Gratitude Over Grumbling: Shifting Perspectives in Faith

You're listening to the Bible guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk

about the Bible in fun in practical ways. Hey, everybody, welcome to

the Bible guys. Well this better be either fun and or practical. Well

yeah, and exciting, Yes, that's right, exciting ways. Which,

by the way, exciting ways? Is that what he said, in fun

and practical ways? Oh? I see, I see. Yeah, I'm

not listening to our own role in So. Hey, my name is Chris,

this is Jeff, and today we are diving into the Book of Numbers.

But before we do that, we have a segment called mail Bags.

Mailbags. This is from Lisa Dhi. Lisa, so you probably have an

answer at raps up your head. It says obviously, this is what Lisa

says. Obviously, besides the Bible, obviously obviously. What is a book

or a movie or a TV show that had a big impact on you?

Uh, you could probably you probably have ten answers. There's terms of books.

Probably, I would say, uh, the original Looney Tunes, the

idea, that's all folks. By the way, the original Looney Tunes was

gruesome. I know, I know, I mean, that's great. They

have nothing back, buddy. It was anvils and yes, explosions. Well

I mean worse than that. I mean they didn't care. Man it good

classical music, yeah, good classical music. Yes, nothing like little Chaikowsky

soften the blow well bugs, bunny. Right. So okay, so so

let's start with the book book. What's the Lord of the Rings? For

me? Lord of the Rings? Yeah, the entire everything, from the

first Hobbit all the way through the Silmarillion, so all seven books. Okay,

yeah, all right, so for me, goodness gracious, it's really

hard to pick one, but ill, but I'll go obviously, since I'm

the movie guy, I'll pick a movie. And honestly, I can't believe

i'm gonna say this, but I'm gonna go with the old The Count of

Monte Cristo. Yeah, okay. And the reason why is that, I

know, but because it really truly did make a profound impact on me,

because it was it was a story that absolutely everything. It was a story

that wasn't about faith. It wasn't a Christian movie, but yet the entire

thing was about faith and and and it had it had you know, is

God fair in the whole thing? It had revenge. It had you know,

human tendency to want to you know, doubt God, forget God,

run away from God, can't escape God. All of that stuff is in

there, you know, sort of intertwined with adventure, love story, plots,

surprises. I mean, you know, great acting. It was,

it was awesome. So I mentioned Lord of the Rings and it was about

the the adventure and uh, it's the battle between good and evil. Sure

that that was a lot of that and the struggle. So I enjoyed us.

But so you were talking about revenge and that immediately made me think of

the impact that the Princess Bride has had on me. Yes, yes,

right, so revenge, right, that's a you know, my name is

Jennoya. That's right. You prepared to die and me like, stop saying

that inconthievable. I do not think that word means what you think that means,

Well, you could probably quote that old movie. So yeah, I've

seen that quite a few times. So so what else has had an impact

on me? So from a serious standpoint, I would say mere Christianity by

C. S. Lewis, which, by the way, I loved his

Chronicles and Narnia books too. I read all those as a kid. But

yeah, C. S. Lewis's Mere Christianity just gave me a logical apologetic

for you know, it's not unreasonable to be to be intelligent and a person

of faith at the same time. And he was the first writer that I

ever read that caught my attention that way. I would say I read a

lot of Christian books obviously over the years, but I would have to say

the one that has impacted me the most based on what I do for a

living, would have to be Communicating for a change by Understanding, because it

reshaped my entire thinking in such an unbelievably drastic way about the way to communicate,

and it us also resonate with the fact that that I believe and still

believe that it's the most effective way to reach people who are not close to

God or far from God, because you know, you already have the Christians

as soon as you open your mouth. The Christians already you know, dialed

in. And so the idea of even trying to capture the attention of those

who are far from God was a brand new concept for me, and I

had never really considered that in my communicating Wow, So it was great that's

powerful. I thought that was a really good question. Yeah, it's a

great tu Do you have any more any other ones that jump out your So

you mentioned books, you mentioned movies, how about TV show? Yeah,

you know, there's been so many it's just unbelievable. But honestly, I

would say I I appreciate almost more than anything, the kind of stuff that

it's the opposite of you, what your preference is to shoot them up,

you know, kind like I like Parenthood. I thought Parenthood was just an

unbelievable reality sort of thing. There was what six or eight seasons whatever it

