Introduction

Illustration of Bumble Bee

Rather than looking at all the obstacles and listening to everyone tell you what can't be done, realize that you can do whatever God calls you to do, relying on His strength rather than your own.

Someone has said, 'Nothing is more rewarding than to watch someone who says it can't be done get interrupted by someone actually doing it.

It is a frustrating thing for God to call you to do a task and He does not equip you to do it.

You can have the power through Christ to conquer your fears, alcoholism, abusiveness towards your family, drugs, stealing, lying, cheating, sexual promiscuity. 

How did Paul learn the secret of contentment? Who or what taught him?

God took Paul through particular experiences, two extremes: want and plenty and Paul knew the how to's of living in any circumstance.

Why is the how to important? Because it can keep you from sinning.

Proverbs 30: 7-9 reminds us that either of the extremes can bring us into disfavour with God.

7 “Two things I ask of you, O LORD;

do not refuse me before I die:

8 Keep falsehood and lies far from me;

give me neither poverty nor riches,

but give me only my daily bread.

9 Otherwise, I may have too much and disown you

and say, ‘Who is the LORD?’

Or I may become poor and steal,

and so dishonor the name of my God.

Paul says he knows what it is by actually experiencing it. What does it mean to be living in plenty? It means...to be in affluence; to furnish one richly so that he has abundance; But this wealthy lifestyle carries some serious obstacles. Pride, Greed, a sense of self-sufficiency, forgetting God in the process. Deut. 8:10-18 says:

10 When you have eaten and are satisfied, praise the LORD your God for the good land he has given you. 11 Be careful that you do not forget the LORD your God, failing to observe his commands, his laws and his decrees that I am giving you this day. 12 Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down, 13 and when your herds and flocks grow large and your silver and gold increase and all you have is multiplied, 14 then your heart will become proud and you will forget the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery. 15 He led you through the vast and dreadful desert, that thirsty and waterless land, with its venomous snakes and scorpions. He brought you water out of hard rock. 16 He gave you manna to eat in the desert, something your fathers had never known, to humble and to test you so that in the end it might go well with you. 17 You may say to yourself, “My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.” 18 But remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth, and so confirms his covenant, which he swore to your forefathers, as it is today.

Paul knew how to live in abundance- his former life

Paul says he knows what it is by actually experiencing it- .

Solution- Some believe the solution to poverty is to get more i.e., to get rich; some believe the solution to riches is to give more, i.e., to get poor. But the real solution lies in learning the secret of contentment- Christ

to learn the secret of something through personal experience or as the result of initiation—‘to learn a secret.’[1]

Paul was saved from becoming a burden to others because he knew his God would supply all his needs according to His riches in glory.

Paul was saved from becoming independent of God because he pursued not riches, but Christ Jesus.

Do you know the secret of contentment? Do you personally know the enabling power that can teach you how to overcome the obstacles of poverty or wealth? You can, for that power comes from no other than Jesus Christ. Always able. Always willing.

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