An Onion A Fish And A Beer

I'm going to tell you an old joke. You already laughed. It's the story of a monk who went into a monastery, and in order to qualify, he had to take a vow of silence. So he took a five-year vow of silence.

He used to contemplate life, and he was to think about things. Once a year, he was allowed to then express all the wisdom he had learned. They had to say it in two words. So for the first year, he doesn't say a single thing all year. At the end of the year, all the senior monks come in, and say, okay, tell us what you've learned. What's the most important thing you can tell us? In two words, he said, bad food. So another year goes by, and he upholds his vow of silence.

At the end of the second year, they all come together. They say, okay, what have you learned? He said, hard bed. So they go back. He goes another year, and they figure, he's not learning much here. But after the third year, they bring him in. They all come together, and he comes in, and they say, okay, brother, what did you learn this year?

And he says, too cold. So the fourth year, they all come together, and they think, wow, you know, is he going to last five years? He hasn't learned anything yet. So at the end of the fourth year, he comes in, and they gather around, and they say, okay, what two words? Summarize everything you've learned this year. And he said, I quit. And the senior monk said, it's about time. All you've done that you've been here is complain. It's an old joke. But it leads into what I want to talk about today.

So when you and I enter almost any experience in life, any situation in life, ever since we're little, we come into any situation with expectations. Now, we expect things to work out a certain way. When people get married, they expect to have a good marriage. I've done probably 60 premarital counseling over the years, and I've never yet sat down with a couple who were saying, oh, we want to get married, and we expect to have problems.

What's frightening is how many couples think that they'll have no problems. Their expectations are so high, oh no, we'll never have an argument, we'll never have a problem. Once we're married, everything will be perfect. We enter into a job, and we expect certain rewards, don't we, for doing that job. We enter into a congregation. We expect things to happen a certain way. You expect your children to act a certain way and grow up and live certain kinds of lives.

But you know what? It always doesn't work out that way, does it? In fact, through many of our situations and experiences in life, our expectations are not met. Very few things in life meet exactly the expectations that we set for them. And because of that, because our expectations aren't met, we suffer discontent. I never made the amount of money I really expected to make, so I feel discontented. Or I never wanted to always travel the world, and I never got to do that, so I'm discontented.

And we can start filling in the blanks. I always wanted to own a certain kind of car, but I never got to do that, so I feel discontented. And in that discontent, something interesting about human beings is that—part of this is normal, by the way.

This is not abnormal. So we need to understand that we're talking about a normal human direction we go in, but we have to understand where it can lead. In that discontent, since we are social beings, one of the most important things we want to do is tell someone else about how discontented we are.

So we develop the fine art of complaining. Now, I have to tell you, I'm good at it. Over the course of my life, I have developed this remarkable ability to complain. And it's interesting, you get a group of men together, and we'll complain about anything.

What we like to do is compare how bad things were. Oh, when I was a kid, things were this bad. When I was a kid, this thing was bad. And we just, we complained. I knew a man who shut down that conversation once. We were all complain. When I was a kid, you know, we didn't have enough money. We only ate meat once a month. And someone said, all we ate was beans. And one of the guys said, hey, when I was a kid, all we ate was dirt.

And we liked it. He was like, well, okay. No, we couldn't beat that one. Now, you women get together, and what you do is you complain about us men.

You do. Admit it. You all get together and complain about us.

Now, complaining is not necessarily an evil thing or a bad thing. I mean, if you're having a bad day and you sit down and say, boy, I had a bad day today. My boss was just on my back all day. Nothing seemed to go right. You know, and you say a few complaints about something. That isn't necessarily wrong. Like, we all need to say things once in a while about something that's bothering us or mention some, you know, complaint about something. But there's another kind of complaining that happens. And that is where we begin to always see life through this, these glasses of our own expectations and how those expectations are seldom met in the way that we want and that discontent becomes part of who we are. And we get to where we just complain all the time.

There's two words that are translated sometimes, especially in the Old King James, that come from the Hebrew and Greek words and means to complain. My favorite is one in the Old Testament. They translate it murmur. Now murmur in English is an interesting word. Now what does murmur mean? Well, actually, if you look it up, murmur means a low, indistinct, continuous sound. So you have to say, what does murmur mean? It means murmur, murmur, murmur, murmur, murmur, murmur, that's what it means. That's what the word means. It's just murmur, murmur, murmur, murmur, murmur, it's a low sound. You can't even figure out what's being said. And in the Old English, many times where you see what the word complaining would be, it's murmuring. In the New Testament, it was translated grumble. Grumble is a sound. Grumble is not really a word with a long definition, it's just a grumble. My stomach's grumbling. It's an indistinct sound. Well, modern translations, they translate it into complain, which captures the meaning of the word.

How many times in our lives have we seen people when we ourselves become so discontented because their expectations weren't met that we sort of live in a constant state of murmuring? Anybody that will listen, we corner and we complain to. We just gripe. We have something to gripe about, to complain about, and we just pass it on to everybody. And we see the world through a constant prism of negative expectation or negative view of expectations not met. It reminds me of a poem I read once. I had a set of books every few years I go through and I get rid of boxes of books so I can buy new boxes of books. And I had a set of books one time. There were six volumes of humorous poems, and it was published in 1903. The problem was most of the poetry was from the Victorian age, and I didn't think they were funny at all. I mean, they didn't make sense to me, but there was one. I eventually got rid of a set of books. But there was one poem that I really understood what the man was talking about. It was called The Pessimist.

