Life.Church with Craig Groeschel - My Big Fat Mouth, Part 1: Complaining

Episode Date: September 10, 2017

Words are powerful. They can beat us down and lift us up. They wound and they heal. And the right words at the right time can be exactly what we need to hear—or what we need to say. Let’s find the right words in a new message series, My Big Fat Mo... Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Hey, thanks for joining us here at Life Church, where we are one church meeting in multiple locations and reaching around the world thanks to what God is doing at Church online. If you ever have any questions or you want to learn more about us as a church, you can always check us out online simply by going to life.church. We'd love you to stay connected throughout your weekend everywhere you go with a Life Church app. It's free and available wherever you download your apps from. For all of us, we know that our words matter. They can build us up.

They can tear us down. They can hurt. They can heal. and the right words at the right time may be exactly what we need to say or exactly what we need to hear. Well, today our senior pastor Craig Rochelle begins an all-new message series about just that, the power of our words. And today we'll see how we're complaining may be more than just blowing off steam in part one of my big fat mouth. I said I love your shirt, but behind your back I said I hate it.

But lightning strike me down if I line me, no one be around with my tongue. I'm tired and everybody says it's okay all the little things I say with my big fat mouth la la la la la la la la la la la la la trouble all right i hope you've been bracing for this message series because some of you have a big fat mouth and so we're going to dive into something that is really really important for us as followers of christ for the next whoever knows how long some people said how long are we actually going to talk about the power of our words. We're going to talk about it until we get it right. It may be four. It may be five years. I don't know how many, how long will do this, but we're

going to do it until you get it right. We're talking about the power of our words because words have the power to give life. Our words actually have the power of death. Jesus said this. He said, out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks. If we are not pleasing to God with our words that shows that our heart is in a very bad place. It just gives evidence to what's already in our heart. So over the next few weeks, we're going to talk about the problem of gossiping. We're going to talk about the problem of lying. We're going to talk about the problem of criticizing. Some of you might say, oh, dear God, I'm bringing someone here to hear that one. This week, to introduce the theme, I want to just show you some photos from a recent trip that

my family took to London, and then I'll tell you the story behind it, and that'll help introduce the theme. We took a trip, it was a work trip. Let me show you a couple of the photos from this trip. This is Joy and Stephen, two of my kids. And let me show you a couple other ones. This is our family out in front of something one day. It's the only picture we got all of us together. And then this is me taking a picture of the family and one of the places that we went on a tour. I was actually in London on a work trip. And when I travel internationally, actually when I travel anywhere on work, I don't have dead time. We get there, we land, we and that's just the way it is. I actually had, because of the way the schedule fell, a day and a half off

in London, which is the most time off I've ever had on a trip like this. And so Amy and I decided, let's fork over the money, bring the kids, make an educational trip, and help them see something that hopefully would be a great experience for them. And so with only a day and a half off, Amy planned out every minute of how to strategize, attack, and maximize this amazing trip to to London. The only problem is that I preached on the weekend, then I had Monday off, and normally I wake up early every day anywhere. It doesn't matter time zones. I'm up 5.36 a.m., whatever. I just wake up. I just do. And so I didn't set my alarm. Well, jet lag evidently hit me in a way that I'd never been hit before, and all of us, all six of us, we slept on our full, only full

day off until 1145 a.m. in the morning. When I got up, Amy didn't hit me, but it was about this close to, why didn't you set the alarm? And so we're panicking, rushing, eating as fast as we can, running out, we're going to enjoy what little of this day we have left. We go to the Tower of London, pay the enormous fee. And one of my kids, which will remain nameless, cries out, I hate this place. This is so boring. How long do we have to stay here? And Amy, who's always laid back, stepped across a threshold of expression that you'll rarely

see in the Grouchel home, and grabbed this kid and said, you will not complain one more time. If there's any more complaining, I'll give you something to complain about. This is history. You're going to love history. You're going to thank God for history. You're going to be worshiping God for history. If you do not, you will be history. Do you understand me?

