Grace is greater Ch.8.

Ch.8. More Peaceful Than Your Disappointments
           Peaceful > Your Disappointment

 I didn’t know the person who submitted the request. His name was Marcus and he was asking for financial assistance. At our church we get a lot of applications for benevolence support, but this one was unusual. He was asking for help to pay for his headstone and its inscription. I assumed we could probably say yes, but first I wanted to learn a little more. It’s not every day someone asks for help to buy their own grave marker. I thought whatever words he wanted to have inscribed might tell me a little more about him. I soon had my answer. Here’s what he wanted to have etched on his headstone:

   Forgive Me for the Days I Wasn’t Grateful.

 Suddenly I had a number of questions. What was he dying of? How much time did he have left? Why did he want that plea to be his legacy? And is it really a sin to be ungrateful? That seemed a loittle overstated. I decided to set up a meeting with him so Icould explore these questions.

                            Sin? Really? 

 Before I had a chance to meet with Marcus, I found myself haunted by his desired epitaph. Forgive me for the days I wasn’t grateful ?

 I started thinking about all my whinning and complaining over the years. Entire stretches of my life could be labeled, “Kyle wishes things were different.” I’m willing to admit this wasn’t the best attitude, but was it sin? And if it was, wasn’t it just a small, insignificant one?  I mean, ingratitude has to be on sin’s JV team, right? Was it really something I needed to ask forgiveness for, to repent of?

 I began thinking about the verse that says “Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus” (1Thess. 5:18). 

 And then it hit me: this is not just a helpful suggestion or a hint for healthy living. It’s a command, like “Thou shalt have no other gods before me” and “Thou shalt not kill.”  I’m guessing God didn’t wink when he said it. He commanded it, and if we don’t do it, we’re disobeying him. Disobedience is sin, and sin is something we need to ask forgiveness for and repent of.

 In Exodus 16 we see the Israelites wandering in the wilderness. God had miraculously led them out of their oppressive bondage in Egypt. Now these former slaves are making their way across the desert to the land God promised them, a land they could call their own. But as they make their journey, we find them complaining.

 In the desert the whole community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. The Israelites said to them, “If only we had died

by the Lord’s hand in Egypt! There we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted, but you have brought
us  out  into  this desert  to  starve  this entire assembly to death.” (Exod. 16:2-3)

 They act like they had it so good in Egypt, like it was one never-ending fondue party. “Remember the good old days?” they pine. Yeah, except they left out one thing – the slavery part! The Israelites didn’t lounge around at an all-inclusive resort. They were slaves.

 Despite their constant complaining, God is gracious and provides food for them called manna;. The word manna means “What is it?” or “Whatever it is.” You’ve heard of mystery meat. This was mystery bread, and in fairness to the Israelites, “What is this?” is not unusally a question we ask when something looks especially appetizing. When you sit down for a Thanksgiving dinner, you don’t want to look at a dish and think, What is it? You don’t want to point to something and say to your relative across the table, “Can yu pass me . . . whatever it is?” If you’re a kid, you don’t want to hear your mom say, “You have to take one bite of whatever that is. Some kind of gelatin concoction your grandma made. Just puit some gravy on it. Hold your nose when you swallow and you won’t even taste it.”

 Nevertheless, these people are starving and God miraculously provides manna. But instead of being thankful for God’s provision they complain. They don’t say grace; instead they grumble. Here’s how The Message paraphrases it:

 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! - 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.” (Num. 11:4-6)

 Well, finally, God has heard enough complaining. He gives Moses a message to share with everyone, and we discover just how seriously God takes complaining:

 Tell the people: “Consecrate yourselves in preparation for tomorrow, when you will eat meat. The LORD heard you    when you wailed, ‘If only we had meat to eat! We were better off in Egypt!’ Now the LORD will give you meat, and  you will eat it. You will not eat it for just one day, or two  days, or five, ten or twenty days, but for a whole month - until it comes out of your nostrils and you loathe it – because you have rejected the LORD, who is among you, and have wailed before him, saying, ‘Why did we ever leave Egypt?’” (Num. 11:18-20)

 Did your mom or dad ever say, “You want to cry? I’ll give you something to cry about!”? That’s what’s happening here. “You want meat? Oh, I’ll give you meat. You’ll eat meat until it’s coming out of your nose.”

