Sermon Tone Analysis

Welcome back this morning to the second week of our new series we are calling “Satisfied - A journey to Contentment”.

Our plan over the next few weeks is to look at this crucial subject and learn how that being grounded in the Gospel leads to contentment.

We will see how the scriptures drive home the truth and the ability to be:

Content with our Possessions

Content with our People

Content with our Position in Christ

I read of a story told of a king who was suffering from a mysterious malady and was advised by his astrologer that he would be cured if the shirt of a contented man was brought for him to wear.

People went out to all parts of the kingdom looking for such a person, and after a long search they found a man who was really happy.

But he did not even possess a shirt.

Last week we gave you a homework project.

I’d like some feedback.

Note cards (bring them back next week) and vocal response.

(counting shoes/ shirts and giving away something of value)?

What was your experience of last week’s project?

What did it reveal about you?

How did it challenge your thinking about contentment?

This week, I’d like for you to join me in Matthew 19.

Background:

matthew was written to prove that Jesus was the Messiah, the eternal King

Matthew describes Jesus coming to earth to begin His Kingdom that will be fully realized when he returns.

Beginning in Chapter 19, Jesus faces conflict with religious leaders in response to His teaching.

He begins teaching about:

Marriage and divorce

His love of children, and their faith

And then he is approached by the Rich Young Ruler

Here we find a battle of kingdoms in the heart of this rich young man.

He was wealthy with temporal goods, yet poor in His soul, for He did not have Jesus.

From there we see Jesus teaching that those with riches have a hard time depending on God.

In Fact:

Christ emphasizes that although riches tend to steer our focus away from our desperate need of God’s grace, it is not impossible for God’s grace to reach there too.

In fact, all who call on the name of the Lord will be saved.

Poverty is not necessary for eternal life, faith in Christ is.

From here, Jesus transitions to a parable about some field workers

Look with me at 20:1-15

Here we find int he parable of Jesus a landowner who went to those needing work and met the need.

In fact there was enough work to be done and people needing work that he went out four more times to recruit help.

Everyone is happy and grateful for the work.

So it’s pay time.

It was accustomed to pay the worker at the end of the day.

So they gather around, starting with those who came in the later part of the day.

They get a days wages.

The early workers think SWEET!

SO the early workers come, expecting more than agreed, and are dissapointed in the outcome.

They complained.

This is the how comparison is the enemy of contentment.

Envy is sorrow over another’s good.

- St. Thomas Aquinas

Comparison rarely focuses on what we have.

It focuses on what somebody else has and, in comparison, what we lack.

In this context, the rage was not the twelve-hour guys had received too little but because the one-hour guys received too much.

This is the problem of living by comparison.

Comparison demands, “Why them and not me?”

So the 12 hour guys are upset.

On at first glance, this appears to be a legitimate cause for protest.

But the vineyard owner cuts through the façade of their complaints and names the heart disorder that drives them:

The vineyard workers are so caught up in the perceived rightness of their cause that they fail to see the wrongness of their hearts.

Not only are they consumed by envy, they are also self-deceived by it.

Now, Earlier in the parable, a significant moment occurs that would be easy to overlook.

As the twelve-hour workers witness the foreman paying the one-hour workers an extravagant wage, they are not yet envious.

In fact, they are likely not only excited by what they see but also filled with admiration at the generosity of the landowner.

But then everything falls apart:

Author and pastor Eugene Peterson writes that this is what happens when a distorted self-love “twists the spontaneities of admiration into calculations of envy . . .

Diagram

The impulses in us that are designed to mature into adoring love are perverted into scheming acquisition.”*

On a diagram, it’s a process that might look something like this: After recognizing something as good and desirable, we experience spontaneous admiration, and then we have a choice — to focus on self (through comparison) or to focus on God (through contentment).

Manion, Jeff.

Satisfied Study Guide: Discovering Contentment in a World of Consumption (pp.

31-32).

Zondervan.

Kindle Edition.

Manion, Jeff.

Satisfied Study Guide: Discovering Contentment in a World of Consumption (p.

31).

Zondervan.

Kindle Edition.

This week’s project: Make a list of all the blessings in your life, everything from people and material items to spiritual blessings you enjoy.*

Manion, Jeff.

Satisfied Study Guide: Discovering Contentment in a World of Consumption (p.

29).

Zondervan.

Kindle Edition.

Manion, Jeff.

Satisfied Study Guide: Discovering Contentment in a World of Consumption (p.

28).

Zondervan.

Kindle Edition.

Manion, Jeff.

Satisfied Study Guide: Discovering Contentment in a World of Consumption (p.

27).

Zondervan.

Kindle Edition.