Podcasts about grumbling

This week we'll be studying Numbers 11:1-23 under the theme “The Danger of Grumbling.” We discover how grumbling, complaining, and negativity can weaken our faith and relationships, and learn how biblical gratitude and trust in God can transform the way we respond to life's challengesSeries Summary: The wilderness exposes what is in the human heart. But it also reveals the unwavering faithfulness of God. Through Israel's fear, grumbling, failures, and blessings, this series will call us to trust God's promises, receive his gracious provision, love him wholeheartedly, and choose the life found in Christ.Fill out our online connection cardHow can we pray for you? If you'd like to leave an offering or monetary donation to our ministry please click here.

The Book of Numbers follows the Israelites on their journey from Egyptian captivity toward Canaan, the land God had promised them. They knew where they started and where they were headed, but everything in between was uncertain. That tension is deeply familiar. God rarely hands us a detailed roadmap. Instead, He gives us Himself and asks us to trust Him through the middle. The central lesson from the opening chapters of Numbers is this: you do not need to know the whole plan when you know the One who made it. Before Israel moved a single step, God spoke to Moses inside the Tent of Meeting. That detail matters. Moses had moved closer to God, and proximity shapes how clearly we hear Him. The pattern is consistent throughout Scripture: listen first, then act.God always has a plan, and it stretches all the way back to Genesis 12, where He called Abram with four defining elements: a chosen people, a chosen place, a clear promise, and a clear purpose. Being blessed was never just about receiving. It was always about becoming a blessing to others. That purpose has not changed. We are still invited into the same rescue mission that runs from Genesis to Revelation. Practically, this means taking honest inventory of who is in our lives, arranging our priorities with God genuinely at the center, and choosing trust over complaint when life does not go as expected. The first generation of Israelites forfeited the promised land through grumbling and unbelief. Numbers was written to their children as a reminder that God remains faithful even when His people are not. He will do the same for us.Moving with God does not require a dramatic calling or a perfectly clear vision. It looks like ordinary people doing the next right thing in faith, even when it seems unusual to everyone watching. The invitation this week is simple but challenging: find your Tent of Meeting, show up there consistently, and let God speak before you move. Bring your plans before Him honestly and ask Him to redirect anything that is not from Him. Where do you see God already working around you, and are you willing to join Him there?

Every Christian what every Christian needs — grace that you don't deserve, and a Savior you could never repay. So lay down the scoreboard, silence the grumbling, and let the generosity of God move you from entitlement to worship, of the God who has chosen to save someone like you. (Matthew 20:1-16)

Are you doing all the "right" Christian things—reading your Bible, going to church, helping your neighbors—and yet still feeling blocked from the full promises and blessings of God?In this message, Coach Shelby breaks down three major "Blessing Blockers" rooted in Deuteronomy 6, Leviticus 19, and Numbers 11. Loving God and loving your neighbor isn't just about good feelings or superficial gestures; it's about active, uncompromising obedience, bold evangelism, and total reliance on faith over fleshly emotion.In this episode, we break down:• Blocker #1: Failing to Understand the Unity & Oneness of God (The Shema) – Why true monotheism demands that God be #1 in everything you do, backed up by action, not just lip service.• Blocker #2: Withholding the Gospel Under the Guise of "Love" – Why real love (Ahava) means laying down your comfort and speaking the Word of God unto repentance to friends and family, rather than practicing fake, "get along" Christianity.• Blocker #3: Grumbling, Murmuring, and Complaining (Anan, Lun, & Reagan) – How complaining in the valley or in the middle of a blessing acts as a spiritual stronghold that negates your faith, tests God, and shuts the door on His promises.It's time to put a bridle on our tongues, stop trusting our deceitful feelings, and start lining our words up with the Word of God.

Philippians 2:14-18

17th message from Philippians 2:14-16 Watch Our Sermons Online! Freedom Baptist - Facebook Freedom Baptist - YouTube Freedom Baptist - LinkedIn

