What does First B Jackson teach about complaining?
Drawn from the messages where it was actually addressed: the words said from the front, the passages taught, and where to hear the whole thing.
At First B Jackson, the teaching on complaining consistently starts in the same place: what God has already done for us. When Pastor Brian preached Philippians 2:12-18 on the last Sunday of 2017, he drew a careful distinction between the two words Paul uses in verse 14. Grumbling, he said, is interior, a constant low murmuring that goes on inside a person's will. Complaining is that same attitude working its way outward into action. The command addresses both the root and the fruit, and it sits right in the middle of Paul's call to work out what God has already worked in.
Brad, preaching the same passage years later, was direct that he doubted anyone in the room had gone through the week without complaining about something, and named himself in that. He used an analogy about a man who receives a massive inheritance and whose wagon breaks a mile from the destination, and who simply walks the rest of the way smiling because he has something far greater waiting. The point was that believers have an inheritance that should make complaining feel absurd. As Brad put it, "Be a proclaimer not a complainer."
Carl, teaching through the same chapter on a Monday evening, connected the instruction directly to verse 13: God is the one supplying both the desire and the power to follow these commands. The more a person complains and argues, Carl said, the less of God's transforming power is visible in their life. The consistent thread across all of these messages is that the call to stop grumbling is not just a moral correction. It is a call to live in light of what is actually true about who God is and what He has given.
Taught from Philippians 2:12-18 · Philippians 2:1-11 · James 2:17 · Colossians 1 · Acts 4:5-12
“We are not his because we press on. We press on because we are his.”
From Therefore: Action, Light, and Rejoicing
The passage taught · Colossians 1
1 Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus through the will of God, and Timothy our brother,
2 to the saints and faithful brothers in Christ at Colossae: Grace to you and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.
3 We give thanks to God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you,
4 having heard of your faith in Christ Jesus, and of the love which you have toward all the saints,
World English Bible
The messages that teach on it
- August 9, 2026 Therefore: Action, Light, and Rejoicing A sermon on Philippians 2:12-18 about what it looks like to take action, shine brightly, and rejoice, following the pattern Christ set for us.
- September 20, 2022 Monday Night @ First B Sept 19th Pastor Karl speaks on the book of Phillipians Carl walks through Philippians 2:12-30, showing how obedience, joy and care for one another flow from what God has already done for us in Christ.
- December 31, 2017 Work It Out: God Works In You to Will and to Do Pastor Mark preaches Philippians 2:12-18 on New Year's Eve, showing how God works in us to will and do His good pleasure as we shine as lights in a crooked world.
- December 31, 2017 Work It Out With Fear and Trembling Philippians 2:12-18 on working out salvation, shining as lights, and pressing forward without grumbling as we close one year and begin another.
Mentioned along the way
- September 6, 2026 The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment A sermon on Philippians 4:10-13 exploring what Paul meant by contentment in plenty and in need, and why "I can do all things through Christ" is so often misread.
- July 14, 2013 Three Assaults of the Evil One Acts 6 reveals three schemes Satan uses against the church: persecution, hypocrisy, and murmuring. See how the early believers faced each one and how we can too.