In this episode of The Flatline, host Rick Hughes discusses the pervasive attitude of complaining that has taken root in society and how Christians can overcome it. Drawing on Philippians 2:14-15, Rick emphasizes the biblical command to do everything without complaining or disputing. He delves into how the mindset of rejoicing in the Lord leads to spiritual growth and provides valuable insights into problem-solving devices like impersonal love and the faith-rest drill.
Welcome to the Flatline with your host, Rick Hughes. For the next 30 minutes, you’ll be inspired, motivated, educated, but never manipulated. Now, your host, Rick Hughes.
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Good morning and welcome to the Flatline. I’m your host, Rick Hughes, and for the next few minutes, please give me a few moments of your time. It’ll just be about 30 minutes of motivation, some inspiration, some education. And always done without any manipulation because we’re not trying to con you. We’re not trying to solicit money. We’re not trying to sell you anything. We’re just trying to give you the Word of God that will help you verify and identify God’s plan for your life. If I can do that, then you can orient and adjust to the plan if you would like to. I’m Rick Hughes, host of the Rick Hughes Evangelistic Ministries Incorporated, located in Alabama. We’ve been hosting this radio show for 975 Sundays now. I don’t know how many years that is, but that’s a long time. And it’s my honor to be doing this with you. You notice we don’t charge. The Lord always provides our money. It’s interesting how it happens because people unsolicited, uncoherent seem to give so that we’d be able to finance these efforts. And it’s not free. The Lord has to provide that, and he always has, and he always will because as long as God’s in it, he’ll pay for it. We believe that. Now, I always thank Jack Steele for our host, for welcoming us. You hear his voice every Sunday, our lead in and lead out. That’s old Jack, my buddy, doing that for us. What a wonderful friend he’s been over these years, ever since we first started. Years ago, we met him in Birmingham, and he’s come along with us the whole time, all 975 shows. So if you’d like to get a hold of us, you can go to our website, rickhughesministries.org. rickhughesministries.org. I love hearing from you. I’ve been getting some phenomenal letters lately from people. that have told me how the word of God has impacted their life through this radio show. And I’d like to hear from you if that’s true. If God has taught you some things, if you have learned some things, if your Christian life has been accelerated or motivated or you’ve gotten closer to the Lord from listening to our show, I would love to hear about it. I’d love to hear what God’s been doing in your life. So don’t hesitate to write to us. You can go to the website rickhughesministries.org and drop us an email from there. You can always mail us a mail letter at P.O. Box 100 in the big city of Cropwell, Alabama. P.O. Box 100, Cropwell, Alabama. The zip code here is 35054. So thank you. Thank you for all your prayers. Thank you for all your encouragement. And thank you for listening this morning. What I’d like to talk to you about is something that’s near and dear to my heart, and as I pray every week, what should I bring, Lord? What would you have me say on the radio show? This came up, and this is something that I think we need to talk about this morning. I want to talk to you about complaining. Complaining. We have a nation full of complainers right now, and many of us, myself included, we’re complaining about a lot of things we don’t like, and we have to learn not to complain. The Bible is very clear, and I’d like to start off with a passage in Philippians 2, verses 14 and 15. Here’s what it says. Do all things without complaining and disputing, so that, and that’s called a purpose clause in the Greek New Testament, so that you, that’s the believers in Philippi, so that you may become blameless and harmless. Oh, that’s indicative of a wonderful personality, blameless and harmless. Children of God. This passage in Paul’s letter to the church at Philippi is very practical and very encouraging. And in this letter, Paul emphasizes the importance of Christians rejoicing in the Lord Jesus Christ. And he mentioned rejoicing eight times in this passage and be glad three times. So this mental attitude of appreciation is part of the believer’s happiness that comes as a result of spiritual growth. We call it problem-solving device number nine in the flat line of your soul or sharing the happiness of God. Remember the Lord Jesus Christ in John 15, 11 said, I’ve taught you these things so that my happiness might be in you and your joy might be full. We do have a book called These Things that deals with what the Lord Jesus Christ taught the disciples the last night before he was arrested, the final five-hour Bible class before he was arrested and taken to Pilate. And you can order that book from the website free of charge along with our latest book called God’s Grace in Aging. And if you’re over 