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Introduction: Why is Complaining So Serious? (Numbers 21:1-9) Because It INSULTS GOD . (Num 21:1-5) Because It INFECTS OTHERS . (Num 21:4-5) Because It INFLICTS A PENALTY THAT MUST BE PAID . (Num 21:6-9) John 3:14-15 - “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him may have eternal life.” Romans 8:32 - He who did not spare His own Son but gave Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him graciously give us all things? God, I give you thanks for... ____________________________________________________ Sermon Notes (PDF): BLANKHint: Highlight blanks above for answers! For Our Example: Ancient Warnings for the Church Today - Do Not Be Complainers Taylor Brown Download Audio Transcript 00:48Numbers chapter 21.00:53Do you ever suffer from decision paralysis?00:57Trying to figure out what to watch on a Friday night, and you end up spending the whole night scrolling through all your various streaming services because you can't figure out a movie to watch?01:08You and your family have decision paralysis about where you're going to go on vacation next year, the lake, the beach, a road trip across America.01:17You and your spouse have no idea where to go for your next date night. Do you know where I experience the greatest sense of decision paralysis? The Cheesecake Factory. Has anyone else ever been there? Does anyone want to guess how long their menu is? 21 pages. 21 pages.01:47on those 21 pages. Over 250. That's insanity. There are so many good options to choose from. Whenever I'm in that booth, I have decision paralysis. I don't know what to pick. I don't know what to eat. I felt that same exact way that I always feel in the Cheesecake Factory booth as I decided what to preach on this morning.02:16This is the final week of our latest series for our example, Ancient Warnings for the Church. Today, we have been digging into the books of Exodus and Numbers and learning from the negative example of the Israelites and receiving warnings from God Himself. Warnings like, do not be idolaters. Do not be doubters. Do not be fake repenters. This morning, we will receive our fourth and final warning.02:45Do not be complainers. So why did I experience decision paralysis as I was planning out this series and this sermon in particular? Because there are so many stories of the Israelites complaining in Exodus and Numbers. Their complaint menu is long and extensive. There are so many options to choose from.03:15their work harder in Egypt. In Exodus chapter 5 verse 21. They complained at the Red Sea. In Exodus 14. 11 through 12 that they would die. And they finally shut up whenever God rescued them. They complained about food and water in Exodus 15. Exodus 16. Exodus 17. Numbers 11. Numbers 20. The people complained about how hard their lives were in Numbers 11 verses 1 through 3. And as a result, some of them were consumed by fire from heaven. And number 16, a group is not happy with God's choice of leadership and they rebel against Moses and Aaron. They grumble, they complain. And as a response, God opens up a sinkhole and swallows the rebels. A much more serious sinkhole than the one outside Passman Hospital a few weeks ago.04:14People are very upset. They think Moses is the one who killed these rebels. They complain. And then God kills those complainers with a plague from heaven. Do you see why I suffered decision paralysis? There are so many options to choose from on the Israelite complaint menu. What about your complaint menu? Is it short and almost non-existent? Or is it long?04:44and extensive.04:47If I asked you to list all the things you complain about, would that be difficult for you?04:53Would it be difficult to filter out all the options, to list out every single thing you complain about because you complain about most things in your life?05:02Or maybe you even complain about everything in your life.05:07Complaining may seem like small potatoes compared to idolatry, doubting, and fake repentance, but it isn't. Complaining may seem like a small issue, but it isn't. It is a big deal. It is a serious issue that you need to take seriously right now. It is a serious issue that I need to take seriously right now. Thankfully, I eventually overcame my decision paralysis.05:40And I forced myself to make a decision. I settled on the last recorded example of the Israelites complaining in the book of Numbers. Numbers chapter 21 verses 1 through 9. This passage shows us why complaining is so serious and how we can take it seriously moving forward. So let's go to the Lord and ask for his help. Let's ask the Lord that we would take our complaining seriously and we would take his word very seriously as well.06:10Go to the Lord in prayer. Father, there is not a single person in this room or watching online who can say that they did not complain this past week. And the same for me. Lord, we are so sorry that we complain so often. We are so sorry that we often do not recognize Your goodness in our lives.06:40We walk out of this service with a renewed desire to worship you and give you the thanks that you deserve. We ask all these things in Jesus' name. Amen. So why is complaining so serious? Why is complaining so serious? Reason number one, because it insults God. Because it insults God.07:10I know that many of you have been in and out of service over the past month so let me give you an idea of where we are in Israel's history they have been rescued from slavery in Egypt and many of them survived worshipping the golden calf at Mount Sinai two weeks ago we studied a sad story of doubt the Israelites refused to go into the promised land they chose to trust themselves more than God and as a result God gave them a consequence The Grumbling and Complaining Older Israelites will never ever see the Promised Land. They will die during their 40 years of wandering in the wilderness. The younger generation will see the Promised Land. It will take 40 years to see that come true. Last week we focused on the Israelites' response to this bad news. They tried to take the Promised Land by force against God's wishes.08:10for them? Not at all. They were quickly defeated and they were sent away. Now we are fast forwarding in time and we're picking up their story near the end of the wilderness wandering. The older generation is fading away and the new generation is replacing them. Let's see if the new kids on the block do any better than the older generation when it comes to complaining. Look at verses 1 through 3 of chapter 21.08:40When the Canaanite, the king of Arad, who lived in the Negev, heard that Israel was coming by the way of Otharim, he fought against Israel and took some of them captive. And Israel vowed a vow to the Lord and said, If you will indeed give this people into my hand, then I will devote their cities to destruction. And the Lord heeded the voice of Israel and gave over the Canaanites, and they devoted them and their cities to destruction. So the name of the place was called Hormah.09:10The Canaanites pick a fight with the Israelites, which leads to the defeat of the Canaanites. God is giving His people a preview of what their conquest of the promised land will look like. It looks like a new day is dawning. It looks like the Israelites have turned over a new leaf. It looks like they are closing the book on their disobedience. And they are starting a new chapter of obedience.09:39Maybe not so much. Check out their response to God's victory. The victory that God gave them in verses 4 through 5. From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea to go around the land of Edom. And the people became impatient on the way. And the people spoke against God and against Moses. Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in this wilderness? For there is no food and water and we loathe this worthless And we're back.10:14It looks like the apple hasn't fallen very far from the tree.10:17New generation, same old sins.10:21The Israelites are impatient again.10:23They are accusing their leaders again.10:26They are complaining again.10:30At its core, complaining is dissatisfaction with God and His good gifts to you.10:38Complaining is an unspoken thought or a spoken word of dissatisfaction with God and His good gifts to you. And that's what the Israelites are doing here. They are complaining. They are acting like God hasn't done anything for them lately. They are completely ignoring His provision in the past and in the present. The Lord just showed up for them in a huge way in their battle against the Canaanites. God could have chosen to sit this one out, but He didn't.11:08He could have sat on the sidelines and did nothing, but He didn't. He gave them victory. And all along their journey in the wilderness, food and water has miraculously been provided for them. More on that in a minute. These are the facts. But the Israelites have forgotten the facts. They have lost sight of their many blessings. Very often, spiritual defeat comes right on the heels of spiritual Spiritual Victory. One minute the Israelites are riding high after the defeat of the Canaanites, and the next minute they are down in the dumps. They are feeling sorry for themselves. They are moaning and groaning about what they do have and what they do not have. You realize the same trend happens to you and me as well. Spiritual defeat often follows Spiritual Victory. You're on the mountaintop, and then you're down in the dumps. You tend to sabotage yourself after God helps you, after God blesses you greatly. You forget the facts. You lose sight of his many blessings. You moan and you groan about what you do have and what you do not have. You and I complain. Yes, this complaining in the wilderness is an ignoring of God's past and present provision, but it's even worse than that. It is an utter insult to God. It is a slap in his face. It is an attack on his character and reputation. Look again at what they say in verse 5. And the people spoke against God and against Moses, why have you brought us up out of the land of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water, and we loathe this worthless food.13:08This first reminds me a lot of my son, Sam. Whenever he finds out that he's about to be served his least favorite meal, which is my favorite meal that my wife makes. Chicken with ranch potatoes and green beans. I love that meal. Sam does not feel that way at all. When he asks his mom, what are you making for dinner? And she breaks the news to him. He complains before he eats it, as he eats it, and after he eats it.13:43It's the same for the Israelites in this passage. God's best is not good enough for the Israelites. Let's go through their list of grievances to see what is not good enough for them. God brought us up out of the land of Egypt to die in the wilderness. Really? That is your view of what happened. God rescued you from back-breaking labor, slavery in Egypt.14:08He was your personal GPS who led you with a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. He annihilated the Egyptians whenever they chased after you. He led you through dry ground on the Red Sea. Really? That's your view of what God was doing? He brought them to the edge of the promised land where they blew it. They chose not to go in. They chose to doubt Him. That was their fault, not God's.14:38I'm sure none of us in this room or watching online can relate to complaining about circumstances that we have brought upon ourselves. Next grievance. For there is no food and water. Seriously, over and over again, God has miraculously taken care of them. Water from a rock. A literal quail storm that rains down quail from the sky. Manna. Miraculous manna.15:07every single day. All they have to do is bend over and pick it up. But again, that is not good enough for the Israelites. That's their last grievance. We loathe this worthless food. The Israelites view this miraculous manna as monotonous manna. They walk out and are like, manna again? God, can't you do something better for us? Can't you give us something that tastes better? Can't you at least give us, like, nachos?15:37or Flamin' Hot Manna, can't you do something different for us? Come on, I'm sick of this. The gift that used to look good seems pretty bad right now. The blessings that they used to give thanks for seem like curses to them. God's best is no longer good enough for them. You know, at times, God's best doesn't seem good enough for you and me.16:08The gifts that used to look good seem pretty bad right now. The gifts that you used to give thanks for seem like curses right now. You and I can look like those miserable people in those memes that say something like, me at the job I prayed to God for. Or me parenting the kids I asked God for. We're just so unthankful for what God has given to us. The things that we begged Him for and asked for now we can't stand them maybe god has blessed you with friends and fellow christians who love you and care about you but you make it clear to everyone who will listen that they don't do enough for you they don't reach out to you enough they don't make enough of an effort you say that you're just telling it like it is but you know what you're doing you are complaining and insulting god Maybe God's blessed you with a means of providing for your family, but you constantly think negative thoughts about every single aspect of your job and you constantly say negative things about your boss and your coworkers. You say that you're just venting, but you know what you're doing. You're complaining and insulting the Lord.17:29Maybe you are very quick to point out how your family does not meet your high expectations.17:35You are very quick to critique and to lash out.17:40You say that you're just being honest, but you know what you're doing.17:44You are complaining and insulting the Lord.17:49Here's a big one for me.17:51Maybe the Lord has blessed you with a house that you constantly rattle off things you hate about.17:58You constantly talk about other people's houses and how they're way better than your house. Again, you say you're just venting, but you know what you're doing. You're complaining and insulting the Lord. Here's the thing. You cannot insult a gift without insulting the giver of the gift. You cannot grumble about the blessings of God without grumbling against the God of the blessing.18:29Your complaining is serious because it insults your God. Why is complaining so serious? Second reason, because it infects others. Because it infects others. As I studied this past week, I couldn't stop thinking about the origin of this complaining. How did it start? Who did it start with? We're told this in verses 4-5. The people became impatient along the way, and the people spoke against God and Moses. This is a communal sin that must have started at an individual level. While they are wandering in the wilderness, the germ of complaining, the germ of grumbling, begins in the mind. It begins in the mind of individuals, and then it exits the mouth. It starts in the mind something like this.19:27I can't believe we're doing this again we're wandering in circles again this is so stupid and so senseless it's so hot out my throat is so dry my stomach is eating itself the germ of grumbling starts in the mind and then it quickly exits the mouth individuals begin to vocalize their thoughts as they walk sit around the campfire at night and lay in their tents personal protesting turns into corporate complaining It snowballs very quickly and gets out of control. That's how complaining works. It doesn't just stay with you. During the school year, my kids bring home a variety of viruses and illnesses. When one of my kids is stricken, it's just a matter of time before all of us are stricken. One sore throat turns into four sore throats. A solo cough turns into a family.20:27In my house, viruses are easily caught. Sickness effortlessly spreads. The same goes for complaining in your house, your workplace, and even this church. Grumbling is a sinful virus that is easily caught. Complaining is a sickness that effortlessly spreads. One grievance turns into an unending list.20:57of grievances. One complaint invites another complaint. One person complaining leads to many people complaining. It only takes one complainer to infect your small group and this church. Are you patient zero? Are you a contagious complainer who corrupts your home.21:30Are you a contagious complainer who corrupts this church?21:37You have to understand that more than just your health is at stake.21:41The health of your family is at stake.21:43The health of harvest is at stake.21:48Would you purposefully sneeze in someone's face after service and intentionally spread your sickness to them?21:57Would you do that? You answered that way too slowly. I'm going to stay away from all of you after service. Would you purposefully sneeze on someone and intentionally spread your sickness? Okay, I guess I'll shake your hand after service. Then why would you purposefully grumble and intentionally infect someone else with your spiritual sickness? That should be as unthinkable. That should seem as rude.22:26as literally sneezing in someone's face.22:31It's infinitely more destructive than physically passing on a cold or a fever.22:37Deal with the germ of grumbling when it first pops up in your heart.22:41Do not give it room to breathe.22:45Your complaining is serious because it sickens your soul and infects the people you care about the most.22:54Why is complaining so serious?22:55third and final reason. Because it inflicts a penalty that must be paid. Because it inflicts a penalty that must be paid. The Israelites don't want God's best, which results in a serious penalty in verse 6.23:21Then the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people so that many people of Israel died. The Lord has responded to Israel's complaining with a lot of creative penalties in the past. A plague, a fireball from heaven, a literal sinkhole, but He reserves His hardest and most challenging penalty for this act of complaining.23:50fiery serpents. And no, this doesn't mean that the snakes are on fire like flamethrowers. It means that they have bites that inflict severe inflammatory pain. These bites don't just hurt you. These bites kill you. These snakes slither into the camp, bite many of the Israelites, and many of them die. The new generation of Israelites quickly change their tune. They go from complaining to crying, Look at verse 7.24:24And the people came to Moses and said, We have sinned and we have spoken against the Lord and against you.24:30Pray to the Lord that he take away the serpents from us.24:35So Moses prayed for the people.24:40Once again, Israel messes up big time.24:43And once again, Moses stands in the gap and intervenes to them.24:46He prays for the Lord's mercy.24:49And once again, the Lord responds to his request. And he gives his mercy to his people who do not deserve it. What is the method of the Lord's mercy? You see it in verses 8 through 9.25:19and live. Does this method of mercy seem odd to you? It's kind of a strange way to be healed, right? You know, the guys in my small group went to an all-we-can-eat wing night this past Wednesday. It was a lot of fun, but I gotta tell you, the last thing I wanted to see after eating 24 wings was another plate of wings in front of me. My stomach wasn't feeling very great. Doug can tell you he was there.25:49But imagine if the waitress came up to me and said, oh, your stomach hurts. I have just the thing for you. Here, eat some more wings. That'll make you feel better. What? No, get those things away from me. I don't want that. That method of healing my stomach wouldn't make sense to me. Again, the last thing I want to see after eating all those wings is more wings. On a human level, the bronze serpent solution seems as crazy as the just eat more wings solution. It doesn't seem to make much sense. The way to be healed of your snake bite is to look at a fake snake on a pole. I'm guessing the last thing the Israelites wanted to see after being bitten by snakes is another snake. Why does God choose this method of mercy and healing? Why does God go this route? Because it requires faith.26:49of human wisdom and acceptance of divine wisdom. It requires a rejection of self and a deep trust in the Lord. To be clear, the bronze serpent is not a magic trick. The fake snake has no healing properties of its own. The healing comes through looking. The healing comes through trusting. Faith is the method of salvation and forgiveness. Faith is the method.27:19of healing.27:21The Israelites have a choice in this moment.27:23They have two options.27:25They can pay the penalty of their complaining on their own.27:29They can refuse to look at the serpent and die.27:32Or they can in faith look to the serpent and live.27:36They can obey God's command even though it doesn't make sense.27:42Those are the only two options available to them.27:47And you may be thinking, this is all super interesting. But what does this random snake story from over 3,000 years ago have to do with me and my complaining today? Well, you and I must understand that every single sin is a complaint against our Creator. Every single sin we commit is an act of discontentment. And this goes back to the very beginning.28:16with Adam and Eve. They were tricked into believing that God's best was not good enough for them. They were tricked into believing that something more satisfying must be on the other side of disobedience. Eating that fruit was an act of discontentment and complaining. Adam and Eve communicated a loud and clear message to God that we've been talking about this entire sermon. God, your best is not good enough for us and we want better.28:46All the sins we have studied over this past month find their root in discontentment. The Israelites are expressing their discontentment to God by committing idolatry, by doubting His promises, by refusing to genuinely repent, by complaining about His provision. They are shouting, Lord, Your best is not good enough for us.29:16same message to God every single time that we sin. Your sins are acts of discontentment and complaining. The penalty for insulting a good and perfect God is eternal death. The penalty must be paid by someone. The penalty must be taken care of by someone.29:45Do you know that this bronze serpent story isn't a random and isolated incident in the Old Testament? Do you know that the bronze serpent pops up in the New Testament as well? Jesus makes it crystal clear that this bronze serpent points forward to himself. It points forward to the most important person, the most important event in human history. The bronze serpent points forward to Christ and his sacrifice upon the cross.30:15Look at what Jesus says in John 3, 14-15.30:19And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him may have eternal life.30:32Like the Israelites, you have two options.30:36You can pay the penalty for your complaining on your own, or the penalty for your complaining can be taken care of by looking to Jesus Christ in faith. By believing that His death is enough for your forgiveness and cleansing. By believing that God's best is all that you need. There is no option C. There is no third way. There is only trusting in yourself which leads to eternal death in hell. Or there is trusting in Christ which leads to eternal life.31:13in heaven.31:17Charles Spurgeon was one of the greatest preachers of the 1800s.31:21I'm sure you've heard him quoted and misquoted many times in church.31:24Every single time a pastor shares a quote in church, it's either Spurgeon or C.S. Lewis.31:30But Spurgeon came to Christ as a teenager when he stumbled into a random church during a snowstorm.31:37And the preacher that morning wasn't particularly gifted or eloquent, But the Lord used that sermon to grab ahold of Spurgeon's heart and save him. At one point, the preacher looked directly at him and spoke to him in the sermon. And Spurgeon describes it this way. Just fixing his eyes on me as if he knew all my heart, the preacher said, Young man, you look very miserable. Well, I did, but I had not been accustomed to have remarks made from the pulpit on my personal appearance before. However, it was a good blow.32:11struck right home. He continued, and you will always be miserable. Miserable in life and miserable in death if you don't obey my text. But if you obey now this moment, you will be saved. Then lifting up his hands, he shouted, young man, look to Jesus Christ. Look, look, look. You have nothing to do but to look and live. I saw at once the way of salvation. I know not what else he said. I'd not take much notice of it. I was so possessed with that one thought. Like when the bronze serpent was The people only looked and were healed. So it was with me.32:45I had been waiting to do 50 things.32:47But when I heard that word, look, what a charming word it seemed to me.32:51Oh, I looked until I could have almost looked my eyes away.32:54There and then the cloud was gone.32:56The darkness had rolled away.32:57And that moment I saw the sun.32:59And I could have risen that instant and sung with the most enthusiastic of them of the precious blood of Christ and the simple faith which looks to Him alone.33:09Oh, that somebody had told me this before. Trust Christ and you will be saved. Friends, look to Christ and live. Trust in Christ and be saved. Have you looked yet? Have you trusted yet? If you haven't, there is no time like the present. Next year may be too late. Next month, may be too late. Tomorrow may be too late. Now is not too late. Now is the perfect time. Look to Christ. Trust in Christ. You will be forgiven. Maybe you've already looked to Christ. Maybe you've already trusted in Christ. If you have, continue to look to Him. Continue to trust in Him. There is no other way to grow.34:09There is no other way to fight against the germ of grumbling when it pops up in your heart. Whenever you are tempted to complain, look to Christ who suffered, bled, died, and bore the wrath of God for your discontentment. Look to Jesus and never forget that God gave you His best. He gave you His own Son so that you could be His son or daughter.34:39forever.34:42When you are tempted to complain about anything, remember the words of Romans 8.32, He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?34:57You have been given everything in Christ.35:01What more is there to strive for?35:03What more is there to gain?35:05What could this world possibly give you that compares to what God, has given to you? Nothing.35:13What is there to complain about when God has given you everything that He has? Nothing.35:21Your complaining is serious because it inflicts a penalty that must be paid.35:28I hope and pray the penalty for your complaining has been paid for by the blood of Jesus Christ.35:37The worship team can now make their way forward. It's so easy to walk away from a sermon series like this and say, you know what? I'm going to buckle down and I'm going to stop committing idolatry. I'm going to stop doubting. I'm going to stop fake repenting. I'm going to stop complaining. Well, that's great to hear. But what will take the place of those unproductive sins? Sin loves evacuations.36:07If you do not replace an unproductive sin with a productive discipline another sin will just rush in and take its place For right now let's focus on complaining What will you replace complaining with?36:24What will you replace grumbling with?36:28Thankfully the Bible gives us the clear answer You are to replace complaining with thanksgiving You are to replace grumbling with gratitude But as Pastor Jeff often says It's not enough just to feel thankful You need to actually give thanks And I'm going to give you the opportunity right now On the bottom of your outline There is a fill in the blank prompt that says God I give you thanks for Fill in the blank I want you to fill in the blank for what you are most thankful for right now. Be very specific because specific praise honors God's specific blessings. Write down what you are thankful for. The Thanksgiving party doesn't end here. Now we are going to give you an opportunity to share what you are thankful for with the rest of the congregation. I'm going to have a microphone. One of our elders, Brian B., he's also going to have a microphone. And we ask you to come down one of the aisles.37:34and to share one sentence with us. Fill in the blank. God, I give you thanks for fill in the blank. I guarantee that you will not regret giving thanks to God and sharing that blessing with the entire congregation. So come forward if you would like to share. Let's stand and continue to thank the Lord together. Small Group DiscussionRead Numbers 21:1-9What was your big take-away from this passage / message?Why is complaining such a big deal?What do you tend to complain about the most and why?What are you thankful for right now?BreakoutPray for one another.

