Menlo Park Presbyterian Church
950 Santa Cruz Avenue, Menlo Park, CA 94025 650-323-8600
Series: I Quit
August 30, 2015
“I Quit Complaining”
John Ortberg
I want to say hi to everybody in this room, at every campus, all over the place. People are joining us
online all over the world. I'm thrilled for what we're going to talk about this weekend. I actually want to
start with a little experiment. So I'm going to ask everybody on the right in just a moment (at every venue
if you're on my right) to take a moment and express authentic gratitude for something. It could be how
your day is going. It could be your body, your health, your spouse, Jesus…anything, as long as it's
authentic.
Then everybody on my left, I want you take a moment and complain about something. It could be how
your day is going, your body, your spouse, your health. Probably not Jesus, but whatever it is you can
authentically complain about. Everybody do that right now really quickly. If you know the person next to
you, gratitude on this side, complaining on this side.
All right. I'm going to pause that now. Does anybody here feel glad you just did that, a little more alive, a
little more energized, a little more grateful to be here? This side? Probably not so much. It's a weird thing.
I've never met anybody who says, "My goal in life is I want to complain more." Nobody thinks of that as
their spiritual gift, and yet we actually live in what one author calls the culture of complaint.
If you're thinking about cutting down on complaining, you have picked the right weekend to be here.
We're in this series called I Quit, and we're actually looking at what some of those things are that we need
to eliminate from our lives to make space for God, to experience God's presence going into what I think is
going to be an amazing year for us as a church. This week it's I Quit Complaining.
Now there are basically two ways to quit complaining. One of them is to change your external world so
that there is no circumstance left to complain about. That means if you've been complaining about not
being married, you have to get married. If you are married, you have to improve your spouse into the kind
of person who would never generate grounds for complaint.
You have to have one of those jobs where your boss asks you, "What hours would you like to work, and
how much money would you like to make?" You have to make sure US 101 and I-280 are always trafficfree. You have to make sure your dates are cute, your grades are A's, and all your relatives are in therapy.
That's one way to try to quit complaining. Change your external world.
The other way is change your internal world. Ask God, "God, would you give me the kind of inner
attitude so I could receive every day like it's manna from you? Could you show me what the apostle Paul
talked about, learning the secret to being content in every situation?" That's the road we're going to talk
about.
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Here's the thing. We still live in this world where pain and difficult things happen to us all the time. We
don't want to be just syrupy or inauthentic, so how do we actually pursue quitting complaining? This is
what I'm so excited to talk about this weekend. There's actually a distinction between two key words in
the Bible.
I never thought about this until this message. A great Old Testament expert, a guy named Tremper
Longman, talked to me about these two words, so we're just going to unpack two words in this message.
They both start with the letter G. They're both things people do in the Bible when bad things happen to
them.
One of them is the word groan. This goes way back in the history of the people of Israel. We're told, "The
Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out, and their cry for help because of their slavery went up
to God. God heard their groaning…and was concerned about them." This gets remembered. This gets
reflected. God, through Moses, goes back and speaks to the Israelites. "Moreover, I have heard the
groaning of the Israelites, whom the Egyptians are enslaving, and I have remembered my covenant."
This practice of groaning (whatever it is) is so important, it actually got included in their sacred literature,
in the Psalms. The psalmist said, "My soul is in deep anguish. How long, LORD, how long? […] I am
worn out from my groaning." The psalmist is actually experiencing groaning fatigue. In fact, groaning is
actually commanded in the Bible.
There's a book called Lamentations. It's not a book that's read at a lot of weddings, but the writer of
Lamentations says, "Arise, [groan] in the night… Pour out your heart like water in the presence of the
LORD. […] Look, LORD, and consider: Whom have you ever treated like this?" That's groaning. People
do that in the Bible and in real life, and it's actually commanded in Scripture.
Then there's another word that starts with the letter G in the Bible, and that is grumbling. Sometimes
people grumble. We see this way back in the history of Israel. "So the people grumbled against Moses,
saying, 'What are we to drink?'" Moses reminds them about this part of the history also. "You grumbled
in your tents…" Remember that phrase. We'll come back to that. "You grumbled in your tents and said,
'The LORD hates us.'"