And those pictures looked like we had an amazing time. But oh my gosh, we almost sent the four kids home and just stayed there to try to enjoy. It was the worst day of complaining that you could ever, ever imagine. And I want to talk today about something that very likely will impact so many of you. Many of us have the problem of complaining. In fact, even when I even think about this subject in the Bible, my mind immediately goes to the Old Testament when I think about the Israelites. And if there was an Olympic sport of complaining, they would gold medal in the sport of complaining. What's crazy is the Israelites spent years and years and years in bondage in slavery.

And then what did God do? God did a miracle upon miracle. He issued the 10 miraculous plagues to change the heart of Pharaoh. parted the Red Sea and drowned the army that's pursuing God's people. He fed God's people with manna from heaven, water from a rock, they had clothes that never ever wore out, and what did these people do? The same thing that so many of us do in the middle of our blessings every single day, and that is they whined, they griped, and they complained. And they complained. This is how the story goes.

It's just almost like my kids in London. Exodus 14, verse 11, they said to Moses, was it because there were no graves in Egypt that you brought us to the desert to die? What have you done to us by bringing us out of Egypt? Didn't we say to you in Egypt, leave us alone? Let us serve the Egyptians. It would have been better for us to serve the Egyptians

and to die in the desert. We loved it when we were slu. slaves? We love being in bondage. We hate being free in this place where God provides food for us and clothes. We hate it. We hate it. And this is what Moses said in Exodus 168. This is so sobering to me. He said, you're not grumbling against us, but who are you grumbling against Moses? Said you're actually grumbling against the Lord. Could you imagine if every time we complain in the middle of the enormous blessings that we have, if God in heaven takes it personally and says, you're actually complaining against me after I've blessed you again and again and again and again.

What I want to do is I want to just help you to hear this message through the lens of your most common complaints. Most of us will complain at some point or another. And I want you to think about what is it that you complain about the most? And what we're going to do in our life groups this week, if you're not yet in a life group, this is the perfect time. We're forming brand new life groups. And we're going to discuss this. And I'll make it real easy question.

Number one is this question that we're just going to talk about. What is it that you complain about most? It might be that, you know, for a long time, you complain, I'm not married, I'm not married, I want a husband, I'm not married, I want a husband, I'm not married, and she got married, and she's not even serving the Lord, like I'm serving the Lord, that's just not fair, and I want to be married, and then you do get married, and like, my husband drives me crazy, he choms on his gum, and he walks like this, and he chews funny, he looks funny, and he smells funny, whatever it is, you know, you complain about this.

It might be you complain, my boss drives me crazy, I can't stand this job, the meetings are so long, and they're so boring. The traffic is so bad. The weather is bad. My Wi-Fi is slow. There's nothing to binge watch on Netflix. And I just want to say right now for a moment when you start to think about what you complain about

that the weather is not your problem, the slow Wi-Fi is not your problem, the lack of original content that meets your viewing requirements on Netflix is not the problem. The problem is that Satan has taken your eyes off of the goodness of God and place them squarely on yourself. That is the problem. And let me say it again because I want you to feel this.

Our spiritual enemy has distracted us and taken our eyes off of all the enormous blessings that we have around us, off of the goodness of the grace of our God, and put our eyes onto the smallness of ourselves. And that is why we are so prone to complain. Now, what I want to do today is I'm going to let you in on my strategy because I do have a strategy. This would be pretty easy to beat you up pretty good and make you feel guilty because most of us complain. In fact, some of you complained all the way to church today. We're late and we're going to worship God.

We got into the donuts are gone and we got it sitting in a bad seat and they didn't play my favorite song. And why is you wearing that blue jean jacket? Okay. You know, it would be so easy to, you know, to get up in there and make you, feel convicted. But more than making you feel convicted, what I want to do today is I really want to bring a word of encouragement. And I don't want to just encourage you not to complain because that's really almost

difficult to ask. But what I want to do is help you take your eyes off of self, put them so on the goodness of God that you're moved beyond the easy fruit of complaining into the joyous fruit of worship because you continue to see the goodness of God. Rather than feeling guilty today, I hope you're going to feel encouraged. And in the encouragement of the grace of God, it'll move you to a higher level of the use of your words because we have reason to give praise to our God. I want to do it by showing you a text in the New Testament that to me is so profound and powerful if there is anybody who had reason to complain, it was the Apostle Paul. The text we're going to look at is a letter that he

to the Christians in Philippi, and he was riding from the very place he always wanted to go. I wanted to take my kids to London to enjoy it. Paul wanted to go to Rome, but not for vacation. For him, it was the most strategic city in spreading the gospel all over the world. If he could go to Rome and preach the gospel, he knew that he could spread the message of Jesus all over the world at that time. His top dream was to go to Rome as a preacher. The problem is he got arrested.