Here's how it goes. Nothing to do but work, nothing to eat but food, nothing to wear but clothes, to keep one from going nude, nothing to breathe but air, quick as a flash to dawn, nowhere to fall but off, and nowhere to land but on, nothing to comb but hair, nowhere to sleep but in bed, nothing to weep but tears, and nothing to bury but dead, nothing to sing but songs, ah, well, lass, a-lack, nowhere to go but out, and nowhere to go but come back, nothing to see but sights, nothing to quench but thirst, nothing to have but what we've got, thus the life we are cursed, nothing to strike but a gate, everything moves that goes, nothing at all but common sense can ever withstand these woes. Now, how many times in life do we get to the place that's how we look in life? It's just we just see the bad and we complain, we gripe.

Now, you think, okay, a sermon about complaining, you know, what's that have to do with today's and the mother and bread, and how's that do with what, you know, that's not really a big issue here, but it is. Because we can get to the place where we live such lives of negative complaining that we literally not only destroy our relationships with others, but we pull ourselves away from God. And that does tie into the days of the mother and bread. The history of ancient Israel, when they left Egypt, when they came out of slavery, as a group of people who were given remarkable privileges by God, through His power, through what He did. He's the one who brought Egypt down. He's the one who opened the Red Sea. He's the one who brought them out and had a promised land waiting for them. And yet, what we find in their history, from the time that they left Egypt to the time that they got to the promised land one year later, we find a group of people who complained all the time. Now, I've given sermons, or I've actually gone through it this time of year, that there's ten places in the Scripture where it talks about ten different times between when they left Egypt until they got to the promised land where they rebelled against God as a people. I'm not going to go through all ten of those, but I am going to talk about a couple of places today. Because the mindset that those people formed led to the place where God refused to give them the promised land. Let's go to Exodus 15. Through the last six weeks, we have covered a lot of Exodus 12, Exodus 13, 14. We've even read part of Exodus 15 in different sermons and sermon texts. We read part of the Song of Moses that's in Exodus 15. I ought to pick it up now in Exodus 15 verse 22. So Moses brought Israel from the Red Sea, and they went out into the wilderness of Shur, and they went three days in the wilderness and found no water. Now, let's put this in context. It's easy to criticize these people, but let's look at their expectations. A few weeks before, they were slaves. Just a few weeks before, they were trapped, and they were abused, and they lived lives that had no value except to their masters. A slave lives life in a very small, confined way. A slave lives life in context of the day, of the moment, because you don't know if you're going to be alive tomorrow. So you live a very narrow life, in a very small context. And so here they were locked into that, and they watch as the Nile turns the blood. They watch as God carries out all ten of those plagues. They watch as the greatest empire on the face of the earth is crushed. They watch as they are led, and they come out of that society after God has killed all the first forth. They have seen the Red Sea open, and they have walked through it. They got to the other side, and they watched it close behind them and destroy the Egyptian army. At this point, your expectations are really high. What God's going to do next is really high. How God's going to take care of me next?

How do you beat that? So they have very, very high expectations of what God's going to do next. And we just read, they went three days into a desert. These people have spent their entire lives along the Nile.

They didn't realize how big the world was. They had no idea how far the desert stretched on both sides of the Nile. Most of them had never left the Nile. They got to the Red Sea, the Red Sea open. They got to the other side in the desert. But you can't be desert for very far. You marched for three days, and not only is it still desert, but you've run out of water. Expectations are taking a real hit at this point. I mean, God is supposed to take care of us. Aren't we going to eat? Aren't we going to drink? Our children are crying. Verse 23, 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. In other words, bitter. These waters, the waters are so toxic you can't even stand to taste it. It'll make you sick to drink it. And here they are in the desert that never seems to end. After three days. And this isn't what they expected at all. This is how God was supposed to fulfill their expectations. Remember, a month before this, their expectations were to get through the day and come home and have some onions and fish, which was the main food of slaves in ancient Egypt. You got the fish, you grew some vegetables in your little plot, and you got fish out of the Nile. That was your main food supply. If you were lucky, your master gave you a little beer that day. So that was expectations were pretty low. We go home, I got a beer and a piece of fish.

Now your expectations are real high.

And it's not working out. Verse 24, and the people complained against Moses, saying, what shall we drink? They complained. And of course, in the old King James, I believe it's the old King James, some different translations use murmur, but the older translations, they murmur. In other words, I got beer. That's what they were doing. Hundreds of thousands of people murmuring. Now, it's interesting, there's another place where it says they went to their tents and murmured. So if you've been walking through, and this was another situation, but this just became, this was the way they handled every problem. There's not one place that says, and they all went to their tents and prayed. They all went to their tents, and there's no reason to do it. They can't believe this. What's going on? And millions of people making that sound. That's what it sounded like to God. Just this sound, with no purpose, no meaning, except unhappy people saying, this isn't what I expected. And they became very unhappy. Now, we know what happened. A year later, they get to the Promised Land, and they don't get to go in. And there's a number of reasons why they didn't, they weren't able to go in because of the rebellion and the problems they had throughout that year. But it's interesting, the viewpoint of the Apostle Paul on why they didn't go in. Let's go to 1 Corinthians chapter 10. 1 Corinthians chapter 10. Here Paul sets up what he's going to talk about by taking us directly back to that telling period. Verse 1 of 1 Corinthians chapter 10.