 Their lack of gratitude isn’t a wink-wink sin; it’s a big deal to God. In fact, hundreds of years later, in Ps. 95, God was still talking about the offensive, faithless complaining of the Israelites in the desert.

 In fact, over a thousand years later, we read in Heb. 3 that God was still talking about all the complaining and whining that took p-lace in the desert.

 The question is, why? Why does God take grumbling and complaining so seriously? It’s because he takes it personally. He graciously provides for his children, but instead of noti9cing and being grateful, the people complain. Of course he takes that personally.

 As I am a father, this characteristic of God makes sense to me. I work hard to provide for my children and make sure they are taken care of. I understand that sometimes they won’t be grateful or appreciate, but when they are grumbling or complaining that can be especially frustrating.

 When the Warriors were in the middle of setting the NBA record for the most wins (before a loss at the beginning of the 2016 season), I splurged and bought tickets for my son and me to watch them play the Indiana Pacers. I wanted him to remember attending a game during this historic streak. The tickets cost more than I should’ve paid, but it was a great memory-making night.

 But let’s imagine that once we were at the game, my son says he’s hungry, so I get up and get him some peanut M&Ms. Imagine that I give him the M&Ms and he takes one look and says, “I don’t like peanut M&Ms! I only want plain M&Ms! I’m not going to eat these.” Now imagine that he spends the rest of the game complaining about the peanut M&Ms. And says things like, “I don’t even know why we’re here; we could’ve stayed home and had plain M&Ms and watched the game on TV!”

 That wouldn’t just hurt my feelings, it would make me frustrated and angry. I’d probably tell him to shut his mouth and suck the chocolate off the peanuts. But maybe it would be a good strategy to swing by Sam’s and buy a five-pound bag of plain M&Ms on the way home and tell him he’s going to eat those M&Ms until they are coming out of nose.

 God has freed his people from slavery and oppression and is leading them to the Promised Land flowing with milk and honey. He has provided for all their needs so they don’t have to worry about a thing. How do the people thank him? “Yeah. That’s all great, God, but could you do something about the food?”

 God takes complaining personally, because complaining overlooks the greatness of the grace we have received. It undermines the Good News of the gospel and ignores the generosity and faithfulness of God. This kind of complaining is offensive to God, because at its core complaining is blasphemous. It’s a way of saying, “I don’t believe God is taking care of me. I don’t believe he will keep his promises. I don’t believe he can redeem what I’m going through.” When you strip it down, complaining is a refusal to trust God and acknowledge his grace in your life.

 Whining is the opposite of worship, and complaining is the rival of grace. We might flinch at that. Perhaps we’d say complaining is the opposite of thanksgiving, not grace. But grace and thanksgiving are closely related in the Bible, even intertwined. We see this in the way we talk. In fact, when we want to express thanksgiving to God before a meal, we often refer to it as “saying grace.”

 When we complain, we stop paying attention to what we have and become fixated on what we don’t have. Complaining has a way of pulling the shade down on the window of grace. It keeps the light of God’s grace from the shining in. The Israelites ignored that they were free for the first time in generations because of their myopic obsession with what was on the dinner menu.

                       Grace-Colored Lenses

 A while back I was at a movie theater, standing in line at the concession stand, thankful for the opportunity to spend a small fortune on some snacks. A guy at the counter three or four people ahead of me was clearly upset with the theater employee about something. I wasn’t close enough to hear exactly what he was upset about, but his voice was raised and his tone was harsh. The young woman working the stand listened patiently but was clearly embarrassed by the situation. Finally the man finished his fit and stormed past me with his large popcorn and drink. I briefly considered sticking out a foot and tripping him, but I wasn’t positive that’s what Jesus would do, so as he walked by I just let out a passive-aggressive laugh and shook my head at him condescendingly.