This word also makes it into the Psalms. The psalmist says, "They grumbled in their tents…" Notice
what it's paired with. "…and did not obey the LORD." Now this word grumbling is actually forbidden in
the Bible. The apostle Paul was writing to the church at Philippi, and he said, "Do everything without
grumbling or arguing…"
Does anybody here ever grumble? Doing it, what Paul wrote about here. You might think grumbling
sounds like a pretty trivial problem, it's not a very serious sin, but you'd be wrong. Paul writes to the
church at Corinth, and he says we ought to avoid the sins Israel committed wandering in the wilderness.
Those are kind of listed as a lesson for us, saying we shouldn't commit idolatry or sexual immorality or
defy God. Then he says, "And do not grumble, as some of them did—and were killed by the destroying
angel." That's kind of scary.
You have these two words: groaning and grumbling. Groaning is actually encouraged in the Bible, but
grumbling is forbidden. What's the difference between them? Well, groaning is something I do to God;
grumbling is something I say about God. Groaning I do to God's face; grumbling I do behind God's back.
The place where Israel would groan is on their knees in prayer to God. Such an interesting little phrase.
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The place where they would grumble is in their tents, in isolation, where they were free to exaggerate or
make up whatever they wanted to about what they were not happy about.
Grumbling can be so destructive. One of the things we've talked about as a staff this last year is when
there's a problem, we want to talk to each other but not about each other, which is at the heart of
grumbling. What I want to do in this message is to talk about kind of the anatomy of grumbling.
I want to walk through a time in the history of Israel when they had a big problem grumbling and see why
grumbling is so destructive and let you and I do a little self-assessment around this and then talk about
how we get liberated from this. Because I think for us to be a church that's known for our gratitude, to be
a place where we actually quit…we're actually liberated from…complaining, and to be a place where
when people come here they know they will experience a spirit of thanksgiving is such a powerful thing.
Way back in Israel's history, God delivers them from slavery. He literally parts the Red Sea, sends the 10
plagues, destroys Pharaoh's army. The very first hymn is sung in praise to God, and they're on their way to
the Promised Land. You would think they will be grateful as long as they live, but not so much. A couple
of days into the wilderness, they can't find water. "So the people grumbled against Moses, saying, 'What
are we to drink?'"
God miraculously supplies sweet water for them, so they have freedom and water. We think, "Well,
they're going to be grateful forever." Not so much. "The whole company of Israel…" Notice the word
again. "…[grumbled] against Moses and Aaron there in the wilderness. […] 'Why didn't GOD let us die
in comfort in Egypt…?'" "We would have preferred that, just death and comfort."
"…where we had lamb stew…" "Remember that wonderful lamb stew?" "You've brought us out into
this wilderness to starve us to death…" God hears their grumbling, and again, God is gracious, and God
miraculously provides them bread from heaven. You may know about this. The Israelites named it manna.
What is it? Literally the word manna just means, "What is it?" or the street name, "What it is."
It tasted like a cracker with honey, so it was pretty good stuff. Now they'll be grateful forever. God has
given them freedom and water and bread miraculously. Not so much. "The people fell to grumbling over
their hard life." They got tired of manna. "GOD heard. When he heard his anger flared. […] The
riffraff among the people had a craving and soon they had the People of Israel whining, 'Why can't we
have meat? We ate fish in Egypt—and got it free!'"
Remember this phrase "got it free." We'll come back to this for a moment. "We ate fish in Egypt—and
got it free!—to say nothing of the cucumbers and melons, the leeks and onions and garlic. But nothing
tastes good out here; all we get is manna, manna, manna." Okay, now we start to see part of what's so
destructive about grumbling and why God takes it so seriously and how it can just destroy a soul and our
joy in life.
For one thing, it's incredibly contagious. "The riffraff among the people had a craving and soon they
had the People of Israel…" It starts with the riffraff, and then it spreads. Grumbling is that way.
Emotions are unbelievably contagious. They're about the most contagious thing in the world.
