A man called Scott Wenneg gave me some very good thoughts for this message today that I’ve titled …
PP Overcoming Disappointment
There once lived a little girl who really liked Barbie dolls. In fact, one day when she and her parents were at the shop, she saw the newest Barbie doll and thought, “If only I could have that particular Barbie doll, my life would be fulfilled forever.” So she made her desires known to her parents.
They said, "No, Dear, that particular Barbie doll is outside the boundaries of our budget, and we can’t afford to buy it for you now."
But you don't understand, she said …
PP “It's not just the Barbie doll you're buying me. You're buying me happiness. You see, there's this little, Barbie doll shaped vacuum in my soul, and it will only be filled when you buy me this particular Barbie Doll.” (And so her life motto became) ‘My heart is restless, and it will only find its rest in this particular Barbie doll.’
So she waited another week or so; then she explained to her parents …
PP "I really need this Barbie doll. My whole life's existence is dependent on it. And once I get it, there will be no more whining, no more complaining, no more crying, because I will have finally found fulfillment. I will be content for the rest of my life."
So her parents bought her the Barbie doll. And guess what? She found contentment. She grew up to be a fulfilled, grateful, and joyful young woman. But the rest of her life didn't go well. She married a lousy guy with whom she had three kids. Then he left her, and her kids didn't stick around much to help her out. And when she got old, she went on Social Security and had hardly any money. But she never whined or cried or complained. Instead, she would think, I remember that Barbie doll. What great contentment and joy I found in it. And just as she predicted, it brought her lasting satisfaction. She was content and grateful for the rest of her life. ----
----- Friends, …
pp Does life ever work out as perfect as that?
You'd think we’d hear that story and say, "Wait a minute! I proved very early in life that real contentment and lifelong fulfillment doesn't come from buying the latest Barbie doll! I'm not going to get sucked into that same old trick again." But it doesn't work out that way, does it? …
PP She just moves on from one new Barbie doll to new clothes to new cars to new houses to new furniture in a never-ending search for fulfillment and contentment.
It's not just Barbie dolls for the girls either. It's tools or sports equipment or computer stuff for the boys and men. A lady said about her husband, "Boys don't change. Their toys just keep getting bigger and more expensive." So it's not a gender thing, is it? …
PP Discontentment is a human thing!
Our culture is absolutely brilliant about exploiting that tendency toward dissatisfaction in us and promising us fulfillment. We get these messages all day: Use me. Buy me. Eat me. Wear me. Try me. Drive me. Put me in your hair.
Did you know there are hundreds of types of shampoos on the market that promise hair contentment? They all say, Buy me to wash it, condition it, mousse it, dry it, curl it, straighten it. -----
We are richer, healthier, better fed, housed, and educated than any generation in human history. But are we any wiser? Are we any more content? How many of us can honestly say, …
PP "I'm content with my body, my car, my spouse, my kids, my house, my job, my friends, my walk with God"? Or how many of us visibly and sometimes verbally are discontented with ourselves, our families, our income, our lives?
pp Discontentment and her three children named ingratitude, complaining, and grumbling, are serious temptations for God's people.
You'd think in light of God's incredible grace and His ongoing provision that discontentment and her children would not be serious temptations. But they are. They are today at the beginning of the twenty-first century, and they were three thousand years ago when God miraculously led Israel out of Egypt.
In the book of Exodus chapter 14 we saw the Exodus of Israel out of Egypt by God's incredible power. Then in Exodus 15:1–21, Moses and the people sang a great song about God's glory and grace. It's awesome. But then look what happened in the last few verses of that same chapter – verses 22-27 …
PP1 Exodus 15:22-27
v22 “So Moses brought Israel from the Red Sea; then they went out into the wilderness of Shur. And they went three days in the wilderness and found no water.
v23 Now when they came to Marah, they could not drink the waters of Marah, for they were bitter. Therefore the name of it was called Marah. (which simply means bitter)
Now verse 24 …
PP2
v24 “And the people complained against Moses saying ‘What shall we drink?’
v25 So he cried out to the Lord, and the Lord showed him a tree. When he cast it into the waters, the waters were made sweet. There He (that’s God) made a statute and an ordinance for them, and there He tested them, and said,
PP3
v26 ‘If you diligently heed the voice of the Lord your God and do what is right in His sight, give ear to His commandments and keep all His statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you which I have brought on the Egyptians. For I am the Lord who heals you.’