Moreover, brother, and I do not want you to be unaware that all our fathers were under the cloud, all passed through the sea. All were baptized into Moses, in the cloud, and in the sea. All ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink. For they drank of that spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ. So now he sets up what he's going to talk about. He said, let's go back to those people who were the people of God, and God took them out of Egypt and opened the sea for them. And every day they saw a pillar of cloud by day, pillar of fire by night. It was there every day, leaving them where they should go. So let's go back to those people and their baptism by going through the sea. But verse 5 says, that with most of them, God was not pleased, for their bodies were scattered in the wilderness. Now these things became our examples to the intent that we should not lust after things that they also mustn't. He says, so God has this recorded so that people throughout all the generations, down to us today, can look at this and say, okay, what is it that displeased God so much with how these people acted that God allowed all those people over the age of 20 to die? They never got to go into the Promised Land that He said He would give to them. Well, Paul now begins to make a list of the problems those people had. Verse 7, do not become idolaters, as were some of them, as it is written, that people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play. One of the problems they had is they kept trying to bring Egyptian religion with them, Egyptian religious ideas, you know, worshiping the golden calf. But there were a lot of things and things that they did and problems they had that you can trace right back to the idolatry of the pagan society in Egypt. And they kept trying to bring it with them. Okay, here you and I are. We say, well, we've come out of paganism. We gave up Easter. We gave up Christmas. That's why we're keeping the Holy Days. We gave up paganism. This is why we do not go to church on Sunday, but keep an entire Holy Day of this Seventh-Day Sabbath, because we're getting that out. So we say, well, that's a good one. We've got that one covered. We're getting rid of that idolatry. Now, we still do with the spirit of idolatry. Anything we put between us and God is an idol. But just looking at this in the letter of the law, we can feel pretty secure. We're not, you know, there's no statues in here.

Verse 8, nor let us commit sexual immorality as some of them did. And in one day, 23,000 fell. So remember, God killed 23,000 people in one day in ancient Israel as they were leaving Egypt and that journey because of sexual immorality. Well, here we are coming into the church. We may occasionally deal with that problem, but for the most part, idolatry and fornication is not a major problem. It is once in a while as we deal with those things. We're trying to get that out of our lives. We're trying to get rid of pornography. We're trying not to look at movies that contain that kind of stuff or read books that contain that kind of stuff. So here we are pushing sexual immorality out. Well, good. Good. We're getting that one down. Verse 9, nor let us tempt Christ as some of them also tempted and were destroyed by serpents. How did they tempt Christ? Well, you know, they tempted God, but they just didn't believe Him. They didn't have faith. Finally, God said, go into the Promised Land. He said, don't go. Then He said, okay, don't go. And He said, yes, we'll go. Whatever He said to do, they did the opposite. They didn't have the faith to follow. So I said, okay, I'm trying to learn faith. I'm growing in faith. I'm trusting God more. Okay, with this faith thing, we're moving forward enough.

Well, this list the Paul makes, we're doing pretty good in.

I mean, we don't have a perfect yet, but we're moving forward.

Verse 10, nor complain, or in the Greek you could say, grumble, grumble, grumble, grumble, grumble, grumble, grumble, grumble, grumble, grumble, grumble, grumble, nor complain, as some of them also complained and were destroyed by the destroyer. All these things happened to them as examples, and they were written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the ages have come. Therefore, let Him who thinks He stands take heed lest he fall.

How important is it when we talk about this attitude and spirit of murmuring and griping and complaining? Well, when Paul lists four reasons why God did not allow those people to go into the Promised Land, one of the four is because they had a spirit of complaining. It's just what they did. Their expectations were meet, life wasn't turned out the way they wanted, and so they griped and they complained and they griped and they complained, and God never did measure up to what He was supposed to be. So you see, this is important that we understand this problem as we leave Egypt, and we deal with all these other sins that we have to deal with. Let's look at this concept of murmuring. Why is it that it's so easy for us to gripe and complain and grumble? Now, once again, all of us are going to complain about something once in a while, but we're looking here at an attitude of grumbling. It's what they did all the time. It was a viewpoint of life. Everything was negative. Nothing was going to work out. Nobody treated them the way they wanted to be treated. They grumbled about Moses. They grumbled about God. They grumbled about the food. They grumbled about the water. They grumbled about their friends. They grumbled about the weather. They grumbled on everything. They just... That's what it was like. It was just a low murmuring sound.

When we look at two root causes of the complaining spirits and how we can deal with it, because as we look at what Paul wrote here, we want to understand that just as we have to remove idolatry and sexual sin and have faith, we also must have to have a viewpoint of life that doesn't lead us to complaining all the time. So that we don't make the same mistake that they did. First, first thing we need to understand as a root cause of a complaining spirit and how we deal with it is we develop a spirit of murmuring about life's difficulties because we lack the faith to see God's involvement and purpose. We develop a spirit of murmuring about life's difficulties because we lack the faith to see God's involvement and purpose. Because we do not have the faith to see His involvement and His purpose, we always see things as working out wrongly. We do not see any good in anything and we become unthankful. And here's the key. If you don't get anything out of this sermon, get this out of it. You and I are not here. God is not here to meet yours and my expectations. God is not here to meet our expectations. We are here to meet God's expectation. We did not create Him. He created us. So we have all these expectations and when they don't happen, that's the God's fault. Or it just makes my life miserable. At some point, we have to learn to start changing our expectations for God's. Now God's expectations for you and me are different than what we come up with ourselves. I don't like that any more than you do. I wish God met all my expectations, but He doesn't. And I thank Him whenever I'm in my right mind that He does not. Because this is about us learning to meet His expectations, and I guarantee you His long-term expectations are greater than anything you and I can even remotely imagine.

