The Lutheran Hour
-
"A Cross for Complainers"
- No Sermon MP3 No bonus material MP3
-
Text: Numbers 21:1-9
-
PRAYER: O Lord of love, O God of grace, the psalmist is correct: You do not treat us as we deserve because of our sins. Daily we often forget to speak to You in prayer. All too often, O Lord, on Sunday, we prefer “talking heads” on television rather than sitting joyfully and expectantly at the feet of a preacher as he proclaims Your cleansing, living, and life-giving Word.
O Lord, the hour is late for each of us. Plant into our heart and soul a deep desire and a sincere hunger for your life-giving Word; and through Your re-creating Word and Spirit, heal us, O Lord, from every indifference toward You. Draw our hearts and lift our eyes to the blood-stained and sin-cleansing cross of Your Son, Jesus. In Jesus’ intercessory name, we pray with confidence. Amen.
“More than ever before, most people are concerned not about others, but about themselves.” This is the conclusion of a recent secular study of our society. This same secular study reveals the majority of us complain endlessly about everybody else and about our self-centered society. We claim we regret that our family ties are weakening. We whine that we can’t trust anybody anymore. We are tired of long checkout lines. We complain there are so few clerks to help us. This complaining and whining goes on and on!
Now, if you’re willing to admit you also complain about your government, or about church, or your spouse, or your children, then you need to listen closely as the Lord speaks to you with His Words of cleansing and healing.
Griping, whining, and complaining are horrible sins. First, these despicable sins make you miserable and depressed. Even more important–griping and complaining makes God very angry. God’s Good News for you, however, is this. Your gracious heavenly Father sincerely and lovingly and mercifully desires to cleanse your heart from your godless attitude of negative thoughts and endless whining. Yes, by His Holy Word and Spirit, God will cleanse and heal you. By the grace of God, your old negative thoughts can be removed. In Christ, all things can become new for you!
Read now about an event in history that powerfully demonstrates how the Lord dealt with His people, like yourself, in order to cleanse their hearts. In the Bible in the Old Testament book of Numbers, we read that in order to prepare for Himself a special people, God had the Israelites live in the desert for a number of years. In this situation, our heavenly Father took great care to feed and clothe His children–even miraculously. One day, the Bible explains, “God’s people set out from Mount Hor, by way of the Red Sea, to go around the land of Edom.” However, the Bible also explains, “People became impatient because of the journey.”
“These people,” the Bible tells us, “spoke against God and against Moses. ‘Why,’ these people asked Moses, ‘have you brought us out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? There is no food here,’ they said. ‘There is no water. And we loathe, yes, we very much dislike this miserable food.'”
Now when it comes to the Lord’s patience, this was the “straw that broke the camel’s back” as we say. The complaining was more than God would tolerate. The Bible tells us, “The Lord sent fiery serpents among the people. These poisonous snakes bit the people and many people died.” These bites were the judgment from God for endless griping and constant complaining. Sound familiar?
Well, now the Bible further explains, “the people came to Moses and said, ‘We have sinned, we have sinned,’they said, ‘because we have spoken against the Lord and against you Moses!’ ‘Intercede,’ they pleaded to Moses. ‘Intercede with the Lord, so He will remove the serpents from among us.'”
At this point, the Bible explains, Moses interceded for the people. But that’s not the end of the story, you see. “At this point, the Lord said to Moses, ‘Make a fiery serpent. Set the serpent or the snake on a standard or upon a pole. It shall come about that everyone who is bitten by a poisonous snake when he or she looks at this serpent raised up on the pole will live.'”
So the Bible says, Moses made a bronze serpent. He set it atop a standard or a pole. Miracle of miracles, it came about that all who were bitten by poisonous snakes, if they looked to the bronze serpent, their life was saved” (Numbers 21:1-9)!
This historical event, my friends, is dramatic, encouraging, and filled with hope for you. When Jesus met Nicodemus, Nicodemus also was searching for hope. For Nicodemus’ sake, Jesus connected the story of the saving serpent on the pole with Himself. Jesus said, in John 3:14, “Just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up on the cross, so that all who commit the deadly sin of endless griping and complaining can have forgiveness and be saved.”
So, friends, because of your complaining God has sent the snake of a guilty conscience to bite you. However, you can get rid of this horrible sin of whining and complaining by fixing your eyes on the bloody, and the powerful sin-cleansing cross of Calvary.
