Piece of Work: Philippians 4:10-23 (Holy Contentment)

Well, for those of you who I do not know, my name is Chris Durham, and I have the absolute honor and privilege to serve as the administrative pastor.

And really quick before we jump in, I just want to say uh thank you to all of our dream team, our worship team, our tech team, and uh our kids live team, all the people out front, the amazing bacon smell at Hope Cafe.

Thank you guys so much.

We love you guys.

It is an honor that we serve together.

Pastor Derek agrees with the only person clapping.

That's okay.

We're gonna wake up.

There's coffee out front if you need such a thing, okay?

So this morning, if this is your first time with us, then maybe you came last week at Easter, and maybe that's your second time with us, and we just want to say a very special welcome to you.

We are so glad you're here and we are excited to worship together.

Amen.

Hey, there we go.

All right, if you would, in your Bibles, go ahead and turn to the book of Philippians.

Uh, we have been walking through the book of Philippians for uh several weeks now, and I have the privilege and the honor to jump on a bunch of landmines as we actually close out this series in Philippians.

So we're gonna be in Philippians chapter four, verse 10.

And while you're turning there, again, if this is your first time, we are so glad you're here.

We would love an opportunity to connect with you.

And you can fill that connect card out.

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We have just a small gift showing our appreciation that you're with us.

And then if you've been coming for a while, or you just want to get to know a little bit more about who we are, we have our next RLC Connect.

It's actually gonna come up next week.

So you can still register.

If you want to get plugged in a little bit more, if you want to hear more about the vision of RLC, the best place to do that is through RLC Connect.

So stop out at the Welcome Center, and we would love to do that.

Now, we have been walking through this idea of piece of work.

Now, now, show of hands really quick.

We're gonna wake up.

So I I require some interaction, okay?

So, so really quick, who here grew up in the south?

All right, what about you, northerners?

Who grew up in the north?

I grew up in the north south.

North South, there we go.

He's probably from Kentucky, folks.

Kentucky is neither the north nor the south.

It all depends on on where you're from.

If you're from like Indiana, this is about as as deep south as you can probably get.

And if you're from Alabama, like Pastor Brandon, this is borderline like northerners, and he's he keeps trying to pull all of us down a little bit south.

I am from Nashville, Tennessee.

I'm actually born and raised out of Nashville, one of the few natives from there.

And we around the southern parts, we used to have a phrase, it was bless your heart.

If you're laughing, that's probably because somebody told you that.

It's probably not a good thing, okay?

That's okay.

And same thing with piece of work.

Here around RLC, we have what I call an RLCism of piece of work.

There are very few places you can go in the world and somebody look at you and say, Man, you are just a piece of work, and it'd be a good thing, right?

I I don't know about you, I've been called a piece of work, and I would uh love to say that that was the worst thing I've ever been called.

But I have been called a piece of work before, and I often wonder, why do you call me a piece of work?

Like, what is it?

It's normally not a good thing, but around here, piece of work has been a great thing over the past several weeks because guess what?

We are a piece of God's work.

It's this idea that God is constantly working on us and he's working through us.

And this morning we're gonna talk about what I think is the hardest part of all the book of Philippians.

So so, really quick to give some context about what this book is.

Maybe you've never heard of the idea of the book of Philippians.

Well, there was this guy named Paul.

Paul is an apostle, which an apostle would essentially be somebody who had a face-to-face uh interaction with God and then goes and plants churches.

Essentially, in a nutshell, that's what it is.

And so Paul then goes down to the church uh to the to the city of Philippi, which is mostly either Roman soldiers, previous Roman soldiers that they have been given a plot of land, and he plants or starts a church.

And he's there for a little bit, and then he moves on after some church leadership has come in, he's established pastors and he's established elders, and and he moves on, but then he stays in connection with these pastors and elders.

And that's what this is.

This is a letter written to those pastors and elders to then be uh read amongst the rest of the church.

And so that as we jump into this idea of closing out the the series in Philippians, I want you to rack your head around, hey, you're sitting in first century church, roughly probably 75 to 100 people are in this church, which is about the size of the average church in America.