(Finally verse 27)
v27 “Then they came to Elim, where there were twelve wells of water and seventy palm trees, so they camped there by the waters.”
So Moses threw the tree into the bitter water and it became sweet. It met their need. Then God led them to Elim where there were lots of palm trees and pools of water.
God met their needs. But did that help? In the rest of the story, which goes through chapter 16 to 17:7, the word complain, referring to the attitudes and the actions of the people of Israel against God and Moses, is used at least eight more times. …
PP ‘Complain, complain, complain, complain …’
Whenever the writers of Scripture repeat something, especially in narrative literature, they are trying to communicate something crucial. Notice what the writer of Scripture is trying to communicate about the people of Israel, beginning in Exodus 16 verse 1 …
PP Exodus 16:1-3
v1 “And they journeyed from Elim, and all the congregation of the children of Israel came to the Wilderness of Sin which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after they departed from the land of Egypt.”
(So they’d been out there about 45 days. Now verse 2)
v2 Then the whole congregation of the children of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness.
v3 And the children of Israel said to them, ‘Oh, that we had died by the hand of the Lord in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the pots of meat and when we ate bread to the full! For you have brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.’”
----- First they couldn't get water, so God gave them water. Then they whined and moaned and grumbled and complained because there was no food. So you know what God did? God provided them with a daily Happy Meal of quail and a bread-like substance called manna. God met their needs. He met the need for water. He met their need for food. Did that help? -----
Now look at chapter 17 verses 1-3 …
PP Exodus 1:1-3
v1 “Then all the congregation of the children of Israel set out on their journey from the Wilderness of Sin, according to the commandment of the Lord, and camped in Rephidim; but there was no water for the people to drink.
v2 Therefore the people contended with Moses, and said, ‘Give us water, that we may drink.’ So Moses said to them, ‘Why do you contend with me? Why do you tempt the Lord?’
v3 And the people thirsted there for water and the people complained against Moses, and said, ‘Why is it you have brought us out of Egypt, to kill us and our children and our livestock with thirst?’ ”
---- You know what God did? He sent Moses to this rock called Horeb, and had him strike it with his staff. And in another miracle, water poured out of that rock to quench the thirst of all of the people of Israel.
What's the author trying to show us? Here are the children of Israel out in the desert, and even though God continued to meet all their needs, all they did was grumble and complain and argue against God. They were never content regardless of what God did or how He provided for them. ------
I think of a beautiful, bright, talented young woman who's lived with disappointment and discontent her entire life. First she was disappointed in and discontented with her dad. Then it was her teachers, then her pastors, then all the men she'd dated throughout the years. Finally a few years back, she found who she thought was the ‘perfect’ man. At their wedding she thought she'd finally found fulfillment and satisfaction and contentment. But then the reality of marriage set in. She discovered he wasn’t perfect. She became disappointed and discontented once again, and now they're separated. ----- But friends it's not just her. This is a growing problem in our society.
----- Some years ago, Robert Hughes, an art critic, wrote a book called ‘The Culture of Complaint’. His thesis was that we live in a culture in which we perceive ourselves as being entitled to having all our wants and desires fulfilled as part of our birthright. When that doesn't happen, we see ourselves as "victims," we whine and complain and grumble. If we see it as somebody else's "issue" that's caused our inconvenience, then we sue that person or institution. -----
PP Is that attitude ever true of us as Christians? Do we as God's people ever struggle with discontent, or grumbling, complaining, or griping?
Let's do an emotional and spiritual inventory. ☺ Do any of these statements reflect you?
☺ Any of those statements fit?
Author John Cheever writes that the main emotion the average person feels is disappointment. I want to piggyback on that. I think the main emotion the average Christian feels, to borrow the title of Philip Yancey's great book, is, ‘Disappointment with God’. -----
Let's be honest. At times, we are all discontent with life and disappointed with God, and we show it through our grumbling, our whining, and our complaining. We're just like Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones—“we can't get no satisfaction”.
So what do we do? What are our choices? There are three doors we can go through.
PP1 Door number one: We can follow the example of the children of Israel and live in regular discontent with life and disappointment with God.
We can choose to do that. But that's not a good option. God got tired of their grumbling, and He allowed them to wander round and round in the wilderness for 40 years and they died there, never having seen the Promised Land. No, they never got to see the Promised Land. I think the Bible is telling us that this attitude of discontent and grumbling leads to death. And even when we are alive, we are not really living. We’re only half living, half fulfilled and heading for an early grave.
