Avoid Grumbling

​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.”
 
How quickly the inner core of an individual is revealed the moment a murmuring, grumbling disposition is released into a conversation. Jesus warns us in Matthew 15:18, “But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this defiles a person.” The world is filled with back-talkers, those who bite and devour another in the company of people who are eager to hear the slander. Let it not be so in the church. And, in truth, anyone with a grumbling spirit has very little concern for anyone outside of themselves. As we consider our text today, it is a good moment to examine where some of those grumblings are hidden within your own heart. Repent of them, leave them out of your consideration when it comes to how you interact with those people who are in your life.
 
Dear Christian, you and I have a distinctive privilege to do things for the sake of Christ. There is not one aspect of your life that is separated from being faithful to Him. It doesn’t matter what “doing” is to be done, let it all be acted upon with the same love and devotion you have for Jesus. And this is the very first element of our text today: “do all things.” This is a tremendously large, and rather ambiguous expression, for it does not give us any specifics that must be done, but that we are to consider anything that we do with the same love and grace. Both things we don’t like or things we are pleased with, those things that are mundane or those that are magnificent, are found in this qualification of “all things.” Consider what Paul said to the Colossians, “And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him” (Colossians 3:17).
 
The great qualifier in our text today is to do all those things “without grumbling or disputing.” And this is where the test comes so often in the hearts of God’s people. We grumble when we believe something has happened outside of our best interest or is being done without our approval. The Israelites grumbled against the LORD. In Numbers 17:10 we read, “And the Lord said to Moses, ‘Put back the staff of Aaron before the testimony, to be kept as a sign for the rebels, that you may make an end of their grumblings against me, lest they die.’” The church grumbled against the apostles. Consider Acts 6:1, “Now in these days when the disciples were increasing in number, a complaint [grumbling] by the Hellenists arose against the Hebrews because their widows were being neglected in the daily distribution.” It often doesn’t take long before our hearts are grumbling and our mouths disputing over some real or imagined slight against us. Dear ones, this grumbling disposition is a sin, and if you possess it, then I implore you to repent.
 
But we are not without a motive to cease our grumblings and respond to each other with the love and grace that we have received in Christ. We live in the midst of a “crooked and twisted generation” that is growing more so with each passing year. And in such a generation, the church—that is, those who belong to Jesus Christ—are to shine like stars in the night. So, let me ask a “for instance” question to bring this to clarity. What will the world see from you when you’ve been wronged? Will they see retaliation or forgiveness? What light are you shining in the eyes of others who need to know that the mercy of our LORD Jesus is alive in you? Consider Colossians 3:12-13, “Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.”
 
It is a spiritually deadly poison to let a grumbling, disputing disposition grow within your heart. If you’re uncertain about that, consider 1 Corinthians 10:9-10, “We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents, nor grumble, as some of them did and were destroyed by the Destroyer.” But if you respond to those around you with the patient grace and love of Christ, you show yourself to be, even as our text declares, “blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish.”
 
So, let me encourage you to continue doing all things without grumbling or disputing. It is a testimony of your faith and a light of Christ in the eyes of a sin-darkened world.
 
In His Grace,
Pastor Michael

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