50, you probably need to read it. And they’re both free, so get ahold of it if you’d like to have it. So your mental attitude is what we’re talking about here. Your mental attitude in the face of daily testing and daily trials that we all go through has to be based on our confidence in God’s plan for our life. Sometimes you and I will face situations that appear to be unfair. Yep, unfair, not fair, even prejudicial. And in the spiritual life, this can be a type, what we call momentum testing in your life to see if you’ll react or see if you’ll respond. Essentially, you can do either one of those things. You can react with bitterness, you can let your emotions take over, you can get mad, you can get angry, you can throw a fit, or you can respond with forgiveness and with impersonal love to any situation that appears to be unfair or even unexpected, some kind of unexpected emergency. But in the case of this letter to the Church of Philippi, the problem they’re facing is called people testing. And that’s a very hard test to pass, people testing. I used to speak in a lot of schools over the 50 plus years I’ve been in the ministry. I’ve spoken in hundreds of schools all across the southeast. And teachers would have in-service training. And I would often speak at an in-service training event for different schools. And one of the things I taught about was tests, teachers often fail. And one of those tests is people testing, or how do you deal with the W-O-J in your classroom? A lot of teachers would say, well, what’s the W-O-J? It’s the weird, obnoxious jerk. And there’s always a few of those in every class. So you have to learn how to handle people without vibrating, without reacting. You have to learn how to respond. So people testing can be a real test that even teachers fail, especially if it’s parents sticking their nose into the business where it doesn’t belong sometimes. So when Apostle Paul says, do all things without complaining, And without disputing, he’s referring to believers’ mental attitude in less than favorable circumstances. So let me try to break this verse down for you into the original Greek so that we can understand the command. When I say the original Greek, let me remind you the New Testament was not written in the King James Version. It’s the original Greek manuscripts are written in Koine Greek and some of them in Hebrew and Aramaic in the Old Testament. So we’re gonna go to the Koine Greek New Testament with the best translations that we have so far, and let’s break it down. So we start off with the word. He says, do all things without complaining and disputing. The word do, D-O, very simple word. As a matter of fact, in Romans 7, 15, Paul uses the word three times. He says, for that which I do, I allow not for what I would that do I not, but what I hate that I do. And do sounds like do, D-O, but uh-uh. In the Greek, it’s three different words in that passage. So in this passage, what is the word do? Well, it’s a verb, and it’s pronounced poieo, poieo. And in this case, it’s a present, active, imperative verb of poieo. And that means that this is something that we are to do continually, because it’s a present tense. It doesn’t mean, you know, do it tomorrow and I don’t have to do it again. This is something you have to do forever. Always, you must do this. This is a command from the apostle Paul. Do this. The active voice indicates this must be a volitional decision on their part. They have to decide on their own, do they want to do it or do they not want to do it? And that’s always the test for any believer. Will you or will you not do what the Bible tells you to do? So we have a present, keep on doing this, the active voice, you have to produce the action of the verb, and it’s the imperative mood verb in the Greek New Testament, that’s a mandate or a command. It means that this is something you do continually, and if you disobey this, then you are, what do you think’s gonna happen if you disobey that? You are sinning. You’re committing personal sin. The two sins specifically mentioned here in this passage are complaining and disputing. And so let’s look at these words together. Do all things without complaining and disputing. Complaining is a Greek word pronounced gongousmos. Gongusmos. That’s a weird word, I know, but it’s translated murmuring. And that’s a secret debate or displeasure that’s not openly avowed. Talking behind someone’s back that’s in authority, rejecting their authority, complaining, griping, gritching. We call it gritching. That’s a combination of two words. But I can illustrate it by John 7, 12. And there was much complaining among the people. There’s the word. Concerning him, that’s the Lord Jesus Christ. Some said, oh, he’s good. Others said, no, on the contrary, he deceives people. So they’re going around behind the Lord Jesus Christ back complaining about who he is. This is very clear that you are, from that Greek word do, the verb poiaio, You are never to complain. That’s wrong. It’s a sin to complain. We’re seeing that right now. Moses had the same problem with the Israelites who he led out of Egypt when they