There was a fascinating study a while ago. Researchers would take two people and have them sit in a chair
facing each other for five minutes, not say a word, and then they would walk out of the room. What they
found is if one person was depressed, at the end of those five minutes, the other person was significantly
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more depressed than they had been before they sat, just from sitting in the presence of somebody who was
depressed.
Just to be sitting next to a negative person will make you more negative. Now that you know that, how
many of you would like to move right now? It's an incredibly contagious thing. Pretty soon everybody is
whining. See, the thing is, the reason I grumble is it reinforces my sense of superiority. When I'm
grumbling about something else, I don't have to look at myself. I don't have to look at my problems.
Grumbling is incredibly toxic. It can destroy a family. It can destroy an office. It can mess up a church.
I was talking to an elder from a different church a couple of weeks ago. He is a really good person, a
really high-functioning person, but he said the sheer level of grumbling that was coming into him made
him just about done being an elder. Grumbling is destructive because it's incredibly contagious. It also
distorts our perspective. That's another aspect of grumbling.
What they're grumbling about here is, "Why can't we have meat?" They're just talking about like,
"What's on the menu?" They say, "Remember in Egypt, we had fish for free!" They didn't have it for free.
Does anybody remember what they were doing in Egypt? They were slaves for crying out loud! But when
they're grumbling, they're thinking, "Man, we had it good back then."
See, when I'm grumbling, it causes me to blow past, ignore, dismiss all of the good things God does for
me and exaggerate whatever is difficult in my life. A couple of weeks ago this summer, I got to be part of
a conversation on the East Coast about racial reconciliation. It was one of the most stimulating
conversations I've ever gotten to be a part of. It was just fabulous, and we'll be talking and praying more
about this subject as a church.
Then I flew back to San Francisco. I got into the airport about one o'clock in the morning. I was
grumbling in my spirit because it was one o'clock in the morning. Then I was going to get off the plane,
but I could not find my phone. I was looking for my phone, and other people were going past. It was a
brand new phone. I'd just dropped my old phone in the toilet a couple of weeks earlier, which was my
fault, but I was grumbling about that. So I have a new phone, and I can't find it. I was looking all over for
it.
The flight attendant came and said, "It's probably in your computer bag." I said, "I'm not stupid. I've
looked all through my computer bag." I was on the floor. I went into the restroom because I remembered
going there. I thought, "Maybe it's in the toilet." It wasn't there. I came back to my seat. Then I thought,
"I'll bet it's the guy sitting next to me." I remembered I had it on the armrest for a while, and then I fell
asleep. "He didn't look like a very trustworthy guy. I'll bet he has taken my phone."
The flight attendant said to me again, "Ninety percent of the time, the phone is in the computer bag." I
opened my computer bag just to show her, "I'm not stupid. It's not in my bag," and she pointed in my bag
and said, "What is that phone-like object in your bag?" It was my phone. My prodigal phone had come
home. Do you think that made me happy? Do you think I'd kill the fatted calf because of that? No! I was
upset that she was right and I was wrong.
Now here's the thing. I was thinking about this. Imagine that one of those grumbling Israelites from
thousands of years ago could have been magically teleported to me in that moment in San Francisco at the
airport. They would say to me, "Do you mean to tell me that you got to be part of a conversation about
racial reconciliation? We never dreamed of a conversation like that. Then you got to return back to
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California to a home, a wife, and kids you love. The way you got there, the way you traveled, was you got
on this contraption called a plane and sat in a seat for several hours.
You got to eat and drink and sleep, and when you got off of it, you had flown like a bird 3,000 miles.
Then you had lost this amazing object that enables you to talk to anybody anywhere in the world and
write anybody anywhere, anytime in the world and look up information that didn't even exist when we
were around, and you're grumbling because a total stranger was kind enough to help you find it when it
was lost?"
I sometimes think, if there's one verse that's not in the Bible but should be, it would be this one: "'Suck it
up,' saith the Lord." Here's the thing. When I groan, I do it in the presence of God. See, groaning in the
Bible is God-centered. It comes on people who are in deep pain or deep sorrow, but they're very aware of
a broader context.
