what are you chasing

Story:

Title: What are you chasing?

Do you ever have this feeling in your life...

that you are not doing enough?

that you are not doing enough?

A feeling that there could be something you’re missing out on in life?

Or you could be content..

only if you could reach this goal or that goal?

Bring part of your story here…

Maybe I could find joy, maybe I could find contentment...

and so Paul’s writing in Philippians is about contentment..

and I think I’ve always thought contentment was..

one of two things either life had to be perfect

which I didn’t know about you but mine’s never been that way.

Or I have to pretend like its perfect and fake it.

And be happy with decisions that are made that had no control over it..

and somehow that was contentment.

And for full disclosure I have a blessed life,

I love my life, may not like some things that may be facing at times..

I love my life, may not like some things that may be facing at times..

but I love my life, my family, my church.

I’m getting to live out my dreams.

But how many of you know that the struggle for contentment...

is not just when you’re in the valley...

and you wish you were in the mountain.

Sometimes you’re on the mountain ..

and you’re satisfied that you are on a mountain

until you look over and see your friend..

on another mountain that’s just a little bit taller,

a little bit bigger.

Then u look at your mountain..

and you feel like you know I was satisfied but now I’m not.

Because we all want this, we all want that feeling of contentment..

we want to be content with our relationships,

our friendships, we want to be content with our career..

we want to be content with our bank account and our finances.

You know we want to be content.

We have this picture perfect image of what our life should be..

and it could just be that then I would be content.

But I didn’t really know how to be content...

when I got the call 8 years ago that my health was on the line..

that I needed an invasive surgery and that I might not make it at the end.

I wasn’t sure how to be content with that..

and I wasn’t sure how one day I can face the fact..

not being able to raise the kids or see them grow.

And I wasn’t sure how I would tell my husband to be content with that.

I mean how can you be content...

with the fact that your husband or your wife..

just walked out and left you with the kids.

How are you content with that fact that

you raised your daughter in church..

and now she is hooked on drugs.

How can you be content..

when everything you do puts you at the stop sign.

You make one step forward then take two steps back.

How are you content with a job that you hate.

How are you content with the things in your life..

that you really wished you had the power to change.

But you can’t so we keep chasing it..

and we keep struggling with it..

and we keep thinking if we can just get our lives to look this way..

then We’ll finally get it then.

We’ll finally be content.

And sometimes for me and the chasing…

I’ve made some of the dumbest decisions of my life chasing.

I don’t know about you,,

but perhaps some of you are..

sabotaging your life..

on the verge of sabotaging your life..

trying to find contentment because you think..

it’s in the next marriage ..

and you’re about to abandon this one.

You think it’s in the next career and..

you’re about to make a choice to find contentment...

and ruin your life in the process.

And so somewhere along the way...

I think I’ve caught the wrong thought of what contentment really is.

I think our culture has caught the wrong thought about what contentment is.

And I think Paul’s trying to explain it to us right here ..

and if you don’t know Paul was writing this..

whole treatise on contentment from a prison cell.

Which is not the ideal place in my mind..

to write about contentment..

but I think it’s exactly where God wanted him to write it from.

You see Paul is not saying I’m content with the prison..

he’s not saying I’m happy about it,

he’s not saying I’m content with the lack of resource,

or I’m content with the fact that I’m being persecuted for the gospel.

That’s not it at all,

I think if you don’t read verse 12 carefully you you’ll miss it.

This is what Paul says

(“I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation.”)

So Paul is not saying there’s a secret to being content with your season..

because honestly sometimes I don’t think God’s content with our season.

I don’t think God wants us hurt that way we are to suffer ..

but Paul saying there ‘s a secret being content in it.

It’s not with it, it’s in it.

I had the wrong preposition the whole time.

Paul is saying there’s a secret of being content..

IN your trial not WITH your trial.

And I think that is what caused the first century..

world to take notice of these people like Paul,

who claimed to follow this self-proclaimed

Messiah named Jesus and they’re facing down death..

and persecution and they still have joy, and they’re still rejoicing.

And the first century world didn’t understand that.

And honestly I don’t understand it either,

I don’t understand how to be content in and every season ..

That it’s not WITH it’s IN the trials..

wanted to share with you today.

That it’s not WITH it’s IN the tials..

Because it sounds cute and everything and it’s true at face value..

but the more we start thinking about it you know…

like how do I explain to those around me how to be content as a Christian,

how do I explain to the person that doesn’t have a job,

how are you to do that.

