Stop Complaining and Start Obeying

Philippians 2:12-17

12 Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling; 13 for it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure.

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.

17 Yes, and if I am being poured out as a drink offering on the sacrifice and service of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all. 18 For the same reason you also be glad and rejoice with me.

Yes it is 3:55am in the morning and I have been up since 3:15am this morning. I tried to go back to sleep, but God sent me to the scriptures this morning to examine something I said yesterday and wow did He confirm that He was speaking yesterday and that I needed to be listening. However, I am not alone, many of you and I repeat many of you need to listen to what was said and then examine this scripture thoroughly. So what did I say, well in a very bold way I said your relationship with Jesus Christ cannot be where it is supposed to be if you are someone who complains all the time. So how do I feel this morning? This morning I know that if you are constantly complaining you need to find a quiet place and you and Jesus need to work through some things, some serious things, there is major issues in your relationship. You cannot be constantly complaining about things in your life and be walking in tune with Jesus. If His Word says do everything without complaining, then if you are complaining, you are sinning. You can't complain and be in tune with God in your life anymore than you can lie, cheat and steal and be in tune with God. As I always tell you to do, this morning I got up and I went to Philippians 2:14 which simply states do everything without complaining, and by the way for all you out there in blog land, do everything without complaining means don't complain in the hebrew, and the greek, just saying. As a general rule I tell you to read above and below the scripture to make sure you have a complete understanding of what God is telling you, so what is above this scripture? Well simply put The Word of God certainly confirmed my statement yesterday and today I absolutely believe that we are not at all in tune with God in our if we are constantly complaining about what is going on in our life. Verse 12 states,'work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. Verse 13 says that it is God that works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure. So if you are complaining, is that God working in you? The answer is NO! It is God, not David that preceded the scripture about not complaining with talk of salvation and Him working in your life both to will and to do for His good pleasure. He then states in verse 14, DO EVERYTHING WITHOUT COMPLAINING! Now after  verse 14 God states, 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. Do you get this, do everything without complaining that you may become blameless and harmless children of God, without fault. Some of us are certainly not blameless and we are very harmful because we complain all the time openly and without conviction. That is the scary part of it, we complain so much that the very thing God says will make us blameless and harmless, we don't even feel conviction over. On top of that we openly sin in front of our brothers and sisters in Christ, and in front of the lost, we show no reservation. How is this different from profanity? Drinking? Gossip? What is wrong with us? What is wrong with a group of proclaiming Christians that say they love Jesus, but openly slander this love with constant complaining. We will say on one hand God's timing is perfect? But let that timing not fit what we think it should be and we will start shooting darts out of our mouth and once we get to going like all sin, it snowballs and the next thing you know we pretty much have complained about most everything, then we smile and say, praise God for His blessings. We talk with our brother and sister in need and say, it is ok God's timing is perfect. Tell me which one do you really believe? All the destruction that flows through your mouth one minute or that God's timing is perfect. You can't have both. We thank God for the provisions He gives us and then curse the very job He gave us to provide. We thank God for the relationship He gave us, and then whine about how we don't have time to invest in the relationship. I believe that we always have something to complain about because we always complain. 
Well this pastor is going to take a new approach, I will not complain, I will live thankful and become blameless and harmless. I sure hope that you want to be blameless and harmless. Stop hurting the Kingdom of God with your complaining, just be quiet if you have to, but stop tearing down the very gifts He gives you with the harm the flows from you complaining lips. Your daggers are destroying the kingdom and rendering you powerless. You have a choice today so choose wisely. 


RAK CHAZAK,


Brother Big Daddy