 When I reached the counter I asked the young lady, “What was the guy’s problem?” She explained he was angry because he thought she put too much popcorn in his bucket! He didn’t think he  could carry it without spilling some.

It was then that I knew . . . Jesus definitely would have tripped him.

 Talk about losing perspective. He looked at his bucket over-flowing with delicious, buttery popcorn and got upset because some of it was probably going to spill on the way back to his seat.

 Research has proven that the more we complain, the more we find things to complain about.1 One study separated participants into two groups. The first group was assigned to keep a daily “irritation journal” of things that annoyed them. Participants in the second group were told to keep a “thanksgiving journal” of things they were grateful for. They found those who kept thanksgiving journals had greater overall energy and enthusiasm, slept better, and were less depressed. They also discovered that what each group was assigned to do, intentionally, they started doing unintentionally. People who had to list annouances became increasingly discontent. People who had to list positives became increasingly grateful. Grumbling, like grace, has a way of becoming the lens through which we look at life.
                              footnote
  1 Harvard Mental Health Letter, “In Praise of Gratitude,”  Harvard Health
     Publications, Nov. 2011, 
     http://www.health. harvard. edu/newsletter_article/in-praise-of-
     gratitude.

 Complaining keeps us focused on what we wish was different rather than being thankful for what we have. This is why so many people who visit third-world countries come back more grateful for what they have. They’ve been given the gift of perspective. If you’re on social media, you may have seen the hashtag #FWP. It stands for “First World Problems.” Typically this is used to make fun of people who are complaining about “problems” that should be viewed as blessings. Some actual examples from the internet:

   “So frustrating to get home from the grocery store and not be able to fit the food in the fridge.”
   “This movie is taking soooo long to download.”
   “I’m so sick of eating at all the restaurants near work.”
   “Ugh. I hate it when my Apple watch doesn’t register the  right distance when I run on the beach. It’s clearly

    gonna be one of those days . . .”

 Complaining causes us to become increasingly obsessed with our less-than-perfect circumstances. Gratitude, on the other hand, isn’t dependent on circumstances. It recognizes that God’s grace  is  reason  enough  to  be thankful in all circum-
stances.

 I know this will make me sound a little pathetic, but I sometimes struggle with contentment on airplanes. Yep, instead of appreciating the miracle of flight and being grateful that I can make a journey in a few hours that not too many years ago would have required months, I find myself discontent because I’m not in first class. I walk past first-class passengers, with their massive amounts of legroom and armrests the size of small beds, to my cramped little space in coach. I immediately put my arm on the slender armrest, because you have to stake out that territory from the beginning. Then I grab the Sky Mall magazine and it ruins me. It’s full of inventions you never knew existed but now realize you can’t live without. Just like the Israelites, I find myself forgetting what I have and grippingt about what I don’t have.

God wants me to be thankful, but when I complain I lose sight of what I have to be thankful for.

 A close friend of mine recently decided that instead of selling his used car or trading it in, he was going to give it to his sister, who really needed it. The vehicle was worth about ten thousand dollars, it was in good shape, and he gave it to his sister she said thanks, but that was about it.

 A few weeks later his sister sent a text complaining about having to pay taxes on the vehicle, and a little later she complained about having to put two new tires on it. When he saw her recently, she started telling him that the air-conditioning wasn’t blowing cold enough. My friend was more than annoyed by her complaining. As he finished telling me about it, here is the conclusion he reached: “I should’ve just traded it in. Believe me, that will be the last time I do anything like that.” He was trying to be generous and thoughtful, and instead of being grateful she was constantly whining.

 Complainers are going to complain. It doesn’t matter how generous the provision or how thoughtful the gift, they will still find something to complain about. The more you complain the more you find something to complain about. The Israelites made up stuff to be upset about. They acted like they sat around all day in Egypt eating meat: “Hey, guys, remember when we were in Egypt we sat around the Hibachi grill and drank espressos? Those were the days.”

                     Complaining Is Contagious

 Like grace, complaining has a way of spreading. Complaining spreads from one person to another and can infect an entire community. It just takes one whiny family member, one negative neighbor, or a couple of critical church members fro the community to become infected.