But …it’s not just being content with it it’s just be in it.

It does not change how you feel

it doesn’t matter what word you put there,

it does not matter what sounds cute.

I still feel miserable, I still feel frustrated..

I still feel there’s just something missing in my life.

So maybe that’s part of the secret but maybe it’s not all of the secret.

Here’s what I love of the word of God..

you can read it for years and then in a moment..

the Holy Spirit can just illuminate a truth that you needed..

to hear that exact right moment at that exact time.

I think the secret is in verse 9, here it is. READ.

I think God wants us to hear this today..

for us to stop chasing contentment-practice it!

Contentment is not a chase it’s not a magical download.

Contentment is a practice and it takes work and it takes repetition ‘’

and it’s not normal it’s a practice.

You see you can be content in your situation but it takes practice.

It’s not your default settings.

guitar: See, I love guitar and I love to hear the guitar and I wish I came out of the womb with a guitar in my hand..

just playing at least a little bit, enough to get myself in trouble.

But no I don’t know how to play the guitar and I know that it may take years to learn a chord to play it perfectly

however unless I practice and put my time in I’m not going to learn right. (it’s on my bucket list)

So it takes practice to make something that wasn’t natural, to feel natural.

And so Paul is saying you are not prone to make the choice..

that leads to contentment it is not natural.

But as he looked at his life and looked at some skills..

that he had put into practice day after day,

month after month, years after years, even when it didn’t feel normal..

he began to learn the secret of being content in a situation.

He is telling the church in Philippi

if you practice these things you can learn it too.

So I think there’s three skills..

that we can practice to the rest of our time together.

There are three things that we’re gonna practice..

to help cultivate a heart of contentment..

and the first is this, so note takers write this down---

its practice the Petition.

Story: Do you know how your kids asks you to go to their favorite restaurant every time you ask them where they want to go eat.

Do you know how your kids asks you to go to their favorite restaurant every time you ask them where they want to go eat.

And you are like okay, today we will need to take a break from this place.

But they keep pursuing in asking and you are like..

well at this point you are thinking..

I have established enough of a dining report with this restaurant.

So you practice that parental guidelines...

by not giving in every time right.

But I realized that I think the same exact thoughts about God.

But it does not matter how many good things..

the Lord has done for me over my life,

for some reason I think his disposition towards me is no.

And sometimes I feel if I keep asking God long enough..

it’s probably an idol there no way God would want me to have it.

And I’ve miss-defined contentment as believing for a no,

so I’m not disappointed when I want a yes and I don’t get it.

so I’m not disappointed when I want a yes and I don’t get it.

And all that does for me is Lower my level of expectation..

expectation..

I lower my level of faith, I lower my level of belief

and I claim it contentment ...

and it’s really just complacency. I’ve settled!

And I don’t think Paul says contentment is found from...

no questions asked. I think Paul says God wants us to ask he wants us to ask him to move, ask him to work. Look at one more time. “Do not be…”

just accepting your situation..no questions asked.

I think Paul says God wants us to ask he wants us to ask him to move,

ask him to work. Look at Read

Paul says offer up prayers and petitions.

And prayer is one of those words we say a lot in church..

we become numb to it so

I want to focus on the word petition.

Cause it sounded like a strong word and I was

drawn to it so I looked it up.

And the word petition is this:

“a formal written request, typically one signed by many people, appealing to authority with respect to a particular cause.”

So contentment is not just found in accepting things as they are.

It’s found when we recognize that..

there’s actually someone there in our life ..

with the power and authority to make it better

and that person is not us.

It’s appealing to a higher authority who has the power to act..

but also the wisdom to know when and how to

act and sometimes when not to act.

So the first step is recognizing that...

I am not in authority over my life.

There is some things like you might be in discontent ..

because everyone else is getting the promotion

and it’s really because you’re late and you’re lazy and you don’t work hard.

That’s when things are in your authority.

I’m talking about the things that are actually out of your control..

and realizing that there’s nothing we can do to fix this..

so we have to appeal to a higher authority.

And so to make petitions we have to stop hiding our emotions..

hiding our desires, hiding our requests from God.

I mean it’s the worst game of hide-and–seek ever...

you can’t hide anything from the Lord.

The same way when you played hide and seek with your children

when they were little and you really knew where..

they were and you pretended and said where is Sofia?

Yet, you knew where they were.

And you found yourself in an apparent lie right there.

