Contain Your Complain W/Rev. Dr. Samuel B. Reeves, Jr.

Complaining often feels natural, especially when life is difficult, disappointing, or uncertain. Yet in Philippians, the Apostle Paul calls believers to a different way of living—one marked not by grumbling, but by gratitude, trust, and faithful witness.

In this message, Contain Your Complain, Rev. Dr. Samuel B. Reeves explores how our words reveal what is happening within our hearts. This sermon offers both a challenge and an encouragement: to move from complaint to worship, from bitterness to trust, and from spiritual depletion to gratitude.

Transcript

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Let the church say amen. Amen. So it's good to be back home. I say home away from home. And I want to thank God and bless his name to be here this morning and to see all of you. Where's Alfield? There he is. All right. My embodiment. Every now and then, some of you will see him on the street somewhere. You will call me in Liberia and say, Pastor Sam, I saw Alfie. The boy looks just like you. I said, That's my son. Amen. Amen. Thank you. And it's good to be back here. And those of you who don't know who I am, God bless you too. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. We want to thank God for just being here today and for sharing God's word today. It's just good to be here. Alice, my darling wife, says hello. My delicious wife, some of you know that. I call her delicious. Amen. We want to thank him, thank God for her. She's not here because she lost a brother about a month ago. And her aged mother, we don't want to leave her by herself. So Alice is there. Amen. It's good to see all of you. Dr. Washington. Wonderful. It's good to see you and your lovely wife. Amen. Quickly, let's uh turn to the scriptures. Uh we will go to the book of Philippians. Uh today we're studying the book of Philippians in Liberia since January 1st Sunday. We're taking it all to through the year of uh 2026. We're using the theme More Than Enough: A Journey into Stress Free Living. Uh, and this is just one of those sermons out of that series that I like to share with you. If it's good enough for Providence, it's good enough for you. Amen. Amen. Amen. Philippians chapter 2, verses 14 to 16. Stand. We're standing on under the word of God. Um, uh, I feel like I'm at Providence this morning, so just excuse me. I'm gonna behave just like I'm at home. Amen. Do everything without grumbling or complaining, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a whops and crooked generation. Then you will shine amongst them like stars in the sky, as you hold firmly to the word of life. And then I will be able to boast on the day of Christ, that I did not run or labor in vain. Let us pray. God of grace and God of glory on this church, on this thy people, pour thy power. Grant us wisdom and grant us courage for the facing of this hour, Lord. May I yield this sermon to your utterance, my sight to your faith, and my spiritually reconstructed imagination to your divine inspiration. Speak for us, speak to us, speak through us, and help us to hear from heaven today. Let the words of my mouth and the collective meditation of all of our hearts be acceptable in your sight. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. You may be seated. Amen. Again, this sermon comes from a series of sermons we've preached in the book of Philippians. Um we learned that that this book is one of the shortest books in in the Bible, it has 104 verses. Uh uh it's been said that it's perhaps one of the books that Paul talks about, talks about joy for the church. Amen. It it has it has some of the most famous uh Bible verses in in the scriptures that many of us know. Philippians 1 21, for me to live. That's my text right there. For me to live is Christ and to die is gained. Amen. Philippians 3 10. I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing, his suffering, becoming like him in death. Amen. Philippians 4, 11, for I have learned to content, be content whatever the circumstances. Amen. The book of Philippians is one of uh of the only letters Paul wrote that it's almost entirely, expressly to encourage and to build up the church. This is a wonderful book. It's a book that when times are tough and the going gets rough, that's where to go. Amen. Amen. Today, as one of these uh sermons today, we will use as a theme from the text just read. I want you to turn to somebody and say that to them. Continue your complaint. Amen, amen. A man dreamed of joining a monastery. His goal in life was to become a monk. So one day he went to the monastery and talked to the head monk and said, What do I need to do to join? He was told that it was more difficult than what he thought. In our monastery, monks are only allowed to say two words every year. He said, That sounds a bit extreme, but I I've wanted to be a monk for so long, so I'm going to give it a try. So he was shown to his room, and so for the next 12 months, the man never said a word. At the end of his first 12 months, he was taken to the head monk and was told