was, and it was just it was just a family who they were just

a big mess, and they loved each other dearly and there was always good

that came out of it. So it was just like it was so relatable

because we all are a mess, and I think that at the end you

always saw the good come. And even though it wasn't necessarily a Christian in

fact, it was not a Christian series at all, but it's so profound

in the way that we are supposed to, you know, endure, and

it was a Christian show with that trying to be a Christian show, right,

you know what I mean, so I thought that was really impactful for

me. Oh good. Yeah, well there you go. You got books,

movies, and TV shows there. It is good question, Lisa,

Yes, yes, and so yeah. I mean I'm trying to think of

more, but I don't think we should spend any time any more time on

it. Yeah, because I'm sartin my brain's going with all these different responses.

I've got tons of stuff to say, right, I've watched so many

shows. Yeah, well you have. Okay, So we are going to

be diving into numbers now. We touched on Leviticus for a couple of podcasts.

We hit it on Friday, we hit it on Monday, which was

yesterday, and if you're following day by day, today is Tuesday, and

we are jumping ahead to numbers. Chapter eleven. That's correct. So there's

so much more to have talked about in the Book of Leviticus, right,

the Levitical loss. So much of what drove the general religious portion of the

society of Israel is out of the Book of of Leviticus, and Jesus is

the fulfillment of the Book of Leviticus. Right, So all those Levitical laws,

all those sacrifices, all those sacrifices for atonement. Everything Jesus is the

fulfillment of the book of Leviticus. So while Leviticus can seem tedious, it

just shows the thoroughness of what God did in Christ. You and I think,

oh, it's a day on the calendar that we happen to celebrate,

and in reality there was. It literally sufficed and solved every issue of humanity

sin, right, It's really phenomenal. So that's what Leviticus is about.

Numbers moves into more of the humanity of Israel. Again, just very similar

to the first half of the Book of Exodus. And so here in Leviticus

in Numbers, I'm sorry, chapter eleven, we're going to jump forward and

this is we're gonna read about this. This is a recurring theme that almost

never ends in the rest of the life of Moses, right right, and

never ends in the lives of pastors. You know, it's true any any

spiritual leader at all, that's correct because there's always new people. There's there's

new people coming in, there's always new complaints. So God has been providing

for the people of Israel as they're wandering around trying to head towards the promised

land. He's been dropping mana from heaven. The word mana means what is

it? What is it? That's what it means. And it was sweet,

it was fulfilling, It was sufficient for everything that they needed for them.

I really don't don't even really know the consistency, right, we don't

even know what it was. Yeah. I think it was probably like a

box lunch. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, like a Chick fil a

box, right, just fall from heaven with one of those chunky chocolate chip

cookies in at there. So you never know, you never know, nice

diet coke. Whatever it was. You can't prove it wasn't it be or

could be, Like to bully, it could be. But so it was

some kind of a cracker thing, some kind of a bread thing. It

was something like that. Anyways, miraculously every day, all the food they

could eat, God's just dropping from heaven from them, right right. But

the Bible says soon the people began to complain about their hardship, and the

Lord heard everything they said. Then the Lord's anger blazed against them. Wow,

and he sent a fire to rage among them, and he destroyed some

of the people in the outskirts of the camp. That's don't mess with God.

I mean, I'm sorry to laugh there, but holy God, that's

it blazed. His anger blazed. Wow, we don't we don't care for

how you're taking care of us. God's like, oh yeah, right,

so this says. Then the people screamed to Moses for help, and when

he prayed to the Lord, the fire stopped. And after that the area

was known as Tabero, which means the place of burning, because fire from

the Lord had burned among them there. Then the foreign rabble who were traveling

with the Israelites began to crave the good things of Egypt. The people of

Israel also began to complain, Oh, for some meat, They explained,

we remember the fish we used to eat for free in Egypt. We had

all the cucumbers and melons and leaks and onions and garlic we wanted, But

now our appetites are gone. All we ever see is this manna. The

mana looked like small coriander seeds, and it was pale yellow like gum.

Resin. The people would go out and gather it from the ground, and

they made flour by grinding it with hand mills or pounding it in mortars,

and then they boiled it in the pot and made it into flat cakes.