didn't go to Rome as a preacher, but arrived in Rome as a prisoner and was awaiting very possibly his execution. So you can imagine, I just want to go to Rome and preach about Jesus. Instead, I'm in house arrest, chained 24 hours a day to different Roman guards for two years. Feel that. I mean, two years of your life, you're in a house arrest and you're awaiting your possible execution. If I'm there, man, I'm telling you I'm tempted. God is sitting fair. I've been serving you. All those other people take the easy road out. I've been shipwrecked. I've been snake-bitten. I've been beaten. I've been whipped. I've been left for dead. All I've done is serve you. The floor is hard. The food is bad. And this Roman soldier stinks so bad. Would you please deliver

him, God, from B.O. in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Whatever it is. I'm complaining about this. And I want you to see what the Apostle Paul from a Roman prison a house arrest writes, and this is what he says in Philippians 2, verse 14. He says to the church in Philippi, do everything without grumbling or arguing. Another version translates it this way, do everything without complaining. That's a pretty high order. Do everything without complaining. Why?

So that you may become blameless and pure. children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation. Do everything without complaining. There are so many spiritual reasons why we shouldn't complain. I even like some practical reasons why we shouldn't complain. In fact, there's an author I like Dr. Travis Bradbury. He wrote the book Emotional Intelligence 2.0. This guy does a lot of research on complaining, and he states that complaining actually

rewires the brain for more complaining. In other words, if you are negative, you are you are predisposing your brain to continue to think more negative thoughts. Negative compounds and begets more negative. In fact, he talks about confirmation bias. In other words, if you assume you're not going to like something, do you think you're going to like it? Now, you increase the odds of being dissatisfied with something. It's a confirmation bias. Some of you decided, you know, maybe it's your first time at church. I'm not going to like that church. I'm not going to like that church. I'm not going to like that church. Well, guess what? Chances are, you're going to get exactly what you thought because you can't see beyond your own preconceived negative ideas. Sometimes I hear amazing women say, you know, all men are

jerks, all men are losers. And so everyone you meet is exactly what you think. And I want to say to you, they are not. There are some good men out there. I can introduce you to at least. You know, two or three of them that are begging me to introduce them to you right now. There are good people out there, but you'll see the negative if that's all that you continue to focus on. It's not only spiritual, but it's practical. And I don't know about you, but there's enough negative stuff in this world that I don't need to focus on so much negative, predetermining my mind to be even more negative when there is so much beauty, so much grace, so much of the goodness of God, I want to train my brain to see what is good. So often what you see,

is the result of what you're looking for. If you look for God in the world, you're going to see some goodness. Let me give you the whole message. I'm going to give it to you here in these two points, and then we're going to unpack it for the rest of the time. Very, very simple, and I hope that this is something that will stick with you. What do we do as followers of Christ?

Paul, in his teaching and the way he lived would have taught us this. If you can change your circumstances, do something about it. If you can change a negative circumstance, do it. Get in the game and make a difference. But if you can't change your circumstances, then change your perspective. If you can change it, do something about it. But if you cannot change what you're facing, then change what you say about it, how you think about it, change your perspective about what you're facing.

And this is exactly what the Apostle Paul did. I love the way he changes this very negative circumstance that he would have been incredibly tempted to complain about. And instead of complaining because he can't change it, because he's locked up because he can't get out of prison, instead what he does is he changes his perspective and listen to the words that he says. Philippians 2, verse 17 and 18.

He says, but even if I'm being poured out like a drink offering on the sacrifice and service coming from your faith, I am glad and rejoice with all of you. So you too should be glad and rejoice with me. Even if I'm being poured out like a drink offering, I'm glad and you should be glad as well. Now, you might ask the question, what does it mean to be like poured out like a drink offering?