 Complaining is contagious because the person is pointing out to everyone else how things could be better. Walk into a room and tell everyone it’s too cold, and soon everyone will feel chilly. You won’t notice the Thanksgiving stuffing is dry until someone points it out. It never bothered you that the game wasn’t in high definition until a buddy starts talking about how much better it would be to watch the game in HD.

 In Numbers 11, the grumbling started with the “riffraff,” who soon had everyone complaining. God’s people should have been positive and grateful because God had rescued them and provided for them, but instead the noise God hears from heaven is grumbling.

                      Reasons to Be Grateful

 In his book Seeing through the Fog, former megachurch pastor Ed Dobson  tells  about his first twelve years of living with LouGehrig’s disease, or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). ALS is a degenerative disease with no known cause or cure. Dobson shares his ongoing struggle to give thanks while living with an incurable condition. He writes:

 There are many things for which I am not grateful. I can no longer button the buttons on my shirt. I can no longer put    on a heavy jacket. I can no longer raise my right hand above my head. I can no longer write. I can no longer eat  with my right hand. I eat with my left hand, and now even that is becoming a challenge. And over time all of these challenges will get worse and worse. So what in the world do I have to be grateful for?
     So much.
 Lord, thank you for waking me up this morning. Lord, thank you that I can turn over in my bed. Lord, thank you that I can still get out of bed. Lord, thank you that I can walk to the bathroom. . . .  Lord, thank you that I can still brush my teeth. . . Lord, thank you that I can still eat breakfast. Lord, thank you that I can still dress myself. Lord, thank you that I can still drive my car. Lord, thank you that I can still walk. Lord, thank you that I can still talk. And the list goes on and on. I have learned in my journey with ALS to focus on what I can do, not on what I  can’t do. I have learned to be grateful for the small things in my life and for the many things I can still do. 2
                               footnote
  2 Ed Dobson, Seeing through the Fog: Hope When Your World Falls Apart

(Colorado Springs: David C. Cook, 2012),            69-70
 
 Here’s a guy who is on a painful, debilitating march to death. It would seem that he has plenty to complain about, but he’s not looking at life through that lens. He’s looking at his circumstances through the lens of grace and he is grateful.

                   Complaining about Blessings?

 Recently I decided to sit down and look back on my life through the lens of God’s grace. What I have discovered is that I can look back on parts of my life I would have complained about to discover God’s grace in them instead. I may have wished at the time things were different, but now I can see how grace has redeemed those things in my life today.

 For example, I’m in my dream job because of a disgusting toilet. Let me explain. One of the greatest joys I have in my life these days is pastoring at an amazing church in Louisville, Kentucky. I know it is only by God’s good grace that I have the privilege of being a part of what he is doing in this church. I’m incredibly thankful and grateful for the privilege. But what I realize now is what God used to bring me to this place often involved circumstances I complained about and situations I wished were different at the time.

 Let me trace God’s grace through these circumstances (I’m going to attempt to reverse engineer God’s grace; stick with me on this).

 Before coming to be a pastor in Louisville, I was leading a church I had started in Los Angeles County. Coming out of seminary, I didn’t want to start a church; I wanted to preach. I had applied to about a dozen churches, but none of them even called me back. Apparently they weren’t interested in a twenty-one-year-old preacher with no experience. I realized the only way I was going to be able to preach at a church was to start one. At the time, it didn’t seem fair. I certainly wasn’t thankful and thought to myself, I wish things were different.

 The reason I wanted to be a preacher is because I fell in love with it in college. I never thought I would be a preacher. I always thought I would be a youth pastor. That was the plan. In fact, my freshman year I applied to a bunch of churches hoping to be their youth pastor, but no one was interested.

 Then, one weekend, a small church in town was desperate for a preacher. They called me on a Thursday and asked me to preach that Sunday. On Sunday, I walked into a sanctuary where a couple dozen elderly people made up the congregation. Thankfully, they asked me to come back the next week, and then the next week after that, and I preached at that church for four years.