The greatest help, the greatest hope God the Father has given you is Jesus Christ. If God sent His Son to die a painful and bloody death on the crucifixion cross, you can be absolutely sure your blessed heavenly Father will also supply all your other needs in life. The Bible says, “If God is for you, who can be against you?” “He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up to the cross for us all, how will He then not also with Jesus freely give us all the other things in life?” (Romans 8:32)
Yes, Jesus paid the supreme price for you. Jesus did not buy you back from your sins with gold or silver but with His precious blood. He did this so you can be His own dear child and serve Him daily in His Kingdom. “When you were dead in your sins,” St. Paul says, “God made you alive in Christ” (Colossians 2:13). Live each day with the New Testament promise of Hebrews 2 that Jesus Christ became a person like yourself, so through His death and His resurrection, He could cleanse you and make you free from the sin of thankless whining and endless complaining. Yes, Jesus died on the cross so He could break the chain of death and establish for you the “blessed assurance” that when you leave this life, you too can possess the concrete hope that God will raise you from the dead with all believers in Jesus and give unto you and all believers a permanent “pass” into heaven and into His very presence forever!
It is good for all of us to regularly recall how God sent poisonous snakes to bite those people who complained. And, if your conscience is now “biting” you about all your endless complaining, this is God’s Spirit biting you. Jesus said the Holy Spirit will convict the world of sin, including you, concerning your sin.
This dramatic event in history, this real life Bible story of snakes in the Old Testament biting people, is certainly a shock to all those who take complaining lightly and those of us who dismiss whining as inconsequential. In God’s eyes, whining and complaining are very, very serious sins. They are a slap in the face of our gracious and merciful heavenly Father. The weeds of endless whining and daily complaining grow out of the sinful roots of a thankless heart. And, through our sins, we condemn ourselves. Yes, through your constant complaining, you hang a chain around your own neck. Consequently, you cause your own life to be very miserable.
Again, however, the GOOD NEWS of God is this: Just as God was both righteous and merciful to His children in the Old Testament, so also today, through His Word and Spirit, God desires to be righteous and merciful to you. Yes, just as God in the Old Testament raised up a serpent on a pole to save all those who in faith would look to the serpent, so also God has caused His own Son to be raised up on the bloody cross to pay for all of your sins.
My friends, the crucifixion cross of Christ has the power to wipe away forever all of your past sins and all of your past mistakes. When you pass by a church or a cemetery or if you’re driving by and see a cross, remember the power this salvation tool of God has for you. Never feel ashamed to wear the cross or make the sign of the cross.
Just as you go to the doctor or the hospital to receive a remedy for infection of bacteria or germs so your body is healed, so also seek with Godly determination to rid your soul of all the religious infections of whining and all the spiritual germs of complaining. Do this, my friends, by receiving into your eyes and ears the spiritually healing and life-giving Words of Jesus. Jesus told His disciples as He is saying to you today, “You are already clean because of the Words I have spoken to you” (John 15:3).
Jesus is the Divine physician. He is your spiritual doctor. Jesus fervently desires to heal your soul from the serious but curable disease of whining and endless complaining. Today, the doors to Christ’s clinic stand open. From the crucifixion cross His arms are open wide! “My Father,” Jesus said, “is working until now and I myself am working” (John 5:17). Through the psalmist the Lord says, “He sends His Word to ‘heal’ people like yourself” (Psalm 107:20). Trust in the Biblical promise of Hebrews 1 that God “upholds all things by the Word of His power.”
Every time you find yourself whining or complaining, keep in mind what happened to the Israelites as they wandered in the desert. When they complained, God sent poisonous snakes to bite them. The next time you whine and complain, remember in God’s eyes whining and complaining are serious sins. These, my friends, are the sins which nailed Jesus Christ to the bloody cross. And, it is only the power of the blood of Jesus shed on Calvary’s Cross that can wash you clean from the soul-destroying sin of complaining and also enable you to start a new life of praise and thanksgiving to your heavenly Father.
Last November the International Times newspaper carried a lengthy article describing an art exhibit in Frankfurt, Germany. This news article stated that the aim of the art exhibit was to “analyze the significance of blood in human culture.” This exhibit gave a history of blood all the way back from the earliest times of the Mayan Indians up to today. This art was also exhibited to show that “across many cultures,” according to the journalists, “there is a belief in blood’s almost ‘magical potency’.. . .this belief continues to shape our cultures.” This International Times article goes on to point out that “no single person’s blood has been more culturally important than the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.”
