Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / October 18, 2015 | Content or Consumed? - Part 1: The Dangers of Discontentment

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October 18, 2015 | Content or Consumed? - Part 1: The Dangers of Discontentment · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Well, good morning.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: Isn't it great to be here?
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I I am so thankful to be here.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_00: Man, great morning, beautiful morning, great time of worship.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: My name is Hunter Rue, and I have the privilege of serving on staff here at Topeka Bible Church.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_00: And it's a great morning in Mulvane across the street in College Avenue building.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_00: But I want to start our time off with a story.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: This story goes back a few years to when I was 17 years old, and this is the spring of 1994.
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: Now, to lead up to this day in the spring of 1994, you have to understand the context and the circumstances that I was really having to deal with as a teenager, okay?
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: A few years before I had gotten my license, and because of my dad's work situation, he was commuting to the west coast of California.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: We were living in Connecticut in a small town called New Canaan, a very affluent, very wealthy part of the state, part of the country.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: And we uh my my I will give my parents credit.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_00: My parents tried very hard to make sure that we did not make things and stuff too much of a part of our family.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: But the human heart is still sinful, and selfish teenagers still fail to understand and learn lessons that parents may try to teach them, okay?
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: So I had gotten my license, and because of my dad's commuting across country, I had the privilege and the fortune of driving a car to school most of the time throughout my second part of my sophomore year into my junior year, and I kind of got to like that.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: It was kind of nice to drive a car to school.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_00: Got a little too comfortable with that.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: So my dad's work situation changed, and he was able to now be more local to the New York area and not have to travel as much.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: And you'd think that that would be very good, and it was good and it was exciting.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_00: But the problem is we now had three drivers in the house with two cars.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: Big, big problem.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: Huge problem.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: Especially for a teenager who had gotten quite accustomed to driving a car to school.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: Well, my parents were thoughtful and generous, and my dad decided he was gonna buy a car, a nice new car.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: So now things were good.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_00: We had three cars and three drivers.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: The math was perfect.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: And when my dad would have to take some work trips, what was great is that he would take the older car to the airport to leave it there, and I'd get to drive his new car to school.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: So things kept getting better.
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: Well, my dad got a more sensible head on his shoulders, and he realized, you know what, that car it really wasn't a great great idea.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: We don't really need it, and I'm gonna sell it to my brother.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: So he sold his nice new car to his brother, and you can see where I'm going with this.
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_00: So roll around to the spring of my junior year of high school, and inside of me had been bubbling something.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: Something strong, something angry.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: It was discontentment.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_00: And so I remember that when my mom came to pick me and my sister, who was two years younger, up from the high school, because I couldn't drive and I couldn't drive us home because we only had two cars and three drivers, I can remember walking out of the doors of that high school on that spring day in 1994.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: I'd had enough.
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_00: Life was too difficult for me.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I said to my mom, as we walked into that parking lot, I said, Why can't we buy another car?
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_00: We're rich.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: The Spirit of God restrained my mother from doing what any able-bodied parent would want to do to their child in that moment.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: And she very calmly told me, We can't do that right now.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: And you're gonna have to deal.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: And have you ever done that in your life where you look back on things that you've said or done and you're just shocked at how selfish, how focused on you you've been, and you just think, I am so embarrassed and ashamed that I actually said those words.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_00: But I did.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: And what those words revealed was that I had a heart that was not thankful, that was completely discontent with my circumstances.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I look around at our nation, and even at Christians in our nation, and I put myself in that category because I am a Christian and I live in America, and I see rampant discontentment that just continues to pervade all of what we are about.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: There's a quotation that we're gonna put up on the screen.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: You normally wouldn't quote from George Carlin in a church service.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason is because most of his stuff just isn't appropriate, not even in church, but outside of church, and he was a staunch atheist and it would just make me so mad to watch him and the things he would say and blasphemy of Jesus Christ.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, I really say this also in all sincerity.
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: I am I am grieved by the fact that when he died some seven years ago, he he finally realized that he was wrong about his assessment of who Christ is, because he is he's in hell, and that's a sad thing.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: But he does have a quotation that I thought was instructive for us as we talk about what we are going to talk about this morning.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_00: He talks about the purpose for why many Americans have their houses.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_00: And it goes like this That's all your house is, it's a place to keep your stuff.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: A house is just a pile of stuff with a cover on it.
• 5:08
  SPEAKER_00: And when you leave your house, you gotta lock it up.
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: You wouldn't want someone to come and take some of your stuff.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: That's what your house is, a place to keep your stuff while you go out and get more stuff.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: And he's right.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_00: And I think what he he gets at is this constant feeling that we have for more and more and more.
• 5:26
  SPEAKER_00: John D.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: Rockefeller, very well-known multimillionaire, um tycoon, so successful in business, had more money than most of us will ever even could ever dream of.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: And he was asked one day, Mr.
• 5:40
  SPEAKER_00: Rockefeller, you have so much.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: How much money is enough?
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_00: When will you feel like you've gotten to the point where you have enough?
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_00: And you know what his answer always was?