were in slavery as they headed towards the promised land. In Exodus 16, 8, Moses said, quote, This shall be when the Lord shall give you in the evening flesh to eat, and in the morning bread to be full, for that the Lord hears your murmuring, that’s your complaining, which you complain against him. And what are we? Your murmurings are not against us, but against the Lord. So this is a great principle to remember. When you start griping, complaining, murmuring, It’s not about the circumstances, it’s about what God told you not to do. You’re complaining to the Lord. Your personal complaints about politicians, your personal complaints about circumstances that you’re in, your personal complaints about your finances, these are against God. Not the situation you find yourself in, It’s you actually failing to use a faithless drill or maybe even failing to use impersonal love, two wonderful problem-solving devices. If you don’t understand the faithless drill, get in touch with me. Let me send you a book on the faithless drill. It’s called Christian Problem Solving. We’ll detail it for you in the book. But it’s how to stand behind the promises of God so you don’t complain. Or if you don’t understand impersonal love, it’s also in that book. And it’s how you can use your love, who you are, for who they are. I mean, you can’t love jerks sometimes. They’re weird people. But you have to. The Lord tells you to love them. So you love them based on who you are, not who they are. That’s exactly what God did for you. Isn’t that true? God so loved the world and gave his only begotten son. Were you a saint when he loved you? No, you were a jerk. And he loved you anyhow. And that impersonal love is a wonderful virtue that you can have as a mature believer. So you have to learn how to do that. How to use impersonal love. The second word Paul used in his passage after using the word complaining is the word disputing. And that’s the Greek word dialogismos. Dialogismos. And you say, well, what is that? That’s a masculine noun, and it means inward deliberation about what is true or what is not true. It’s arguing or doubting. And the arrogant individual who does this assumes he’s right and everybody else is wrong. So this sort of attitude, this arrogant attitude of complaining and disputing is a sort of attitude in a local church that will simply destroy a church. It’s simply competition for power. And that’s exactly what destroys the church and destroys the testimony for Jesus Christ in your local fellowship. And these Christians in Philippi were arguing among themselves and they were not united as one in Christ. Thus the local unbelievers, people that were not Christians, were definitely not attracted to their lifestyle. They could see what was going on and nothing there attracted them. These were just a bunch of complainers. So what about you? Can I ask you a personal question? Do you find yourself complaining about issues in your life? Have you complained about your neighbors lately? You don’t like them? You live next door to them and you just can’t stand them? They keep the noise on all night. They keep the lights on all night. They run lawnmowers during the day when you’re trying to rest. Do you complain about your neighbors? Do you complain about your taxes and how much you got to pay in taxes and how much money the government’s giving away and why do you have to pay all these taxes? Do you complain about your health? All of a sudden you’re sick and you’re at the doctor and are you complaining about what’s happened to you? Do you get on the phone and talk to your friends and complain about what the doctor told you and you don’t believe it? Whatever. Here’s a question. Do you argue with family members? Are those that have a different political opinion than you? Do you argue and carry on disputing with them, complaining, arguing with them? When we complain about anything, we are complaining about things God knew about in eternity past. That’s the omniscience of God. There’s nothing God does not know. So why exactly are you complaining? I’ll tell you why, because we do not apply the doctrine of God’s knowledge to that situation. If we did, then we’d understand that God’s not trying to hurt us. The Bible says nothing there detesting you that hasn’t been done before. There’s always a way out. God’s clear about that. But he puts us through a momentum of testing to see if we will grow spiritually. And so if we don’t apply the word of God to the circumstances, we’re going to fail. Because the complaining, arguing attitude is always indicative of a character flaw called bitterness. Bitterness, picaria, the Greek word, bitterness. Proverbs 14.10, the heart knows its own bitterness. And it’s joy a stranger does not share. Bitterness and jealousy are two sides of the same coin and they go together. Because a bitter person is a jealous person. And the bitter person causes strife. And strife is stress in the soul for sure. You don’t have to live that way. That’s why the Christian life is so unique. That’s why we have a flat line in our soul. If we learn these 10 problem solving devices and use