they’re going to disappoint you.» Now, I’m really working hard at changing the attitude. I used to go to Cubs games a lot. Kathy and I are going to go to a game on Friday— I haven’t been to a Cubs game in two years. My daughter’s like, «Dad, take me to a game.» I was like, «No, no.» And my wife’s like, «Come on, come on!» They’ve been to five or six or eight games this year at different times; they’ll get online and get a ticket. I haven’t been to any games, and I’m finally going to go to a game. I’m trying to work on my attitude, but I have this pattern of thinking, and my way of thinking is that every time this happens, this happens, and you start to expect it. You anticipate it, and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy— not so much in the silly sports analogy but in reality.
The Ball Illustration
So I’d like to give you an illustration of this with this ball. Now hopefully, this will be hard for you to imagine. Hopefully, I want you to imagine that I’m a 2-year-old, and I’m overjoyed at the ball that I got for my second birthday. I’ve never had a ball like this one before, and it bounces so good, and it’s easy to hang on to. And I’m enjoying it. «What are you looking at? You can’t have this ball. This is my ball! Stop looking at it!» And I’m starting to form a fairly significant attachment to this. Now, inevitably, what happens is, as I’m running about playing with my ball, and I have these unformed patterns in my head, I’m going to start forming a pattern. I drop the ball, and let’s say I drop the ball, and it hits my foot, and it goes over there somewhere.
Now I have—think of it as a 2-year-old—I’m now going to make a choice. What do I think about what just happened? Option A: «Dumb, dumb ball! Who made this silly, cheap, dim store ball? I thought this was a good ball, » and I’m going to blame the ball. That would be a play that could be made. And when I drop balls, I blame the ball—"It’s the ball’s fault! Lousy ball!»
But there’s a different play. I could blame the people that gave me the ball. «My parents! If they really love me, they wouldn’t have given me such a slippery ball! They’re trying to trick me into losing it after I get attached to it! They knew I would drop it!» And that’s a pattern of thinking that I don’t blame the thing; I blame the people closest.
Another play would be, «I can’t believe I dropped that ball again! I always drop balls! Other kids don’t drop balls like me! I was playing over at the neighbors; they don’t ever drop their balls. I’m such a loser ball dropper! I’m always going to drop balls!» That’s a completely different pattern of thinking. Or how about—this one’s a lot harder to get to— but how about I dropped the ball, where’s the big deal? Everybody drops balls. I’m going to pick it up again and put it out of my mind and go on.
Now, I think you know now that I’m not talking anymore about a 2-year-old with a ball; you know that I’m talking about the way you choose. Maybe down the road, we’ll talk about other people and how they handled things like that. But for right now, I can tell you God holds the children of Israel responsible for their attitudes, and it wouldn’t be loving to stand up here and teach you to blame others. That’s what we’re trying to get away from. What we’re trying to get to is this: we choose our attitudes. We choose! Our whole life is a series of dropped balls, and how we handle them—what Chuck Swindoll was the first person I heard say—is that life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you deal with it. And nobody wants that to be true. Everybody wants to think that their life is mostly what happened to them and hardly any of how they dealt with it, but that isn’t right.
Now, that’s not to negate the things that have happened to you, nor is it to suggest that there aren’t people in this room that may have had advantages that you didn’t have. But that isn’t how you should think about it. You should think about it—not how am I doing in regard to people who had more advantage? You should be thinking about how am I doing in regard to people who had the same opportunity as me? Because there’s a lot of people who would love to have the opportunity that you have, and there’s a lot of people all over the world right now who are dreaming of the life that you have. And so even that’s a choice, isn’t it? About my attitude.
That’s why I sort of facetiously went back to the 2-year-old because attitudes are formed over a long period of time. And because they’re formed over a long period of time, I’m not going to stand up here and tell you that you’re going to have an attitude change in the next four weeks. But I promise you this: you’re going to have more acute clarity and awareness in between our times together about your attitudes, and you’re going to have a lot stronger sense of your own volition in choosing how you respond to the dropped balls in your life.
Complaining Is Sin
So let’s go to this then: we choose our attitudes. You can see that in chapter 11, verse 1: «And the people complained.» Not, «And the people had to complain»; not, «And the people were forced to complain.» They chose to complain. And the second part: complaining is sin.
The word sin means literally missing the mark, failing in regard to God’s holy standard and just demands. And I think most of the people here would agree that stealing is sin; I think most people would agree that lying is sin, that blasphemy is sin, that adultery is sin. These are obvious sins. Most people, though, would not agree that complaining is sin, and they would offer this: «Well, who am I hurting?» And the answer is: God and yourself. God and yourself—those two things.
Notice: «And the people complained in the hearing of the Lord.» They’re hurting God; He is grieved by it. And the people complained in the hearing of the Lord. So a last definition of the night—hopefully you’ll give me grace that this is a bit of a startup message—so we want to get our terms clear, and we won’t have to go back to the definition for attitude, and we won’t have to go back to the definition for murmuring. We have that now. Just for this message, the definition of complaining: here it is—to express dissatisfaction with a circumstance which is not wrong, and I am doing nothing myself to correct. Does that make sense?