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: Just a little bit more.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_00: Just a little more.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: That's what he always said.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: Speaking from a heart that was never content just to have so much.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: You just always wanted a little bit more.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that the problem for us when we wrestle with this issue of discontentment is that the same is true for us in our own circumstances.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I do believe that discontentment is a symptom of a much bigger spiritual problem, and I do believe that God is disappointed in our discontentment, and he's displeased with it, and he desires to see us be a different people, a people who are content.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so contentment and its importance, as well as the dangers of discontentment, are the topic and the subject for this morning's message.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_00: This week is the first of a two-week series that I have the privilege of sharing with you all this morning.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_00: And next week, Tim Collins, my good friend who's on staff with Trash Mountain, is going to be sharing.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_00: This week the series begins: content or consumed.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: It's a matter of the heart.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I really do believe that.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: As we look at this issue of discontentment, we find what it really exposes in us is a heart that is not content in Christ.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: Week one, the dangers of discontentment.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: We will be looking at Philippians chapter four.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: So you can go ahead and open up your Bible there or fire up your smartphone and stop checking fantasy scores, and you can pay attention and turn to Philippians 4.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: And we're going to be examining this topic of contentment.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: And Lord willing, as a result of our time together, uh we'll see how this message applies to us because this doesn't just have to do with the material things that we enjoy in this life, although that primarily is where we're going to fix our attention.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: But this does have to do with uh relationships, jobs, vocations, uh, a variety of other ways that this issue of contentment applies to us.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: And my prayer is that God will speak to you as He has spoken to me on the importance of applying the principles of contentment in our lives.
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: And we will learn the means through which, or probably better said, through whom we gain contentment and have strength to be content in whatever circumstances we find ourselves in.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_00: And like I said, this is contentment this week.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: This is sort of like uh the setup in volleyball, and my friend Tim is gonna come with a hard spike and talk about generosity next week.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so you really want to be here for that.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_00: If you're thinking, okay, I don't want to sit in a sermon where they talk about generosity, that means that you need to be here next week.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: So please plan on it now that you'll be here next week to hear my friend Tim talk about generosity.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, because of the nature of this, I'm just gonna open us up in a word of prayer, and then we're gonna dive into Philippians 4.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: So let's pray.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, Lord, you are so good and so gracious, and you are good and gracious to give us your word that tells us what you desire from your people.
• 8:39
  SPEAKER_00: You could have been a God who just remained distant and who just left us to figure things out on our own, but you have done nothing of the sort.
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: You have been so clear on who your son Christ is, of how we are to respond through the power of your spirit to what he wants us to be about.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: And as we talk about this subject today, I ask that you would continue to mold my heart and the hearts of friends out here, so that we might understand the importance of being content in Christ.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_00: In his name we pray.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_00: So the context of the book of Philippians, this uh city of Philippi, where the Philippian church is located, is on the northern end of the Aegean Sea, is in an area of ancient Greece called Macedonia.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: Now it's just part of the country of Greece.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: And in about A.D.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: 50, the Apostle Paul was on what are called missionary journeys, and that's what he did.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: He went out on missions to plant churches and to share the gospel of Jesus Christ.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_00: And he came to the city of Philippi, and you can read about it.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's a very exciting account that takes place in Acts chapter 16 about some miraculous things that happened that God did.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: And he planted this church, and these people were near and dear to him.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: Fast forward a little bit.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_00: Paul has another missionary journey about A.D.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: 57 or so, and he probably swung back through this region of Macedonia and saw some of these friends in Philippi.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: But then after that, he may have lost contact with them for a while.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: And we find out that Paul went through his own adventures of going to Jerusalem and being accused of something.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_00: He said, No, I appealed to Caesar.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: They said, Okay, let's get you on to Rome.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: And finally, Paul, in the years of AD 60 to 62, is in Rome under house arrest, which is a little bit different maybe than we understand that today, but they were his own rented quarters that he was in.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: And obviously, they didn't have the technology for ankle bracelets back then.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: So what they did instead is they chained Paul to a Roman soldier who was with him all the time, and they probably rotated uh the different shifts on that.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: And you can imagine what that was like as the Roman soldiers said, All right, well, you got Paul first shift today.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_00: And they're like, Oh, great, gotta go and hear more about this Jesus and spend time with Paul.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: But what's amazing is that Paul made the most of his house arrest situation.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_00: He actually invited people to come in, and uh.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: He led some of those Roman soldiers to Christ.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: It was pretty profitable for him.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so, in an un in a situation that was not ideal, Paul made the most of it.
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_00: And for those two years between AD 60 and 62, he wrote several letters that were called the prison epistles, and one of these is Philippians.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: And what appears to have happened is that a man named Epaphroditus, and that name, by the way, means lovely.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you're thinking of naming children, you know, name them Epaphroditus.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: Lovely.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: You know, maybe call them Paphy.
• 11:22
  SPEAKER_00: That's just an idea, just a suggestion.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: And Epaphroditus, uh, who had been, he was a ministry partner of Paul's, had swung around through Macedonia, and the Philippians apparently had gathered resources because they had heard of Paul's situation, and they wanted to encourage him and thank him for his ministry.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: And they had brought some kind of uh material blessing, whether it was money or something else, for Epaphroditus to give to Paul.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: And so Paul receives word from Epaphroditus that the Philippians are doing well, and they wanted to bless you, Paul, with this gift, and that is an opportunity for Paul to then write a thank you note of sorts.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: And the thank you note ends up being the letter of Philippians.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: Have any of you been uh taught by your parents the importance of writing thank you notes?