You know, I haven't, I don't know what that is where I live. that phrase comes from one little Greek word. It's the word spendun, S-P-E-N-D-O. This one little word was a word that Paul's readers would have been familiar with. What the priest would do is they would make a sacrifice. They would take an altar, put some wood, light of fire, take a lamb or some animal, and they would make an animal sacrifice. Then as an act of worship to God, they would offer what was known as the S-P-E-N-D-O, the drink offer. and they would take the most valuable liquid they had, usually wine, sometimes honey. And they would take this drink and they would pour it on top of the animal sacrifice. And what happens when liquid hits fire?

You got that, and then the smoke would come up. And the smoke would be an offering unto heaven as they would take their drink offering, their most expensive and valuable wine poured on the animal sacrifice, and then the smoke would be an offering up to God in heaven. This is what Paul says. Even if my life is being poured out to God, I will praise him. Notice, Paul didn't see his ultimate death when he would be crucified as a martyr one day, put to death as a martyr.

He didn't see that as his ultimate sacrifice. It wasn't his future death that was his sacrifice. it was his life that was a sacrifice. And this is why Paul said elsewhere in Romans 12, he said, in view of God's mercy, based on who God is and what God's done, he says, offer your bodies as a living sacrifice to God. This is your holy and pleasing spiritual act of worship.

He's saying, this situation that is exactly what I never, ever wanted to happen. I wanted to be here preaching the gospel, but I'm not going to complain about it. Instead, I'm going to see that God is still in it. God is still working. God is still good. And I will give him praise even as my body is being poured out like a drink offering. If you can change your circumstances, do something about it.

If you can break out of prison, break out of prison. If you've got headaches and you can take medicine or change your diet, change your diet or take medicine. If you want to lose some weight, get in the gym. gym and change how you eat. If you hate your job, change your job. If you can't change your job, change your perspective. Change how you think about it. Change how you approach it. Change what you say about it. Change where your mind goes instead of saying, I can't stand this job. Well, thank God I have a job because I know a lot of people are looking for a job. If you can change your circumstances, do it. If not, change your perspective. Just like last night when there were about 20 people in my office

before I was preaching, and it got me really stressed out. And I came home afterwards, and I made the mistake of complaining to Amy. Right after my message, I'm not complaining about how crazy my office was, and there's too many people, and I've got to focus, and I've got to be prayerful. And she looked at me, and she said, oh, man of God, Pastor Craig, thou shalt, do something about it, or change your perspective. I hate when she preaches my messages right back to me right after I preach them, but either ask them to leave or embrace that you've got people that you love.

If you can do something about it, do something about it. If you can't change your circumstances, then change your perspective. How in the world could Paul be like this? How could Paul, on a mission from God, to preach the gospel and make Christ known. How could he rejoice locked up to a Roman soldier? Let me tell you how he could rejoice. Because for Paul, Paul was not the center of the story.

For him, Jesus was the center of the story. And when Jesus is the center of your story, it changes how you see your perspective. Let me say it again. The moment everything is about us, oh, we will complain. Because there's a lot to complain about. If it's about you, if it's about me, we can get together and we can complain like the best of them. Believe you, me, I can go a distance with you in a complaining game.

If it's about us, then we can complain. If we recognize that life is not about us, but we've been crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, we live. Yet it's no longer I who lives, as Paul would say, but it's Christ. Christ who lives in me. When we recognize that he is the center of the story, it changes how we live our story. Our story is not about us. Our story is about him.

And this is how Paul, in the middle of a Roman prison could say, even if I'm being poured out like a drink offering, I will still rejoice in the goodness of my God. Watch how he changes his perspective. Watch what he does. I love this. He says this in Philippians 112. He says, I want you to know, brothers and sisters. that what has happened to me, this really bad thing, you know, I'm in prison, you know, I'm locked up. He said, this bad thing is actually served to advance the gospel.

What? Read on. He says, as a result, it's become clear through the whole palace guard and to everyone else that I am in chains for Christ. What's he saying? He's saying, hey, hey, hey, hey, you think I'm the priest. prisoner in this equation? You have no idea what my God is doing. You see, every eight hours, I get a new Roman guard chained up to me. Talk about a captive audience. You have no idea who the real prisoner is to hear my eight-hour sermon about the goodness of Jesus. Here I am every day attached to one of the

Top leaders in Rome forced to hear, forced to receive what I've got. And I'm just loving them. And I'm just praising God. And I'm just giving God glory. And I'm telling them about who God is. You think I'm a real prisoner here? You have no idea who the real prisoner is. God has given me strategic influence to some of the most powerful leaders in all of Rome.