But we're like slaves. We live for the moment. See? We live to get through the day to get our piece of fish and an onion and maybe a beer.

That's what we live for.

We can see the Red Sea open, but when it closes behind us, it doesn't take long before we say, you know what I can really use? A piece of fish, an onion, and a beer. You know, what's God's problem? That's all I'm asking for. What's His problem? I expected a whole lot more out of God than this. I expected a piece of fish and an onion and a beer. That's just them taking you some place you can't even imagine. But because we're slaves, that's how we see things. Look at Exodus chapter 16. They just could not free themselves from the anxiety of the moment. They just couldn't do it. They could never see God's expectations. They could only see their own.

They couldn't see what God was doing for them. They could only see what God was, in their mind, wasn't doing for them. Exodus 16 verse 1.

We know that the last part of Exodus 15 is He gives them water. I mean, He met their expectation. They're griping. They're complaining. They're murmuring. And He actually meets their expectation. He gives them all the water they want.

Verse 1. And a journey from Elam and all the congregation of the children of Israel came to the wilderness of sin, which is between Elam and Sinai. On the fifteenth day of the second month after they departed from the land of Egypt. One month later, okay, one month, then the whole congregation of the children of Israel complained against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. 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 He was set up by the pots of meat, when we ate bread to the full. For you have brought us out into the wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger. We did not expect hunger. We just didn't expect this. Thirty days in a long time, we've never been away from our little plot of land or whatever work the government made us do. We've never been away from our little routine, our whole lives for generations. And now you take us thirty days wandering around in the desert. And we're hungry. This didn't meet our expectations. There's something wrong. You know what? It would have been better if God would just left us there and let you know, when He passed over us, just killed us right then when He killed the Egyptians. It would have been better for us to die there. This isn't what we expected. At least we knew what to expect there.

This is how human beings become. This is how we become. When what we expect, my marriage, my job, my health, my abilities, whatever, didn't meet what I expected. I mean, how many little girls think that, I just can't wait until this guy in a shining, you know, armor and a horse come up and takes me away and I'll be happy forever and ever and ever? It doesn't always work out that way. Does that mean that the answer to that is to be bitter of life and to complain and grumble about life? Now, I'm not... when something bad happens, I'm not saying when you talk to somebody about something that bad has happened to you, that's complaining. I'm talking about, I'm just a mermaid, I'm just a mermaid, I'm just a cotta, I'm just complaining, I can't stand it. And it's a never-ending griping. It's a way of life, a way of life that doesn't stop, because it's coming from the core of who we are, and at the core of who we are, we are discontented because my expectations have not been met and God eventually has to be blamed for that. Whereas our lives are about meeting God's expectations. Exodus 16 verse 4. So what are they doing? They're complaining. God steps forward to meet their expectations, but not in the way they expected. Okay? It's His expectations. And the Lord said to Moses, Behold, I will reign bread from heaven for you, and the people shall go out and gather a certain quota every day, and I may test them whether they will walk in my law or not. And they shall be on the sixth day that they shall prepare what they brought in, and it shall be twice as much as they gather daily. And Moses and Aaron said to all the children of Israel, at evening you shall know that the Lord has brought you out of the land of Egypt. So He said, You know, God is going to take care of you here. Now we know that He gave him quail.

And they got up in the morning, and there was bread. There was food. Just all over the place. Food! They didn't plan it. They didn't plow the ground for it. They didn't have to work for it. You can imagine coming out of the tents. Well, what did they call it? What's that? That's what manna means. I don't know. Moses said, Eat it! Eat it! You know, you can see the first person, everybody's watching. I'm going to eat that stuff. They were a big flock of birds or something. I don't just say that because I had something unexpected happening to me today. I was driving here from Temple. I expected to have a nice drive. Nothing bad to happen. I had my hand out the window, and a big bird pooped all over me.

Well, there's a word you don't hear in the sermon very often. But anyways, let's just say I didn't meet my expectations. And for a few moments there, I was complaining.

My wife was laughing at me. Let's get back to here before I get in trouble. Okay, so now God has an expectation for these people. His expectation is, I made this for you. It's the perfect food. It gives you all the nutrition. You'll feel great. You'll be absolutely healthy. Guess what? Taste it. It tastes good. You read what it tastes like. It tastes like dessert. He didn't give them cauliflower.