When people groan, they're very aware of their own sin. This is why very often in the Bible in psalms of
complaint… Psalms of lament are the most common kind of psalms; they're groaning psalms. They very
often include the confession of sin, because awareness of and confession of my sin is very much a part of
the process of groaning. It's God-centered.
Grumbling is self-centered. It's just all about me, what I want. "How come I'm not having the fish I want
or the meat I want or my pleasure or my success?" It's all kinds of self junked up in there. It's always
destructive to the soul, but man, is it contagious. Look what happens. It starts with the riffraff. Then it
goes to the whole people of Israel. Now look at this. This is the leader. Grumbling can kill a leader.
"Moses heard the whining, all those families whining in front of their tents. GOD'S anger blazed up.
Moses saw that things were in a bad way. Moses said to GOD, 'Why are you treating me this way? What
did I ever do to you to deserve this? Did I conceive them? Was I their mother? So why dump the
responsibility of this people on me?
Why tell me to carry them around like a nursing mother, carry them all the way to the land you
promised to their ancestors? Where am I supposed to get meat for all these people who are whining to
me, "Give us meat; we want meat." I can't do this by myself—it's too much, all these people. If this is
how you intend to treat me, do me a favor and kill me. I've seen enough; I've had enough. Let me out
of here.'"
That's not the most spiritually-sounding passage in the Bible you've ever heard, is it? That's some pretty
serious complaining against God. "God, you're doing a bad job. I'm giving you a bad performance review.
You're not getting any merit pay increase at all this time." Moses just gets one thing right. He complains
to God not about God. He goes to God's face, not behind God's back.
I have to tell you reading through that, one of the convictions I came to is I actually need to do more
groaning with God. His honesty with God, the edginess of his language with God… There's nothing
polite. I think Moses must have had such a deep, authentic, alive, real, honest life with God. If you ever
find your prayers feel kind of boring or dull or there's no life in them, maybe it's because not enough of
that reality is going on.
See, God can work with groaning. God wants us to go through life without grumbling, so here's the thing.
The idea of, "I quit complaining" is not, "I'm filled with just as much negativity and sourness and
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pessimism and ingratitude as ever, but I'll try to suppress it by an act of will and act cheerier." That's not
God's will for our lives. God's will is that we actually be transformed so that I learn to experience this day,
this moment, this place, being with you, as a gift from God, a gift of God's grace. "God, I'm so thankful."
Now that's going to take some transformation for me and for you and for us to be the most grateful church
around, because I'll tell you what, guys. We're sure a blessed church. Wouldn't it be a wonderful thing if
the level of our gratitude achieved the level of our blessing? Wouldn't that be a cool thing? There are tools
and resources for us to practice this week through which God can begin to transform us into people who
are genuinely grateful. We all want this. We really do.
One of them is that we actually practice the expression of gratitude, whether or not we're experiencing the
emotion. I want to tell you, this is so powerful. A couple of weeks ago I went to visit the home of
somebody who is part of our church and has been part of our church for a long time. She is in a very bad
physical condition. Physically speaking, humanly speaking, there is no hope.
We chatted a little bit, and then I asked her, "How are you doing, really?" I'll never forget this. She just
looked at me and said, "I've had a wonderful life, and I'm surrounded by people I love. I have my family
right here. The pain isn't bad. I know it might be, but the pain is not bad. I have so much to be grateful
for." That's what she said. "I have so much to be grateful for."
I have to tell you, I want to grow into that. The place it starts really is just to express gratitude. When I
was a kid, maybe the first verse I memorized when I was a boy… The old King James translation of it is
in Psalm 100. "Make a joyful noise unto the LORD…" I was thinking about that this week. That's kind of
an odd phrase. "Make a joyful noise…" Anybody can do that. A joyful noise. It's not very specific.