These cakes tasted like pastries baked with olive oil. The mana came down on

the camp, and the dew during the night sounded like croissants. Yeah,

isn't that what it sounds like. I'm not a chef, but sure,

sure, sure, some kind of French pastry kind of a thing. Anyways,

Moses heard all the families standing in the doorways of their tents whining,

and the Lord became extremely angry. Moses was also very aggravated, and Moses

said to the Lord, why are you treating me your servants so harshly?

Have mercy on me. What did I do to deserve the burden of all

these people it is? Did I give birth to them? Did I bring

them into this world? Why did you tell me to carry them in my

arms like a mother carries a nursing baby. How can I carry them to

the land you swore to give their ancestors? Where am I supposed to get

meat for all these people? They keep whinding to me, saying, give

us meat to eat. I can't carry all these people by myself. The

load is far too heavy. If this is how you intended treat me,

just go ahead and kill me, which is it done in favor, and

spare me this misery. Let me jump just a couple more verses, because

it says, and the Lord said to Moses, gathered before me seventy men

who are recognize as elders and leaders of Israel. Bring them to the tabernacle

to stand there with you. I'll come down and talk to you there.

I will take some of the spirit that is upon you. I will put

the spirit upon them also, and they will bear the burden of the people

along with you, so you'll not have to carry it alone, which is

God's part of God's solution. But yeah, so from this point on,

this is what they do all the time, is just complain it is.

It is a very well known favorite passage of pastors. Yes, right,

just kill me, Just just kill me. Yeah. So you know,

obviously we're joking, but sometimes it can feel this way, and you know

it's so funny. Is It's like, so, I'm sure you started in

smaller churches, right o, y, just like I did, And I

spent my first seven years in ministry. Actually, after a college graduation,

I was a pastor before that. But when I was when I was actually

graduated from college, my first church, I was there for seven and a

half years. It was one hundred and eighty people the day I started,

and it was one hundred and eighty people the day I left. Okay,

and yet we had grown by leaps and bouts. Yeah, well I did.

I did. Then the other guy ran them off. But anyway,

the point is is that it's like, it's like we just saw this turn,

you know. You know, anyway, it doesn't matter. The point

is is that some of the smaller church experiences to this day are some of

the best experiences of my life. I mean, they're just wonderful, right,

But at the same time, they can be the most taxing, absolutely

right, because because for some reason, that whole small church experience is like

all two hundred people plus had access to me. Yeah, and then and

it's and it's like and all of a sudden, you're the only answer to

everything, right, and so it's like it's like, so sometimes the smaller

the church is, the more burdens to me can be because now all of

a sudden, you, as the pastor, you have to go to every

funeral, every wedding, every hospital visit, every counseling session. You're you're

doing everything right because you're not quite big enough to you know, to sort

of disperse, which is exactly what God's answer is, isn't that. Yeah?

Right, So we find ourselves in the first fifteen version to share the

responsibility, to share the load, right, But we find ourselves like Moses,

like like, oh my goodness, Like, come on, you're getting

free food and you're mad about it? Right? Right? Well, you

know, I mean, I mean I as a foodie, I could understand

what they're saying. Right. We had we had garlic, we had onions,

we had leaks, we had we had all these different things, and

now we have what is it? Yeah? Well, so it's so funny

because it says we used to have We remember the fish we used to eat

for free in Egypt? Was it free? Yeah? It was it free?

I'm pretty sure what was it? You were? Ah, what's the

word? I'm looking for? Slave? Right? Right? Nothing's free,

but nothing's free. And so they're thinking about all the cucumbers and the melons

and the leaks and the onions and the garlic, and they're forgetting about the

whips and the chains, right, and the making mud bricks with no no

resources necessary to do it, the beatings, the oppression, the abject poverty

that they were living in. Right, and now they're free people, able

to determine their their own futures. But no, we we missed the watermelons.