But that’s the way it is we try to hide..

what we want from God and he knows.

And here’s what actually makes that dangerous.

Its when we do that we begin to believe...

the lie that God doesn’t listen..

and God doesn’t care.

And when that happens we start to lose hope…

and there no way you can have

without hope.

contentment without hope.

The Bible says that hope deferred makes the heart sick.

We have to hope that God wants to move and can move.

If we ever gonna cultivate a heart of contentment and...

so petitioning God is also cultivating hope.

So here’s what that looks like...

if those of you who can try to find a place...

in the morning to hear God’s voice..

who gets up at 4 am to work out and have uninterrupted prayer times.

That’s Wonderful…

But if you can’t and you are not one of those and

you have to just do what you can to survive to get up...

and get to work this is what your prayer time may look like.

Actually you can get the best prayer time done in the car...

and that’s not just praying blessings over the people in Dayton traffic.

Its actually you can be still and quiet ...

and alone and actually talk to God...

because prayer time can be at times messy.

And it may not feel churchy..

and it start with trying to be brutally honest with God.

So you can actually talk to him about everything,

maybe a meeting that you are just about to go into..

and you feel nervous about this meeting or this conversation.

You can get all the emotions out to him all of it..

and then try to move past the emotion...

to truth and say God...

but I do know no matter how I feel that you are for me...

that you’ve called me, that you’ve equipped me.

And so try to say these words out so it gets that ..

deep in your heart and then I make the petition.

And the petition doesn’t have to be very big..

but it should be specific and bold.

Have you ever felt feel like you...

were not winning in anything you do?

If you have had days like that...

I know all of us were there at times…

maybe God is telling you today to be bold in your petition,

be bold in your faith, start hoping again.

God is saying to you today to hope again.

That God he’s an authority over your life he has the power to act..

but we’ve got to bring our whole heart, whole self to him.

We have to stop hiding from God, Start hoping in God.

That’s the only way we’re gonna be able to cultivate a heart that’s content.

Because even if the answer is no...

the posture forgiveness is just submitting..

to our authority...

and saying God I trust you.

I love you, I know even if your answer is no,

now you can work all things together for good.

So we’ve got to practice the petition.

Here’s the second skill practice and ..

that is to practice the pivot, practice the pivot.

Paul in prison not denying the reality of the situation but he’s trying to teach the church that even in the worst situation possible you can still choose your focus.

practice the pivot so here’s Paul in prison not denying the reality of the situation but he’s trying to teach the church that even in the worst situation possible you can still choose your focus.

So here’s Paul in prison not denying the reality of the situation..

but he’s trying to teach the church that even in the worst situation..

possible you can still choose your focus.

So you can either I’m going to focus on the things that feeds my fears..

or I’m gonna pivot my heart and my focus to the

thing that fuels my faith.

I can focus on the source of my worry

and I could obsess over that..

or I can pivot my heart to the whatever.

And this is the whatever that he’s talking about in v. 8. I love this verse. Read.

Paul is saying that there is an whatever...

in any season in any circumstance..

no matter how bad it is we can find an whatever..

if we learn to pivot.

May I suggest that your contentment is whatever...

its whatever you feed, whatever you focus on,

whatever you gaze at with your heart.

we have to learn the art of the whatever of the pivot ..

because its not whatever feels true or feels right.

Its whatever is true whatever is right there’s a big difference.

Contentment is not a feeling it’s a focus ..

and that heart pivot is not natural it takes practice.

So you know Paul is saying don’t just say this situation isn’t good...

pivot your heart to say ..

but I know God is good.

He’s not just saying you now obsess..

over the betrayal he’s saying..

pivot your heart,

I’m goona actually act on and move on forgiveness.

Yes, you can recognize this is the hardest thing..

I’ve ever been through,...

but learn to pivot your heart to remember..

that I can do all things though Christ who strengthens me,

is the heart of the pivot.

And that’s why what we’re doing in right here right now..

and that’s what we do every single weekend is so so important..

because your greatest weapon in the fight for contentment is... worship.

Because there’s no greater thing..

to help you pivot your eyes of yourself, your eye off your circumstances...

and on to Jesus and on to God,

and on the higher authority, then worship.

This atmosphere of faith we have to make sure we prioritize that..

because this is its pivot practice.

its contentment practice, every time we’re in the house of God.

So many of us miss the opportunity for contentment..

when we don’t take the time to pay attention to our surroundings..

pay attention to what God is saying that day to us..

who we can share Jesus with,

whom we can connect and encourage.