PP2 Door number two: We can follow the cultural lie of thinking contentment comes from new things, new experiences, new jobs, and new people.
This option tells us to deal with our discontentment by giving ourselves over to an unending quest for little moments of happiness by buying things, going on another holiday, getting a new job, getting a new spouse, starting new hobbies, or going wherever our latest trivial pursuit takes us. A lot of people choose to take this door. That's not a good option either. It's a treadmill to nowhere.
PP3 Door number three: We can follow our heavenly Father and over time learn to find our contentment, our fulfillment, our satisfaction, in Him.
Saint Augustine was probably the greatest Christian in the history of the church other than the apostles. He lived at the end of the late fourth, early fifth, centuries. He's had a greater impact on the development of Christianity in the world than any other individual except, perhaps, the writers of the Bible. Here's what …
PP1 Saint Augustine (said) "Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee, O God." Another way I say it is that…
PP2 ‘In every human being there’s a God shaped hole that only God can fill.’
Augustine again, “Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee, O God.”… But what does that look like? What does it mean on a day-to-day, week-in week-out basis of going to work, rearing kids, providing a living, paying bills, being involved in ministry, trying to advance the kingdom of God? What does it look like to find contentment in the Lord? Exodus 15 to 17 has some great lessons for us, and I think the lessons were what God was trying to teach Israel, but they just wouldn't hear. We have the opportunity to hear these lessons and learn to apply them in our lives today.
PP Lesson Number One
We need to realize God’s loving purpose for us.
That’s lesson number one. God loved Israel deeply, which is why He called them out of the slavery of Egypt. And because He loved them, He wanted to make them obedient and holy unto Himself. That was God’s loving purpose for them, as it also is for us.
In Exodus 15:25–26, after Moses threw the tree into the water, halfway through verse 25 the text says …
PP1 Exodus 15:25,26
"There He (that’s God) made a statute and an ordinance for them, and there He tested them, and said, ‘If you diligently heed the voice of the Lord your God and do what is right in His sight, give ear to His commandments and keep His statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you which I have brought on the Egyptians. For I am the Lord who heals you.’”
And God says essentially the same thing again in …
PP2 Exodus 16:4 (where we read)
“Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘Behold, I will rain bread from heaven for you. And the people shall go out and gather a certain quota every day, that I may test them, whether they will walk in My law or not.”
------ Here's a theological point we need to reflect on. Because God loves us, He allows us to be tested. Sometimes He allows trying events and circumstances to enter our lives to test us, so He can accomplish His loving purpose in us, which is to mature us spiritually, to make us more like Jesus Christ. ---- Right now He may be allowing you to go through some disappointments and trials so that as you get through those you’ll be much stronger to get through bigger trials that may be coming in the future. -----
----- So we said before, …
PP Because God loves us, He allows us to be tested. God allows things to happen to us to refine and develop and mature us. There are a lot of things He wants to teach us about Himself and about our relationship with Him — the first of which is, regardless of our circumstances, we need to learn to obey. Another thing we eventually learn out of our experiences is the wonderful, miraculous graciousness of God.
----- In the middle of preparing this message I was standing out the front of our home early in the morning and looking up at the stars as I talked to God. It just boggled my mind that our amazing God, Creator of the immense universe, knows my name, and loves me. And loves you. –-- It is wonderful. It is unbelievable, but true. –-- God loves us and extends His graciousness to you and me.
Friends, right now you may be in difficult circumstances. God allows us to go through things on our journey to accomplish His loving purpose in us, that of maturing us into a greater likeness of Jesus. That's the first lesson we need to learn.
Now, ….
PP Lesson Number Two
We need to remember God’s loving provision for us.
The Israelites were out in the wilderness. They were whining and complaining. They didn't have any food. So what did God do? He gave them quail and manna. Manna was this bread-like substance that tasted like wafers with honey on it. God gave that to them every day. They always had what they needed. It was abundant.
You may have seen the movie Forrest Gump. Remember the scene in Forrest Gump in which Forrest was talking to Bubba, who was the shrimp guy? Bubba was telling Forrest about all the different ways you can make shrimp. The same thing applies here in Exodus 16 to the Israelites and manna. They could make it any way they wanted—baked manna, boiled or barbequed manna, manna on a stick, manna burgers. ------
----- Here's the theological truth …
PP Because God loves us, He doesn’t always give us the latest Barbie Doll. He doesn’t always give us what we want. He gives us what we need.
