The Secret of Contentment
The Secret to Contentment.doc SD20
October 21, 2007 File E
8 The Joyful Christian part 11
The Secret to Contentment
We are looking at the subject of the joyful Christians from the book of Philippians—the life that God wants for us!!!
Jesus said--John 15:11 (NKJV)
11 “These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full.
8 A vital part of that equation has to do with “contentment”
Listen to what Paul says here
Philippians 4:10-13 (read)
Listen also to his words to Timothy
1 Timothy 6:6-10 (NKJV)
6 Now godliness with contentment is great gain. 7 For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. 8 And having food and clothing, with these we shall be content. 9 But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition. 10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.
We are living in an age of discontent—we are not satisfied…
Mick Jagger is not the only one who “can’t get no satisfaction…”
I know why it eludes him…but why it eludes so many who call themselves Christians is another problem all together…
We take a vacation of a lifetime.…We fill ourselves with sun, fun, and good food. But we are not even on the way home before we dread the end of the trip and begin planning another.
We are not satisfied.
As a child we say, “If only I were a teenager.” As a teen we say, “If only I were an adult.” As an adult, “If only I were married.” As a spouse, “If only I had kids.” …
We are not satisfied. Contentment is a difficult virtue. Why?
Because there is nothing on earth that can satisfy our deepest longing. We long to see God. The leaves of life are rustling with the rumor that we will—and we won’t be satisfied until we do. ---When God Whispers Your Name[1]
8 Paul writes from prison---(the picture here is from the dungeon under the streets of the Roman Forum…a dark and dismal jail called the Mamertine Prison…
As he writes to Timothy it is not so bleak as this, but nonetheless has its drawbacks:
Chained to a roman guard, dismal, he is dead broke, no family, nearsighted and worn out…
But as he writes his treatise on the joyful Christian life—we see a smile form across his wrinkled face…a grin as he looks at his captor… peers into his eyes—“Have you heard about Jesus Christ?...”
He is the reason I am here…let me tell you about Him…”
Paul’s prison was nothing compared to the one so many are in today…
The prison is not one of mortar and brick…and bars of iron…
But it is the most overcrowded prison in the world…come with me to the word’s most oppressive prison… Just ask the inmates; they will tell you. They are overworked and underfed. Their walls are bare and bunks are hard.
No prison is so populated, no prison so oppressive, and, what’s more, no prison is so permanent. Most inmates never leave. They never escape. They never get released. They serve a life sentence in this overcrowded, underprovisioned facility.
8 The name of the prison? You’ll see it over the entrance.
W-A-N-T
The prison of want. You’ve seen her prisoners. They are “in want.” They want something. They want something bigger. Nicer. Faster. Thinner. They want.
They don’t want much, mind you. They want just one thing. One new job. One new car. One new house. One new spouse. They don’t want much. They want just one.
And when they have “one,” they will be happy. And they are right—they will be happy.
But then it happens. The new-car smell passes. The new job gets old. The neighbors buy a larger television set. The new spouse has bad habits.[2]
And before you know it they are back in the prison of WANT!
Discontented…
Are you in prison?
You are if you feel better when you have more and worse when you have less.
You are if joy is one delivery away, one transfer away, one award away, or one makeover away.
If your happiness comes from something you deposit, drive, drink, or digest, then face it—you are in prison, the prison of want.
That’s the bad news. The good news is, you have a visitor.[3]
Sit across the glass from the apostle Paul—Pick up the phone that lets you speak to him…he will give you a way out of this prison…
…and they way out to the joyful life of satisfaction that Jesus longs for you to have…
The keys are in the text:
Paul says, “I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I find myself…”
If you were to believe what the commercials tell you, you would believe that contentment was something that could be sprayed on, rolled, inhaled, eaten or driven. As if all of these products would give you lasting contentment. They don't.
You can learn to be content with your present circumstances if you will follow the example sets for us here…
Paul says contentment is learned.
It's not something that's instant, in a one time experience.
Life is a school of contentment and the problem is most people never learn and they die unfulfilled and unsatisfied and unhappy.
How do you learn contentment?
In our text this morning we have three hints at how Paul learned his lesson on contentment:
81. Learn to avoid comparisons
v.11b “I have learned…whatever the circumstances…”
Our trouble with contentment and satisfaction often comes when we compare ourselves with others…LISTEN!!!!
There will always be someone who is prettier than you
Someone who is richer than you and has a better house than you a better spouse than you--a better job than you…and even a better family than you…smarter kids or better behaved…
…but then you are looking from a rather skewed (warped) lens of life…you are looking through the filter of your own wants and desires rather than the filter of God’s perspective and the eternal benefits of serving Him with a whole heart regardless of what others have, or do…
Your happiness in life does not depend on what you have …because you can get all that you want now and you will still be unhappy…because your sense of happiness and well-being is not directly related to God it is related to what you have in comparison to someone else…
As soon as you catch up with the neighbors they refinance and get a better car and a bigger HDTV …WHAT THEN!
2 Corinthians 4:18 (NCV)
18 We set our eyes not on what we see but on what we cannot see. What we see will last only a short time, but what we cannot see will last forever.
Paul says, I don't look around, I look up. I don't spend my time comparing myself to other people. I keep my eyes on what is to happen.
I Timothy 6:6-8 "Godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that."