That inner voice of grumbling and complaining? The enemy uses it to steal your joy. But here's the truth: complaining never helps; it only hurts. It's time to smash that broken record and replace it with thanks and praise. Every perfect gift comes from above. Start noticing them. Start naming them.

Grumbling And Complaining by HOP Blairsville

Share a commentGrumbling is rarely about water or food; it's about what we believe when life gets tight. When the pressure rises, a single question surfaces in the heart: Is the Lord among us or not? We follow Israel's wilderness journey right after the Red Sea and watch how quickly celebration turns into complaint, not to shame them, but to recognize ourselves with uncomfortable clarity. We walk through three major moments from Exodus: bitter water at Marah, daily manna and quail in the wilderness, and water flowing from a struck rock. Each scene highlights God's provision and exposes a repeated reflex to exaggerate conditions, romanticize the past, resist God's commands, and even accuse leaders with distorted logic. Along the way, we connect the dots to 1 Corinthians 10 and why these stories are preserved as examples for New Testament believers who want a life that pleases God. The conversation turns practical and personal: how do we overcome the slow “disease” of complaining before it masters us? We point to a steady dependence on Jesus, using John 6 where Christ calls Himself the Bread of Life, and we talk about gratitude as a learned discipline, not a personality trait. Colossians challenges us to practice being thankful, especially in the wilderness seasons where it takes real effort. If you've been stuck in negativity, anxiety, or cynicism, listen through and let the central question reframe your week. Subscribe for more, share this with someone who needs a reset, and leave a review with the line that hit you hardest.Learn more about twenty-five years of global impact, and reserve tickets to our gala. https://www.wisdomonline.org/mp/25 Learn more: https://www.wisdomonline.org/Support the show

Share a commentGrumbling is rarely about water or food; it's about what we believe when life gets tight. When the pressure rises, a single question surfaces in the heart: Is the Lord among us or not? We follow Israel's wilderness journey right after the Red Sea and watch how quickly celebration turns into complaint, not to shame them, but to recognize ourselves with uncomfortable clarity. We walk through three major moments from Exodus: bitter water at Marah, daily manna and quail in the wilderness, and water flowing from a struck rock. Each scene highlights God's provision and exposes a repeated reflex to exaggerate conditions, romanticize the past, resist God's commands, and even accuse leaders with distorted logic. Along the way, we connect the dots to 1 Corinthians 10 and why these stories are preserved as examples for New Testament believers who want a life that pleases God. The conversation turns practical and personal: how do we overcome the slow “disease” of complaining before it masters us? We point to a steady dependence on Jesus, using John 6 where Christ calls Himself the Bread of Life, and we talk about gratitude as a learned discipline, not a personality trait. Colossians challenges us to practice being thankful, especially in the wilderness seasons where it takes real effort. If you've been stuck in negativity, anxiety, or cynicism, listen through and let the central question reframe your week. Subscribe for more, share this with someone who needs a reset, and leave a review with the line that hit you hardest.Learn more about twenty-five years of global impact, and reserve tickets to our gala. https://www.wisdomonline.org/mp/25 Learn more: https://www.wisdomonline.org/Support the show

A pile of laundry. Grumbling boys. And an unexpected game of laundry basketball. LINKS:Join the Summer Book Club!20 Dinnertime ConversationsDownload How to Pray God's Word for Your ChildrenFollow Everyday Prayers @MillionPrayingMomsA Prayer to Align our Hearts with God by Christie Thomas In today's episode of the Everyday Prayers Podcast, Christie Thomas tells the story of how reframing a chore as an act of service turned complaining into joy and invites us to do the same. Reference: Matthew 25:21 Prayer: Lord, I thank you that you are just and merciful and faithful. Please help my heart to align with yours so that I serve in a way that brings you joy. May my joy be made complete in you and you alone. In Jesus name. Amen. Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.

Chatting to Ian at Honeysuckle Cottage, Alice can't believe they want to take Brian to court. All Alice wants is for Martha to have a peaceful relationship with her grandfather – that's more important than money. When Adam arrives home, Alice is on the attack but he stops her – he's been to see his solicitor and has called it all off. When Alice leaves, a stunned Ian questions the change of heart – with his share of the profits Adam could have something worthwhile to show for his years in farming. Adam responds that a court case will create even more bad blood. He has his achievements in Kenya, he has Xander and Ian, and that's what counts. It may not be fair, but Brian will not change and they need to accept it. Grumbling about the heat in his window, Bert makes his way to the shop, getting in Susan's way and finally settling with some humbugs behind the counter. As Susan creates a display, she reveals her idea for a taster session at the shop to encourage more volunteers. She probes further about Clive's care and Bert disputes that he came back in a state. It's been a relief not to be preened and prodded all the time. He likes being at the shop after a miserable homecoming – perhaps he should volunteer! At Tracy's, Susan shares her idea – Bert should move to Ambridge View for a change of scene and to take the pressure off Tracy. Tracy wishes her sister luck as she will need to approach Neil with the concept.

Send us Fan MailDownload study notes for this chapter.Download study notes for this entire book.**********Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version ®, NIV ® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used with permission. All rights reserved worldwide.The “NIV”, “New International Version”, “Biblica”, “International Bible Society” and the Biblica Logo are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.  Used with permission.BIBLICA, THE INTERNATIONAL BIBLE SOCIETY, provides God's Word to people through Bible translation & Bible publishing, and Bible engagement in Africa, Asia Pacific, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, and North America. Through its worldwide reach, Biblica engages people with God's Word so that their lives are transformed through a relationship with Jesus Christ.Support the show

Suffering is the textbook that'll teach you who you really are. -------- Thank you for listening! Your support of Joni and Friends helps make this show possible.     Joni and Friends envisions a world where every person with a disability finds hope, dignity, and their place in the body of Christ. Become part of the global movement today at www.joniandfriends.org   Find more encouragement on Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and YouTube.

Grumbling in the Wilderness | Tim Walter 14/06/2026 Tim Walter

The Sin of GrumblingPhilippians 2:14-15Preached June 14, 2026.Pastor Aaron Frasier

Philippians 2:14-15 challenges believers to live with gratitude instead of grumbling, reflecting the character of Christ in a world often marked by negativity, complaints, and division. In this devotional, Emily Rose Massey explores how complaining and arguing are more than bad habits—they reveal deeper heart issues that God desires to transform. Whether frustration arises from difficult circumstances, strained relationships, or everyday inconveniences, Scripture calls Christians to respond with thankfulness, humility, and trust in God's goodness. Highlights Complaining often reveals deeper issues of discontentment and unbelief. Philippians 2:14-15 calls believers to live without grumbling or arguing. Gratitude helps cultivate contentment and trust in God's sovereignty. God cares not only about our actions but also about the attitude of our hearts. Disagreements can be handled with humility, grace, and a desire for unity. A thankful spirit helps Christians stand out as lights in a dark world. Daily time in Scripture renews the mind and combats negativity. The Holy Spirit empowers believers to respond with gratitude instead of complaints. Join the Conversation Have you experienced a time when God reminded you that He saw your pain, needs, or circumstances? How does knowing that God is El Roi—the God who sees you—change the way you approach difficult seasons? Continue the conversation with the Crosswalk community here: https://forums.crosswalk.com/ Do you want to listen ad-free? When you join Crosswalk Plus, you gain access to exclusive, in-depth Bible study guides, devotionals, sound biblical advice, and daily encouragement from trusted pastors and authors—resources designed to strengthen your faith and equip you to live it out boldly. PLUS ad free podcasts! Sign Up Today! Full Transcript Below: A Heart Full of Gratitude Instead of Grumbling By: Emily Rose Massey Bible Reading:“Do all things without grumbling or disputing, that 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…” (Philippians 2:14-15, ESV). When it comes to sin in our lives, sometimes we attempt to overlook or give excuses for our behavior if we feel like our actions are justified because of our circumstances. For example, when I am sleep deprived, my flesh thinks it perfectly acceptable for me to deal out a hefty dose of sarcasm to my seven-year-old who has asked me the same question twelve times before my morning coffee or to murmur under my breath that I can’t believe my husband left his glass of milk from the night before on the floor again and, of course, the toddler just dumped it all over the living room right on cue. But those actions do not glorify God, and they are rooted in sin. If I am a child of God, His Spirit will bring conviction to my heart with His word because it is my heart that needs attention and change. When I’m tempted to complain, which we are all naturally prone to every single day, this passage from Philippians 2 comes to mind to bring truth to my heart: “Do all things without grumbling or disputing, that 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…” (Philippians 2:14-15, ESV). Intersecting Faith & Life: As God’s children, we are not to grumble. We must remember that, ultimately, grumbling is complaining against the sovereign God of the universe and saying He isn’t good, which is sinful. When we complain, we should repent, reset our minds by thinking on things above, and rejoice and give thanks to God for His graciousness towards us. There are new mercies available to us every single morning. Perhaps it would be a beneficial habit to create a daily list of things that you are grateful for to help cultivate a heart of contentment and gratitude. Despite hardships and inconveniences in our lives and relationships, we are called to rejoice and find our joy in Christ. It all comes down to the attitude and posture of our hearts. How about your attitude when you disagree with someone, or they have offended you? When you are in a disagreement with someone, do you want to be right more than you want to pursue unity with that person? Do you allow a bad attitude to drag you into unnecessary arguments or even gossip to complain to someone else instead of going directly to the person you are annoyed or upset with? Disagreements are inevitable, but most of all, God cares about our attitude during disagreements and doesn’t want us to be swept up in foolish arguments constantly. We can disagree with others without being disagreeable or prideful. If we are entangled in senseless disputing and complaining, the world has trouble seeing the light of Christ in our lives. We see in verse 15 of Philippians 2 that the Lord wants Christ followers to shine bright in a culture full of darkness. Our lives are to be a brilliant beacon of light in the darkness as we stand as God’s children against the wickedness of the world. “…that 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…” (Philippians 2:15, ESV). One way we can protect ourselves against complaining and empower our hearts to shine bright for Christ is to be diligent to cling daily to the Word of life so that we can thrust it into a dark world. The Word of God helps us to renew our minds so we can cultivate the fruit of the Spirit and stand out in the world, pointing others to the hope that we know in Jesus. In addition to our daily time in the Word, we must abide in the Vine by communing with Him daily. We can call upon the name of the Lord to cry out for help when we are tempted to complain and grumble. He is our ever-present help in times of need and is faithful to strengthen us. Further Reading: Psalm 107 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 Discover more Christian podcasts at lifeaudio.com and inquire about advertising opportunities at lifeaudio.com/contact-us.

Dr. Scott Powell, JD Flynn, and Kate Olivera look ahead to the readings for Corpus Christi— including Moses' final words to a new generation preparing to enter the Promised Land and the famous Bread of Life Discourse in the Gospel of John. This episode is sponsored by the Benedict XVI Institute's Reverent Liturgy Project.Offering the practical wisdom of priests who have successfully adopted classically Catholic worship practices to priests who want to embark on the same journey but need a roadmap to get started.To learn more, visit ReverentLiturgy.orgAlready read the readings? Skip ahead to 6:30.Reading 1 - Deuteronomy 8: 2-3, 14b-16aPsalm 147: 12-15, 19-20Reading 2 - 1 Corinthians 10: 16-17Gospel - John 6: 51-58 This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.pillarcatholic.com/subscribe

May 10th. Numbers 11:4-35, Proverbs 18:8, 1 Kings 19:10,15, James 1:14-15. Pastor: Ernesto Alaniz Numbers Part 5: Grumbling Download

Shawn Clark | Be Strong Breakout SessionIn this session, Shawn will talk about why grumbling often points to deeper issues like pride, impatience, and doubt in God's timing. He'll also break down the difference between complaining and honestly bringing struggles to God. With real-life examples and a look at Philippians 2, you'll get practical ways to replace complaining with gratitude and steady trust in Christ.Be Strong Men's ConferencePlease leave a review on Apple or Spotify to help others grow in their faith. Click here to get our Colossians Bible study.

On today’s episode of the Mums’ Group we found a parenting book that basically blamed mothers for everything… If you can believe it, it was from our parents version of Dr Golly back in the day. To hear the full episode make sure to follow The Mums' Group of APPLE or SPOTIFY The Mums' Group is a podcast from Outspoken Media. Follow The Mums' Group on: Watch episodes on YouTube Join our Facebook Community Follow us on Instagram Follow us on TikTok Follow Kate, Amy and Sophie on Instagram. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Pastor John Randolph preached from John chapter 6 on grumbling. As Christian's, how should we guard our hearts against grumbling? Listen and believe.