And so they're sitting and they're listening to all these things, and he goes through step by step of amazing things because most of the time, if Paul is writing a letter to your church, again, it's probably not a good thing.

This is one of the few times that Paul is actually really encouraging and exhorting to this church, uh to Philippi.

And so he's he's excited, and then he gets to this last part, and it gets hard all of a sudden.

So let's let's read God's word, Philippians chapter 4, starting in verse 10 says, How I praise the Lord that you are concerned about me again.

Philippians 4 · chapter mention

I know that you have always been concerned for me, but you didn't have the chance to help me.

Not that I was ever in need, for I have learned how to be content with whatever I have.

I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything.

I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little.

For I can do everything through Christ who gives me strength.

Even so, you have done well to share with me in my present difficulty.

As you know, you Philippians were the only ones who gave me financial help when I first brought you the good news and then traveled on from Macedonia.

No other church did this.

Even when I was in Thessalonica, you sent help more than once.

I don't say this because I want you to receive a gift.

Rather, I want you to receive a reward for your kindness.

At the moment, I have all I need and more.

I am generously supplied with the gifts you sent me with Epaphroditus.

They are a sweet smelling sacrifice that is acceptable and pleasing to God.

And this same God who takes care of me will supply all of your needs from his glorious riches, which have been given to us in Christ Jesus.

Now all glory to God, our Father, forever and ever.

Amen.

Give my greetings to each of God's holy people, all who belong to Christ, the brothers who are with me, send their greetings, and all the rest of God's people send you greetings too, especially those in Caesar's household.

May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.

Let's pray.

Our Father, God, thank you.

Thank you so much for this day.

Thank you for an opportunity to enter into your house, God.

Lord, I ask now that as you are already moving, you're already speaking in people's lives, Lord, I ask that you will remove me from the situation, that you will speak through me, that we will hear your word and your word alone.

God, we give you all glory, we give you all honor in this place.

Now, Lord, change lives.

May we not lead the same as when we walked in in the powerful name of Jesus Christ.

Amen and amen.

So we've been talking about this idea of peace of work.

And so as we are really wrestling with as how well, what does it mean to be a piece of work?

What do we do with that?

Well, if you've been with us, we we've been talking about this idea of joy, and joy is a sigh of contentment because God is in control.

Joy is a sigh of contentment because God is in control.

So today, we're talking about something everybody likely has ever heard of.

Talking about contentment.

Holy contentment.

Now, now, contentment can be a tough one, right?

I would actually argue it's one of the easiest things to read about, one of the hardest things to put in practice.

Do we have any uh naturally ambitious people in here?

I'm one of those.

They they are just like, hey, I see that and I want to go get that, and then I want to go further than that.

We have anybody like that?

A few?

What about just kind of normally a little bit laid back, kind of go with the flow type people?

All right, a lot of you, great.

It's gonna be fun.

Uh so really quick, we're gonna define contentment really quick.

Contentment is a settled confidence in the sufficiency and plan of Christ.

All right, contentment is the settled confidence in the sufficiency and plan of Christ.

Now, if you are like me and you are just naturally ambitious, you're you you want to go conquer the world.

I I'm very mission-driven.

I I see I see a mission around here.

Our vision around here is we exist to make disciples by knowing God, growing in freedom, sharing Christ with everyone.

That's our vision around here.

That also includes our mission.

So that means we're just gonna plow forward and we are gonna go make disciples.

We know where we're going.

We're going this way.

That is naturally how I am.

But sometimes I can get the heart posture of I'm gonna do this for me.

Even I'll put some Christian ease around it, right?

I'm good about that.

Man, I'm doing this for the Lord, but in reality, I'm trying to find my soul identity and accomplishing the mission.

Now, now that that's not contentment.

You know what else is not contentment?

Something called apathy or laziness or just can just really able to, hey, whatever happens, happens.

I'm not gonna take any work, I'm not, I'm not gonna really push too far into that.

Apathy is not part of contentment either.

Let me tell you, you can actually be content and desire at the same time.

It is possible to have contentment and to desire great things at the same time.

This is what's called a paradox.

A paradox is basically two things that seem contradictory to one another, but if you really pull it back and really start peeling it away, there's actually a whole lot of truth in that.