that he could now say his two words. He said, Food's bad. He went back to the room from when he came and he was silent for another 12 months. At the end of his second year, he went back to the head monk and said, Here am I. And the head monk said, You are now allowed to say uh two words. The man said, Beds bad, bed's hard. The head monk said, Take him back to the room. Another 12 months has had passed of silence. He was brought again to the head monk for his annual tours. This time the man said, I quit. The head monk said, Well, it doesn't surprise me. All you've done is complain ever since you got here. Listen, church, as we strive to live stress-free lives, today's message will help us contain our complaint. We will learn from an example in the Bible here from Paul that that that the thing there's a danger of our complaint. That it adds stress instead of reducing it. Most of the things we complain about is not worth it. If I make you mad, just excuse me. Come to think about it, we have a little to complain about. And the truth of the matter is, most of the time our complaining doesn't help. Oh, like I said to Providence, I feel like preaching this morning. Listen, it creates more tension than and stress. It weighs us down and it lifts us up. Paul finds himself in prison. Here, here is this man uh finding himself not thinking about himself, but thinking about somebody else. How can you find yourself in such a situation and you're writing such a letter? So listen, Paul declares in verse 14, he says, Do everything without complaining, grumbling or disputing or arguing, not some things, not selective things, not manageable things, but all things. Listen, why all things, Pastor Sam? I'm glad you asked Pastor Erica. Listen, because Paul wants us to understand that we are left with no room for negotiation with negativity. I feel like preaching today. I haven't preached here for a while, so I want you to don't look on your wrist because we will be here until the law says go home. Are you with me today? Listen, Paul is not merely saying that we should regulate our speech. He is challenging us to recalibrate our perception. Here, Paul, he is not only calling on us to address what comes out of our mouths, he is calling on us to make sure that we have been transformed by what has been formed inside of our hearts. You see, when you go back in the text, it talks about God working something on the inside, and the stuff that has been worked on the inside needs to be worked out. Here, Madison, listen, Paul wants us to understand that complaining is never just vocal expression. What comes out of our mouths, uh, he wants us to understand that that complaining is about spiritual interpretation. Listen, it speaks to what's on the inside. In verses 12 and 13 of this text, Paul says, continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose. That is, we must work out what God has already worked in. That's why, Madison, when we complain, we exhibit an inner assumption. Listen to this, if you get nothing from this sermon, I want you to get this. When we complain, we exhibit an inner assumption that God is either absent, inactive, inattentive, or insufficient. It is the the quiet accusation that heaven has mismanaged earth. And Paul steps into the eternal courtroom of our grievances and he declares a holy interruption. Paul stands up and he says, Stop it. Stop your complaining, do everything without complaining and arguing contain your complaint. There was a man who sat every morning on the same wooden bench in his village in southeastern Liberia. That bench became more than furniture. That bench became a sanctuary of dissatisfaction. Are you with me? Listen, a place where frustration rehearsed itself daily until it became identity. Each morning he would sit and speak his complaint into the air about his friends and his farm and his family and his finances and his fate. Over time, the story goes that complain stopped becoming an action and it became a posture. Are you still with me? He no longer visited complain. He lived in it. So the story goes that one day a storm swept through the village in southeastern Liberia with winds and rain so fierce. And when it passed, the bench that he sat on was gone. The next morning he walked out expecting to take his familiar seat in frustration. But there was nowhere to sit. So he stooped. And something shifted in that standing. Without the comfort of his habitual posture, his vision expanded. For the first time, he was not angered to that greet to his grievance, he was exposed to his surroundings. He lifted his head and saw what complaint has been concealing for him all along. The horizon stretched wider than his disappointment. The skies open brighter than his dissatisfaction. And the sunrise obstructed by his old posture and position poised across the community with a beauty that seems almost like revelation breaking into ordinary time. In that moment, with a trembling awareness, he realized that all this time he had been sitting on the bench of complaint. Instead of standing in the place where