 The reason I felt comfortable preaching that first weekend, even though I was only eighteen at the time, was because when I was sixteen I had a job as a tour guide at the Precious Moments Chapel in my hometown. Yes, you can laugh. Thousands and thousands of guests would come to the Precious Moments Chapel every year, and I spoke to large crowds of them as their tour guide. Precious Moments has a biblical foundation, so I would get to present the gospel regularly. I never planned on working at Precious Moments. At the time, I didn’t want to be working at all, and I wished things were different.

 The reason I had to get a job was because not long after getting my driver’s license I borrowed my mom’s car to drive to Taco Hut. Taco Hut was not a safe place to eat. But I ate there anyway.

 After eating at Taco Hut, I drove home and pulled my mom’s car into the driveway and I ran into the house. I came out a little later and saw my mom’s car in the middle of the road. It had rolled down the driveway and smashed through our mailbox. Yes, the car had significant damage. My parents told me I had to pay for the repairs. I was not thankful for those circumstances. I wished things were different, so I got a job to pay for the damages.

 The reason the car rolled back down the driveway was because I forgot to put it in park. There was no way I was going to use the bathrooms at Taco Hut. They were just too sketchy. So I sped home in a panic to get in and use the bathroom – and so neglected to put the car in park.

 Are you still with me? Are you putting these pieces together? The reason I have my dream job preaching at our amazing church today is because the bathrooms in my hometown Taco Hut were disgusting!

 Think about the most complaint-worthy thing in your life right now. Go ahead. Before you complain about it, consider what God’s grace may be working to accomplish. What if God is going to take you through this thing and it’s actually going to bring a blessing later? Ultimately our reasons for circumstantial complaining are very few because we worship a God of resurrection. If God can turn the death of Jesus into our salvation, he can do just about anything with whatever we’re going through.

 Now convinced? I would encourage you to try to reverse engineer God’s grace in your life. You may find reasons to be grateful for God’s grace at work in many of the circumstances you wish were different and a lot of what you complained about along the way.

 When you got dumped by someone you really cared for, you may have wished things were different, but now that you are married to the love of your life you can look back and see God’s grace.

 When you didn’t get accepted into that program at school, or you didn’t get that promotion at work, it may not have seemed fair and you may have wished things were different, but now that you are doing what you love you can look back and see God’s grace.

 When you were diagnosed with cancer and going through chemotherapy, you almost certainly wished things could be different, but you saw Jesus during that time in your life and you can look back and see God’s grace.

 Sometimes we look back and realize that we were complaining about a blessing. God’s grace was at work in our lives, but we were too busy grumbling to be grateful for it.

           Forgive Me for the Days I Wasn’t Grateful

 I received the request from Marcus asking the church to help pay for his headstone and thought. I have to meet this guy. Soon, I did.

 Turns out Marcus woke up one morning jaundiced. He described himself as “orange as a pumpkin.” He had been a heavy drinker earlier in his life and assumed he had cirrhosis of the liver. He went to the hospital for testing – and within an hour was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. He was told he had only a few days to live.

He was put on chemo and the progression of the cancer slowed, giving him more time than the doctors predicted.

I asked Marcus about being grateful in such difficult circumstances.

 He answered, “It started . . . it started slowly. I began being grateful for the little things like clothes, my next meal, those material things, you know, that we consider our daily bread. And I began to see things through . . . through different eyes. Now I see things in an eternal light: how this life will have a profound effect on my next life, and how anticipation of the next life is having a profound effect on this life I have now. And it’s been truly amazing.”

 I asked about the inscription he wanted on his headstone. He said, “I want to forward a message on to any wayward passerby who comes across my headstone and maybe identifies with it, and who has the eyes to discern the message. And the simple line is: forgive me for the days I was not grateful. And in that one sentence it states my problem: I was not grateful. And it also includes the solution: forgive me. And that’s the message that I want to pass on.”

 Message received.
God, forgive us for the days we were not grateful.
   
 Give us the grace to recognize your grace and to know that your grace is always reason enough to be thankful, even when we wish things were different.