And so, as Christ followers, I'm gonna argue we should have desire contentment, pursue contentment, and also desire great things for the Lord.

We should be taking steps towards that.

I I have said around here often, guys, as Christ's followers, we should be hard, hard workers.

We should look at it in a way of if anybody's ever looking to hire somebody, the first place they should go is the church because they know that those people are gonna do as much as they can because they are doing it for something greater than them.

That's what we should be doing.

But contentment is really hard.

This this idea of a settled confidence in the sufficiency and the plan of Christ.

This is hard.

Paul actually gets into it a little bit.

So go back to Philippians in chapter chapter four, starting in verse 11, really quick.

It says, not that I was ever in need, for I have learned how to be content with whatever I have.

Contentment is actually a learned trait.

I don't know about you.

For me, that's great news.

Because I'm like, man, Paul, what on earth do I do with this?

Paul is one of the hardest people for me to relate with.

He he talks about all the time that and you just constantly see he is this godly man, which is awesome.

Like, first want to be like Jesus, and then I want it to look like Paul because Paul imitates Jesus.

But Paul can be hard to relate with.

I'll relate a lot more with Peter.

Peter's one of those guys, God bless him.

He he that was a southernism, by the way.

Y'all couldn't know this one person caught that.

Uh, but but but Peter's this guy that that he is on fire for Christ, he's cutting people's ears off because he can't actually swing a sword.

He he's he's all the time, hey, you are the king, and then he's over here like denying Jesus three times within a few hours.

Like, man, that's the guy I relate with.

But then you got Paul.

Paul's then telling us that that even as awesome as Paul is, that contentment is a learned trait.

So, so here's the encouragement today.

It's okay.

Maybe you're not content today, but you can learn to be just as I can.

And you have to learn every single day.

It's not a a one-off.

So, so really quick, what I want to do is go through these 13 or so verses and pull out how do we actually get to a contentment.

And so, holy contentment, the first thing we see is contentment is found in thinking of ourselves less.

Look at this.

Verse 10 says, How I praise the Lord that you are concerned about me again.

I know that you have always been concerned for me, but you didn't have the chance to help me.

Paul is reminding us that the church at Philippi is concerned about him.

You know it's very hard to be content.

It's very hard to have that settled confidence in God's uh sufficiency in Christ and the plan of Christ if we're so focused on ourselves.

It's really hard to constantly be looking inward rather than actually saying, okay, Lord, I'm gonna pull myself out and I'm gonna pay attention to other things in the world.

And the only way that we can do that is when we're content in Christ.

Philippians chapter 2 says, says, Don't be selfish.

Philippians 2 · chapter mention

Don't try to impress others.

Be humble, thinking of others better than yourselves.

Don't look out only for your own interest, but take an interest in others too.

You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had.

Jason Meyer says, talks about humility this way.

He says, humility is fundamentally a form of self-forgetfulness as opposed to pride's self-fixation.

There's a really good book out there, uh, and it talks about this idea of self-forgetfulness.

It's it's not the idea of thinking of yourself as you are less important or you or anything like that.

No, it's just thinking of yourself less often.

That's how we define humility.

Humility is this the fundamentally, it's a form of self-forgetfulness, as opposed to pride, self-fixation.

I love you, but if you're thinking of yourself more than anything else, there might be a pride issue.

Paul often he brings up different things in his life.

And one of my favorite verses in all of the Bible is found in the book of Romans.

He said, Paul says, I do the things that I don't want to do, but I don't do the things that I do want to do.

He's even talking about that that Paul will say he has a thorn in his flesh.

I don't know about you, but I'm like, look, if Paul's got a thorn in his flesh, that means I just came out of like a thick bush.

Like, come on.

What am I supposed to do?

How do I get to this place of contentment?

Well, the first way that you can start stepping towards contentment is so we can start thinking of ourselves less often.

Focus on somebody else next to you.

If you're married, especially, you should be thinking about your spouse more than you are yourself.

It's hard.

Now that doesn't mean that that you're any less important.

That's not looking at yourself in this way of, oh well, woe is me, poor pitiful me.

No.

But when we start fixing our eyes on someone else, it takes that focus off of us and allows us some space for the Holy Spirit to start moving.