Part of what's interesting is he doesn't say, "Have a joyful feeling." He says, "Make a joyful noise…"
Why? Well, because I can do that. I can't make myself have… It's easier to actuate into a feeling than to
feel your way into an action. I love how Eugene Peterson translates Psalm 100 in The Message Bible. This
is how he translates it. "On your feet now—applaud GOD!" In our day, that's the joyful noise. "Bring a
gift of laughter…" When you come to church, when you gather with friends, bring a gift of laughter.
"…sing yourselves into his presence." That's why singing is such a good thing. It expresses the heart.
"Enter [the presence of God] with the password: 'Thank you!'" I love that password. Does anybody
have a lot of passwords in your life these days? Does anybody ever grumble about passwords? I was
thinking about this. I have so many passwords. I have them for Audible and Kindle and bank accounts and
security stuff. I have a whole file of my passwords that's password protected, and I forgot the password to
that file. So then I was grumbling about that.
The password for going into God's presence is, "Thank you." "On your feet now—applaud GOD!" Now I
was thinking about this phrase. "On your feet now—applaud GOD!" I was thinking how cool it would be
to be a part of a group that was so fired up authentically about God's goodness. Now we're a Presbyterian
church, so we would never do that. I understand that.
How cool would it be sometime to be with people (we wouldn't do this, but somebody might) who stop
and think, "You know, when I woke up this morning, it wasn't a coincidence. God woke me up. God put
me in my right mind. I have a table, and I had food on it. I had clothes to put on. A lot of people in the
world don't. There's this fabulous planet I get to live on. Not just on a great planet with sunrises and
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sunsets and trees and birds that sing, but I get to live in California, the best part of the great planet, with
oceans and mountains.
Not just that, I have a family, and I have a church family, people who care about me. Then there's the
Bible. I get to actually learn about who God is. Then there's the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is in my life.
I don't have to be alone. I have a spiritual gift I can use to make a difference in the world. Then best of all,
God gave me Jesus, the Master of life, whose teaching still changes the world and whose life is a
matchless piece of goodness and beauty.
Then he died on a cross, and I have the forgiveness of my sins. Not one of them is counted against me by
my God. Then Jesus rose from the dead. I have the resurrection at work in my life, in my body, in my
words right now. Then I have heaven to look forward to. I don't have to worry about dying, because I'm
going to be with God forever."
Wouldn't it be cool someday (I know we wouldn't do that, but…) to be with a group of people who are so
excited about God, when the Bible says, "On your feet now—applaud GOD!" they actually did it?
Wouldn't that be a cool thing? To just say, "Yes, God!" That's our God. That is our God. I don't know. I
have to tell you. You know, we applaud for the goofiest things. Somebody hits a ball with a stick and
people just go crazy. Somebody runs a pigskin over a line and people just go nuts.
Here's the God of the universe. Every once in a while somebody ought to jump up to their feet. "Oh God,
what a great God you are." That's the password. See, that's how I come into his presence. One of the
things I've been doing this last year that I've been super grateful for is this exercise (and it goes way, way
back). In the morning (not every day, so it doesn't get rote, but very often), I'll just write down five items
in my life.
It might be something as simple as a cup of coffee in the morning or the sound of a bird singing outside
my window or a conversation I had with my daughter last night. I just think, "God, what a good God you
are. How grateful I am to be alive in your world." It's the password. Then I connect the dots, that I'm
aware, "God is right here."
This tool is available now to you wherever you are, whatever is going on in your life every day, every
moment, right now. We live in a culture in a world that will keep trying to tell you, "No, grumble,
grumble, grumble, grumble, grumble." But God isn't in the grumble. God is in the gratitude. That's one
tool for you, one vehicle.
Then I want to say a word. I want to say a word especially to everybody who is really hurting, because
that will be a fair number of folks in our church. If it's not you today, it will be you someday. Then you
groan. I've been eager to tell you about this. One of the most amazing passages in the Bible is about
groaning. Groaning goes way deeper. You know, what the Bible talks about is not just this kind of human
"be happy" deal. Groaning goes right down to the core. This is what Paul wrote to the church at Rome.
These are amazing words.