Oh, the blood of Christ may indeed be culturally important. But, for you, the blood of Christ is all important. The Apostle John says, “The blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, has the divine power to cleanse you–to cleanse you of your past mistakes.” This includes all your past sins of whining and complaining against your family, against people where you work, people in your church and relatives, and so on and so forth.
O Lord, we pray, have mercy on all of us. Each of us has sinned terribly through our endless griping and complaining. By Your Spirit, move all of us to confess with the psalmist: “Be gracious to me, O God, according to Your loving kindness. According to the greatness of Your compassion, blot out my transgressions of griping and complaining. Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I know my transgressions and my sin is ever before me. Against You, O Lord, against You only I have sinned and done what is evil in Your sight. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me. Restore unto me the joy of Your salvation” (Psalm 51:1-4, 10, 12).
O heavenly Father, we pray, because without You we are spiritually helpless and hopeless, by Your Spirit, refresh all that hear Your Word of cauterizing law and healing Gospel at this hour. Cleanse each of us from our sins, and, restore us to the joy of Your blessed salvation. In Your Son, the Lord Jesus Christ, Amen.
LUTHERAN HOUR MAILBOX (Question & Answers) for March 3, 2002
ANNOUNCER: For more on the topic of thanklessness, I’m Mark Eischer. Joining me is Dr. Wallace Schulz. Dr. Schulz, why should people believe people from the church when they complain about a thankless society?
SCHULZ: Well, I’ll tell you when somebody asks me such a question, I just don’t answer it. Instead I simply refer them to secular sources. By this, I mean, it’s interesting that in recent years it has not been church leaders or officials pointing out the thanklessness of our culture, it is actually secular spokesmen.
ANNOUNCER: So, when secular social experts notice this, then obviously these trends are present and serious? I think we need to ask the next question though, what has led our society to become so thankless?
SCHULZ: Here, Mark, I think we must remember that according to the Bible, we are sinful by nature. So it is part of who we are and what we do. However, this then is intensified by the popular philosophy of “do your own thing” and “have it your way.” In the past three or four decades, this selfish philosophy has produced horrible results. “What you sow to the wind, you will reap in a whirlwind.”
ANNOUNCER: But, Dr. Schulz, didn’t you say when we gripe and complain, we are actually digging our own hole. We are “hanging a stone around our own necks”?
SCHULZ: Absolutely. Even to a godless and self-centered society, this point has to be made again and again. You see, griping and complaining have absolutely no salutary or positive benefits. A griping and endless complaining attitude always, always ends up in the pit of despair and hopelessness. This is unavoidable.
ANNOUNCER: But now, let’s speak to those who know they are caught in this trip of griping, but they don’t know what to do to free themselves from it.
SCHULZ: Now, that’s the real question, Mark. There are indeed many of us, who upon self-evaluation realize we are caught in this terrible sin of griping and complaining, but we feel so helpless.
ANNOUNCER: What do we do?
SCHULZ: This is where one needs help from the outside. You know, when we are sick, we can’t cure ourselves. We need help from the outside, from a doctor. Likewise, when we have the sinful disease of griping and complaining, we need help from the Divine Physician, our heavenly Father. When God speaks his Word of Law and Gospel to our heart, this is like a physician giving us a pill or an inoculation which first cleanses us from the disease, and then heals and restores us. This is also why, by the way, the psalmist in Psalm 51 first acknowledges his sin. Then he thanks God for His cleansing power. Then he rejoices over the salvation the heavenly Father promises everyone through the sin-cleansing and life-giving blood of Jesus Christ.
ANNOUNCER: So, Dr. Schulz, what is the bottom line?
SCHULZ: Well, for today, I think we should be very simple and direct. 1. There is not one of us not tangled up in some way in the sin of griping and complaining. 2. There is no way any one of us can fight our way out of this and heal ourselves from this spiritual disease. 3. Our heavenly Father, our Divine Physician, is standing by willing and desiring to help us. 4. The medicine for the prescription that our heavenly Father wants to give us is the cleansing, healing and life-giving Word of His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
ANNOUNCER: Dr. Schulz, in closing, focus in on that last bit about the prescription for healing?
SCHULZ: The prescription is this: Jesus Christ, out of love for all those listening today, voluntarily went to the cross to shed His innocent blood and die for the sins of all mankind. The powerful Good News of His sin-cleansing blood is that medicine which eradicates and sanitizes and kills the germs of whining and complaining. This blood, then, is guaranteed to heal all those who hear this GOOD NEWS today and give them a new life. The old will pass away and behold a new life is waiting for each of you at this moment.
ANNOUNCER: Thank you, Dr. Schulz.