Like any smart parent, God knows that giving children what they want isn't necessarily good for them. In fact, one of the best ways to create a grumbling, complaining, discontented adult is for a parent to give that individual whatever he wants when he's a child. -----
Look at Exodus 16:32-35. After having provided the children of Israel with all this bread-like substance called manna, notice what the Lord commanded Moses and Aaron to do.
PP Exodus 16:32-35
v32 “Then Moses said, ‘This is the thing which the Lord has commanded: ‘Fill an omer (an omer of this dry manna would fill a jug to about the 2.2 litre mark) Fill an omer with it, to be kept for your generations, that they may see the bread with which I fed you in the wilderness, when I brought you out of the land of Egypt.’
v33 And Moses said to Aaron, ‘Take a pot and put an omer of manna in it, and lay it up before the Lord, to be kept for your generations.’
v34, As the Lord commanded Moses, so Aaron laid it up before the Testimony, to be kept.
v35 And the children of Israel ate manna forty years, until they came to an inhabited land; they ate manna until they came to the border of the land of Canaan.”
---- God wanted them to take the manna, put it in a pot, and place it in front of the Ten Commandments Law in the Ark of the Covenant, which they always carried with them — so they would remember God's loving provision. As a result, they would develop a sense of gratitude for God's loving provision.
Here's are three questions I have for all of us. You can answer in your mind.
PP
Question 1. How has the Lord, in His love, graciously provided for your needs in the past? (and ---)
Question 2. Have you thanked Him for that? (--- and ---)
Question 3. Are you remembering God’s loving provision?
------ Our last lesson before we close ….
PP Lesson Number Three
We need to recognize God’s loving presence.
----- Regardless of our circumstances, we need to recognize God's loving presence. In Exodus 17, in the first couple of verses, Israel went to Rephidim. And as we already read, they arrived, and once again there was no water. And they whined and grumbled and complained against Moses. "Why have you brought us out here? We're all going to die, our kids and our livestock, because there's no water." So God told Moses to go to Horeb and strike the rock with his staff, and the water poured out.
But look at verse 7, which is the end of the story. …
PP Exodus 17:7
“So he (Moses) called the name of the place Massah and Meribah, because of the contention of the children of Israel, and because they tempted the Lord, saying, “Is the Lord among us or not?”
Friends, …
PP Our sin today, is like their sin back then. Their sin was that they got so caught up in their day-to-day circumstances — their thirst and their search for water, and their ongoing discontent — that they forgot the presence of God with them.
But He hadn't abandoned them. He hadn’t forgotten them. He was always with them, leading them, guiding them, protecting them, providing for them. ----
----- So we’ve read a lot out of the Old Testament today.
PP The New Testament (says the same.)
Jesus said,
“If you are obedient, I'm with you till the end of the world.
I'll never leave you or forsake you.
I have the very hairs of your head numbered.”
😊 I know what kind of shampoo is best for you.
Friends, here's the theological truth. …
PP
When we're out in the wilderness of life —
and there are going to come times when we are,
when we're out in the wilderness and it's really thirsty —
let's try to recognize God's loving presence,
because we belong to Him.
We're His children.
He'll never leave us or forsake us.
He's always there with us.
He's always there for us.
Friends, …
PP If you and I want to be saved from a life of disillusionment and disappointment and discontent, all we need to do is run to the loving arms of Jesus. Don’t walk or crawl, but run to the loving arms of Jesus.
PP1 Friends, what we need today is to remember those Three Lessons.
PP2 Lesson Number One
We need to realise God’s loving purpose for us.
Now comes …
PP3 Lesson Number Two
We need to remember God’s loving provision for us.
PP4 Lesson Number Three
We need to recognize God’s loving presence in us.
---- We find that our only true rest is in Him.
PP1 How is your contentment gauge? Is it full? Is it half full? Are you running on empty?
PP2 Run to Jesus. He will fill you up. GUARANTEED !!
PP
Friends, if you’ve been blessed and challenged by this message then please take time now to send it on to your friends.
To God be the Glory!
Thank You,
Ray Archer
The words of this little book guarantee a reduction in stress and depression, and an increase in happiness and good attitude in life, whether you are an atheist, agnostic, Christian, or someone searching for meaning in life.
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