He gave them dessert. And it could be baked, fried, eaten raw. It could be cooked a hundred different ways. And God says, I know what you expected. And he says, again, what? Every day, I'll give you enough every day. Don't keep it. This stuff will spoil and it will stink. And it says that some people kept it and it stunk. He said, I want to really do something. Now, here's my expectation. You're going to like this. On the sixth day, gather double. You have plenty for the Sabbath. You won't have to work on the Sabbath. This is great. Watch this. And there are thousands of people wandering around Sabbath morning saying, where is what's it? Where is it? It's not here. What happened? God didn't meet our expectations again. First of all, you know, this stuff is so good. I collected some extras up on Tuesday to eat meals. Wednesday morning, the thing spoiled. It stunk so bad. I still can't go in my tent. And now I come out here. There's none out here. God just doesn't meet my expectations. They were an unhappy group of people. Now, before we treat them too badly, how many times are we going through life saying, God, I don't understand. That stinks. And God said, well, that's not what I expected for you to do. Meet my expectations. God's expectations are always better than anything you and I can come up with. But I guarantee you, they're not what you and I come up with. And it's not always easy. God's expectations for us aren't always easy. They couldn't get this. So what happens is we actually develop an entitlement concept of our expectations. We believe we're entitled. I don't know how many marriages have failed because the husband believes he's entitled for his wife to act a certain way. I'm not talking about righteousness here. I'm just talking about, you know, you're going to cook a certain way and act a certain way and be a certain way. And you're going to be like a robot. Or how many wives have destroyed a marriage because of expectations that my husband is going to be exactly this way.

And when the husband isn't exactly that way, well, there's something wrong.

We expect and expect and expect and we expect everybody to meet our expectations, including God. And when that doesn't happen, what do we do? We gripe and we complain. I'm reminded, you know, you don't know if some of these stories are true or not, but it is said that Louis XIV of France, his army lost a major battle. And when they brought the news to him, his response was, how could God do this to me after all I've done for him?

How many times in our lives has something happened to us and our real responses deep inside? God, how can you do this to me after all I've done for you?

You didn't meet my expectations again. Now, I'm not saying having expectations is wrong. I'm not saying asking God to help you meet your expectations is wrong. I'm saying if we live life this way, with nothing but expectations and they're never met and everybody's the blame, including God, you will not only be unhappy, you will reach a point where you will not be able to have a relationship with God because you will live a life of murmuring. Life will simply be it's all it'll be. All day long, we will live with our own discontent. Look at what the inspore. You and I aren't entitled to anything from God. Now, God is entitled to our obedience. God is entitled to our love. God is entitled to our worship. But you know what? You and I are actually entitled to anything. Now, that's a hard pill of swallow, but that's the truth. Everything comes from God's love and God's mercy. That's what He gives to us. But He's entitled to what we're supposed to give back. This idea that we don't have to obey God is just... Oh, He is entitled to our obedience because we are the creation and He is the Creator.

He's entitled to this. And you and I are entitled to anything. Remember, God is not here to meet our expectations. We are here to meet God's expectations. Philippians 4. The Apostle Paul writes here in verse 11, Not that I speak in regard to need, for I have learned... I didn't say I was born this way. He says I've learned this. I have learned in whatever stead I am to be content.

He goes on a verse to all. He says, I know how to be abased. I know how to abound. Now, He didn't say, I know how to obey... be abased. And I just say, whoopee! You know, when people are stoning me, I just dance around the jig and say, well, this is great. This is fun. Stole me some more.

He didn't say it. There aren't times I'm down. There aren't times I'm depressed. There aren't times I gripe a little bit. He said, but you know, my purpose in life isn't complaining. Because I don't see this life in a discontented way. I see what God is doing, Paul said. And in this I've learned that there are good times, there are bad times, and I just follow God's purpose, God's involvement. God's involved in my life, He has a purpose, and I'm here to meet His expectations. And there are days when Paul had nice clothes on in a warm room with a full belly with friends. And there are days when he was adrift on the ocean and tattered clothes, cold and hungry and scared. And he said, you know what? In both of those situations, I've never given up. He says, I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need, and I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Paul saw life so differently than we do. And he was thankful to God for that involvement in his life. There's a psalm that is given that David wrote that's not in the book of Psalms, but it is a very important psalm in showing David's approach to God. Let's go to 1 Corinthians 16. And I want to look at just three points he makes here in the first few verses of this psalm that will help us in being able to deal with this problem we have that we see nothing but expectations that aren't met in life. And so we're unhappy. 1 Corinthians 16. 1 Corinthians 16, let's start with verse 7. On that day, David first delivered this psalm to the hand of Asaph and his brethren to thank the Lord. So this is a psalm of thankfulness. Verse 1, O give thanks to the Lord, call upon his name, make known his deeds among the peoples. I want to stop there because there's something real important in that little verse. When we are thankful to God, we offer that thankfulness by telling other people about God. If we don't feel a desire to talk to others about God, then we are not thankful. Now, I don't mean we're going to go out and proselyte with everybody, you know what I mean. But there are times when we are to tell other people about God.

There are times when you and I individually will have opportunities to tell somebody about God, or opportunities to do it collectively.

To be thankful to God is to tell other people. O give thanks to the Lord, call upon his name, make known his deeds among the peoples. It's interesting when you go through the Psalms, how many times David says something like that. I mean, Psalm 51, he says, Forgive me, and I will help convert others to you.

When you do something on my life, God, it gets passed on. It gets given to others.

When we just selflessly accept what God gives us without the idea that we're to pass it on, then we're not thankful. It's part of the problem. The second point here in verse 9, sing to him. Sing Psalms to him. Talk of all his wondrous works.

Sing to God. At Sabbath services, you and I have an opportunity to sing praises to God. It shouldn't be just all where we've known these songs. We have half of them memorized. So we just sort of sing them. We don't even know what the words are anymore. We just say them, and we sing the song. We know the tune. We're looking around, seeing what's going on while we're singing the song. We are to sing to God. See, it takes a little work to break out of murmuring. It takes a little work to do this. You want to really do this?