Can I tell you it shouldn't just be about looking at somebody else, it should be looking at God.

When we spend time and we actually press into Jesus Christ, we can pull ourselves out.

And guess what?

You know, there's two primary ways that you can learn more about God.

The first is through the word of God.

Around here, we we love reading the Bible.

You know why?

Because we believe this is God's inspired word.

He speaks to us through his word.

And guess what?

We have an opportunity, we get to speak to him.

It's through prayer.

Prayer is the primary way we can speak to God.

And sometimes we get to do it corporately.

We just did it a couple of times.

It's there's something different about when we are in the same space together that we worship God together in song, we worshiped God together through his word, and then we worship God together in prayer.

There's just something about it.

It takes that focus off of us so that we can begin to walk in contentment.

Because contentment is found in thinking of ourselves less.

The next thing we see is contentment is being satisfied with what and where God has placed us.

Now, now, Pastor Brandon, a few weeks ago, he he let a cat out of the bag, no pun intended.

Uh, but but he let a cat out of the bag that when you're public speaking, there's kind of a few principles that you have.

The first is you want to grab everybody's attention within the first about 60 to 90 seconds.

That's called the takeoffs.

So think of a plane.

You take off a plane.

So you really want to grasp people's attention, and then you start kind of coasting for a little bit in a plane.

That's kind of what the middle portion of your speaking is.

And then as you go down, you're landing the plane, you want to make sure that that takeoff and landing is key.

Now I'm gonna break every rule, okay?

Because this is where we're gonna really zero in.

So so let me have your attention here.

Contentment is being satisfied in what and where God has blessed us.

Let's read.

Verse 11.

It says not that I was ever in need, for I have learned how to be content with whatever I have.

I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything.

I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or with little, for I can do everything through Christ who gives me strength.

Now, would anybody like to admit here that Philippians 4 13 is your favorite verse?

I have I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.

Anybody?

Wow, bunch of cowards.

Y'all liars.

More often than not, that's a lot of people's favorite.

Right?

I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.

Guys, uh confession, good for the soul, bad for the reputation.

For the longest time, that was me.

You know when I used that?

Number one was when I didn't study for a test and I'm going into it.

The second was during a basketball game that I didn't prep for.

I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.

He's gonna make me Michael Jordan all of a sudden.

My dad ain't how that works.

Now, my hope for you is as we truly unpack in context what this passage means and what this verse in particular means, that it solidifies even more that it is your favorite verse.

Because here is what Paul is saying it doesn't matter what he has, where he's at.

He knows that the Lord supplies and he knows that he can do all things through Christ who gives him strength.

Now, we live in the context of the United States of America, so I'm just gonna go ahead and warn you there is a landmine sitting right here.

Okay, and we are about to jump right on it.

All right, so there's this thing called the prosperity gospel.

Anybody ever heard of the prosperity gospel?

Okay.

Most people have at least acknowledged it.

These are this is a gospel that people like Joel Osteen, uh Kenneth Copeland, or my personal favorite, Creflo Dollar.

His name is literally Dollar.

That they really say, hey, you give your life to Christ, sort of.

You give to the church, and the Lord will bless you with wealth and health.

Right?

It is always in the will of God for you to have health and wealth for those who are faithful believers in Jesus Christ.

It's this idea that when you give your life to Christ, everything becomes easy.

Right?

I don't know about you.

I I know some people that live in different countries that believe in Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, and they ain't got a thing.

But they believe in him.

And guess what?

They have salvation.

There is nothing in the Bible that says anything about you will automatically receive health and wealth in this world.

There's actually several Bible verses that talk about it.

This is only four.

Uh I stopped at four because I didn't want to spend too much time on it because we we are on time on it.

Uh 2 Timothy chapter 3, 1 Peter chapter 3, verses 13 through 22, 1 Corinthians 12, verses 1 through 10, Matthew, Jesus Christ Himself, Matthew chapter 5, verses 1 through 12.

2 Timothy 3 · chapter mention 1 Peter 3:13–22 1 Corinthians 12:1–10 Matthew 5:1–12

All of these are actually talking about one common thing.

The Christian life leads to suffering.