"…the creation itself…" This planet, this earth we love, it's all messed up. It's all polluted. It's torn about
with violence. "For the creation was subjected to futility… The whole creation has been groaning
together in the pains of childbirth until now." That little word again. All of creation is groaning. See,
groaning is what you do when you hurt so much that words can't express it. We want to protect people we
love from it, but we can't.
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When our daughter Laura was not even quite a year old, we took her to the hospital. She had to get
inoculated. She hadn't gone through that yet. I'll never forget holding that little body. The doctor came,
and there was this needle that just looked huge to me. Laura was smiling and happy. Then that needle
went into her, and she groaned. She let out a cry.
Her eyes got really big, and she looked at me like, "How could you do this to me? Every moment up until
now, you've just protected me from pain. You've never hurt me. Why did you hurt me now?" I looked at
her and said, "Oh, honey. This was Mommy's idea. I would never do this to you."
See, groaning goes way deep. Creation groans. Things aren't the way they're supposed to be. Death and
sickness and pain and suffering…it's all wrong. A happy attitude cannot paper over that. It's not supposed
to. Then Paul goes on. "And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the
Spirit, groan inwardly…"
We all, as human beings, do this. Those of us who know and love and seek to follow God, who name the
name of Jesus, who have been given the Holy Spirit, we're not exempt from groaning. See, this ought to
be a place of great gratitude where we're just lavishly grateful to God, where we stand to our feet and
applaud to God. This ought to be a place where groaning is welcome and honest and real.
So many people get confused about this. They think if something bad happens and they're sad, they've
done something wrong, or God has done something wrong, or we're supposed to be part of this bargain
where as long as you follow Jesus and you're obedient, everything will be okay. Not so much! Not since
the time of Job. Not since before that.
"…we…who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly…" Not just that. Not just that! This is the
great mystery. This is amazing. This gets us to the heart of God. Paul says, "Likewise the Spirit helps us
in our weakness." The Spirit helps us in our weakness, not by making things okay, not even by making us
tough. "For we do not know what to pray for as we ought…" We don't have the words. "…but the
Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words."
Creation groans. People groan. Christians groan. Who else groans? God groans. Do you understand? Our
God, the holy, matchless, wondrous, powerful, joyful Creator of all that is is a groaning God. Only the
God of the Bible is a groaning God. Only the God who Jesus made known to us is a groaning God. The
most mysterious words Jesus ever spoke on the cross, when he was in anguish…physical anguish,
spiritual anguish…he groaned a cry that's come to be known as the Cry of Dereliction. "My God, my God,
why have you forsaken me?"
In Jesus, God groans with you so that one day you can reign in love and power and joy with God. That's
our God, a groaning God. That's why we stand up and applaud our God. There is no other God like that.
He will be with you, and he will give you through his Son Jesus and the Spirit of Jesus the power to live a
life that far transcends the kind of grumbling after stupid stuff that we all want to quit. That's what we're
doing so we can come into this world, so we can come into this year together. I think it's going to be our
best year ever by far…you know, with more God in us than we've ever been able to hold before.
Next week, we're going to look at quitting the one thing that may, if we don't quit it, make us most unlike
Jesus. Next week we're going to look at quitting the one thing that may make you more miserable than
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anything else. I cannot tell you what that is, so you have to come back for that. Don't grumble about it, but
don't miss next week. Let's pray.
Take a moment before God. Maybe you're here and you're just aware of so many things that maybe you
often take for granted, get complacent about. Now is your time to be grateful. If that's the case, do that
right now without guilt or without apology. You don't have to say to God, "I don't do this often enough."
Just tell him right now, because our Father loves this like a father loves it from any child. "Oh God, thank
you. Thank you for all you've given me. Thank you for your goodness to me. Thank you for my life.
Thank you for my friends. Thank you for what I have." Just tell him thank you.
If you're here and your heart is in pain, if you're here and there's something broken way down in your
soul, then you groan right now. Name it as best you can. "God, my heart is broken. God, I'm afraid. God,
I'm alone." Then you know as you do that, the Spirit of God is interceding for you with groanings too
deep for words. God knows, and God cares all about you.
God, hear our prayers. We offer them in Jesus' name, amen.
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