It only takes a moment to stop and hear that opportunity.

But because we are so busy focusing on our frustrations ..

we have to practice the pivot.

And there’s the final thing,..

we’re gonna practice and that is ...

practice the present.

So I think one of my greatest struggles every day is just being present..

in this moment and the season God has me in.

And to be honest it is one of the biggest struggles of our generation..

because we’re just staring at this (tel) all day

at everybody else’s moment..

everybody else’s season..

just standing at the stop sign, just scrolling,

oh I didn’t know she got a ring, oh they went on a Disney cruise again,

oh they bought a new house.

This (tel) has become our new stop sign..

and if I could just get through this screen to their life..

to their job, to their family, to their situation

then just maybe I could be content.

But I think God is telling us today..

contentment is never in the next season..

If we can’t cultivate it in the present one.

Contentment is not in the next it’s the now..

and so we’ve got to practice being present,

which is so hard because there is some...

legitimate situations that are hurtful..

and they’re painful and we want to escape form them.

but Paul’s writing from one of those right here in

because Paul is not some super Christian..

who was immune from struggles.

I mean if you’ve read Paul’s writings ..

a lot of times it looks like he actually struggled with depression.

and it was hard to believe the things he was writing..

but I have to think as he’s in his prison cell..

and he begins to stop chasing and stop scrolling..

and really quiet as minded.

pivot his heart to Jesus and just be present...

because he had to he’s in a prison cell..

he’s in a prison cell there’s nowhere you could go.

there’s nowhere you could go.

And as he quieted his heart..

I wonder if he started to recognize that there was another presence...

that was with him in that prison cell.

And had been with him in every part of his life..

cause he writes about it in verse 9

and these are just couple words that ..

you could miss if you’re not careful..

but this I think is the hinge that contentment swings on verse 9. Read. “The God of peace will be with you.”

but this I think is the hinge that contentment swings on v. 9. Read.

Paul says as I look back over my life.

if I look at when I was on the platform..

when I was being persecuted ...

when I was being celebrated..

when I’m in the prison cell.

In every single season God was there.

God never left me,

his presence was there with me..

and I believe that part of being present..

and practicing being present is not

trying to bypass how we feel...

because sometimes all you can feel is hurt.

All you can feel is pain..

there are some horrible things that you may be walking through..

and the Bible says mourn with those who mourn

weep with those who weep.

Sometimes you just have to to feel it.

And there’re no other response..

but crying out to God saying..

God I do not understand this.

But I think contentment is realizing..

that even when I don’t feel peace ,

The God of peace is with you..

and he’s with you in your situation.

And there was nobody who knew the Old Testament better than Paul..

so I have to believe he was thinking somewhere in the back of his mind of Psalm

and I want you to get this truth deep in your spirit today. Read.

In your story you’re not the only one who’s been doing the chasing..

I think God is wanting to remind us that...

even in the seasons we are chasing after contentment in someone else.

We’re chasing after contentment in a new job or

a new relationship in every season..

God has been chasing after you.

You have never once escaped his spirit..

you have never once escaped his presence..

and you can stop chasing contentment..

because contentment has been chasing you...

in the person of Jesus Christ.

the person of Jesus Christ.

And he is offering that up to you today.

You don’t have to like the situation to recognize..

that Christ will never leave you in it.

He is always there you don’t have to be good with it..

to recognize that there is good in it.

And if you were having trouble finding your whatever...

Christ is your whatever.

He’s whatever is good, whatever is pure,whatever is noble..

and he is there with you...

and even if you are in a dark season right now..

the word of the Lord for you today is this,

he sees you, he knows you, he is for you,..

his grace covers you and he is with you.

And he loves you!

So I want us to say together this prayer.

You can say this prayer in the car.

in your cubical at work, at home whatever you are.

“ Say it with me. “you are good, you are with me.

Again you are good you are with me.”

You can say that after you just left your rough meeting..

and you just lost your job, and you have no idea..

God is going to provide.

You just need to remind yourself ...

even if you have to say it through tears..

say it in faith,

“ you are good, you are with me”

its not faking faith..

Just believe in your heart ...

and God will guide every step of the way.

clsg: Know that God he is good, he able, he will hover over you in whatever situation you may face.

Know that God he is good, he able, he will hover over you in whatever situation you may face.

May you find God in your contentment, may he be your anchor today. Amen. ..

Amen. ..