So what prosperity gospel says is you will receive health, you will receive wealth, you will be awesome, and you will prosper.

Can I tell you?

You are not the point of the gospel.

Jesus Christ is.

And so whenever we start to see hear this, actually, God's word tells us if you ever hear anything besides the actual gospel that is found in the Bible, then that is a false gospel.

Because the gospel, we have four accounts of it.

Four different eyewitness accounts Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

And then we have 66 total books about the gospel right here.

And anybody who says you will receive health, wealth, and fame and fortune, and prosperity, they are lying.

Now that might be your story, right?

That might be the plan.

God has for you.

But can I tell you, the Christian life leads to suffering?

Does anybody know who the guy named a guy named Jaden Ivey is?

Okay, a few NBA fans out there, a couple of sports fans.

I I see, see, Cameron's already laughing.

I think he knows where I'm going with this.

So Jaden Ivey, he was a Chicago Bulls basketball player.

He came out and he called out the NBA for wanting him to step into a place of saying an unrighteous life is the way to live, essentially.

If you want to know more details, go find it online.

Come talk to me, it'll be a fun time.

Okay.

He didn't say, then Chicago Bulls come out, and basically he gets fired for saying, actually, no, no, we should be living a righteous life.

He stood up and did the right thing, but he got fired for it.

Now, some people would say, I was actually talking to a buddy of mine about this situation not too long ago, a couple days ago, and he's like, well, yeah, he went ahead and made his millions in the MBA.

So, yeah, you know how many millions he lost?

I don't know what that man does with his money and his off time.

But sometimes when we step into the life that Christ called us to live, it's gonna lead to suffering.

This life will have suffering.

Now, now, this is prosperity gospel.

This is an American thing, okay?

The idea of prosperity gospel, if you will receive health, wealth, and so on and so forth, that's an American thing.

So, what happened not too long ago is we have prosperity gospel over here, and then we swung way on the other end in something called the poverty gospel.

The poverty gospel says actually quite the opposite.

Your amount of spiritual authority and superiority is actually then based off of what you do and don't have.

This is that woe is me mentality.

Now, I couldn't find any good AI imaging like I could for prosperity gospel.

So you just get the poverty gospel here.

So, so but prosperity gospel, and then you have the poverty gospel.

Neither of those are the gospel.

The gospel is simply, hey, Jesus Christ came to this earth because we are a bunch of broken sinners, and he wants to have communion with us, and so he dies on the cross for our sins, and then three days later, which we celebrated last week and we do every week, he he resurrected himself from the grave, conquering sin and death.

And now he offers eternal life to us.

That is the gospel.

Anything outside of that may be minutia.

But the gospel is Jesus Christ.

Can I tell you, you are not the point of the gospel.

I am not the point of the gospel.

Jesus Christ is.

And so when we can take that focus off of ourselves, hey, then we can actually start living in what God has blessed us with already.

Now, now here's poverty gospel, right?

Poverty gospel says, hey, you should have nothing and all these things.

Let me give you some biblical references.

In the Old Testament, you have a guy named King Solomon.

He ain't poor.

David, definitely ain't poor.

Proverbs 31, woman.

This woman works her tail off, kills it in the marketplace.

She ain't poor.

Abraham, Joker ain't poor.

Job, Job has possibly more money than anybody else that we know of in the Bible.

He ain't poor.

He loses it all.

And then God blesses him with it again.

New Testament, Joseph of Arimathea.

This is the guy whose tomb that Jesus was put into.

Zacchaeus made tons of money.

Nicodemus was a Pharisee, a leader, and I would argue he gives his life to Christ towards the end there.

You have Cornelius, who is a centurion in the Roman Guard.

He's doing well.

And then you have Lydia.

Lydia is a woman that has fine garments, purple garments, a dealer of fine garments.

That costs a lot of money to be able to be a part of.

So poverty gospel also doesn't track with inside the Bible.

Now, here's what's interesting.

If you look at all of these people, what you also see is a heart.

A heart for the Lord.

Now, some people are blessed financially.

Some people that God uses, He blesses them financially.

You know why?

So then they can give to God.

So the heart matters.

It's not prosperity gospel.

It ain't poverty gospel.