• 12:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I mean, every birthday, good, the rep logo's back there, excellent.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_00: Every birthday, every Christmas, you gotta write one to your grandfather, your grandmother, your aunt, and uncle, and like, okay, mom, enough of the thank you notes.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: But it was a great discipline.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, this is just as an aside.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: My birthday was last month, and I was a little bit late getting my thank you notes out.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_00: So, Mom, I know you're gonna watch this.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: Your thank you note is in the mail, it'll be there when you get home.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_00: You just gotta get that out there.
• 12:34
  SPEAKER_00: But Paul writes Philippians under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit to respond to them and to let them know and to encourage them, and he encourages them to live joyfully for Christ as well as to pursue Christ.
• 12:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's a wonderful letter, a wonderful time, wonderful way for you to spend your quiet time just looking through Philippians and soaking it in.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: So that's that's really the kind of context for what we're looking at.
• 12:56
  SPEAKER_00: And we get here as we walk through chapter 4, verses uh 10 through 14, uh, we get hear that Paul is now writing these words to them.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_00: I rejoiced in the Lord.
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's important to understand, first of all, Paul is not rejoicing in what he got as far as a material blessing.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_00: He is rejoicing in the Lord.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord Jesus Christ was the source of Paul's joy.
• 13:18
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing else, no one else.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: It was Christ.
• 13:21
  SPEAKER_00: I rejoiced in the Lord greatly now that at length you have revived your concern for me.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: You were indeed concerned for me, but you had no opportunity.
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_00: The word revived your concern, it could talk about uh the foliage that springs up anew in the spring.
• 13:35
  SPEAKER_00: And that's what uh that's what Paul was using language for, say, to say to the Philippians, hey, I understand that things have been difficult for you.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_00: I've visited you, I know your circumstances, I know that you don't have much, but now you haven't had an opportunity until now to give me something, and as a blessing to me to know that you thought of me, and now you had the opportunity to do so.
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_00: And Paul rejoices in the Lord that the Philippians were sensitive enough to what God had done in their life that they would respond and want to help their brother in Christ, who was the Apostle Paul.
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_00: Now, one thing to keep in mind in all of this is that Paul was never one to ask for help.
• 14:13
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, he goes out of his way to maintain his own industry as a tent maker to earn a living so that churches did not feel that they had to support him.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_00: He didn't want to be a burden on them at all.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: So he's very careful to let the Philippians know that he actually was doing okay, even though his circumstances were less than ideal.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: And we get this in verse 11.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: Paul says, Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_00: The word here, need, could mean poverty or going without.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's the same word that Jesus uses when he refers to the rich that give out of their wealth, but this woman over here gave out of her need or her poverty.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_00: And Paul understood what it was to be in need, but he wants to let the Philippians know it's okay.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want you to be so concerned for me that you're gonna try to send me monthly support gifts.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's okay.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_00: You don't need to do that.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_00: Because he said, I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_00: The key word there, content.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: In the Greek, it's a word that's autarkase, which simply means to be content or self-satisfied or even self-sufficient.
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: It was a term that Paul probably borrowed from the philosophers of his day because they used it often, and it refers to a spirit that's free of worry or independent of his circumstances or people.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: But far from being, as we would say, in America, kind of a self-righteous, self-sustaining contentment, the secret that Paul had learned his contentment from was sourced in who Jesus Christ is and Paul's identity in Christ.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_00: And we'll find that out in just a few verses.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: To explain to the Philippians the circumstances that Paul had learned contentment, he describes some of what he's been through.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_00: And if you read back in the book of Acts, you see what Paul went through, the many hardships and trials that he went through.
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_00: But Paul is about to tell them in all those things, whether good or bad, I've learned how to be content.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: Verse 12 reads in sort of a rhythmic fashion I know, I know, I have learned.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: He says, I know how to be brought low.
• 16:26
  SPEAKER_00: That's a humility that is only able to be learned as you experience it.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: And the language here is the same language used of water behind a dam when that water is brought low.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_00: Paul knows what it's like to be in difficult situations.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_00: At the same time, he knows how to abound, how to have an abundance or more than enough to have all of his physical needs provided for.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: Back and forth.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: The word for learning the secret is an interesting one.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's used in the ancient cultures, in the Greek society, to refer to a secret society.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_00: And when you are sort of ordained into that secret society or initiated into that secret society, you have kind of learned the ways and the secrets of that society.
• 17:15
  SPEAKER_00: And Paul says, Hey, I have learned and been initiated into the secret society, the society of the content.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_00: What's interesting is this verb is in what's called the perfect tense, which means that there was a past action that has continuing results.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so for Paul, his entire lifetime had essentially been in the laboratory of life learning this contentment.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: He clarifies by saying that he's learned this secret while facing plenty.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: The word plenty here is one that Jesus is used when Jesus fills the bellies of the 5,000 after he feeds them.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: It says they were satisfied.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_00: They had more than enough.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever eaten more than you should?
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean, I know we you know we start getting around this time of year.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_00: We start thinking about Thanksgiving and Christmas and all the family meals, and we generally do that then.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean, but there have been times when outside of that, like I have eaten much more than I should, so much that you are like to the point of being sick.