gratitude could be seen. Listen, church, listen, Paul is pressing the same truth upon the church today that many of us are spiritually seated in complaint when God is calling us to stand in the awareness of the goodness of God in the land of the living. I see Lake preaching to Dave Madison. We are interpreting, church, our our current and present situation from a lower position when God is calling us to a lifted perspective. And the tragedy, church, is not only that we are only speaking negatively, but that we are missing what God is doing all around us. Revelation. Listen, because complaint does not change the landscape. Somebody let me see the hands of those of you who your complaint has changed your landscape. Complaint does not change your landscape, no, it only narrows your soul's ability to realize that God has done something, God has done inside of you what he has done inside of you. And how he can make a way where there seems to be no way. So then Paul continues in the text, Paul goes to verse 15. He declares that you may become blameless and harmless children of God without faults in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation amongst whom you shine as light in the world. Listen, these words in verse 15 are not poetic declarations or decorations. This is identity under pressure. How do you contain your complaint when your identity is under pressure? You are children of God, but you're not removed from the corruption that has been placed in you. You are called to be different in a corrupt environment. You are children of God, you are not isolated from the darkness of this world, but you are called to be light. You are children of God, you are not protected from the crookedness around you. But you are positioned to contrast that crookedness. Listen, your life is therefore not an accident. If nothing I want you to know, I stop by here on my way to glory to let you know that your life is not an accident. Your current assignment where you are in school, at work, in your environment, your neighborhood, is because God has an assignment for you. Your current assignments are not mistakes, they are meant for you to show the light. In what darkness tries to hide. So, so so Paul wants to remind us, remind us that that complaining deems your light. Complaining uh disrupts your witness, uh, complaining, this, this, this, this, uh, uh, discontinue uh the clarity that you have, because a complaining believer is not simply venting emotions, they are distorting testimony. When the folks around the world who know that we serve a living God, a God who makes a way out of nowhere, here's our complaint, they wonder what kind of God we serve. Because a complaining believers, yes, is not simply venting in motion, you are distorting the testimony that God has given to you. They are declaring something false. When we complain, we are declaring something false about the nature of God. We are suggesting that God's presence is insufficient for our present reality. When we complain, we are saying that his provision may be inadequate for our needs. And then Paul says that cannot stand in a generation that is watching for evidence of divine truth. Continue. Your complain. Listen, church, listen, complaining is not rooted in circumstances alone. It is rooted in interpretation. Two people can experience the same circumstances and pressure and produce entirely different outcomes. One responds, one produces complaint, and the other produces worship. One becomes bitter, and the next becomes bitter. The difference is not the suffering itself, but the meaning that they assign to it. That means I'm feeling happy myself. Listen, church, listen, Madison, listen. Paul therefore is confronting our negative mindset, and he is calling on us to a higher spiritual discipline. The discipline of gratitude. And gratitude is not denial. Let me stop long enough to say that gratitude is not denier. Listen, it is not pretending that the pain and the difficulty does not exist. It is the refusal to let the current challenges we face and the pain that we experience becomes the final word. Listen, gratitude is the declaration that God is still active in the hard times. God is still active in your higher gas prices. God is still active in the higher food prices that you pay. God is still active even in the craziness of your government. God is still active. God is still active when you have a government that takes away the care of the poor people, but God is still active. It is the decision of truth, of trust, or the decision to trust God when our human understanding of what God is doing fails. Because sometimes we can't understand, but God, why are you doing this? Why this place and why this person or why this government? But God is saying, trust me. So Paul continues. Paul continues to confront our negative mindset and call us to a higher spiritual discipline. A discipline of gratitude. Stop complaining. Continue complaining. Not because pain is absent, but because purpose is present. Stop complaining. Continue complaint. Not because everything is clear