All possessions are temporary. They're just loaned to us. We use them while we're here on earth, have a good time with them, enjoy them, use them for God's glory, but they're not going to last. Don't get an obsession with possessions.
8 Root problem of much discontent: comparing myself to others. --- LEARN TO AVOID IT
82. Learn to ADJUST TO CHANGE
Life is full of ups and downs -- emotionally, physically, mentally, financially.
There's nothing certain in life except change.
How well do you handle change? How well do you handle when things are shaken up a little?
Do you get frightened? Moody? Angry? Uptight?
Paul says that one of the secrets of learning to be content in life is the ability to adjust to all kinds of circumstances and change. Paul says you need to learn to adjust to it.
Your happiness in life will be largely dependant upon your ability to adapt, adjust, be Flexible.
Change is going to happen whether you like it or not.
Philippians 4:12 (NIV)
12 I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.
8There are three kinds of circumstances in life:
81) Those I can control and I do. Switch TV channels, if you're hungry you feed yourself.
82) Those I can control and I don't. This is not excuse for laziness. Contentment is not laziness or complacency. If you can change a situation you don't need contentment -- you need to get up and do something about it. You don’t need to be content with a bad situation if you can do something to change it…
83) Those I cannot control -- and there are many in life. This is where you need contentment, in uncontrollable circumstances. Things that are beyond your power. You have done the best you could but they are still out of your hands.
That's where you need to learn to relax, trust God, adjust and avoid comparing yourself. – ACCEPT (ADJUST TO) CHANGE!
8The key to adjusting is a sense of humor.—LEARN TO LAUGH
That is crucial to learning to adjust to change. If you don't adjust you'll break down or burn out. Circumstances demand flexibility in life.
8 3. Learn to DRAW ON CHRIST’S POWER
v. 13 "I can do everything through Him who gives me strength."
You can handle it when the kids are tearing the place apart, make it through the ups and downs of life,-- when you have problems and you don't know where to go. you can handle it when you have a lot or a little---your contentment does not depend on outward circumstances but on your inward response to the work of the Lord within you…
I can handle everything, -- Paul says. I can cope.
He had an external power source.
He was depending, not on his own power, but God's power.
Amplified version: "...I am ready for anything and equal to anything through Him who infuses inner strength into me, that is I am self-sufficient in Christ's sufficiency."
Have you got a big problem that you're facing? Paul says I am ready for anything, I am confident. Satisfaction in life not only comes from contentment, it also comes from confidence. The confidence comes, not from your own power, but from Christ's power.
Friends---here is he bottom line! The secret of contentment is to make Christ the Lord of your life and the Lord of your circumstances…It is to surrender your life and your circumstances to Him and let Him work it out…
The real reason that people are unhappy, unsatisfied, and unfullfilled is because Jesus Christ is not the center of their lives. They are looking for fulfillment in all the wrong places. They run from this to that... looking for something that is going to satisfy them.
From relationship to relationship, from job to job, from hobby to sports to recreation ... fads, therapy, books, seminar -- looking for the key.
But God has laid it out very clearly. You were made with a God shaped vacuum in your life and nothing will fill that void except God Himself.
When I'm not contented it means I'm looking for something else.
God wants you to have a happy, fulfilling, satisfying life. He said it. "I have come that you might have life and that you might have it abundantly."
Life in the fullest is what God wants us to have.
But the way you have that satisfaction in life is by learning the lessons of contentment.
Which of these three lessons do you need to learn? or relearn?
Or will you remain in the prison of WANT??? Unsatisfied??
Today is your day to give it all to Him!!!!
But don’t just give Him your circumstances! Give Him yourself—all of you –with a desire to follow Him and do what He wants you to do…that may mean changing jobs, or moving out from that live-in partner…
But full satisfaction and contentment cannot come to my life or yours, until we have Jesus Christ as Lord in our lives…
Not just as some extra add-on religious figure to make us feel temporarily comfortable in our sin…a bobble-head Jessu on the dashboard…
He wants to give you His best…
But until you give Him yours…His hands are tied.
Won’ you come to this altar this morning to surrender your life to Him…even if you have done it before…maybe you need to do it again.
The Joyful Christian Part Eleven
THE SECRET OF CONTENTMENT
Philippians 4:10-13
"... I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation..." vs. 11-12
I. LEARN TO ______________________________________
"... I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances." vs. 11b
"We do not look at what we can see right now, the troubles all around us, but we look forward to the joys in heaven ... The troubles will soon be over, but the joys to come will last forever." 2 Cor. 4:18
Root Problem:
II. LEARN TO ______________________________________
"I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well-fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want." vs. 12
Types of Circumstances:
- Those we can control and _________________
- Those we can control and _________________
- Those we ______________________________
Key to adjusting:
III. LEARN TO _______________________________________
"... I am ready for anything and equal to anything through Him who infuses inner strength into me, that is, I am self-sufficient in Christ's sufficiency." (Amplified)
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[1]Lucado, M., & Gibbs, T. A. 2001, 1996. God's inspirational promises . J. Countryman: Nashville, TN
[2]Lucado, M. 2001. Traveling light : Releasing the burdens you were never intended to bear . W Publishing Group.: Nashville
[3]Lucado, M. 2001. Traveling light : Releasing the burdens you were never intended to bear . W Publishing Group.: Nashville