• 18:15
  SPEAKER_00: Have you ever been there?
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: Ironically, as I was preparing this part of the message on Monday, I get a text on my phone, and it's from Dickie's Barbecue, and it says, buy one, get one free, today only.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought, man, I am so tempted, and I was annoyed.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: I'm content.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, by the way, you should go to Dickie's today, kids eat free.
• 18:33
  SPEAKER_00: That's just to say I wasn't paid to say that, but please, wherever you go, be content.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I I do think of a time uh when I turned 26 years old, my wife and I were living in Dallas, and we had heard about this place called Fogo de Chao.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_00: Some of you have been there, there's one on the plaza, and it's a Brazilian charrascaria, which means that you have these tokens on your table, and there's one side that is the Portuguese word for go and it's green.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, you know, they bring around these meat skewers and they just slice off all different kinds of meat, and they keep bringing you more and more options until you say, All right, it's probably time I'm getting a little full.
• 19:09
  SPEAKER_00: I'm probably gonna turn this over.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: And so the red, and it says stop, so they know they don't have to come by your table.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and by the way, when we go there, my wife bypasses the salad.
• 19:18
  SPEAKER_00: She's like, forget it.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_00: I want like, I want the meat, you know.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_00: And they give you so much, and and probably um I probably should have known better, but I turned that token back over this one particular birthday.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: They kept bringing more and more around.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: Like, okay, I gotta stop.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: And I mean, I was stuffed.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: About two weeks later, I'm getting this unsettling feeling in my bowels, and I had to have an appendectomy.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know if that's directly the result of having plenty, but I was filled.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: And Paul knew how to be content there.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: But what's interesting to me is he says, not only when things are good, when I've been satisfied, but when I'm hungry.
• 19:57
  SPEAKER_00: The word here for hungry is the same word that's used of Jesus when he was hungry, being in the wilderness for 40 days, fasting with nothing to eat before Satan tempted him.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I confess I have never known that kind of hunger.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe some of you have here.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_00: I know I've been hungry, and I know in my words, I've been starving, but I was convicted because as my wife said a number of years ago, she realized, and the same is true for me, I've never really been in want.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: Especially when it comes to food.
• 20:30
  SPEAKER_00: Because if I've been hungry, probably because of my own choice, not planning ahead, but I've known if I needed to, if I really needed to, the resources were there for me to go and find something to eat.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_00: Whether it was in the refrigerator or out.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_00: And the same is probably true for you.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: I know there are some people in here who have been in some very hard times when they haven't known where that next meal is coming from.
• 20:53
  SPEAKER_00: There was a significant hunger that Paul experienced and that he was able to be content in that just blows me away.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: A flesh and blood illustration for me happened earlier this year.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_00: I had the great, humbling privilege to travel down with my friend Cory Clutter, who is one of our deacons here at the church, to Haiti, which is the most, if not just one of the most impoverished countries in the world, to meet with pastors there, to talk to them, to see ways that we can encourage them, because in about two weeks we'll be there again to help some encourage some pastors down there.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: And these nine pastors, we sat in a room, we just began to ask them, you know, what is life like for you?
• 21:32
  SPEAKER_00: What are some of the greatest challenges you face?
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_00: And of course, the physical challenges that they face down there are ones that we will never understand.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: We asked one, a group of them, we said, When you you pray, do you pray with your family?
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: How often do you pray before you eat meals?
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: And one pastor looks at us and he says, We don't always have food to eat, but at mealtime we still pray.
• 21:59
  unknown: And I
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: Another pastor said, The people of my church cannot pay attention to my sermon because they've been starving for weeks and they still don't know when their meal is coming.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: They just don't know.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: They're too hungry to pay attention.
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought, wow, what a difference.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: Most people here in the United States at this 11 o'clock service hour are hungry and know where they're gonna eat and can't wait for the pastor to finish preaching so they can get there.
• 22:30
  SPEAKER_00: That's not real hunger.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: Paul knew, though, how to be content.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: Just like our Haitian friends when they had nothing.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_00: How?
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: How could Paul do this?
• 22:44
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the answer in the secret is found in verse 13.
• 22:48
  SPEAKER_00: And often quoted, and I'll make the argument this morning, uh, misquoted.
• 22:53
  SPEAKER_00: I don't intend to upset people, but uh we'll get to that in just a moment.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: But a well-known verse, verse 13 of Philippians.
• 23:01
  SPEAKER_00: I can do all things through him who strengthens me.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: The hymn there would be Christ.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: Some translations supply that I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: The all things is actually thrust to the beginning of the sentence in the Greek to be put in the emphatic position to say that no matter what, all things I can do through him who strengthens me.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: And what Paul is saying here is that Paul could endure whatever he was enduring with a spirit of joy and contentment because of who Jesus is and who Paul was in Christ.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_00: He could go through whatever he needed to because of the person and the presence of Jesus Christ, and he could go through it with contentment.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_00: The very message of the gospel, the very man of the gospel, Jesus Christ, who came to die for sins and be raised from the dead.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_00: Paul knew the power of that message and the power and presence of that man, and because of that, he had the strength to be content.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_00: He had everything he needed, to choose to be content in whatever circumstance he found himself.