#DateEmOrDumpEm The One with the Rage Baiter + JP Makes Us Guess: Favorite Teachers from TV/Movies, Grumbling about Google & Spotify changes, Coryelle's New Side Hustle: Dumpster Diving at Colleges, Jacob Fry w/ Courts For Courage volleyball tournament, "Cookie" with the Capital Humane Society & More!

WELCOME BACK TO ANOTHER EPISODE OF MAN VS MARRIAGE In this powerful solo episode, **Quincy Moran aka The Q-Dawg aka The Q-Diggity Dawg** steps back to examine **the long game of legacy**. Using the powerful metaphor of the lighthouse, he reminds listeners that true legacy is built for storms — not calm seas. Legacy is shaped by daily execution, not perfection. Excellence is the standard at Man Vs. Marriage.Key themes include: - Who you are is **not** who you have to be. - Confronting limiting beliefs and hidden lies (e.g., “I don't matter,” “I'm not good enough”). - Guarding your **Quiet Dialogue** (internal operating system). - The mindset shift from “I have to” → gratitude perspective. - Living your values when **no one is watching** → building internal credibility. - **Family is your first ministry.** - Jesus as the ultimate legacy of service, sacrifice, and victory. - You are not born ready — you are **built** ready.**Timestamp Highlights** - 00:00 – Lighthouse Metaphor & Legacy Definition - 03:09 – Welcome & Big Picture Introduction - 07:05 – Limiting Beliefs & Julia Gentry's Influence - 09:33 – Identify Your Internal Operating System (Quiet Dialogue) - 11:08 – Posture: Growth & Gratitude vs. Grumbling - 16:33 – Choosing Gratitude in the Storm (Autism & Hard Seasons) - 19:46 – Family = First Ministry + Becoming Family Famous Launch Tease - 21:34 – Funeral Exercise: What words do you want spoken about you? - 24:35 – Closing Lighthouse Call + Prayer **Key Takeaways & Action Steps** (from Quincy) 1. Write down the words you want spoken about you at your funeral (Legacy Statement). 2. Identify **one** area where your quiet dialogue is sabotaging you and begin replacing it. 3. Practice gratitude with daily responsibilities. 4. Live your values when no one is watching — this builds unshakeable internal credibility. 5. Stand tall like the lighthouse for your family through every storm.**Call to Action** - Share this episode with **five men** who need to hear it. Tell them: “I'm becoming that lighthouse. Hope starts right here.” - Go back and listen to the **“Where Do I Start?”** playlist → [Listen Here](https://player.captivate.fm/episode/e80195a9-e052-4349-a5f2-3304f0dcb4bf) - Join the conversation and tag @quincywmoran on X. **Contact & Connect** - **Host:** Quincy Moran aka The Q-Dawg aka The Q-Diggity Dawg - **Email:** quincy@mvsmpodcast.com - **Website / Podcast:** Man Vs. Marriage - **X:** @quincywmoran

Guided Question What can we learn from Israel's failures in the wilderness so that we do not end up in the “loser's locker room” of the Christian life? Summary In this message, Pastor Robert Lewis contrasts the “winner's locker room” of faithful living with the sobering reality of the “loser's locker room,” where Israel's failures serve as a warning for us today. Drawing from 1 Corinthians 10, he highlights how privilege and a good beginning are not enough to guarantee a faithful finish. Israel's story reveals four “tombstones” that brought them low—idolatry, immorality, testing God, and rebellion—each of which still threatens believers today. Lewis also distills three broader lessons: loving God requires rejecting the world, God takes obedience seriously, and a good start doesn't assure a strong finish. The sermon ends with a challenge: will we follow Israel's path of defeat, or will we make the spiritual resolutions necessary to walk in victory and enter God's promised rest? Outline I. The Warning of Israel's Example (1 Cor. 10:1–6) Israel had great spiritual privileges (deliverance, leadership, provision). Despite this, most were “laid low in the wilderness.” Their failures serve as an indelible warning for us. II. Four Tombstones in the Wilderness (1 Cor. 10:7–10) Idolatry (v. 7; Ex. 32) Replacing God with false priorities. Our modern idols often involve time, attention, and misplaced devotion. Immorality (v. 8; Num. 25) Sexual sin destroys lives and relationships. God takes purity seriously; immorality disqualifies many from usefulness. Testing God (v. 9; Num. 21) Living on the edge of rebellion, daring God's patience. Gal. 6 reminds us we reap what we sow. Rebellion (v. 10; Num. 16) Grumbling against God-given leadership. Refusal to submit leads to spiritual poverty. III. General Lessons from Israel's Wilderness (vv. 11–12) Loving God means rejecting the world (1 Jn. 2:15). God takes obedience seriously—His Word leaves us without excuse. A good beginning does not guarantee a good ending—take heed lest you fall. IV. The Final Call (Heb. 4:1) Are you in God's promised land, or still wandering in the wilderness? Today is the time to make spiritual resolutions that ensure victory. Key Takeaways Privilege without obedience leads to downfall. Idolatry, immorality, testing God, and rebellion remain real dangers for Christians. Loving God requires letting go of “Egypt”—the world and its cravings. Obedience is not optional; it is essential to finishing well. A faithful start does not guarantee a faithful finish—humility and vigilance are required. Scripture References 1 Corinthians 10:1–12 – Israel's failures as warnings. Exodus 32 – The golden calf (idolatry). Numbers 25:1–9 – Israel's immorality and judgment. Numbers 21:4–9 – Testing God with complaints. Numbers 16 – Korah's rebellion. Hebrews 13:4 – God's standard for sexual purity. Proverbs 6:32 – The destruction of adultery. Galatians 6:7–8 – Reaping what is sown. Hebrews 13:17 – Following godly leadership. 1 John 2:15 – Loving God vs. loving the world. Hebrews 4:1 – Warning against falling short of God's rest. Recorded 1/3/82

Next in the sermon series, "From Creation to Canaan," Pastor Steve gives an overview of the book of Numbers. It chronicles the fulfillment of God's promises to Abraham back in Genesis: the giving of the land, people as numerous as the stars, and His presence dwelling among them. At this point the Israelites have experienced God like no other people has before: He rescued them from Egypt with the ten plagues and parted the Red Sea for them. Now He dwells among them in the tent of meeting, and yet, how do they respond? They grumble! This reveals their discontentment with God, their inability to believe that He is good and that He can be trusted. Their dissatisfaction ultimately leads to their disobedience. Nevertheless, God's goodness is not a response to either human obedience or faith. It is independent of both. Rather, it flows out of the limitless goodness of His character.

Do Everything without Grumbling || Pastor Victor Ditomaso by Praise Chapel Las Vegas

Grumbling and complaining distort our reality and distract us from our destination. Prayer, on the other hand, connects us to God's provision and purpose for the season we're in. We walk with the Lord in the light of His Word. Happy Mother's Day!

How long can you carry something before it breaks you?And what do you do when God feels… silent?In this teaching on Psalm 13, John Ortberg walks us through one of the most honest prayers in Scripture: “How long, O Lord?”When pain lingers, when answers don't come, and when God feels distant, we face a choice. We can grumble—turning inward in bitterness and withdrawal—or we can groan—bringing our pain honestly before God.This Psalm shows us how to lament in a way that leads somewhere. Not by denying pain, but by bringing it fully into God's presence.If you're carrying something heavy right now—a relationship, anxiety, loss, or a long unanswered prayer—this teaching will help you turn that pain into prayer.

Grumbling is a recurring theme in the Old Testament. God's people were rarely satisfied. This stems from unbelief, which is connected to a hardened heart. As a result, they were not allowed to enter God's rest. We too must be on guard, but how does that work? We will see how God has designed his Church for his glory and our good.1) Stay near to Jesus2) Stay near to his ChurchText: Hebrews 3

Grumbling doesn't just reveal a bad attitude; it exposes a heart that's forgotten God's goodness and is quietly accusing Him.Today, we continue our year-long Bible study in the book of Exodus, The Gospel: One Rescue at a Time. In this episode, Paul looks at Exodus 16 to show how Israel's complaints distorted reality and made them forget the God who saved them. To hear more of these studies, visit PaulTripp.com/Exodus.