and the prices are low, but because everything is held in held by God who does not fail in his governance. There are seasons where explanation will not arrive. But God's presence will still remain. Ron Joseph, it's good to see you back there. Listen, that in those seasons, complaints become, I want you to get this too. In those seasons, complaints becomes a spiritual leakage that drains the strength from our souls. Paul now begins to bring this section of the passage to a close. He says in verses 15 and 16, then you will shine. Somebody say shine. Then you will shine as stars, stars in the sky, as lights in the world. Holding fast the word of life. What is Paul saying? I'm glad you asked, Mr. Henry. Listen, that means that your endurance is not only personal survival, it is public revelation. Paul, listen, people, people are reading your posture. Are you complaining or are you kneeling? They are they are they are interpreting how your life by faith is being lived and not by sight? Are you complaining or are you trusting? They are measuring your weakness. Are you complaining? Or are you living out what God has placed on the inside? Are you working it out? Because He has worked it in. Are you complaining or are you declaring confidence in an all-powerful, all-knowing, and all sufficient God? I will continue my complaint. Not because I am untouched by the struggles, but because I am convinced by God's faithfulness within me. Great is thy faithfulness, oh God my father. God is faithful. I will continue my complaint. Not because I fully understand what's going on around in politics or what's going on around in my community. I don't understand. I will continue my complaint, not because the answer comes quickly or not. I will continue my complaint because my life is not interpreted by my circumstance. My life is governed by God's divine purpose. And that's why some of you who are still here couldn't understand why I would leave a flush, a nice job like this, and get up from this place and go to a place that had no lights, no water, no government, no nothing. I knew that God was saying that there was something better, there was something that He wanted to do. It was about the purpose of God. I knew that the savest place to be was not in these United States because 9-11 taught us that was not safe. That the savest place to be was in the will of God for your life. My complaining state, I will give thanks. Give thanks with a grateful heart. Give thanks to the Holy One. Give thanks because he's given Jesus Christ. Let the poor say I am rage because of what the Lord has done. I will give thanks. I will hold fast the word of life. I will shine as a light in the world. I will become a witness to a crooked generation. I will embody a theology that declares God is still good in a bad condition. God is still present when I can't seem to trace him. That God is still working. And that God is still faithful. Even in unfinished places. And may the Spirit of God so concentrate us that complaint loses its grip on us. And gratitude becomes our language. And our lives become a living testimony that the fire is still burning. And the light is still shining. And God is still in control. Stand on your feet. If they are prayer servants, will you come up at this time? I'm not asking how long you've been in the Christian Reformed Church or in the Baptist church. The question this morning is have you learned to continue your complaints? You look around you, you see how good God has been, but yet we still whine and complain about what he has not done. And so maybe you just need someone to pray with you this morning. Lord, help me to continue my complaint. As I look around me, I see situations that I put in charge of my life instead of God in charge of my life. And so as the musicians uh gave us that song, we want to give you an invitation. In the Baptist tradition, we say we want to open the doors of the church. If you're here this morning and you have never given your life to Jesus Christ, come. Give somebody your hand and give your heart to Jesus. Maybe you know the Lord, you walk with him for many years, but you just do a complainer, whiner about who God is in and what he has not done. Whatever your situation. Listen, all of us here take our cars to the shop, don't we? But I want you to invite, I want to invite you to a great mechanic this morning. He can change your gearbox, he can change your headlights, he can change your windshield, he can change your tail light. Whatever your problems are, there's a spiritual garage you need to come to today. Thank you, Lord, for what our eyes have seen, our ears have heard, and our hearts fell. Because the Spirit of the living God was in this place today. Holy Spirit, touch our hearts, our minds, our feet, our hands. Lord, as we leave this place but not from your presence, you will walk with us. Lord, we will be examples of folks who continue that complain and trust you more. Bless us now in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Blessed Holy Spirit. Let the church say, Amen. Amen. God bless you.