Contentment (2)

10 I rejoiced in the Lord greatly that now at length you have revived your concern for me. You were indeed concerned for me, but you had no opportunity. 11 Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. 12 I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. 13 I can do all things through him who strengthens me

Thank you Mike for reading this morning. You have no doubt been the best reader this year.

Good morning, It is truly great to be with you

If you don't know Micheal and his family you should take the time to do so.

They have been coming to this church for 10 plus years. they love this church and this congregation and we are grateful for them.

My name is Alan I am the associate pastor here at First Baptist

I am truely excited and honored to be worshipping God this morning with each of you.

Intro

I hope you all had a great holiday season.

During Christmas and the service, I was standing outside waiting for the service to get going, watching the snowfall, and I couldn't help but be thankful for what the Lord has done In my family and I’s lives through this church and body and believers. So I just want to say, that Kristin Benson and I are blessed by all of you. Thank you for taking such great care of us, we don't deserve it, but we are so blessed by you, so thank you.

I hope of this Christmas season you have found yourself being more grateful to God for all that he has done through the giving of his Son

I also hope that you have stopped in the midst of the busy season to remember God’s goodness and faithfulness

As we remembered God’s faithfulness this Christmas, that didn't mean many of us didn't experience heartache in the midst of celebrating

often times we are met with grief as we remember family members or loved ones that have passed away. We oftentimes wish to celebrate just one more time with somebody.

Whether that be our Mom or Dad our step-parents.

Our husband or wife our

Grandma’s or Grandpas

Our aunt's, uncle's cousins, and children.

No matter how they are related to us it can oftentimes be difficult as we remember and celebrate them in our lives during this time of year

Kristin and I and not excluded from this as we remember, many family members who have passed away, like my cousin Cayce who was tragically taken in a car accident leaving behind her family. Or Kristin’s dad who passed away from skin cancer.

Often times many of our holiday seasons seemed to be maintained with so many mixed emotions of grief, joy, and hope.

My question for us today, is that if we live in a world full of death, destruction, and decay how are we as humans supposed to find any sort of contentment?

As we have been making our way through Advent we have had the opportunity to preach on a couple of topics such as “ Thankfulness” and “Remembrance”. On the outside, these look like they are stand-alone sermons, but I hope as we have gone through advent you have seen that these sermons go hand and hand with the message of Advent. (The coming of Christ)

Today we come to a similar situation. Today we are talking about Christian contentment.

So before we go too much further lets pray and ask for the Lord to continue to be here in our service this morning.

Pray

Message

Today as we began I think it is important for us to start at the beginning. John Calvin said it best.

“Our wisdom, insofar as it ought to be deemed true and solid wisdom, consists almost entirely of two parts: the knowledge of God and of ourselves.” - John Calvin

Today as we start at our origins in the book of Genesis, I think we will learn something about ourselves that will help us understand exactly what Christian contentment is.

If you have your bibles please turn to Genesis 3 starting in verse 1.

Genesis 3:1–8 ESV

Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’ ” But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.

Many of us are probably familiar with this story.

Genesis three is often referred to as the chapter of the fall of humanity.

At the beginning of our bibles, we see the creation account.

Where God creates all things by His very Words.

Then we get to this chapter and we see Adam and Eve as humanity's representatives fall and they sin against God.

And when they Sin it produces, death decay and destruction into God’s creation.

But today I want us to look at the heart of what happened not just purely the events that took place.

I don’t want to look at the result of the temptation that took place alone, but I want to look at the temptation itself.

At the beginning of Chapter 3 we see Eve a woman who lived in a world without sin. A woman who had everything she could have ever wanted.

This was a woman who had only ever experienced pure, true contentment. She had never been hungry or hurt. Yet the crafty serpent lured her away, by deceiving her into a desire that was fake and built on lies.

The serpent fabricated desires to create discontentment within Eve.

The serpent, like a sly car salesman, made Eve feel like she was completely missing out if she didn't eat the fruit.

The serpent spun it to Eve, that God was actually the one who was withholding things from them

Wisdom and knowledge

In that, as her desires grew so did her discontentment

And her discontentment grew her trust in God shrunk

As her Trust shrunk her ability to resist sin did also,

See the serpent in his craftiness had one mission with Adam and Eve. That was to fabricate through lies and deceit, discontentment within their hearts.

Because they ate that fruit, the discontentment that was sown in their hearts on that day was then passed along to all of us as mankind.

We now have a nature of discontentment.

One commentary defined discontentment as the opposite of faith.

So what is discontentment?

Discontentment is a distrust of God and his promises.

isn't this exactly what we see her from Adam and Eve. We see as they partake in the temptation, it shows their lack of faith and trust in God.

What do we see throughout the rest of the bible?

Everyone experiencing

For example

Isreal in the wilderness

Stroy

Questions