I tell you something I've started to do. I mean, this is just an idea. You find your way to do it. I love music. I listen to music all the time. And I mean, I like every kind of music you can think of. Classical music, rock music, jazz. Kim doesn't like jazz too much. Country music, I listen to all of it. Not all of it. I mean, I select certain things from all of it.

I mean, you know, Roaring Twenties music, Joplin style. I mean, any music style you think. Gregorian chants. I'm serious! But I've started to try every day to listen to a song or to sing a song that's about God.

And I found this changed me. I found this changed me. I either listen to a song or sing a song about God. The other day I was punching across the radio and came across the Handel's Messiah, the Hallelujah Chorus.

And I found out I can't sing that high tenor part anymore. David's sitting to him. Stop just worrying about our expectations being met and realize who he is and his expectations for us are eternal. He has eternal expectations for you.

And ours is whether we can have a piece of fish, an onion, and a beer today. We've narrowed life down to that.

And his is so much greater.

Talk about his wondrous works. We should not be ashamed to talk to each other about God, especially in the household of God. We should be talking about God. Next verse, verse 10. Glory in his holy name. Let the hearts of those rejoiced who seek the Lord. Seek the Lord in his strength. Seek his face forevermore. Remember his marvelous works which he has done, his wonders and the judgments of his mouth. Seek God. Seek his expectations and you will rejoice. Seek his purpose. Seek his involvement. But we keep saying, oh God, if you could just do this. I've done that. We've all done it. God, if you could just do this, my life would be so much better. And I'm not saying it's wrong to go pray for God to fulfill deeds. But our first approach should be, God, what is it you want? Because I'm going to meet your expectations. Because if we don't, we'll always feel like nothing works out. And we will just end up being discontented. And the more we're discontented, the more we complain. And the more what God hears from us is, that's all he hears. That's what it is. Now, the second point is we complain because we think life isn't fair and we deserve what others have.

We find this great discontent because we're always comparing to what others have.

What others are.

Instead of, God, what is it you want me to be? What is it you want me to have?

Look at Luke chapter 19.

A little story here we read through. Luke, you don't pay much attention to. There's a very important point here.

Then Jesus entered and passed through Jericho. Now, behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus, who was a chief tax collector and he was rich. Now, I know two things about him right away. The man's rich and the man's a tax collector. That means he's not well-liked in society. Now, this does not mean he's not a practicing Jew.

He would have worshipped at the temple. He would have kept the Sabbath in the holy days. He would have tithed. But the rest of society didn't like him because he worked for the Roman government. So he was a rich man and he was a tax collector. There's nothing here that says he was dishonest. Now, people read that and say, well, he must have been dishonest. It didn't say that. It just says he was rich and he was a tax collector. So we know he was wealthy and people didn't like him. We know those two things. And we find out something else in verse three. And he sought to see who Jesus was but could not because of the crowd for he was of short stature. Okay. I now I can understand what this guy, not that I've been rich or a tax collector, but I'm short. So he couldn't see through the crowd. And there's hundreds, maybe thousands of people here gathering around to see Jesus. And Zacchaeus can jump. He just can't see Jesus. But he wants to see me. He wants to see this rabbi. He wants to learn from me. This man, he wants him to teach you things. Verse four. So he ran ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him, for he was going to pass by that way. And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and saw him. Here's this probably well-dressed short man up in a tree. And Jesus saw him and looks up and says, hey, Zac, may Jason come down for today. I must stay at your house. Now I can guarantee you that was way beyond Zacchaeus' expectations. His expectation was, I just want to see him.

Jesus saw him and says, Zacchaeus, come down. Go home. Get some food ready. I'm going to come stay with you. Now Zacchaeus now responds to that. And we have in verse six what he experienced. So he made haste and came down and received him joyfully. Whoa! Can you imagine running home and saying, you can't believe what's happening. You can't believe. Give me his wife saying, oh, no, the place is filthy. I got to clean it up. I can't believe you invited the rabbi to come here. But no, no, he's coming. He's coming. Jesus himself, the one they think is the Messiah.

Now, he came with the next expectations. God gave him God's expectations. But I want you to notice something else in verse seven. But when they saw it, now this doesn't mean everybody in the crowd, but there were people in that crowd that had different expectations. Probably very religious people who expected somehow Jesus to acknowledge them or honor them. They expected maybe Jesus saying, hey, you know, won't you come over my house? And Jesus said, sure, that'd be great. Or let's all have, why don't you all you Pharisees get together and let's go have a Bible study together, just us.

But that's not what happened.

So when they saw it, they all complained. Greek, when she gets grumble, grumble, grumble, grumble, grumble, grumble, grumble. That's what God heard. They all complained, saying he has gone to be a guest with a man who is a sinner. You know, you can imagine all that conversation when one of those guys get home. What's wrong, honey? Well, you can't imagine. Did you see Jesus? Yeah. He said hello to me. Did he talk to you? Yeah, for a minute or two.

He was Zacchaeus. You mean the tax collector down the street? Yeah, well, you know, I think he's rich because he's dishonest. That's what I think. Well, guess who Jesus is staying with tonight? What? Zacchaeus? You know, all this stuff about him being a messiah can't be true.

Not, who would go stay the night with a tax collector?

See what happens when we have expectations?

Zacchaeus had fairly low expectations, and God really gave him something he didn't expect. These religious leaders, they had very high expectations. They didn't see what God was doing. They couldn't understand why was it wrong for him to go there? How was that an insult to them that he went there? Shouldn't have gone home and said, you know, he went to talk to Zacchaeus. He didn't spend the night with him. Well, that's nice.