That's that's what we missed. You know there's a sermon in there too,

isn't it, Because like you know, when we we are rescued from

our lives, from our old lives of sin and destruction and all these different

things. If you've lived life long enough without Christ, you sort of have

that story, right, you experience life without Christ. Sometimes, if we

miss that old life, we seem to only remember the fun part of it,

or the or the you know, the good part of it. I

guess I could say, right, the experiential part. And yet we don't

miss we don't remember the misery. We don't remember the change of the whips,

or the or the slavery. We don't remember the depression, of the

emptiness or how about this the consequences, right, we don't. We don't.

We don't remember all that and so so and so. What we do

is, you know, some of us who like to go back and dip

our toe in the old lives. We think we could do it better this

time because we can just you know, experience what we want to experience without

the consequences, without the bad part. But that's not the way that life

works, right. Life without God is not something that we want a toy

with. And you can try, and you could, you could try to

do it. You know, I think you're successful at it. But in

the end you're going to find it in this life and especially in the next

you're gonna be pretty empty. Romans twelve tells us that we need God to

renew our minds right, and we need to have a new way of thinking.

I had a friend several years ago, a number of years ago that

he about my age, so in your age, so we graduated when Guns

n' Roses was really hitting it right. It was bon Jovi and guns n'

Roses were thesurants back in the day. And he said, you know,

I found this dad. He was about a eleven or twelve year old boys,

and this dad told me, he said, I've had to quit listening

to guns n' Roses and bon Jovi. I'm like, why, he said,

I only listened to what working on my car out in the garage.

But he said, dude, I start remembering, like, you know,

when I was kind of buck wild, And he said, it was always

like fist fights and drinking and carousing and chasing the girls. And he said,

I start telling the stories. Oh, let me tell you because boys

going, oh, this is cool music. Dad was, oh, this

is what we used to listen to when I was in high school. Blah

blah blah this stuff. Right. Yeah. So then he'd started telling stories

about being a tough guy and about fight and about you know, the first

time I smoked a cigarette, blah blah the stuff. Next thing, you

know, his eleven twelve year old boy getting in trouble at school, starting

to fight, got out, he tried his first cigarette and he's like,

what are you doing? Man? It was in this short little window of

time, and the little boy, his argument was dead. You did it

right, and you made a sound great, and it sound amazing right now.

He also spent several nights in jail. He had a whole bunch of

hangovers. See, he really messed up a lot of his life early on

in his life. But at that point, all he can remember was like

those fun moments. He didn't remember the fallout and the tragedy of the rest

of his life at the time, and he's like, I had to turn

it off. I can't listen to music in my garage anymore because every time

I listened to music, it takes me back there. But I only remember

the good, the fun side of it, not the bad side of it.

And that's kind of where it is here. They remember the watermelons and

the garlic, right, but they don't remember the slavery, and so they're

complaining. They're whining, Oh, we just want some meat. Whoere's the

meat? Right? And Moses is like, God, I can't put up

with these people a minute, Like, just just kill me if you don't

came jump off a bridge. I remember my pastor in nineteen eighty nine preaching

this exact passage, and guess what he called the message, where's the beef?

Where's the that's clever. Yeah. So for those of you who are

super old like us, you remember that old Wendy's commercial wears the beef back

in the day, And this is them, this is you know, the

crowd of Israel saying, you say, I just want some meat? You

know, where's the beef? And it was actually, uh, just like

the commercial, it's a it's a whole sermon about complaining. But at the

same time, again, we have to realize that, you know. It

reminds me of the scripture where the apostle Paul goes to God and says,

you know, can you take my affliction from me? Whatever afflicted Paul?

And what does God say? God says, well, my grace is sufficient

for you rightower hours made perfect in weakness. And so God, may you

know, not necessarily give us exactly everything that we want. But we have

to realize we're a whole lot better off with God, you know, with

our affliction. You know that we hold the things that we face than we

are without a life without God. Yeah, that's for sure. I also

wonder how often we miss the miracles because we get used to the miracles.

We miss the miracle of the sunset sunrise. We missed the miracle of experiencing

real love from your child or your spouse or you know, your grandchild or

something. We miss so many amazing miracles, and then we want God to

do more miracles. I need another miracle. I need you to do something

amazing. We can't just rely on the miracle He's already done for us.