• 24:05
  SPEAKER_00: Now, a bit of an excursus on Philippians 4 13.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_00: And again, my point here is not to offend, it's simply to inform.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_00: And some of you will disagree with me on this, and that's okay.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: You're entitled to be wrong.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's all right.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just kidding.
• 24:19
  SPEAKER_00: I say that in humility, but for me, here's the deal.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: I always want us to know when we quote the Bible the context for which we find a verse, because it's important to think of a verse in the context of every paragraph, a paragraph in the context of every chapter, a chapter in the context of every book, and then one book of the Bible in the context of the broader book.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_00: That's where we base our theology.
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_00: And for this verse, Philippians 4.13, it's well known, a lot of athletes will, like Tim Tebow, put this under their eye black.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, or Evander Holyfield, the former heavyweight boxing champion who had this on his championship ring.
• 24:54
  SPEAKER_00: I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: It was on his shorts, it was on his cape, and he'd be strong to go in there and beat the snot out of his opponent, right?
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: Just like Tim Tebow would go on the football field, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
• 25:05
  SPEAKER_00: And he'd throw uh touchdown passes, not in the NFL, but uh in college, he'd win the Heisman Trophy and two national titles.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, and I understand what they're saying.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_00: What they're saying is that God gives me the strength to do what I do.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_00: I agree with that.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_00: I just don't agree that Philippians 4.13 is the verse to use there.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_00: If what Tim Tebow is saying is that Christ gives me the strength to be content to lose every game I play and throw nothing but interceptions all day long, then Tim, by all means use this verse.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_00: If what Evander Holyfield means is Christ gives me the strength to be content when I have an 0 and 37 record and get knocked out every time.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: If that's what Evander Holyfield means, then by all means use that verse.
• 25:50
  SPEAKER_00: If what you mean by I can do all things through him who gives me strength, that you can be content no matter if things are going well or not, then by all means use that verse.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: But if this is your life verse, and what you mean to say is, God gives me the strength to live the victorious Christian life for his glory, I would say that you maybe want to look at some of these different options.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: Other strength verses that come through Christ.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_00: First Timothy 1 12.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has given me strength, that he considered me faithful, appointing me to his service.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_00: That verse and this next verse talk about God's strength to serve him and build his kingdom.
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: But the Lord stood at my side and gave me strength, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed, and all the Gentiles might hear it.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: 2 Corinthians 12 9, these are all verses from Paul.
• 26:39
  SPEAKER_00: But he said to me, My grace, that is Christ speaking to Paul, my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.
• 26:45
  SPEAKER_00: Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: And in that situation, Paul was dealing with a physical situation, a physical weakness that God never took away.
• 26:56
  SPEAKER_00: And Paul was reminded of his physical weakness, that he would be strengthened by Christ to do what he had been called to do.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: Speaking of our human weakness and frailty and Christ's strength.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe one of the most, the clearest and most effective, Ephesians 6.10, finally be strong in the Lord and the strength of his might.
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: I would say all of those are great strength verses.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: But when we think about Philippians 4.13, we have to remember that the strength Paul was talking about was the strength to be content in any and every situation.
• 27:30
  SPEAKER_00: You see the difference?
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_00: Slight difference there in the context.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: And that's it's important to me for us to know where we're quoting the Bible from.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_00: Because where we quote will determine why and how we quote.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_00: Well, moving on just to the last verse, verse 14, Paul says, Yet it was kind of you to share my trouble, literally coin any, to have fellowship in my trouble, in my affliction.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_00: And they did so by giving generously so that Paul might be blessed.
• 27:55
  SPEAKER_00: And he recognized that.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_00: He rejoiced in the Lord for their gift, but he made sure that they understood that he wasn't in need.
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_00: They didn't have to continue to do that because Paul was content.
• 28:06
  SPEAKER_00: So what's interesting about these little five verses is that we don't find a commandment in here anywhere.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: We don't find Jesus or Paul saying, do this or don't do this.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_00: This is just Paul sharing under the Spirit's inspiration what he had learned about contentment.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm gonna lay out three observations about contentment, and then we'll uh we'll talk about the dangers of discontentment, and then we'll be done.
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_00: The first observation is this contentment, this should be obvious, has nothing to do with your circumstances.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: Contentment has nothing to do with your circumstances or my circumstances.
• 28:40
  SPEAKER_00: The ancient philosopher Socrates was once asked, Who is the wealthiest man?
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: He said this the wealthiest man was he that is content with least, for contentment is nature's wealth.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_00: The word for contentment there, very similar to what Paul uses here, although a little bit different.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: And we kind of know this, at least up in our heads, we know.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_00: We've been told many, many times that we shouldn't be too attached with the material things that we have at our disposal.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: But it gets difficult in the United States to allow that truth to go from what we know to what we really believe.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: There's a quotation that I've heard a number of times over the years that the rich are infinitely better off than the poor, because whereas the poor believe that money will make you happy, the rich know better.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I say, yes, but do we always really believe that?
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_00: Our constant appetite for more.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: The John D.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_00: Rockefeller, just a little bit more.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, we don't have all that some people do have in the world, but yet we are constantly bombarded with this attitude of discontentment towards what we have, whether it's our you know, our vocations, our spouses, our finances, our stuff.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_00: And it is a big problem.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_00: We find this on a kind of a an exponential level with athletes.