In this powerful episode of The Reformed Brotherhood, Tony and Jesse return to their parable series with an in-depth examination of the Laborers in the Vineyard from Matthew 20:1-16. This often-misunderstood parable confronts our natural inclination toward merit-based thinking and exposes the scandal of God's grace. The hosts unpack the covenantal language embedded in the text, particularly the workers' "grumbling"—a loaded term echoing Israel's wilderness rebellion. Through careful exegesis and theological reflection, they demonstrate how this parable dismantles religious entitlement while celebrating God's sovereign freedom to bestow mercy according to His purposes, not our calculations. The discussion offers fresh insights into grace, election, and the radical generosity that defines God's kingdom economy. Key Takeaways The parable operates on covenant logic, not economic fairness: The landowner's dealings with his workers reflect covenantal promise-keeping rather than marketplace transactions, establishing that God's relationship with His people is fundamentally gracious. "Grumbling" carries profound theological weight: The Greek word used for the workers' complaint is the same term in the Septuagint for Israel's wilderness rebellion—not mere dissatisfaction, but a covenantal accusation against God's faithfulness. Two types of workers represent two approaches to God: The first-hired workers who contracted for specific wages represent those relating to God through legal obligation and merit, while later workers who trusted the owner's promise represent faith-based relationship. The reversal of payment order is narratively essential: By paying the last workers first, the landowner deliberately exposes the merit-based assumptions of the first workers, forcing them to confront their entitlement. Grace doesn't negate justice—it transcends it: The landowner fulfills every contractual obligation while simultaneously exercising sovereign generosity beyond what is owed, demonstrating that mercy and justice coexist in God's character. The parable addresses the present kingdom, not just heaven: Because it includes grumbling and complaint, this parable describes life in God's kingdom now—the "already but not yet"—rather than the consummated state. Divine sovereignty in salvation is the theological climax: The landowner's declaration "Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me?" directly addresses God's freedom in election and the scandal of unmerited grace. Key Ideas The Covenantal Nature of the Landowner's Dealings The parable's opening establishes a formal agreement between the landowner and the first workers: one denarius for a day's labor. This contractual arrangement is crucial for understanding what follows. Unlike marketplace haggling, this represents a covenant—the landowner binds himself to provide what he has promised. Tony emphasizes that even this initial contract is an act of condescension and grace, as the master had no obligation to employ anyone at all. As the day progresses, subsequent workers are hired with increasingly less formal agreements. By the third hour, the landowner promises only "whatever is right," and by the eleventh hour, no wage is even mentioned. These later workers enter the vineyard based entirely on the landowner's character and trustworthiness. This progression mirrors the movement from law to gospel—from contractual obligation to trusting promise. The theological implication is profound: those who relate to God based on His gracious word rather than calculated merit are actually in a more secure position than those who attempt to earn their standing through works. The Wilderness Echo: Grumbling as Covenant Violation The hosts make a critical exegetical observation about the Greek word for "grumbling" (γογγύζω) used in verse 11. This is not casual complaining but the identical term used throughout the Septuagint to describe Israel's covenant rebellion in the wilderness. When the workers grumble "upon receiving" their wages, they're not merely expressing disappointment about pay inequality—they're filing a covenant lawsuit against the master, accusing him of unfaithfulness. This connection to Numbers 16 and Exodus 16-17 is devastating. The Israelites' wilderness grumbling wasn't about logistics or comfort; it was fundamentally about doubting God's covenant fidelity. By employing this loaded terminology, Matthew signals that the first workers' complaint is nothing less than accusing God of covenant violation. The landowner's response ("Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius?") is a covenant defense—he has fulfilled his obligations precisely. The workers' real offense is not miscalculation but begrudging God's freedom to show mercy beyond what is contractually required. The "Evil Eye" and Begrudging God's Grace The final rhetorical question—"Or do you begrudge my generosity?"—contains another Jewish idiom often lost in translation. The Greek literally reads, "Is your eye evil because I am good?" This "evil eye" imagery appears throughout Scripture as a metaphor for envy, stinginess, and resentment toward another's blessing. The landowner's question cuts to the heart: are you cursing me for being generous? This directly parallels Jonah's response to Nineveh's salvation. Jonah had just experienced miraculous deliverance through the great fish, yet when God showed identical mercy to the Ninevites, Jonah's response was essentially, "I knew you were gracious—that's why I ran!" The parable exposes the same perverse logic: those who have received covenant mercy begrudging that same mercy extended to others. For the Pharisees listening to Jesus, this was an indictment of their resentment toward tax collectors and sinners receiving the kingdom. For Christians today, it challenges any sense of spiritual superiority based on how long we've been in the kingdom or how much we've sacrificed. Memorable Quotes Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity? That 'or' is a logical connector—either I'm not allowed to do what I want with my belongings, which is ridiculous, or if I am allowed, then you must be mad at me for being generous. Those are the only options. — Tony Arsenal The grumbling in the Old Testament in this context is a covenantal accusation. These workers aren't just complaining about not getting what they thought they would—they're questioning the veracity of the covenant that was made. — Tony Arsenal Most of us are this eleventh-hour call. It's much better to be in the place of that younger brother who comes in and repents than to be the older brother who is stubborn and finds some reason to come before God with self-righteous grievances. — Jesse Schwamb Full Episode Transcript [00:01:05] Jesse Schwamb: Welcome to episode 488 of the Reformer Brotherhood. I'm Jesse  [00:01:13] Tony Arsenal: and I am still Tony, and this is the podcast where Tony comes back. Hey brother.  [00:01:19] Jesse Schwamb: Hey brother. The band is back together again, man. It's reunited and boy, do you feel it? It feels good, doesn't  [00:01:26] Tony Arsenal: it? I do, I do. I'm excited to come back. It was nice to take a break. [00:01:29] Jesse Schwamb: Good.  [00:01:29] Tony Arsenal: I, uh, I've been, you know, texted with you a couple times. Just it was, I did my best to sort of not think about the podcast because that's sort of defeats the purpose of taking a break from something if you spend a lot of time thinking about it. Um, so I'm back. I'm refreshed. I'm ready to go.  [00:01:44] Break and Work Chaos [00:01:44] Tony Arsenal: I appreciate the listeners' patience. Uh, it's been sort of a weird, crazy busy time at work. Uh, there's a lot going on. I, I lost like. 60% of my staff in the course of like three weeks. And, um, I'm still kind of in the thick of it, but we're coming out of it. So took a little bit of time to just make sure that I was having a, an appropriate space to de-stress from that and take care of my family and attend to worship. And, um, it was really a, a blessing to have that. Uh, sort of sabbatical. Ironically, the sabbatical wars were going on at the same time on Twitter, and Jesse is blissfully unaware of that 'cause he's not involved in in the Twitter. That's true. Um, but yeah, just took a little break and it's kinda like overblown it, to call it a sabbatical. Like this is a podcast, it's a hobby, but, but it was nice to have, uh, a little bit of extra time, you know, couple hours extra week, uh, uh, each week of extra time to just decompress and, uh, play with the kids and spend time with my wife and clean the house a little bit, which was good.  [00:02:36] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, it is always good to have a clean house. You look great. You seem refreshed. The voice sounds good, and I'm like, I don't know, in year seven or eight of my Twitter sabbatical, it's going great so far. I feel like I haven't missed a whole lot. The world still seems wild and I'm sure, or X, right? We gotta go X on this. It's  [00:02:53] Tony Arsenal: always Twitter. It's always gonna be Twitter. I don't care what Elon Musk  says.  [00:02:56] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, I'm listen. I'm totally fine with that.  [00:02:58] Back to Parables [00:02:58] Jesse Schwamb: And I teased this in the last episode, but we can't be stopped. I mean, people should know this by now, we have an inexorable march through the parables of Jesus's true. That will not be stopped. We're always gonna come back until there are no more. And on this episode, we're gonna be hanging out in Matthew 20, talking about laborers in the Kingdom of Heaven.  [00:03:17] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. I'm stoked. I'm, I'm, I'm excited to get back into it. I'm excited to get back into the word together with everybody. I'm excited to clear whatever that was on in my throat out  [00:03:27] Jesse Schwamb: emotion,  [00:03:27] Tony Arsenal: live on the air. Uh, but yeah, it'll be good. I'm, I'm stoked. I mean, I love this stuff and it's good to be back.  [00:03:32] Jesse Schwamb: Listen, you had the rest. Now let's talk about labor. So speaking of labor, it's, it's time for you to work up here, Tony. Are you affirming with or denying against on this episode?  [00:03:42] Tony Arsenal: Uh, I'm affirming something and I'm hopeful, uh, that just a little behind the scenes activity here. Jesse recorded episode 487, like an hour and a half ago. I have not yet listened to it, so I don't know if you did an affirmation and I I did. If you did. I hope it's not the same one.  [00:03:58] Jesse Schwamb: I did not. You're  [00:03:59] Tony Arsenal: safe. Uh, good. So I'm safe.  [00:04:01] Artemis II Hype [00:04:01] Tony Arsenal: So, um, I'm affirming the Artemis two mission. Um, oh, nice. Have you been, I mean, I know you're not on Twitter, but I'm sure there's news elsewhere. Uh, this amazing mission around the moon, um, for astronaut, for astronauts, I think, um, the furthest man space travel, um, since the Apollo program. Um. Pretty intense, pretty amazing pictures, right? The camera technologies amazing. Increased exponentially, uh, since we were there last. Um, this is ostensibly in preparation for an actual moon landing, which who knows when that will be? Um, but as far as I've seen, the mission was a resounding success. There was no right. I think they had, they ran into a few little hiccups early on with some technical things, but nothing crazy. I have not heard. Um, I know they did touch down and they did reentry. Um, I've not heard anything one way or another, but I'm assuming since I have not heard terrible, tragic news that they made it through, did they do the reentry? I'm really, apparently I'm not actually paying as much attention to this as I thought I was. I saw a lot of information about reentry, but I guess, I don't know for sure when that happened or is happening.  [00:05:05] Jesse Schwamb: I mean, by this point, when people listen to it, it'll be old news anyway, right? So  [00:05:09] Tony Arsenal: For sure. Yeah. And either, either it went terribly wrong and I'm gonna feel awful, or it went fine and I'm gonna feel a little silly for. Throwing a caveat that it went terribly wrong out there. But, um, it's cool. It's, it's amazing. I mean, I, I commented to my wife the other day and she's kinda like, yeah, maybe we should like, spend that money on people who are on the planet. I was like, okay, I can, I can buy that wisdom. But, um, there's something very cool and very Genesis, uh, one, ask Genesis one and two, ask about flying out into space and taking dominion over Yeah, for sure. Over a, a little ball of rock, uh, you know, uh, 25,000 miles away or whatever it is. Um. And, you know, I'm like an engineering nerd. I, I don't know anything about engineering, but I love watching YouTube videos that explain stuff like this. And  [00:05:52] Jesse Schwamb: me  [00:05:52] Tony Arsenal: too, all of the videos that have cropped up now about free return and how, like they're able to basically like do minimal burn on the thrusters to get into the right trajectory and then just like meet the moon in the place it's gonna be. And then the, you know, the moon's gravity captures it and whips it back around and then shoots it back towards Earth. And for the most part, they're able to do all of that with relatively minor, um, relatively minor energy output because they're just utilizing physics and gravity and math, um, to fly to the moon and come back. Yes. It's pretty crazy amazing. So, yeah. Amazing. And the photos of like the, the sort of like new versions of the Earthrise photos are really, really phenomenal. Um, they're crisp, they're clean, they're obviously like the best, the best actual pho photographic images we've had of the lunar surface. Um. And the, the far side of the lunar surface, which we get all sorts of like telescopic photos and things of this side of the lunar surface because it's tightly locked and is facing us at all times. We don't get a ton of really great photography of the far side of the moon, which is a big part of what this mission was, so,  [00:06:56] Jesse Schwamb: right.  [00:06:56] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. If you haven't seen the photos, I mean, they're out there, they're amazing. There will be even more available once we get back. You know, they, they're transmitting only the most stellar, amazing ones. Um, and, but they're taking, I'm sure thousands and thousands of photos and, um, so yeah, it's pretty cool. I'm affirming the Artemis two mission. Um. It's just amazing what, what people can do with common grace, you know? That's right. In insight into nature. Um, I don't know anything about the astronauts. I don't know anything about their religious faith or their spiritual life or anything like that. But, um, the people who design this, the people who fly it, they're just tapping into the truth that's present in God's creation. So good on them. Uh, either I'm glad they got home, wish they have a safe home coming, or something along those lines, I guess. I don't know.  [00:07:40] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, you'll be happy to know that NASA is reporting that the four astronauts are an excellent condition after they landed in the Pacific Ocean. So  [00:07:47] Tony Arsenal: good.  [00:07:47] Jesse Schwamb: All, all appears to be well. And it says they have a giant SD card of pictures that's they've been taking. Yeah. And saving. I'm sure. They were just, they were just too big to send to over wifi.  [00:07:58] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Like massive wideness. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure they have a ton that they didn't send because you know Right. Data rates to the moon are pretty high. Yeah.  [00:08:05] Jesse Schwamb: Ex. Yeah.  [00:08:05] Tony Arsenal: This economy is crazy. So  [00:08:07] Jesse Schwamb: Exactly. In this economy. Really In this economy. Yeah, exactly.  [00:08:11] Cosmic Worship Reflections [00:08:11] Jesse Schwamb: I think you're right. This is good. I haven't talked about this at all. It's hard not to get just stoked, even in the amateur way about the science, the technology, the physics of all this stuff, and then even the astronauts just being overwhelmed by what they're seeing. [00:08:24] Tony Arsenal: Mm-hmm.  [00:08:25] Jesse Schwamb: It's hard not to get pulled into that and think about the universe that God has created and find that there is something transcendent just, uh, by observing all of these things. Yeah. Like even casually, which I think shows, again, this is literally the, the heavens and the earth crying out for God, showing his immeasurable power and, you know, immortal nature. It's incredible that we can even see and be a part of some of these things. Just wild.  [00:08:49] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah, and I think it's crazy that they can get signals to the moon. I mean, I drive home from Dartmouth College and I go through half of the spot there, and I don't have a cell signal, but we can get images from the moon. Um, so yeah, it's great. It's great. Check it out if you haven't seen it. If you haven't heard about it, I don't know what you're doing. Uh, this is probably the largest major scientific advancement in our generation. Um, in terms of like big scale scientific enterprise projects. There's been a lot of really amazing technology that's been developed. But this is like the first big. Almost like risky kind of scientific,  [00:09:30] Jesse Schwamb: right?  [00:09:30] Tony Arsenal: I dunno. Gambit or I dunno, gamble that we've done in a long time. Big deal. I mean, big a lot. Deal of things. Deal. Nothing went wrong. Nothing ma major went wrong. Praise God that they all got back to the planet safely. Right. But, um, a lot of things could have gone wrong, uh, and they didn't. So check out the photos, check out the scientific data they're gonna get. I mean, I'm sure they've got all sorts of information about the way the, the, the space ship moved, all of that stuff. It's gonna be really interesting to see kind of how this all comes about.  [00:09:56] Jesse Schwamb: Get some worship on, right? Yeah. I mean this is what a one, a thing to be reminded about how big and how glorious God is. [00:10:01] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.  [00:10:01] Jesse Schwamb: And, and to realize, like you said, the risks of this exploration. And this is God again, creating all of this outta nothing. Why? Yeah. Just absolutely wild. Incredible.  [00:10:12] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah, for  [00:10:12] Jesse Schwamb: sure. Blown away.  [00:10:13] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. What about you, Jesse? What do you have for us?  [00:10:15] Bayes and Predictability [00:10:15] Jesse Schwamb: I got affirmation. It's equally nerdy, and actually this is as is always the case. This is why one of many reasons I miss you is it, it dovetails so nicely, so I'm affirming with a book. It's called Everything Is Predictable, how Esy and Statistics Explains the World. It's by a guy named Tom Chivers. I know this sounds super nerdy, but hear me out on this because Thomas Bayes, if you don't know this guy is first kind of like a wild and interesting guy, but this whole theory he put forward is super interesting. And this book is not like a mathematics book. It's like reads almost like a statistical thriller, which as it came outta my mouth, realized it was not maybe more ingratiating. I could have chosen better words than statistical thriller. But Thomas Bayes was alive in the 17 hundreds. And what's interesting to me at least about him, is he was an English statistician, who was a Presbyterian minister actually. He was a non-conformist and his, this whole theorem that he developed was actually published after his death. And the non-conformist part is super interesting. It's all in this book, even some of his different theological ideas. But because he was non-conformist, it basically meant like he couldn't learn. He was kicked out of all the English universities. He had to go to Scotland. Even all of that shaped how he came up with this particular theorem. But the gist of it is. Rather than treating like probabilities, as we think about it as this fixed frequency, you know, how many times does this thing occur? He argued and realized that it should represent a degree of belief and then you would update that belief rationally as new evidence comes in. And I know that sounds super quaint, but this is like what machine learning is based on medical diagnosis. A lot of like space travel is based on this in terms of understanding uncertainty and systems spam, all of that stuff. Here's an example, I think Tony, because we are, we have to carry forward with the top 50 medical podcast thing, right? We've got going on here. Lemme just give everybody an example of why you need this and why you automatically think this way. So. Statistics is really important, especially in medical testing. This was really prevalent in during COVID. So there's two ways that you can describe how a medical test performs you. You know this already, Tony, you're an expert. So one would be like sensitivity. So like how AIG  [00:12:19] Tony Arsenal: not an expert.  [00:12:20] Jesse Schwamb: Oh, you're definitely an expert in testing. Here we go. So one would be like sensitivity. How good is the test at catching people who are sick? So if you're sick, you, you want the test to identify that, that you're sick. That's sensitivity. So a test with a 99% sensitivity is gonna correctly identify 99 out of a hundred people who are truly sick. It always gonna miss one person. It's a false negative. The other half of that coin is something called specificity. So if sensitivity is all about catching the people who are sick, specificity is gonna say, how good is the test at clearing people who are not sick? And so a test with 99% specificity, you might have correctly guessed, is gonna identify or clear 99 out of a hundred healthy people. Now if you have a test. Both of those 99% sensitive and 99% specific, you might be thinking, that is the dream. That's exactly what I want. That that test is gonna be so precise and accurate. How could my intuition fail me? But this is the thing. It actually fails all the time, and here's why. Let's say that. You go out and you screen a group of people, a general population for a rare disease that affects one in a thousand people. One in a thousand people, rare disease. So if you screen 10,000 people from the general population, that means that truly only 10 of them are going to have the actual disease. I'm not gonna do all the math 'cause it'll, oh, this is already making for amazing podcasting. But here's the bottom line. That test, which sounds so good on the face, is going to identify 109 people as truly sick or truly having disease. But the problem is that only 10 of them actually have it. That means that only there's, it only has a success rate of 9%. There's only 9% chance you actually have the disease, but it's falsely identified. The short end of this is Bayes corrects that problem. He fixes it with his theorem so that we get to the right number of people. That's what's called like a base fallacy rate. It's not taking into account that really only 10 people should have this particular disease or this sickness. So I know that's sounds super nerdy, but so much of our lives are based on this. We have a prior belief or a prior set of things that we understand about the world. And then as evidence comes in, we refine that. That sounds so normal and normative, but it's revolutionary in this book actually. Bayes versus what's called like frequentist or frequent, um, probability is like hotly debated. People actually throw down over this theorem. So it's a really fun read. Go check out. Everything is predictable. Al Bayesian statistics explains our world. It really is for everybody. And then you can impress your friends with all the statistical pross you're gonna have when you're done reading it.  [00:14:56] Tony Arsenal: Like the medical administrator hat that I can't always take off is like, why would we screen 10,000 people? Are, are they all symptomatic? Are none of them symptomatic? But suppose it doesn't really  [00:15:08] Jesse Schwamb: matter for the example. That's a great, so generally what happens here is, let's say it's like some kind of rare form of cancer, unless you use Bayesian statistics, what you'll find is you'll get these false positive rates. So these tests do use Bayesian statistics. It corrects, in other words, for this problem. So there might be a lot of people that are gonna screen for this because if you, you wanna know if you have it, but you don't wanna get it wrong and say that you do. So this ensures his approach ensures that you get it. Right. It's wild. Fascinating stuff.  [00:15:34] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, and I would think actually, you know, there's probably, there's other mechanisms as well where they would, where they would sort of screen out. People that shouldn't be tested or help identify false negatives, false positives. Um, but yeah, that's, that's interesting. I probably won't read that book, but it sounds like an interesting read. I just don't have a lot of room on my A TBR shelf.  [00:15:55] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, listen. That, that's fair.  [00:15:57] Goodreads DNF Update [00:15:57] Jesse Schwamb: By the way, here's like a, a side affirmation. I think you and I both share speaking like books and cataloging books. If you use Good Reads, good Reads. Right. Finally adding a list of the Do Not Did Not Finish book. That's fantastic. This, this might be an example for some people, so pick it up and even if you don't have a place for it, guess where you can put it on the did not finish list. Yeah. Good Reads.  [00:16:16] Tony Arsenal: That's finally, that's one of those like, like why didn't they add that 15 years ago? Kind of an updates and you get the email and they're like, we're so excited to introduce the did Not Finish thing. And we're like, yeah. Like of course. Like, duh. It's likes, like, we're proud to introduce that. Your keypad now has a zero on it.  [00:16:36] Jesse Schwamb: Right. So  [00:16:37] Tony Arsenal: yeah. I'm, I'm excited about the DNR, um, the DNF, um, I'm so excited. I can't even remember what it's called. Yeah. The shelf. But, uh, very, very useful. The DNR list  [00:16:47] Jesse Schwamb: is a diff it is a different list. Speaking of medical things, it's a different  [00:16:50] Tony Arsenal: list. Yeah. Yeah, that's definitely a different thing. Usually it's not a list. It's a list of one in most cases.  [00:16:56] Jesse Schwamb: Exactly,  [00:16:57] Tony Arsenal: yeah. You can't put other people on your  [00:17:00] Jesse Schwamb: DNR  [00:17:00] Tony Arsenal: This,  [00:17:00] Jesse Schwamb: I suppose. Yeah, I should clarify that. You can really, you can only really put yourself, or I suppose somebody for whom you have that kind of authority over on that list, but I was thinking that more from like a medical perspective, that somewhere there would be a database in which there might be a list of DNR. I don't know.  [00:17:15] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, maybe. I don't know. I'm not sure. Probably there was at some point, but I think with medical chart technology now, that's probably like a. A moot point. Yeah. They don't need to be able to like cross reference a master list anymore. They just look in the patient's electronic record. We're really like in the weeds here. You can tell it's been a while since I've, I've podcasted. I don't really remember how to do this.  [00:17:35] Jesse Schwamb: This is great.  [00:17:36] Segue to Matthew 20 [00:17:36] Jesse Schwamb: I think at this point we try to make some kind of awkward segue that is mildly successful. Again, probably has statistically like a 20 to 27% chance of being successful and really hitting the mark. Yeah. So do you have anything that's gonna move us into this?  [00:17:49] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, I mean, I feel like you've been podcasting for the last several weeks without me and I've been working hard and now I'm kind of coming in as Johnny come lately and we're gonna get paid the same amount so. Even though you've worked harder for longer and I'm coming in late to the game here. [00:18:03] Jesse Schwamb: Oh man. Ple loved ones. Please tell me you got that. Please tell me you got all of that. That's, that's what you show up for here. Yeah, that was  [00:18:10] Tony Arsenal: a deep cut.  [00:18:11] Jesse Schwamb: That, that was beautiful. And I think leads us right into Matthew 20. So I think we've got at least 16 verses to get through here. Maybe again, if we're gonna keep a statistical theme here, something about engineering and math, all that stuff, we'll let everybody else pick the over under and whether or not we're gonna get through this and how many verses that's going to be. But at this point, we might as well begin.  [00:18:32] Tony Arsenal: Yes. Yeah.  [00:18:33] Read the Parable [00:18:33] Tony Arsenal: I'll start by reading. Uh, we're here in Matthew chapter 20, the first 16 versus this is the parable of the laborers in the vineyard and it reads. For the Kingdom of Heaven is like a master of a house who went out early in the morning to hire laborer laborers for his vineyard. After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into the vineyard and going out about the third hour, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace. He said to them, you go into the vineyard too, and whatever is right, I will give you. So they went, going out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour, he did the same. And about the 11th hour, he went out and found others standing. And he said to them, why do you stand here idle all day? They said to him, because no one has hired us. And he said to them, you go into the vineyard too. And when the evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, call the laborers and pay them with their wages, beginning with the last up to the first. And when those hired about the 11th hour came, each of them received a denarius. Now, when those hired first came, they thought they would receive more, but each of them also received a denarius. And on receiving it, they grumbled at the master of the house saying, these last worked only one hour and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat. And he replied to one of them, friend, I'm doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me? For a denarius, take what belongs to you and go, I choose to give the last worker as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you beg, do you begrudge my generosity? So the last will be first and the first will be last. Now I just wanna head this off. I did bite my tongue earlier and I probably am lisping and this is like a running gag. We thought that we'd resolved it. Uh, so if you hear me stumble over my words a little bit, it's just, it's just the struggle bus today.  [00:20:24] Jesse Schwamb: Listen, this is the, these are like the real things we have to deal with when the podcasting, like the real threats, the real injuries. I appreciate you like working through it. Like you just get back up and you walk it off with your tongue.  [00:20:35] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, my, my, uh, my podcasting hiatus was actually just a recovery of the last time I bit my tongue. I just needed a couple weeks to, no, I'm just kidding.  [00:20:43] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, we didn't wanna say.  [00:20:44] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.  [00:20:44] Kingdom Fairness and Grumbling [00:20:44] Tony Arsenal: So, Jesse, this is a, this is a parable that follows right on the heels, um, of kind of everything we've been talking about. And I think as we go through these parables and we look at them and we, we sort of pick them up and we look at the different facets of them, we sort of compare them to each other. We kind of, we kind of place them in their context really. They all have basically the same theme, right? Like they're all kind of circulating around these same topics. In this parable, it's circulating around this idea that, um, the, the owner of the vineyard, the master of the vineyard, is allowed to pay the people he employs whatever he wants. And as long as the payment that is due to an individual is received by that individual, then what other people receive and how they receive it and how hard they've worked and how hard they didn't work. That's really not germane to whether or not the, the laborer received a fair wage, uh, in the first place. Right. So we're, we're circling around themes of kind of fairness of, uh, of sort of resentment, I think for resentment at the master's generosity, which has been a big theme in previous ones. So this will be good for us to expand on. There's always little nuggets and kernels of things that are different from other parables, and then it's interesting to always see the ways that they kind of line up and, and tell us similar things.  [00:21:57] Jesse Schwamb: And this parable is unique to Matthew. Yeah. And it does function as this exposition or expansion of what Jesus says in chapter 19 where it says, but many who are first will be last. And the last first, which is repeated with this lovely like inverted emphasis in, at the end of this as you just read. So it belongs to this like interesting cluster of teacher teachings on discipleship and reward nature of the kingdom of God. And we've, we've spoken a lot about that. I think I was just reminded of this as you were, you were. Reading this, I feel like I remember this from some teaching, like this parable is kind of like a unique chiasm that's anchored on the landowner, sovereign generosity, which you brought up. And then there's the complaints of the first hired, which is mirrored by the late comers vulnerability. And then the landowners, two speeches which divide everything, kind of provide sandwich and the like, the theological climax. It does start in that really familiar way, which we've gotten accustomed to thinking about that introductory formula of the kingdom of heaven is like, and it signals of course that what follows is not gonna be a lesson in economics, but it's gonna use all this economic language as theological disclosure for how God's kingdom operates. And it starts again, like you said, with this master of the house, which to me seems. Pretty clearly like a, a God figure himself. Yeah. It's, that's kind of like a reoccurring mathian image. I think. So we've got this vineyard, which of course has all this symbolism, steeply rooted in Israel's covenant imagination and evokes God's people and his redemptive labor among them. So, man, now that I'm saying this all loud, is this thing like super pregnant with all kinds of like imagery and meaning?  [00:23:27] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. And you know, it's, it's always good to remember, although parables have kind of some parables, most parables have sort of distinct discreet, symbolic elements where like, this represents that this represents that almost in an allegorical form. And, and in some cases, like purely in allegorical form, where it's like pilgrim's progress where each, each individual, each entity, each location each represents some sort of symbolic value. But we have to remember that when, when it says the parable of the kingdom of heaven is like the master of the house, it's not just like the master of the house. Yes. Right. It's like this whole scenario. Yes. It's, it's like. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. It's like everything that follows, it's like the entire, um, the entire paree here. That's what the Kingdom of Heaven is like. And one of the things that I think is striking about this is the kingdom of heaven is like some people complaining, like the people complaining about, some people are getting the same wage for less work. Um, that is part of what the Kingdom of Heaven is like. So I think we sometimes think of, of. The kingdom of heaven in, um, in the parables, we think of it as though God is just saying, this is what heaven is like. Right? Jesus Just saying like, this is what heaven is like, but the kingdom of heaven, that language is broader than what we normally would say, uh, is. We're thinking of heaven, like in the, the spiritual abode where God lives and the angels live. Um, where, where the departed saints are waiting for the resurrection, the kingdom of heaven is, is also inclusive of the, the sort of like. Time now between the victory of Christ on the cross and the consummation of the kingdom and the last day, the kingdom of heaven is inclusive of that time period too. And so this parable sort of situates us. I think it situates us in that pre consummated state where we're talking about what it's like to be a part of the kingdom of heaven here and now in our fallen state, but still solidly in the kingdom of heaven. 'cause there's not gonna be any complaining or grumbling about God's justice in God's fairness once we're in the final resurrected state. Right? Sure. Nobody's gonna be looking back and be like, yeah, you were way too gracious for that guy. Nobody's gonna be playing the Jonah part when we're all resurrected and we're worshiping for, for all time going forward. So this parable, because there are elements of. Dissatisfaction or elements of grumbling or complaining similar to like the, the parable of the prodigal son. There's this sun figure, the, the older sun figure who like is just a bonehead and doesn't get it. Well, that can't be talking about the people who are in the resurrection kingdom in the final kingdom. It's gotta be talking about people who are still awaiting the resurrection of the body and who are still not yet. Uh, and even in, in that parable, the, the older son doesn't even seem to be a figure who's, who's regener. Maybe he does become regener at some point in the future, but he doesn't seem to be. In, even in God's kingdom, he doesn't seem to be, even among God's people, he's consistently placed outside of the field. You don't even know he exists until Nick halfway through the parable. This is similar in that there are these workers, they're receiving their wages and some of them are, are outwardly dissatisfied and grumbling against the master of the house. Um, so I think if we think about parables as describing heaven rather than the kingdom of heaven, we can lose sight of, of what's actually being said in a lot of them. [00:26:50] Contracts Versus Grace [00:26:50] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, that's really good stuff because it strikes me that there are like, strangely, two groups here mentioned, I, I find this really kind of fascinating. We, I think we should talk about this, like the first group has like the most formal agreement, it's almost a legal contract, right? Various was like a standard day laborers wage sufficient mostly for subsistence. And so that detail seems theologically loaded to me. These workers relate to the landowner on the basis of a contract and what is owed. And so their claim at the end of the day will be exactly that. They're owed something and they know it, and that sets up Then this contrast with a second group, which is mostly all about grace because by the time we get to that third hour, like. Approximately like 9:00 AM then we're beginning this pattern repeated at the sixth and the ninth hours. And crucially, for those workers who go out, go out and get recruited, there's no wage that's specified for them. Only the promise of like whatever is right. And so they enter the vineyard, not on the basis of a contract, but on the basis of like the owner's word and character. And that seems to be like more of a picture of trust and not, not calculation. Yeah. Separate than like the first group. And that marketplace, idleness, as I read this, doesn't imply like laziness because verse seven clarifies like they just had not been hired. Right? They were overworked, they were unemployed. They were marginalized. So it does set up, like you said, everything you just talked about, about the kind of this, I like that. Like the Jonah, the Jonah whiners or whatever, like yeah, they want to complain about this, right? There are, and there are two, two separate groups that have kind of been brought into the fold, not under different terms or pretenses, but differently. [00:28:17] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. And I think too, bear's saying, um. Although there are elements of parables that are very, very directly applicable. Mm. We shouldn't read this as though every, every specific thing in the parable is not a parable. Right. Right. I think we can look at this and we can go, you know, you can read this in a way where, oh yeah, there's some people actually earn their, earn their wage, they earn ary. Right. It's a fair contract. And they work all day and he says, well, I'm gonna give you what's right, what you, what I owe you.  [00:28:45] God Owes Nothing [00:28:45] Tony Arsenal: The reality is God doesn't owe any of us anything. Right? Right. He owes us wrath and judgment and destruction. And so even, even the people who are the hard workers in the kingdom of God don't merit and never could merit, um, to, in a certain sense, in a strict sense and stick with me before you send your, your angry emails in a real strict sense. Even Adam couldn't merit. What was, well, it was guaranteed to him, according to the Covenant of Works, God had to condescend to make the covenant of works in order for Adam to have any sort of fruition of his blessedness. So there there's no natural obligation, strict obligation that God has to reward the work of his creatures because nothing they could do could ever be sufficient enough to obligate him. So the, the obligation of himself, and that's, this is where I do think this is strong, the fact that he obligates himself to these workers to give them their denarius after a hard day's work  [00:29:37] Jesse Schwamb: exactly  [00:29:37] Tony Arsenal: is itself. A covenantal, um, contractual, yes. But I actually read this as sort of a covenantal thing and the, the strange part is that the people don't recognize the sort of semi gracious covenantal nature of this. Yes.  [00:29:50] Grace In The Hiring [00:29:50] Tony Arsenal: I think, um, you know, there have been times when I, where I've been unemployed, um, not for very long. Now, I know some people face unemployment for a lot longer than I ever have, but I know there was times where I was, I was looking for work and someone would say to me like, Hey, you know, my, my, my lawn needs to be mowed. Could you come over and I'll, I'll give you 25 bucks to mow my lawn. It's a small lawn. Um. That's a gracious act in most cases. Right, right. Um, yes, I'm performing a task. Yes, they're paying me, but they didn't have to offer me that work. They didn't have to offer me that job, especially when it's something that like they could have accomplished themselves. They could have just done it themselves. Um, so I think there's an element of that here, that there's, there's a condescension of the master to these workers, to these laborers who are not part of his household. These are not, they're not slaves. These are not people who are part of his household, who are regular employees. These are people that he goes out into the market to, to find and to hire. And as we see some of, some of these mark, like the difference between the ones that are hired and the ones that are not hired until later in the day, the parable's not super clear about what it is. Just that they're not hired, it doesn't say the lazy ones were left there. The ones were exactly, that were ugly or had like limp legs or like just couldn't cut it. It just says like there was some that didn't get hired. Um, so there's a gracious element of this, and that makes the recognition at the end or the lack of recognition at the end by these full day laborers, the, the sort of like recognition, this, this entitled ness, um, that actually makes it all the worst. It's like the people who are outwardly attached to the covenant of grace. Um, I know all the Baptists in our, our group, their heads just exploded, but like are outwardly attached to the covenant of grace, um, who wanna somehow complain about like the graciousness of the covenant of grace that they're outwardly attached to it. It's just sort of like a form of, of theological and temporary insanity, I think. And that's what we see on full display here.  [00:31:40] Jesse Schwamb: It's definitely all grace. You're right that nobody's gonna get injustice right in this parable. And I think that's definitely exemplified the further out you go in this hiring order. [00:31:49] Eleventh Hour Mercy [00:31:49] Jesse Schwamb: So by the time you get to 5:00 PM which is pretty extraordinary, right? Only really like one hour remains before sense, right? It's the end of the working day.  [00:31:56] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.  [00:31:56] Jesse Schwamb: You can imagine like these guys who are being hired at the hour probably can contribute very little in the last hour of the day, right? But this owner goes out and hires them and no agreement is stated whatsoever. It's just pure grace. The landowner's question, why do you stand here idle all day? I think to your point, underlies their vulnerability. They were not idle by choice, presumably. And so I think we rightly here in this, like a foreshadowing of those who are called the late in redemptive history, Gentile sinners, the seemingly least qualified for kingdom membership. All of that I think is at play and it's all, it's getting this lovely setup of all these groups to help us understand what that kingdom is actually like.  [00:32:33] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah.  [00:32:35] Reverse Payroll Setup [00:32:35] Tony Arsenal: And then we have this, um, this is where the sort of dramatic tension turns, right? The end of the day comes and, uh, the master calls the, the people that he brought last, right? He calls the people who'd only been there for an hour and he starts to go down the list of the people who, the people who were last, and the people who came in next. And the people who came in next, right? And the workers who had contracted at the beginning of the day. Um, they're watching this happen and they're kind of going, oh, this is gonna be good. Like, that guy's only been here for an hour and he got a denarius. You know, the logic is probably like, I'm gonna get 12 denarius, like I'm gonna go 12 days worth of work. Um, because I think there's an assumption on their part, um, that the master's fair that he is, he's providing an equitable wage. Um, of course the master is fair, but he's providing an equitable wage that's commensurate with the work delivered. A delivered, delivered, right? And that, that's the key to this parable.  [00:33:26] Merit Mindset Exposed [00:33:26] Tony Arsenal: I think the expectation that God. Helps those who help themselves. Right? God rewards those who put in the hard work. God. God provides blessing or salvation according to the merit provided by the one who's being saved. That perspective is what's on full display here. Yes. By the people who are, uh, the ones who contracted for the full day. They're not thinking about the covenant that they have with this person or the contract they have with this person. They're not thinking about the fact that they agreed to work for the day in order to earn a day's wage. They're thinking about how this actually is gonna work out great in their favor. They're looking at this as a strictly merit-based kind of a, a thing. And you would think that like when the, the one hour people come in, they get a denarius, and then the three hour people come in and they get a denarius. You'd think they would pick up on it at some point, but then in the course of the payroll, it doesn't seem that they do. They still get to the bottom of the list and think they're gonna get more compared to the other people who all got the same.  [00:34:22] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, that display piece is critical to this. It is like complete setup. Like you can imagine he, the landowner calling everybody together at the end of the day and they're all standing around. Some of them are exhausted because they've again born all their work in the heat of the day on their backs. They're tired, they're dirty, maybe they're exhausted. And he starts in this reverse order. And by the way, we should note that there is something here that's beautiful in that the law, the landowner is law abiding because right evening payment is mandated in the Torah. So we see all this taking place as to fulfill the law in some ways. But the reversal of the order that last of first is like such deliberative and good narrative storytelling and staging, isn't it? 'cause it ensures that the first hired workers are going to witness the payment of those who work the least. And if without that order, if you just did it the other way around, the more a crisis of the parable disc like completely goes away.  [00:35:10] Tony Arsenal: Yeah.  [00:35:10] Jesse Schwamb: So this execution of the payment at the owner's will, it just shows that he has. He's completely independent. His sovereignty belong. The sovereignty belongs to the master alone. And so this 11th hour workers receiving a full day's wage for one hour of work, that's like an act of sheer generosity. It's not proportional justice. And I think as reform, people, maybe all of us at some point have had this conversation about predestination and justice and mercy. And again, really I think putting a crowbar between this idea that nobody is receiving injustice, but some are receiving mercy and grace. And here these first hired workers seeing this form, like you said, this expectation that they're gonna receive more, like you said, where that came from. Yeah, it's just them, right? It's purely manufactured in their own reasoning. It's not anchored in the covenantal promise and certainly not witnessed in the grace that they should be receive, like perceiving as the payments get doled out, like sequentially moving in their reverse order toward those who have worked the longest. But their expectation reveals that they have fundamentally misread like the landowner's character. They're still operating in the register of a contract and not grace.  [00:36:16] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. And you know, I think to sort of lock this covenant covenantal frame and sort of like lack of recognition of the covenant into place too, when you look at the language of this parable, um, and especially kind of what it's following up on, it's coming on the heels of this interaction with this rich, rich young ruler who comes in and he thinks that he's gonna earn eternal life by keeping the commandments. Um, and, and he, he has this outward sense or this outward display of pty. He's calling Jesus good. He's saying he, you know, he keeps the commandments, Jesus doesn't even disagree with him actually, that he has connect. Yes. You know, I think it's implied that, well, of course you haven't, but he, he still is graciously trying to like, convince this guy, no, you actually need to abandon your self righteousness and, and pursue and follow me. Um. But this is a parable where like other people are listening, right? There's other witnesses. This isn't like the rich young ruler came to him in the middle of the night, like Nicodemus. This is something that's happened on PO on in the public. So we can anticipate that the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the scribes and the lawyers were all aware of this. They may have been there, but they were at least aware of this happening. And I think there's some language in here that is actually directed at those people.  [00:37:30] Grumbling As Accusation [00:37:30] Tony Arsenal: And, and here's where it comes in, is you get to verse, um, we'll start reading again at verse nine. It says, when those hired about the 11th hour came, each of them received a denarius. Now, when those hired first came, so we're referring to the people who are hired at the beginning of the day. Now, when those who were hired first came, they thought they would receive more, but each of them also received a denarius and on receiving it, right? So this is as, this is, um, uh, just unbelievable as they're receiving the denarius on receiving it, they grumbled at the master of the house. Now, just the way that I read that and said the word grumbled tells you that that word is really important here. Yes. If you look at this Greek word. And you compare it to the, the word, the usage of this word in the, the, um, Sept. Yes. Which of course is the Greek translation of the Old Testament. This word most commonly appears in the wilderness wandering accounts. [00:38:22] Jesse Schwamb: Yes.  [00:38:23] Tony Arsenal: Right. And the, the primary sin of the Israelites during the wilderness wandering was grumbling against the Lord. And this grumbling against the Lord in that context is not just a general complaining, right. It's not just like a, a sort of like a, a general dissatisfaction or like murmuring. This isn't like water cooler frustration about your boss. The grumbling in the Old Testament in this context is a covenantal accusation, right. So this is tied to the, the accounts where Moses first is told to strike the rock, and he does so when the water comes out, and then second is told to speak to the rock, but he strikes it. I won't go into all the details, but the scene that's being, being displayed there is the people come, they accuse the Lord of abandoning them into the wilderness. And this scene where Moses is set up on the rock and he strikes the rock, that scene is a judicial scene. The people have filed a covenant accusation against the Lord, and in reality, it's the people who have been unfaithful. But the Lord standing in the place of the rock is the one who is struck, right? Jesus was the rock in the wilderness from which the water came. Paul says that in First Corinthians, right? So this language of grumbling in this is not just, they're not just complaining about the fact that they didn't get what they thought they were going to, they're questioning the veracity of the covenant that was made. So they're, they're still locked into this merit-based. This merit-based idea even more than it seemed at first, right? There's a logic to the idea that like, oh, if the, the master is actually paying a wage of one denarius for per hour, like there's a logic to that. But it's not just that they're saying, and this is, this explains the response of the master. It's not just that they're saying like, Hey, wait a second, like the wage rate that you're paying is not right. They're saying you have violated the terms of our covenant in the way that you have paid us. 'cause it's upon receiving it that they complain or they grumble and the master says more or less like, Hey. You agreed with me for one Denarius, I'm giving you what you've earned. I'm giving you what you agreed on. Why don't you take it and go. So the answer is not to try to justify why he is free to pay these other people more, or why he's free to pay these people a perceived less. The answer is, again, they're complaining against the covenant. He is bringing it back to the covenant saying, well, here's what the covenant relationship was. You work for the day. I give you Denarius. We're square here, we're on the same page. We've fulfilled our covenant obligations, and you've received your reward for that. So I, I think that's another thing we have to lock in here is this is not just a general idea of like unfairness that's being presented. This is not just a general idea that people are saying the master of the house is unfair. They're saying he's covenantal. Unfaithful. Right? That's a pretty big accusation.  [00:41:09] Jesse Schwamb: Yeah, that is, thank you by the way, for completely stealing the whole tugen thing from me. Like I was just going hot to Tugen to find that reference. And now all I can do is add to it. So that is from at least one of those occasions, a number 16, and I just wanna read the verse. This is 16 six. So Moses and Aaron said to all the sons of Israel at evening, you will know that Yahweh has brought you outta the land of Egypt. And in the morning you will see the glory of Yahweh for he hears your grumblings against Yahweh. And what we are that you grumble against us. So I'm totally with you. This is not subtle. The workers first complaint here, the first workers' complaint is like theologically serious. Uh, I think that's what you're hitting us on. Like it charges the owner with injustice. Right. And as I read it, the grievance has like two layers or two parts, I would say. One is this comparative part, which is basically saying, you made us equal to them. Right? And the second be like a meritorious part, they have worked harder and in worse conditions. And that's why they say things like, it's, it's all inflammatory language, isn't it? Like the scorching heat emphasizes like the real bodily cost and their complaint. I think if we're honest, it's not irrational, but it's spiritually revealing at least because Right, they believe their greater effort, mayors greater reward and they resent that grace shown to others. So like you said, they're bringing forward a very serious grievance and it's, it's not just like, Hey, we think maybe could you give us a bonus? Right. But that is a matter of faithfulness. And in fact, like as I'm looking at this tugen here, shout out to logos Bible software. And I'm saying that that verb that we're talking about in Exodus 16 is in the imperfect tense. So this is, they kept on grumbling and it is like an an echo of Israel's murmuring in the wilderness, which I presume like Matthew certainly had intentionally used there or had that view in part casting these workers as the same types of those who relate to God through entitlement rather than gratitude. So it's like insults upon insult here, but it is to emphasize this fact that it's no small accusation, it's not subtle, it's meant to be in your face. They're coming in hot with this and they're making a big deal about it.  [00:43:16] Tony Arsenal: Yeah, and again, I think like underscoring the covenantal nature of this is so key. And I think, you know, when we look at this, we really have to land that this is not just saying. Your wage structure is not right. 'cause and, and we gotta remember, they weren't there when the master went and made this bargain, or, you know, brought these other workers into the vineyard. They weren't there to hear what covenant or contract he did or didn't make. And as we've commented, they didn't, he didn't even make a covenant with them. He basically just said, I'm gonna put you to work and I'll pay you what's fair. I'll pay you what's right. Um, and they went, okay, you need the work and thank you. Like, I think, I think that's kind of like the, the scene here is they're standing there. They recognize they're not gonna get a wage for the day, especially these ones that he's coming in at the 11th hour, they're not gonna get a wage for the day. And as you said, these are subsistence workers. Right. These are people that if you don't get a wage, and this is the, the grounding of the Old Testament, um, the Old Testament command of, of paying at the end of the day is that if they don't get their wage, they're not gonna eat. They're not gonna have food, they're not gonna have the money they need to survive. Um, so he comes in and he basically says like. You don't have a job that's not gonna be good for you. I'll take care of you. I'll, I'll give you a job and I'll take care of you. And the ones who are complaining and grumbling, they have no line of sight to that process. That, that's right. They make a lot of assumptions about the, and this is, goes back to, um. The parable of the talents, which we haven't really talked about yet. The, the, there's a lot of assumptions about the nature of this master that the, the contracted or covenanted day laborers are making that don't turn out to be accurate. Right. They, they assume that he's working, as you've said, that he's working on this one-to-one, you know, quid pro quo. You do this, I do that kind of a, a methodology and he's actually operating on a basis of a much more. Basic, uh, grace principle. Uh, and again, even, even the principle of hiring these original workers and covenanting with them is gracious in the sense that he didn't have to hire them. Right. So, so all along the way they're, they're, it's like the epitome of looking a gift horse in the mouth.  [00:45:24] Jesse Schwamb: Yes.  [00:45:24] Tony Arsenal: They've been hired, and so yes, it is right for them to expect their, um, to expect their wage, whatever that wage might be. But they, they are misinterpreting the idea of what the wages are and how the wages are to be delivered. They're, they're applying, this is actually a lot like job's, friends, right? Their, their logic is not actually all that bad, but they have, they have missing parts of the picture that makes the logic. Apply differently in this particular situation. They think that this, this master works on a strict merit-based. You do X amount of work, you receive X amount of money. And this master is actually more functioning on this covenantal principle of, I'm gonna pay you what's right, regardless of what, what work you've done, which, what work is actually owed to you. And the master makes these, this agreement with these other workers to just say, go into the vineyard and then when the evening comes, I'll pay you. Right. Well, he intended to pay them what they needed to survive, regardless of how much work they provided. Right? So they're all, even though there's a formal contract to say these, this group works for the whole day and this group, you know, and, and they receive one day's labor, at the end of the day, he's graciously providing another day of survival for all of these people, for the work that they're, they're putting forward regardless of how much they actually contribute to his bottom line. [00:46:41] Owner Defends The Covenant [00:46:41] Jesse Schwamb: And we see that in verse 13, where the landowner gives his defense, you know, it says. He and he replied, friends, I'm doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for Denarius? Now the address, because now I'm deep in the Greek Tony. Here we go. So the address I'm seeing in, uh, again, shout out to Locus Bible software, it, this use of friend is not like the warm fellows, but like a more formal or distance term of address. It's used elsewhere in Matthew. But I think the point here is that the owner's first line of defense is this contractual point, which you're saying. I have not wronged you. He's kept his agreement precisely. No injustice has been done. And that's crucial. The owner doesn't re appreciate justice. He actually fulfills it. He obligates himself and he fulfills that obligation. And what the worker receives is exactly what was promised and exactly what is due. And so by the time he gets to verse 14 where he says, take what belongs to you, and go, I choose to give to this last worker as I give to you here. I think this is like the theological beating hide of this whole bad boy. Yeah.  [00:47:37] Jesse Schwamb: The landowner explicitly invokes his will, his sovereign freedom to do and to give as he pleases, which is exactly how God behaves. It's not a negation of justice, but this declaration of something beyond justice, it is grace. He exercises his freedom and generosity to those who had no claim, and the command, take what belongs to you and go is, is kind of like a world dismissal, like, like you were saying. Yeah. We're in the courtroom. He's like, I, I've ruled on this already. Like, bring Brian, bring your grievance. Here's my ruling. Take what you have and go. Their grumbling has revealed that they're not celebrating the kingdom. They're actually grieving it. So yeah, you know, I think original invocation of like Jonah is right on the money. It's basically like, are are you mad enough? Yeah, I'm mad enough to die. Like, how dare you give me, give me this great shade and then take it away from me. Yeah. And in some ways this is even worse because what they have been given has been that were promised to them, was given to them, and they get to retain and God says, go, or the landowner as God says, go now and take what is yours. Take what I've given to you graciously. But your point that like what supersedes that, the antecedent to all of that is still God's covenant keeping, covenant making promise, making, right? That sets the whole thing up. But I love this idea that, you know, I will choose, it's my desire, it's language of divine volition. And of course the reform theology, this single verb resonates with the entire doctrine of election. It's God's free, sovereign, and gracious will to bestow blessing without reference to merit, like praise his name.  [00:49:00] Tony Arsenal: Yeah. Yeah. And then we come to kind of the close of this parable, right? And this is, this reall