Think about this. Paul was chained to Roman guards. What are you chained to right now? What is it that you wish you could change? What is it that you wish we're different? If you can change your circumstance, then by all means, use what God has given you to make a difference. If you cannot change your circumstance, change your perspective. Even if I'm being poured out.

Even if I'm stuck in this dead end place. Even if I feel really discouraged right now. Even if finances are really tough. even if I'm facing this real physical challenge, even if I'm going to change my perspective on this and choose to see God working somewhere in it. What do you change to right now? If you change your perspective, who knows how God might use it? I'll try to tell this next story without getting overly emotional because every time I talk about any one of my kids,

it's just, you know, don't tell them what's going to happen. If you were here a month ago or so, I told you about my second daughter, Mandy. Mandy is married to James. My oldest two daughters are married. They both got married when they were 20. I told them both. That is entirely too young. Nobody gets married at 20.

And they reminded me that Amy was 20 when I picked her off. And they held that against me. And so they're both married. Married are great guys. And I thank God for them. So I told you that Mandy, she's 21 now. She got mono. and has never quite recovered.

And so for a year and a half now, she's faced tremendous physical challenges. She's been to the Mayo Clinic and everywhere else, and now she's on a plan. She's got a diet, and she's doing work in her system. And some days are better than others. Mandy can go to the grocery store one day, and the next day she'll have to stay in bed

because it was too much physical exertion. You could have an hour and a half conversation with Mandy and think, man, she's doing great, and then you won't know that she'll probably cry herself to sleep that night because of the physical pain after being out. And so there are some good days and there's some really difficult days. And so as a dad, you know how that is. It's just I would give anything to trade places with her.

Here's what I love about this girl. So many things. Never one time, never one time in 18 months, has she ever said, Daddy is just not fair. I just want to work. I just want to be back at my job as a youth pastor. I just, I want to, you know, it's not fair. Why me?

Never one time. what she said to me the other day, she said, Dad, you have no idea how many people I'm able to minister to because of this. She just, because she can't do anything else, she just started making little YouTube clips, little little little eight, ten minute clips, telling her story and talking about stuff

that honestly, I don't care about food and healthy stuff. But evidently there's a lot of people out there going through something similar to what she's going through. And now she's got several thousand subscribers, and she just with tears in her eyes said, Daddy, you have no idea how many people I'm getting to help and point to Jesus through this trial. That speaks to me because I'll be the first to complain about my schedule. When a different perspective would say, thank you, God, that I've got places to go,

opportunities to make an impact, and people that actually want to spend time with me. Sometimes I'll complain. My body's just so tired. Thank you, God, that I got to pour it all out today on the field and do something that eternally makes a difference. If you've got a negative circumstance, and I know there are many of you today that you're facing very, very difficult things, and I don't want to discount that for a moment. But I do want to say, if there's something you can do about it, man, let's get together with our life group and let's do something about it. If you cannot change it, let's change our perspective. Let's not just focus on what we don't have.

Let's thank God for what we do have. Let's not just complain about what we lost. Let's complain about where we've been blessed. Let's not just complain about what God didn't do. Let's thank him for what he did do for us on the cross through his son, Jesus. I love the way David in the Old Testament. He just, he just, he's every now, then we just have to remember the goodness of God.

This is what David said in Psalm 103, verses 2 through 5. He said, let all that I am, praise the Lord. May I never forget the good things he does for me. I don't know who this will speak to. Don't forget what he's done. Don't forget who he is. Don't forget that he's with you right now. What does he do?

He forgives all my sins. He heals all my diseases. He redeems me from death and crowns me. with love and tender mercy, he fills my life with good things. Let all that I am, praise the Lord. Let everything in me praise the Lord. If I can change something that is not pleasant, something that gives me a righteous discomfort or even a righteous anger,

then by all means I'm not going to complain about it. I'm going to do something about it. But if I cannot change it, I'm going to change my perspective. I'm going to change the words that I speak, the thoughts that I think. I'm going to approach it and say, God, where are you working? What are you doing? How can you be glorified through this?