• 30:05
  SPEAKER_00: We find that professional athletes they go from having not much to having an abundance of millions of dollars, and they spend it on things that are so foolish and worthless and pointless.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: ESPN does a series of short video documentaries called 30 for 30, and there's one that's called Broke, where they highlight athletes, football players, and basketball players primarily who have earned millions of dollars and just wasted it.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_00: They're not content.
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_00: They don't know how to be content, and they just spend it on things that are just frivolous.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_00: Even in the community that I grew up in in Connecticut, a very affluent, um, one of the one of the wealthiest in the country at times, and Wall Street uh folks just making lots and lots of money.
• 30:45
  SPEAKER_00: I graduate, move away, come back, find out, wow, that family, they that they had to file for bankruptcy, even though his dad worked there, because the Rolls-Royce and the seven-room house just weren't enough and they couldn't actually afford it.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_00: We don't experience that kind of pace of life, that kind of uh you know financial situation, but we do still wrestle with the same desire to crave the material and be discontent with what we have.
• 31:15
  SPEAKER_00: God does not want that for his people.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_00: These are some of the reasons why I think that the message called the prosperity gospel is such a dangerous one.
• 31:24
  SPEAKER_00: The prosperity gospel or prosperity theology says God wants you to be rich.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: God wants you to be healthy, he wants you to be wealthy, and if you just have enough faith, then you won't have miscarriages and you'll have an abundance of these things.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_00: And the false teachers that promote this false message continue to just draw on the naivete and the discontentment of those of us in the church to the point where they promise if you just give in faith this, God will bless you with this.
• 31:55
  SPEAKER_00: You know what?
• 31:56
  SPEAKER_00: Where's the prosperity gospel for Paul in house arrest?
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_00: For Peter executed, for all the apostles and early church people killed for their faith.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_00: Where's the prosperity in that?
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_00: You find the prosperity gospel nowhere in the scripture.
• 32:14
  SPEAKER_00: And it is, as I believe, I agree with John Piper when he said, I hate the prosperity gospel.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_00: It is a heinous perversion of the scriptures.
• 32:26
  SPEAKER_00: God does not want you to love him for what he can give you, he simply wants you to desire him for who he is.
• 32:32
  SPEAKER_00: And that's where the prosperity gospel moves away from biblical truth.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_00: But the same should not be true for us.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I am not saying that we need to quit our jobs and live in poverty just so that we can experience contentment when life is tough.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_00: What I am saying is that we need to make sure that our hearts and our affections are not fixed on the things that we have and the circumstances that we are in.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_00: So that when those things are changed or taken away, that we all of a sudden are so upset.
• 32:58
  SPEAKER_00: So, how can we learn contentment?
• 33:00
  SPEAKER_00: If contentment is not connected to our circumstances, how can we learn it?
• 33:04
  SPEAKER_00: Then the second observation is this contentment is always connected to gratitude.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_00: I began thinking about this a lot this week.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, contentment and gratitude could be seen as parallel tracks upon which the train of our spiritual lives run.
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_00: If you take one away, you derail the other.
• 33:21
  SPEAKER_00: If you take away gratitude, contentment is gone.
• 33:23
  SPEAKER_00: If you take away contentment, gratitude is gone.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_00: A decrease in gratitude leads to a decrease in contentment and an increase in materialism and the desire for more and more.
• 33:33
  SPEAKER_00: Then we just have to pause and think about how thankful we should be for what we have rather than complaining about what we do not.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_00: Materialism in and of itself happens to be one of the greatest problems that plagues the American church.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_00: That's what those that live outside of the developed world have observed that this is just a problem because Americans are so attached to their stuff, even Christians, that it impedes their spiritual growth.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_00: Interestingly, this was an observation made by a Frenchman named Alexis de Tocqueville early on in the 1800s when he came over to our great nation as it was getting uh underway.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_00: He wanted to find out how this American experiment was going, how this democracy in America was working.
• 34:10
  SPEAKER_00: And he made an observation because at this time America was really hitting a stride of uh you know, manifest destiny, and there was just a lot of prosperity that was going on in the Industrial Revolution and so forth.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_00: And Tocqueville uh writes that there is a strange melancholy, which would be a sadness, that haunts the inhabitants of democratic countries in the midst of abundance.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_00: The incomplete joys of this world will never satisfy man's heart.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that's true.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_00: Especially true when we fail to realize that we should be thankful for what we have, but we just continue to want more and more.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_00: And in some ways, we don't even realize we're doing it.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_00: It seems innocent.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_00: For example, a few weeks back I went to Sam's Club.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_00: If you ever want to open the doorway to discontentment, you go to Sam's Club.
• 34:58
  SPEAKER_00: Because I don't think at any point I've ever walked in there and just said, no, I don't feel like buying anything.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_00: It's crazy.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_00: Because what happens is you go in there and you say, you know, I didn't think I needed that, but 500 of that at that price, that's looking pretty good.