We can't. Why why do we do that? Right? And so it

actually makes God mad too, So it makes Moses mad, it makes God

mad. It makes them both mad. Every morning they drew back their tent

doors and they witness a miracle, but then they begin to feel like that

wasn't enough, and they felt it was their right to have more. And

talking about spiritual entitlement, a lot of times we begin to feel the same

way. God, You've done amazing things for me. I feel like I

deserve more. I need to How come you didn't heal that person? How

come you didn't answer this prayer? How dare you? And this is really

where they're at is they're looking miracles right in the face. They're not even

seeing them anymore. And there I rate with God that he's not doing how

dare he not do more miracles, specifically the miracle we're demanding, which is

meat. And a lot of times we do that with regard to our unanswered

prayers. We forget the fact that God has answered so many prayers. You

know, that reminds me of a sermon that I did in the past where

I bring up like four suitcases, like the baggage that we carry around.

In fact, we did this, We did this on at a series that

we did called Baggage you remember at Heritage Church. But anger, you know,

we carry around anger, we carry around greed, we carry around guilt,

we carry on jealousy. Were the four that I kind of put up

there. And anger says you owe me, right, you owe me an

explanation, you owe me a debt, Guilt says I owe you, and

then greed says I owe me. But then jealousy says God os me.

And that's really profound, right, because because that's really the heart of comparing

ourselves and looking at others. Right, what does the Bible say comparing ourselves

and measuring ourselves among ourselves is not wise? And that's what we do.

We say, God, I'm your faithful servant. I've tried to serve you,

and I'm looking around and other people have garlic, other people have leaks

and onions. Right, You've blessed other people with things that I want,

and yet I'm your servant, So you know, why are you unfair?

God? Be kind to your servants. And by the way, there's a

lot of people that are there. There's a lot of people that are there.

Sure, there's just like God, throw me a bone, right,

But that's really what it is. It's it's not that we you know that.

Then we're reminded that God's grace is enough, his grace is sufficient.

We're reminded of the miracles of life. We're reminded of everything that we do

have, but we're but we're wanting cheese, just a reasonable amount of what

what that guy down the street has, right, All my friends have this,

and yet I don't have this, you know. And really what it

comes down to is it's it's saying, God, you owe me. Yeah,

yeah, So you know in Philippians, Paul says in the King James,

he says, for I've learned whatsoever state I am therewith to be content

right, And and there is something about this that their lack of contentment caused

the rage of God against them blazed, right, It was blazing against them,

blazing And I wonder how much blessing we are we really do have in

our life, but we can't see it because we're resentful, or we're angry,

or we're jealous about a thing that we do not have, and we're

blaming God for it. And I wonder how much struggle and extra heat we

have in our life because we're not thankful for what we do have. We're

just grumpy about what we don't yet have and God hasn't given to us yet.

And I don't think that that's an excuse or reason to not keep pushing

forward and bettering our lives. We just can't be resentful or angry towards God

about it, right, Yeah, And I wonder, I just wonder sometimes

how often are the fires in our life the result of a lack of contentment

and thankfulness, Because when the people do come to God in thankful ways,

God blesses them. Right, So you either have Moses is going to end

the Book of Deuteronomy with I'm going to give you a choice between life and

death. Oh, that you would choose life. Right. There's a better

way to go than this resentful, jealous way that is so natural for us.

The better way to go is having a contentment and a thankfulness for what

God has done and then let Him keep showing up and blessing us in that

context, Yeah, rather than taking the heat of our own jealousy and resentment.

Yeah, so let me sort of tag onto that thought we could wrap

up with this because we're at our time. But what you just said,

I just saw an Instagram really literally last night as I was scrolling, you

know, and just right before I go into bed, I just scroll for

about fifteen minutes or so, and there was a celebrity and this person what

was Reeche Witherspoon. I don't care, I'll just tell you who was.

What's the big deal? But anyway, but she said that she had heard

somebody that day change the word have to get and it's like, oh,

I have to watch my grandkids today. And then and then he says,

you know what, I'm going to change it to. I get to watch

my grandkids today, and he says, and I get to breathe, and

I get to do this, and I get to do this. And she

says, if we just changed the halves to gets, that's a whole different

perspective on the days. And it's just one word. And I just thought

that was a really cool thing. Yep. And we can shift from the

rage of God to the blessing of God here it is all right, Well,

that's all of our time, so we will see you next time,

hopefully on the Bible gus