So I don't know who this is speaking to right now, but if there's something in your life that you cannot change, maybe instead of complaining and complaining and complaining and which doesn't change anything, doesn't make anything any better or any different, instead, God, help us change our perspective, that we can see that you are still good, that you are still with us and let everything in us, God, give praise to you. All of our church is praying, Father, we thank you right now for the example of Paul, the example of your son and your grace, God, to change our words for that which takes life to that which gives life. All of our different churches, those who would say,

Craig, kind of like you, I can be maybe a little bent toward the negative, I can find fault, find what's wrong, and be quick to give expression to what I don't like. I want the help of God to change my perspective, to see his goodness. God, help me stop complaining and help me start living with praise on my lips. All of our churches, if this is an issue for you and you want God's help to be different, would you lift your hands right now? All of our different churches. God, I thank you so much today for so many people who want to focus on your goodness.

God, I know there are many things that it would be so easy to complain about. If we can do something, give us wisdom, give us strength, give us power. God, even give us miracles to see your hand making things different. In any place, God, that we don't have the ability to make it different. Change our perspective, God. If I'm a 21-year-old girl that wants to work and can't work, God, even if, God, we choose to praise you. Even if, God, you don't answer the prayer in the way we're going to work, God, even if God, you don't answer the prayer and the way we want. Even if God, we go to bed alone at night, even if God, we're struggling

financially, even if God, we choose to praise you, even if we're being poured out like a drink offering. We offer our lives as living sacrifices to you, holy and pleasing as our spiritual act of worship, God, because you are always good. Help us focus not on what we don't have, but to see all the blessings that we do have and worship you daily, God, for who you are. As you keep praying today at all of our different churches, I love what David said. He said, let everything I have praise God. He's forgiven me of my sins. David knew very intimately what it was like to be forgiven.

He sinned against God again and again in different ways with pride. He committed adultery. And he recognized the grace of God was the greatest gift. At all of our churches, there may be those of you that when you look at your life right now, you feel embarrassed about some things you've done. Maybe very ashamed of the wrongs that you've done. how could God love someone like me? Paul talked about being poured out like a drink offering.

Let me tell you about the greatest sacrifice an offering made in the history of the world. This is the love of God poured out for us through his son Jesus. God became flesh in the person of Jesus. Jesus was without sin, never ever sinned. Jesus became for us sin on the cross, died in our place.

On the third day, he was risen from the dead. Why? so that anyone who calls on the name of Jesus would be saved, forgiven, and made new. At all of our churches there, maybe some of you, you're complaining about this, complaining about this, maybe you're complaining even about your own life and how you've lived and what you've done. When you call on the name of Jesus, he forgives every sin. He doesn't make you a better version of you. You become a new person.

And all of our churches there are those of you, you recognize you're not here today just to stop complaining. You're here today to start praising God for who he is. for his redemption, for his forgiveness, for his grace, for salvation, by faith in the risen son of God, Jesus. All of our churches, those today who say, yes, I need his grace. Yes, I need his forgiveness. I turn from my sins. I turn toward Jesus. Today I give my life to him.

That's your prayer. Would you lift your hands high right now? All of our churches say, yes, that's my prayer. Right back over here. God bless you. Both of you over here as well. Praise God for you. Over here in this section, right back over here.

here as well. God bless you guys. Church online, you click right below me. Those of you from Florida click right below me. Right up here close. Bless you, bless you. Others today who say, I need his grace. I surrender my life to him. Would you all pray with those around you? Everybody pray aloud. Pray Heavenly Father, forgive me of my sins. Make me brand new. Fill me with your spirit so I could know you, serve you, and follow you. you for the rest of my life. Help me see your goodness. To worship you with a living sacrifice, giving my life as you gave yours. Thank you for a new life. Now you have mine. In Jesus' name, I pray. Life Church celebrate and worship God. We are living in the middle of a movement of God's

spirit. As a church, it's our honor to play even a small part in all that God is doing in and through your life. And we would love to continue with you on that journey. To find out what your next steps could be in your relationship with Christ, all you have to do is go to life.church slash next. You know, here at Life Church, it's our mission to leave people,

to become fully devoted followers of Christ. That statement drives everything we do as a church, all because we believe whoever finds God finds life.