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_00: And it's like, my goodness, we just but it's a whole nother story.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm I'm walking past one of the end caps and I see these nice hiking boots.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I look at them, and I had a little money for my birthday, and I thought, you know what, those are those are good looking.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_00: Man, they those will look good on me.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_00: And for$35, they look real good on me.
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_00: I, you know, I'm gonna check with my wife, see what she thinks.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe she thinks they're ugly, shouldn't buy them.
• 35:41
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I get home and as I begin thinking about it, and I realize, wait a minute, in my closet right now is a pair of nicer, better looking hiking boots.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_00: That means I didn't even need those, but I didn't think about them because I wasn't mindful and thankful and thinking about how I'd already been provided for and blessed in the area of hiking boots.
• 35:59
  SPEAKER_00: And that's just a small example.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_00: But I agree with Cheryl Crow, not on many things, but on her line from her song, Soak Up the Sun.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's not getting what you want, it's wanting what you've got.
• 36:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's being thankful for the things that you have.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_00: And if you are struggling with discontentment and you begin practicing an attitude of gratitude for what you have, you will be experiencing contentment on a more regular basis.
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_00: I am convinced.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the third observation to make about contentment is this contentment has everything to do with Jesus and our relationship with him.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_00: Uh writer uh Henry Scougal has once penned that the worth and excellency of the soul is to be measured by the object of its love.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_00: And that is true and has not been truer of Jesus Christ.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_00: So often, though, we settle for the object of our love to be something else or someone else, and if anyone or anything other than the all-glorious Christ is the object of your deepest heart's affections, then you will wrestle with contentment until the day you die.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_00: This was the great paradox that Paul understood.
• 37:07
  SPEAKER_00: In his commentary on the book of Philippians, Gerald F.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_00: Hawthorne writes this The secret of Paul's independence was his dependence upon another.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_00: He who paradoxically gained all by losing all for Christ could only envision Christ as his true source of inner strength.
• 37:24
  SPEAKER_00: So although he had carefully disciplined himself and had discovered within himself untapped resources of power that, when drawn upon, made him independent of outward circumstances, he could never bring himself to deny his need of Christ and of his reliance upon the strength which Christ supplies.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_00: Well said.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_00: Paul's self-sufficiency was actually Christ's sufficiency in him.
• 37:48
  SPEAKER_00: And that was the perspective that allowed Paul to be content in any and every circumstance.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_00: Paul could be content in material poverty because he had experienced the spiritual riches of Christ.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_00: And the same, folks, is true for me and for you.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_00: Even in under the most difficult circumstances that we find ourselves.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_00: A definition of contentment that I'm suggesting to you this morning, if you have issues with this, we can talk later, uh, is this that no matter what your physical circumstances or life situation may be, you are fully satisfied by the presence and person of Jesus Christ.
• 38:23
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_00: That's the secret to being content, is Christ.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_00: Other passages that speak of this issue of contentment.
• 38:32
  SPEAKER_00: 1 Timothy 6, 6 through 8.
• 38:33
  SPEAKER_00: But godliness with contentment is great, gain, for we brought nothing into the world and we can take nothing out of it.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_00: But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_00: I know some people that don't even have that.
• 38:45
  SPEAKER_00: And they're still content.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_00: I like what John Piper says about this, as he, uh this verse.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_00: Godliness that overcomes the craving for material wealth produces great spiritual wealth.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_00: And man, I just have to say, if we only knew how good we've got it, you don't have to go to an underdeveloped country to see that.
• 39:05
  SPEAKER_00: You just have to take someone's word for it.
• 39:07
  SPEAKER_00: I think about some of the things we complain about in this country.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, it's it's ridiculous.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_00: You talk to you know a friend, well, how was your week?
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_00: Oh man, it was a rough week.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_00: Why?
• 39:18
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I didn't have the internet yesterday.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_00: That's tough, man.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_00: I'm really sorry.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's a real trial.
• 39:26
  SPEAKER_00: As one of my dad's friends said a few days ago, yeah, I suppose complaining that my swimming pool needs to be cleaned is not exactly on the top list of problems that the world needs to solve.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, even the other day, I'm trying to sync the Nintendo Wii remotes to the system for my sons, and I'm getting frustrated.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_00: And God finally, you know, through the Spirit reminds me, hey, moron, God wouldn't call me a moron, he's gracious and loving, but hey, buddy, it's not a big deal.
• 39:51
  SPEAKER_00: Your problems are not really problems, they're first world problems.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_00: I had to wait extra long in the shopping line.
• 39:59
  SPEAKER_00: I can't get an iPhone until I'm 16.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, come on.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_00: To you teenagers out there, you're not entitled to that.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_00: Another passage, Hebrews 13, 5.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_00: Keep yourselves free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, never will I leave you, never will I forsake you.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_00: This is a promise God makes to his people.
• 40:21
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why discontentment is so dangerous, because it takes us away and makes us forget the promises that God has given to his people.
• 40:29
  SPEAKER_00: And it leads us to do foolish and radical and even very harmful things.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_00: The foolish things would be how we choose to spend money.
• 40:38
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the whole adage we have we pay money we don't have to buy things we don't need to impress people we don't like.
• 40:45
  SPEAKER_00: It leads us even to complain about those silly inconveniences.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_00: And it even leads us, even in the church setting, to complain about those inconveniences.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_00: Like, oh my gosh, didn't like the sermon today.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_00: That was what that was horrible.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_00: Really?