them, then the outside sources of pressure do not compute into the inside source of stress. We don’t have to go that way. We don’t have to have stress in the soul. That’s why the Christian life is unique. No worry, no fear, no stress, no anger, no bitterness. You want to know the quickest way to destroy your spiritual life and just mess up your advance is getting bitter. Because that’s you being completely self-absorbed with the situations going on around you to where you’re bitter about it, you complain about it, you murmur about it. And it just knocks you sideways in your spiritual life. You get into what we call reversionism. You start going backwards, not forwards. You know, there are a lot of injustices in life which Christians must use this category of the faithless drill to put his problems with the people and circumstances into the Lord’s hands. You got to do that. You’re going to have people problems. You’re going to have circumstances problems and either you’re going to complain about it and fuss about it and get bitter about it or turn it over to the Lord and relax. Have you done that? You can appeal to the Supreme Court of Heaven 24 hours a day if you want to. You can avoid any reaction, any complaining, any type of vilification of another individual. You can avoid denial or projection or self-justification. You can avoid blaspheming, gossiping, slandering, maligning people and judging people. You can avoid malice, which is the desire to harm people. All of these sins can be mentioned in Ephesians 4, 28 through 31. And these sins related to arrogance always bring divine discipline unto the believer unless they are confessed. Thank the Lord for rebound. First John 1, 9 says, if we confess our sin, he’s faithful and just to forgive us and to purify us from all of our wrongdoing. So if you have found yourself complaining this weekend, complaining this morning, if you found yourself bitter, go to God and confess it now. If we confess, the word confess is a unique word. It’s the word homo legeo. It’s a compound verb. Homo legeo. Homo meaning the same and legeo meaning to say. And all God’s asking you to do is tell him what you did. Tell him the same thing. I lied. I hated. I was jealous. I was bitter. I was angry. I was mad. These are all mental attitude sins. And if you will go to the Lord and if you will use 1 John 1, 9, then you can be cleansed from those sins. And if you don’t do that, if you continue in your bitterness and your complaining and your murmuring, As a Christian, you will come under discipline from God, and it’s not fun to be under discipline. The Christian under discipline will often complain about his poor misfortune, and sometimes he’ll even claim the devil’s trying to get him. No, it’s the Lord kicking your fanny because of the way you’ve been acting. So Christians who have a tendency to fail, Christians who have a tendency to keep on failing, often will disregard or even make light of their discipline by saying that this is unfair. Why is God doing this to me? Legalistic believers, you know, those people that think they’re impressing God because they don’t smoke, those people that think they’re impressing God because they don’t dance, those people who think they’re impressing God because they don’t drink, Those arrogant believers and emotional believers say they’re right when everybody else is wrong. Believers have that tendency to fail and blame other people and blame God, especially legalistic type. You know, the worst sort of people in the world are self-righteous people, but religious self-righteous people kind of top that. So don’t get trapped like that. Notice Hebrews 12, seven through nine, talking about discipline. It says in Hebrews 12, 7 through 9, if you endure chastening, that’s discipline, then God deals with you as with a son. For what son is there whom the father doesn’t at least chasten or whip, scourge? But if you’re without chastening or without discipline, of which all become partakers, then you’re not really a son. What the Bible is saying, you’re illegitimate. You’re an illegitimate son. Furthermore, the Bible goes on to say in Hebrews 12, 9, we’ve had human fathers who corrected us and we paid them respect. He hit on that word, respect. When your mom or your dad disciplined you, you didn’t strike out at them. You didn’t take a swing at them. You didn’t argue with them. You kept your mouth shut and you took it. You might not have liked it, but you took it. This says, shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live? Uh-oh, I’m gonna read that one more time so you’ll get this about this discipline from God and you complaining about it. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live? What does that mean? Well, if you link that verse with Proverbs 15.10, you’ll figure it out. Here’s Proverbs 15.10. Harsh discipline is for him who forsakes the way, that gets involved in sin, and doesn’t confess it. And listen to the next part. And he who hates correction will die. In other words, you can shorten your life by rebelling against the correction of God. You can actually come under what the Bible calls the sin unto death. There are three stages of discipline, warning discipline, intense discipline, and even dying discipline. And in this passage, Paul gives the attitude the mature believer should possess and the impact that person should have on his surroundings. This is what you should be doing. Listen again. Do all things without complaining, without disputing, so 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, holding fast to the word of life so that in the day of Christ you Paul said, I may be proud that I did not run in vain or in labor in vain. Notice these words, blameless and innocent. What exactly does that mean? Blameless is a Greek word, amemtos, amemtos. And it means deserving of no censure or free from fault or free from defect. It’s what we call a descriptive adjective describing the character of a mature believer who is irreproachable, he’s innocent. Blameless and innocent, innocent is the word akirios, akirios, and that means without a mixture of evil or no hidden agendas, he’s innocent. These are two wonderful character assets of a Christian that’s mature, blameless and innocent, and it’s indicative of the person who is assuming the mind of Christ, the person who is free of blemish, and that’s the same word as blameless, meaning one that cannot be censored. Blameless, no blemish in your life. You cannot be censored by your neighbor, cannot be censored by God, you cannot be censored by your friends because you’re blameless and innocent. Wonderful character assets. So this verse plainly says that they were living in a crooked and a twisted generation. That’s what they lived in. These descriptive adjectives, crooked and twisted, could also describe what our nation today is. The word twisted is a reference to a corrupted influence of the Roman Empire in the times in which this was written. And the word twisted literally means perverted or corrupted. And that’s exactly the mindset of the woke generation in America today. Twisted, perverted, corrupted. And that’s what we have to deal with. That’s what we’re living with today in America. A woke generation that’s twisted today. So what do we do about that? We find ourselves, what, remembering that our job is not to clean up the devil’s world. God didn’t send you here to clean it up, but rather lift up the Lord Jesus Christ. In John 12, 32, and if I be lifted up from the earth, excuse me, I will draw all people to myself. So the Lord Jesus Christ makes that proclamation. You lift me up and I’ll attract people. Our job as Christians is not to complain about our circumstances, but to reflect the glory of our resurrected Savior and hold fast to the truth found in the scriptures. How do we reflect his glory? Matthew 5, 16. Let your light so shine before men that they may see your divine good production and glorify your Father in heaven. Listen to Daniel 12, 3. Those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the firmament, and those who turn many to righteousness will shine like the stars forever and forever. It’s not the job of the mature Christian to complain about the government or to complain about anything. Then there is the complaining category where we grumble and gripe and whimper and whine, and these sort of sins are committed without really thinking about it. We just kind of get emotional reactions to certain situations you find yourself in. It’s very easy to get into the slander category when someone says, well, what do you think about old Bob over there? And you’re going to give your opinion about Bob. What do you think Bob is not essential? What you think about him is not important. If you say, well, you know, he’s a pretty good guy, but he’s got this one really bad habit I wish he didn’t have, and off you go complaining about him, maligning him, judging him. Don’t be suckered into giving your opinion about anybody. You can always avoid that trap by reversing the question, And then you’ll discover what the real agenda actually is. Our mindset must be scripturally grounded in 1 Thessalonians 5, 18. It says, in everything give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. And Paul said, I want to be proud of you. I want to know I didn’t run the race in vain. I want you to grow to maturity. I want you to be that sort of individual that we’re listening. So if that’s my desire for you today, if you’re listening, so many have written and expressed how this ministry has opened their eyes, put them on the road to spiritual maturity, and I pray that you will continue to press on, that you will get under the ministry of a well-qualified pastor, and you will get your soul fed, and he will watch over you as a shepherd watches over his flock, and you will continue to glorify Jesus Christ with everything that you do. Thank you for listening today. This is your host, Rick Hughes. See you next week, same time, same channel.
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Thank you for listening to The Floodline with your host, Rick Hughes. If you’d like to contact Rick, please write to him at P.O. Box 100, Cropwell, Alabama, 35054 or online at www.rickhughesministries.org.