So it has to be a circumstance that’s not wrong because it’s not complaining to protest at an abortion clinic, okay? And it’s not complaining to speak against a wrong. It’s not complaining to ask my spouse to spend more time with the kids. That’s not complaining. It’s complaining to express dissatisfaction with a circumstance which is not wrong, and here it is, and I am doing nothing.
So it is complaining to whine about the evil of abortion and never pray, never picket, never vote, never give, never write to leaders—that’s complaining. It could be wrong; maybe it’s not wrong, or it is wrong, but I’m doing nothing about it. It is complaining to verbally pursue my spouse about, say, family priorities but not work on them myself. That’s complaining for sure. So it has to be something that either isn’t wrong, or I’m doing nothing myself to correct.
Now also, let me just say it doesn’t have to be verbal. Some people pride themselves: «I never complain about anything, » right? Because you only say like nine words a day! Okay? But God makes no distinction between your words and your thoughts; they are equally audible to Him. So we choose our attitudes. Complaining is sin.
The Culture of Complaining
By the way, love the internet—so many amazing things on there. Did you know that there’s websites dedicated to complaining? Did you know that? Is this going to cause a problem for you? Check this out: «Welcome to ivcomplain, the free place on the internet to get it off your chest and complain. Go on, it’s good for you—complain all you want!» Then there’s another one called «The Complaint Station, ” the king of complaints—over five million served! We hold the record for the most complaints of anyone’s site and are the pioneers of open complaining.
The purpose of the complaint station is to provide you with a central location to fire your complaints or research previous complaints, find out what other people are complaining about, and talk to them too. You can complain together; you can complain about issues related to product services, medicine, employment, get-rich-quick schemes, diet pills that don’t work and cause side effects—anything you can think of. The list is endless, really! And then obviously these must have been the first people out because their site’s called— they got the URL complain.org! Complain about anything; the whole world is here to listen: complain about airlines!
Complain— it hurts my head to say this. Just imagine they got a whole long list here of things you can go and complain about. And then they say, „Complain to us or even about us; we’ll listen—tell everyone—no exceptions!“ I thought this was interesting; this was a youth group website for pastors and youth ministries, and they have a whole complaint section: complain that the Bible college is too expensive, complain about your sister, complain about your brother, report your brother as a pig!
Be interesting if you could—if there was a spiritual GPS on our souls, how often would it locate us in the wilderness that we fashioned for ourselves by our murmuring and complaining? Well, I think most of the points are knowing your love for the Lord. This will convict you as it does me: God hears our complaining. He hears it! God heard every single complaint of the children of Israel.
God Hears and Responds to Complaining
And I’m not going to go back through this—we just drop the references down: Exodus 14:12, Exodus 15:24, Exodus 16:3, Exodus 17:3. And God heard their complaining; He heard it! And they’re complaining about their misfortune. You see it here in Numbers 11:1: „And the people complained in the hearing of the Lord about their misfortune, about their misfortune.“ Now, this to me is a big insight, and I want to say to you that while it isn’t good to complain about the weather, and it isn’t good to complain about the Cubs, and it isn’t good to complain about the trivial points of life in a sort of a whining way—do you know what I’m saying?
This is not really about that. If we want to be as faithful to the word of God as we possibly can, then we have to focus the teaching on complaining to the exact subject matter that’s being forbidden. And the exact subject matter being forbidden is not broad-based— you know, „Oh, this bread is stale, ” „Oh, this pop is flat, ” „Oh, this is not awesome.“ But not that. If you look here, it was about their misfortune.
Just turn over the page again to where we started in chapter 14, and remember some of the things that they were saying when God finally lowered the boom in chapter 14:28. „Say to them, as I live, declares the Lord, what you’ve said in my hearing, I’ll do to you; your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness—all of your number listed in the census from 20 years old and upward who have grumbled against me. Not one shall come into the land that I swore I would make you dwell in, except Caleb and Joshua. Your little ones, who you said would become prey, I’ll bring them in, and they’re going to know the land that you have rejected. As for you, your dead bodies shall fall in this wilderness; your children shall be shepherds in the wilderness 40 years and shall suffer for your faithlessness until the last of your dead bodies lies in the wilderness.“
Everyone goes, „Wait, wait, wait, wait! Until the last of your dead bodies lies in the wilderness!“ I mean, right? Take me to another place where God’s like that with His own people. Take me to a place like that! There isn’t one. And that’s why everyone in the New Testament’s talking about it because nothing like this has ever happened before or since. So God is actually committing a whole generation of His people to this lesson for all time.
Does that mean they weren’t complaining in 300 BC? Does that mean they weren’t complaining in 800 or 1800 or 2 AD? No, it does not mean that! It means that once and for all, He laid down the lesson: I’m not into this.