• 40:59
  SPEAKER_00: Well, why don't you just travel over to the Middle East where when you go to church, you'll probably be dragged out and shot or beheaded because of your faith in Christ.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, well, you know, I didn't like the worship music today.
• 41:10
  SPEAKER_00: Really?
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_00: I've talked to some of my Haitian friends who talk about that they don't even have pews to sit in, or a roof over their head, or a building at all because the earthquake took them away.
• 41:20
  SPEAKER_00: Really?
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think you'll be complaining about the music in the message then.
• 41:25
  SPEAKER_00: If they can be content, so can you.
• 41:27
  SPEAKER_00: And so can I.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_00: Because I will say I wrestle with this just as much as the next person.
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_00: Contentment will lead us to do very harmful and very damaging things.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's about some of the attitudes of envy and comparison that happened.
• 41:40
  SPEAKER_00: Envy and comparison.
• 41:42
  SPEAKER_00: I want more than he has, I want what she has, or just greed.
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_00: I just want more.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_00: $890 billion worth of credit card debt in our country should tell us we have a problem.
• 41:53
  SPEAKER_00: Entitlement, I want better because I deserve it.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_00: When you apply that to marriage, to other situations in life, it gets very painful.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_00: These are the attitudes that you would expect from those outside the church.
• 42:06
  SPEAKER_00: And yet, as I look at my own life, maybe I'm not speaking for myself, I am shocked at the attitudes that I have of discontentment.
• 42:14
  SPEAKER_00: That are just like the people out there that don't even know Christ.
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_00: A few weeks ago, Jim shared a quotation from a man named Ian Dugod in his sermon on Daniel.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I thought that the quotation was a perfect one to fit into this message, so I brought it back here.
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_00: And it goes like this If Satan can instill in us a sense of dependence upon the material comforts that make up our way of life, then he can far more effectively draw us away from the Lord.
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_00: Man, that is true.
• 42:41
  SPEAKER_00: That's why discontentment, which is related to a love for the material and not a love for Christ, is so dangerous.
• 42:48
  SPEAKER_00: Because it draws us away from the promises of the gospel, and we forget God's ultimate, wonderful, infinite provision in Christ for us.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if you catch yourself slipping into this sin of discontentment, here's what you do.
• 43:02
  SPEAKER_00: I've had to check my heart on this a lot, even this past week.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_00: You pause and confess and you seek God's forgiveness for this sin.
• 43:11
  SPEAKER_00: You remember who Jesus Christ is and what he's done for you, and you give thanks.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_00: There's that, again, gratitude alongside with contentment.
• 43:19
  SPEAKER_00: You can't separate them.
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_00: You know, Paul could do this, and he could find contentment in the worst of circumstances, and the same is true for you and for me.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_00: I leave you with a quotation from Arthur Pink.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_00: This was something that Jeremiah Devine, our worship arts pastor, came across and he passed on to me.
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_00: And he he talks about contentment in his work, Comfort for Christians, and says, Contentment is the product of a heart resting in God.
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_00: It is the soul's enjoyment of that peace that passes all understanding.
• 43:49
  SPEAKER_00: It is the outcome of my will being brought into subjection to the divine will.
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_00: It is the blessed assurance that God does all things well and is even now making all things work together for my ultimate good.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_00: I wish many times that I could be more content.
• 44:08
  SPEAKER_00: I certainly wish that I could have been more content and take back what I said to my mom as a spoiled little 17-year-old that deserved to be smacked upside the head.
• 44:17
  SPEAKER_00: Again, my mom didn't do that.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_00: She was she was mature, I was not.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_00: But maybe the same is true for you.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe you're wrestling with a spirit of just of gross discontentedness.
• 44:28
  SPEAKER_00: If that's the case, I really encourage you, as I need to be reminded myself, that through Christ, as bad as you may think that your situation is, you can still choose to find the contentment and the joy that He gives you the strength to have, no matter what's going on.
• 44:44
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't mean that a bad situation should be called good, because there are some awful situations that some people here are experiencing.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_00: But it does mean, even in light of that, even in light of the fear and the uncertainty and the insecurity, you can still be found as a content follower of Christ through Him who strengthens you.
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
• 45:05
  SPEAKER_00: God, you uh you know how to apply these words in our lives as we think about going through the rest of this week.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um just a brand new week to look ahead.
• 45:15
  SPEAKER_00: I know we'll be tempted to fall into that uh that pit of discontentment very quickly.
• 45:20
  SPEAKER_00: Um I mean, for some of the issues that we face are very real and they're very problematic.
• 45:24
  SPEAKER_00: For other issues that we face, they're just uh just flat out selfish concerns.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so we pray that you will make us the people that you want us to be to respond to your spirit's work in our lives so that we might be uh people that live with purpose and have contentment in the uh in light of those things.
• 45:40
  SPEAKER_00: We can only do it through your Son Jesus Christ.
• 45:43
  SPEAKER_00: We pray these things in his name and through the power of your Holy Spirit.
• 45:47
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 45:49
  SPEAKER_00: Next week, generosity, don't miss it.
• 45:53
  SPEAKER_00: Have a week of contentedness.
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_00: You're dismissed.