Grumbling - It Turns Off the Light of Christ

Philippians 2:14
Do all things without grumbling or disputing.

Wow, do I fail here. Often. What I love about the Bible is how often in it God uses terms such as “all.” The verse commands us to do all things, ALL things, without grumbling or disputing. That means even the things I don’t want to do or I don’t like.

You ever want to ask God “Why?” Well, I can save you the trouble this morning. God answered the question as to why we should do all things without grumbling or disputing in the verses following that command. Why should we not grumble or dispute?

Philippians 2:15
So that you will prove yourselves to be blameless and innocent, children of God above reproach in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you appear as lights in the world.

The world sees us acting just like them. We talk about Jesus and how great it is to be His child, yet the world sees a different story. Then we wonder why they don’t respond to us when we ask them to church or we share Christ with them in the hopes of them being saved.

I don’t do very well in this. How about you? Since it says “all” things this means we should do what the boss says, and do it with joy. It means when our spouse asks us to take out the trash, we should be happy to do it. It means all things we do, needs to be done in joy.

Hard? Yes, it is. But God did not leave us alone to accomplish these tasks; He sent His Holy Spirit to live in us and empower us to do this. It’s called the “fruit of the Spirit.”

Galatians 5:22-25
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.
Now those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit.

We have the ability to obey the command. Romans 8:37 says, “in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” And that was speaking about literally dying and being in danger, so we certainly can conquer our grumblings over the day to day life things.

So, here’s the challenge.

Do all things without grumbling or disputing. So, we can be the light of Christ to the lost world.