Why couldn't they see that? Because their expectations were that God was going to give them something better than other people. We have to be careful where we believe because God is calling us, or we have been called, God's working in our lives. We have to be careful about coming to the conclusion that I deserve a blessing. I deserve these expectations. We should ask for blessings, be thankful when we receive blessings. But you know, God is under no obligation to do things the way we want it. I'm going to show you in a minute. I don't mean He has an obligation to do certain things because He says He will. Those are promises of God. I talked about forcing our expectations on God. God has no obligation to meet our expectations.

He only has an obligation to fulfill what He says He's going to fulfill. So, let's get in tune with His expectations, and I guarantee you, it will be done. He's always going to fulfill what He says He will do.

But He's not always going to fulfill what we say He must do.

Matthew 20 Jesus gives His parable. He says, "...for the kingdom of heaven was like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire labors for his vineyard. Now when he had agreed with the labors for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard." Now, that was a day's wage. He was being very fair. The board was very fair. He was very fair. He was very fair. He was very fair. He was very fair. He was being very fair. The point being made here is this owner of the vineyard is being fair. Come work for me all day. I'll give you a whole day's wage. The men were happy to go. Now, I know I've read this before, and we haven't read this in the sermon for quite a while, but every time I read this, I bring out where I've been in South Texas, where you see the migrant farm workers, and they gather in the middle of these little towns, and they wait, and people come by and pick up, and say, okay, we can take eight or ten of you, or whatever. Off they go to work. And you don't want to be late or something, and you get there. It may be all day, and no one may come by to get workers that day. So you want to be there. You want to be ready, and they'll take the workers off to work, and then the next day they're there waiting for somebody else to hire them. You want to get a full day's wage. You don't want to have to go work two hours, and then go home and say, sweetheart, I only got two hours work today. No, I don't know how we're going to feed the kids tomorrow. So he's being very fair. Verse 3. And he went out about the third hour and saw others standing idle in the marketplace. And he said to them, you also go into the vineyard, whatever is right I will give you. So they went. And Gideon went out for the sixth hour and the ninth hour, and did likewise. And about the eleventh hour, he went out and found others standing idle, and said to them, why have you been standing here all day? Idle all day. And he said, because no one has hired us. And he said to them, you also go into the vineyard, and whatever is right you will receive. So when evening had come, the owner of the vineyard said to a steward, call the laborers and give them their wages, beginning with the last to the first. So he goes to the foreman. He says, look, set up your table here, call the men in, and say, hey, the men who we hired last come up front. You men that we hired in the morning go ahead and wait. Now, what are the expectations of the men who came in and only worked an hour? I'm not going to get much. I'm not going to get much here, but at least they got some work in today. And when those came who were hired about the eleventh hour, they each received a denarius, a day's wage. But when the first came, they supposed that they would receive more. You know, as you're watching, just imagine, you're the person who worked 12 hours. The person who worked one hour, the person who worked three hours, the person who worked six hours, they're all receiving a day's wage. And every one of them is saying, thank you. Tell the owner he is a wonderful man. And I only had to work a couple hours. He's giving me a whole day's wage. My children, this is a blessing with my family. Please tell him thank you.

See, because how their expectations were different, how they responded to the master, the owner. And of course, this is about how we respond to God. Now, the ones who have been working 12 hours, they expected more. Of course they would. That's what human nature is. But, verse 10, they likewise received each a denarius. When they had received it, they complained, they grumbled, against the landowner. This isn't fair. This isn't right. I worked all this time, as they say in verse 12, saying, these last men have worked only one hour. You made them equal to us, who have borne the burden in the heat of the day.

Now, what is the answer? What is the lesson here? Verse 13.

So, here's how the landowner responds. He answered one of them and said, Friend, am I doing you no wrong? Or, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? Didn't you agree to come work for a day and get a fair's day's wages? Isn't that good? You agreed to it. I paid you. Good has happened here. You got exactly what you expected. It's what I gave you. No, no, no, no. I expected something else, because I saw what somebody else got. You see the problem? My expectations now changed, because I should get more than this person. Verse 14. Take what is yours and go your way. I wish to give to this last man the same as you. Is it not lawful for me to do what I wish with my own things, or is your I evil because I am good? He said, I'm doing something good for this man. He and his family will rejoice tonight because I gave him something good. How does that hurt you? But you think about how we think in our entitlement society. Somebody has something we don't have. They're bad, and I deserve what they got. And somebody should take it from them and give it to me. That's the way we think. We're not careful. That's how we are with God. God, but I've been your servant for 40 years. And this new person comes in the church, and I lost my job for the first three years I was in the church because of the Sabbath. Then I lost my next job because I went to the piece of tabernacles. I live in poverty for the first eight years I was in the church. This young person comes along. They come into the church. They're brand new. First time they have a Sabbath problem, you work it out. They get a promotion, and now they're making more money than I ever got my whole life. What's your problem, God? You're sure about meeting my expectations here. God's answer is, well, wait a minute. I've given you exactly what I said I would in the kingdoms waiting for you. I gave the kid a break. Come on! See how God thinks? You've been around a long time. Maybe a little weaker than you are. Maybe I had to...you, I had to toughen up. This man needs a blessing. He and his family need a blessing. What's your problem? It's not what I expected.