Grumbling doesn't just reveal a bad attitude; it exposes a heart that's forgotten God's goodness and is quietly accusing Him.Today, we continue our year-long Bible study in the book of Exodus, The Gospel: One Rescue at a Time. In this episode, Paul looks at Exodus 16 to show how Israel's complaints distorted reality and made them forget the God who saved them. To hear more of these studies, visit PaulTripp.com/Exodus.

We are a light when we work out our salvation without grumbling or disputing.

Philippians 2:12-18 (ESV)Isack and Edwin discuss what Paul means when he tells us to do everything without grumbling and disputing.Read the written devo that goes along with this episode by clicking here.    Let us know what you are learning or any questions you have. Email us at TextTalk@ChristiansMeetHere.org.    Join the Facebook community and join the conversation by clicking here. We'd love to meet you. Be a guest among the Christians who meet on Livingston Avenue. Click here to find out more. Michael Eldridge sang all four parts of our theme song. Find more from him by clicking here.   Thanks for talking about the text with us today.________________________________________________If the hyperlinks do not work, copy the following addresses and paste them into the URL bar of your web browser: Daily Written Devo: https://readthebiblemakedisciples.wordpress.com/?p=25223The Christians Who Meet on Livingston Avenue: http://www.christiansmeethere.org/Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/TalkAboutTheTextFacebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/texttalkMichael Eldridge: https://acapeldridge.com/ 

"Do all things without grumbling or disputing,  that 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" Philippians 2:14–15  

Grumbling, complaining, and bad attitudes can derail the spirit of a home before the day even begins. In this powerful message, Pastor Jeff Schreve shares how to recognize the early signs of disrespect, why swift correction matters, and how to set the spiritual tone in your home each morning. Discover how loving authority and firm boundaries can turn your home from a place of frustration into a place of peace.

Send us Fan MailDownload study notes for this chapter.Download study notes for this entire book.**********Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version ®, NIV ® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. Used with permission. All rights reserved worldwide.The “NIV”, “New International Version”, “Biblica”, “International Bible Society” and the Biblica Logo are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.  Used with permission.BIBLICA, THE INTERNATIONAL BIBLE SOCIETY, provides God's Word to people through Bible translation & Bible publishing, and Bible engagement in Africa, Asia Pacific, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, and North America. Through its worldwide reach, Biblica engages people with God's Word so that their lives are transformed through a relationship with Jesus Christ.Support the show

Welcome to The Daily, where we study the Bible verse by verse, chapter by chapter, every day. Our shout-out today goes to Jacob Salaba from Farmington, MN. Thanks for your partnership in Project23. We cannot do this without donors like you. Our text today is 1 Corinthians 10:10-11. ...nor grumble, as some of them did and were destroyed by the Destroyer. Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come. — 1 Corinthians 10:10-11 Grumbling isn't harmless. It's rebellion with a religious tone. Israel didn't grumble because God was absent. They grumbled because God wasn't doing things their way. They had been rescued from slavery. Sustained in the wilderness. Led by God's presence. And still, their mouths turned against the very God who saved them. Grumbling is what entitlement sounds like when it's disappointed. It assumes God owes us. Comfort. Speed. Clarity. Ease. And when he doesn't deliver on our timeline, complaint fills the gap. Paul doesn't soften this. He says some of them were "destroyed by the Destroyer." That language is meant to get our attention. Grumbling wasn't treated as venting. It was treated as defiance. Why? Because complaining doesn't just express frustration—it questions God's leadership. It implies that we know better. That God has mismanaged our lives. That his plan needs revision. Grumbling is a form of spiritual forgetfulness. It forgets where God has brought us from. It minimizes grace already extended. And it magnifies discomfort so obedience becomes unreasonable. Paul reminds the church that these things were written down for us—especially for those living with greater awareness and access to truth. Spiritual maturity is revealed by how we trust when life is hard. Grumbling may feel justified. But it corrodes faith, poisons community, and hardens the heart. Rebellion doesn't always raise a fist. Sometimes, it just grumbles. So stop grumbling verbal or not. DO THIS: Pay attention to your words this week. Notice where complaint is replacing trust. Confess grumbling quickly and replace it with gratitude. ASK THIS: Where have I been vocal about frustration instead of faithful in trust? What circumstances am I quietly accusing God over? How can gratitude reshape my response to hardship? PRAY THIS: Lord, guard my mouth and my heart. Forgive me for the ways I've complained instead of trusted. Teach me to respond to difficulty with faith, gratitude, and obedience. Amen. PLAY THIS: "Blessed Be Your Name"

#10MinuteswithJesus ** Put yourself in the presence of God. Try talking to Him. ** 10 minutes are 10 minutes. Even if you can get distracted, reach the end. ** Be constant. The Holy Spirit acts "on low heat" and requires perseverance. 10-Minute audio to help you pray. Daily sparks to ignite prayer: a passage from the gospel, an idea, an anecdote and a priest who speaks with you and the Lord, inviting you to share your intimacy with God. Find your moment, consider you are in His presence and click play.