I expected everybody else have to suffer like me, and then my seniority and tenure would guarantee that you would give me things that you wouldn't give other people. Well, you know, seniority and tenure doesn't matter to God. Being His children is what matters to God.

A blessing. And the murmuring starts. The discontent, the low, just right things.

And pretty soon, we find ourselves in an attitude that's different. We drift out into the world where we can get what we think will make us happy. Trying to meet our expectations instead of meeting God's. Verse 16 says, For the last will be first, and the first last, for many are called, if you are chosen.

Now, this doesn't mean that God doesn't want to reward you for what you've done. We have to remember God's expectations are eternal. We always look in terms of a piece of fish, an onion, and a beer. See, that's what we're looking at. And God's saying, oh, no, no, no, no, no, you ought to wait. I see what? Here's my expectations. When you see the Jordan River, you're going to say, we had no idea this was so beautiful. When you see what's there for you, I mean, the part of what is Israel in the Middle East now used to be much more forested and had much more plants and so forth than it has now. When they would arrive there, it was absolutely beautiful. They had everything they could want. And he's saying, just wait, you have no idea what I expect from you. This is going to be good. This is going to be exciting. And they finally got there, and God said, forget it. I'm not even going to let you in now. You don't get to go in now. You're great and complained and great and complained for a year. You got here refused to go in. So good. Go back out in the desert. See, we don't want to be there, folks. That's not how we want God to respond to us. We got to remember, he's saying, wait till you see what I got. Yeah, but we don't have any water to cure that. That's a problem. But we got to walk. You know, maybe if you would have, instead of having the man a prop up, maybe if we could have just laid down an eph do it again tomorrow. Yeah, but can we have like chocolate covered manna tomorrow?

Just wait. You can't believe when you get there what I have is expected for you. The chocolate covered manna sounds good to me. See what we do.

Look at Hebrews chapter 6. Hebrews chapter 6.

Verse 10. Paul says, For God is not unjust to forget your work and labor of love, but you have shown toward his name that you have ministered to the saints and do minister. He says, God isn't forgetting what you're doing. God has all kinds of expectations for you in this life, but even more in the life to come.

Don't let your expectations get in the way. I've let my expectations get in the way sometimes. Oh, God, that's not how I wanted it to be.

That's what you can't wait. I got something for you. Get up tomorrow. Wait till you see manna.

Wait till you see the Jordan River.

Wait till you see what I'm going to do. Oh, but I didn't expect it to be hot.

He says, verse 11, And we desire that each one of you, a one of you, show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope until the end, that you do not become sluggish or lazy, but imitate those who through faith and patience inherit the promises, inherit the expectations, not your expectations, my expectations, because your expectations and my expectations can never measure up to God's. They will never be as good as His in the long run.

Today, a bird poops on us, but we, God, get better things than that.

And I don't know what else word to use. I don't want to offend anybody, but that's what the bird did.

God has expectations for us beyond our own whilest imagination. I want to spend this time, these days of 11 bread, and what I've been trying to do is get us focused in on the positive. We have the negative. Like I said before, the days of 11 bread, and like I said on the first day, let the sin go. Let God forgive us, because there's lots of sin to deal with, and there's going to be lots of sin to deal with over the next year that you and I are going to have to fight with and struggle and battle. I remember God has great expectations for you personally. And sometimes this life is a little disappointing. Sometimes it doesn't always measure up. But I guarantee you, every day there's good things that are happening, too. Every day God is doing something right in your life. Every day there's an expectation of God. If we'll just see it, it's happening. If we'll just look at it, it's happening.

Let's conclude then in Philippians 2. Philippians 2. So let's start in verse 14. Paul says, Do all things without complaining and disputing. See what happens when we have a spirit of murmuring? We end up arguing, because nothing is ever right. We can never see God's hand. We can never have patience in God. It's just everything's wrong. We just break, and we just break, and we just break, and we just break, and we just break, and we just break, and we just break, and we just break, and you know, then pretty soon somebody else comes along, and they're not meeting your expectations, so guess what you do with them? You argue with them. Measure up to my expectations, and I'll stop arguing with you. And so he says to the church, he says, Do all things without complaining and disputing. But that's not the end of this sentence. When we do this, when we approach life not having God try to fulfill our expectations, but we spend our lives trying to fulfill God's expectations. So we're not murmuring. We're not complaining. We struggle through the bad times, but we see what God is doing, and we see His purpose, and we see His involvement. When that's happening, we start to have better relationships with each other. And the result of that is, look at the rest of this sentence starting in verse 13, that you may become blameless and harmless children of God. This is what this is about. It's why we come together. It's why you were called personally. It's why we have a congregation. It's why we must preach the gospel as a command. And the gospel isn't just about Christ coming or the Sabbath. These are all part of it, but it's about how God's creating a family. That's the core central message. There's a purpose for humanity, and if we'll follow that, God's going to take us someplace. It takes obedience. It takes work. It takes repentance. It takes change. But boy, His expectations are huge. And what His final expectation is, Jesus Christ presents the family to Him. Go read the book of Revelation. That's the final expectation. He's got huge expectations for us, and we want some fish and an onion and a glass of beer. But God wants for us, it's huge. That you may become blameless and harmless children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation among whom you shine as lights in the world. I hope that this holy day season has been very, very profitable to all of you. We have another one to begin to prepare for.

So let's look forward, carry on, and continue, and let's prepare for the day of Pentecost. And let's remember God has great expectations for you.