But these people understand also the Lord has blessed them.

And here's the thing.

You know what you don't see in any of these people, at least that I could find biblically?

I don't see that any of them are in debt up to their up to their eyeballs.

If you ever need a little condemning, if you I guess we'd go there.

He's got him Dave Ramsey.

All right, some people have their quirks with Dave Ramsey.

Uh I don't agree 100%.

Full disclosure, Dave, if you're watching, sorry, bro.

But but oftentimes, if if you really want to get a kind of perspective, Dave actually says it essentially like this.

So now uh I I see that I see that you're making about$30,000 a year.

Why are you trying to live on$80,000 a year?

There's a thing here.

If we're trying to pursue a life that requires us to be in debt up to our eyeballs, I would be concerned that there's not a point of contentment.

Can I tell you, Katie, my wife, right over here, uh she's she's an amazing woman.

Uh, we, when we first got married, we made some stupid financial decisions.

Be the first to tell you, we went up to debt in our eyeballs.

We're almost through it.

We're getting there, we're about a year out, probably, to be completely out of that.

Yeah.

Uh, don't do what we did, though.

I mean, we're talking about$60,000, give or take, in debt when we first got married.

That's horrible life decisions.

So sometimes we get put in a storm in life from our own stupidity.

Stupid concept, stupid, stupid decisions lead to stupid consequences, just as good decisions lead to good consequences.

Right?

So sometimes that's the case.

I love this idea of a storm.

And so we actually see that that in the book of Mark and in Matthew, we have this idea of the disciples that are actually in a storm themselves.

Let's let's read.

If you would go ahead and turn in your Bibles to Matthew chapter 9.

Matthew 9 · chapter mention

There's two times when the disciples are actually in a storm and they start to resonate what's happening, and then Jesus is involved.

The first one's in Matthew chapter 9, and we're gonna start in verse 23.

Matthew 9 · chapter mention

It says, Then Jesus got into the boat and started across the lake with his disciples.

Suddenly a fierce storm struck the lake with waves breaking into the boat, but Jesus was sleeping, and the disciples went and woke him and shouting, Lord, save us, we're going to drown.

Jesus responded, Why are you afraid?

You have so little faith.

Then he got up and rebuked the wind and the waves, and suddenly there was a calm.

The disciples were amazed, and they said, Who is this man?

So while they're in the midst of a storm, the disciples are scared.

Like, what's going on?

Jesus, why are you sleeping?

They feel like Jesus is separated from the situation.

How many times when we're in a storm in life, whether that's from our own stupidity, maybe it's from a life circumstance that you can't get can't get out of, maybe it's something you can't control, maybe you just got a bad diagnosis in your in your medical life.

Maybe you're dealing with infertility and you really want children.

Maybe you have children and don't really want children.

Maybe, maybe, there you go.

Hey, it's okay.

And so maybe there's all these different situations in life.

And it feels like we're in a storm, but we're all alone.

How many times do we have the same mentality that that the disciples have right here?

Where are you, Jesus?

Why are you asleep in my storm?

And then go over to Matthew chapter 10.

Matthew 10 · chapter mention

This is just shortly after, and we see a very different point of view.

Let me find it right.

Here we go.

They're back in a storm.

They don't completely understand.

And it says, Meanwhile, this is verse 24.

Meanwhile, the disciples were in trouble far away from the land, for a strong wind had risen, and they were fighting heavy waves.

And about three o'clock in the morning, Jesus came toward them, walking on the water.

When the disciples saw him walking on the water, they were terrified, and in their fear they cried, It's a ghost.

But Jesus spoke to them at once.

Don't be afraid, he said, Take courage, for I am here.

And then Peter called to him, Lord, if it's really you, tell me to come to you walking on the water.

Yes, come, Jesus said.

So Peter went over to the side of the boat and walked on the water towards Jesus.

But he saw the strong wind and the waves, and he was terrified and began to sink.

Save me, Lord, he shouted.

Jesus immediately reached out and grabbed him.

You have so little faith, Jesus said, Why did you doubt me?

And when they climbed back into the boat, the wind stopped, and the disciples worship him.

You really are the Son of God, they exclaimed.

Now, a lot of times we give Peter a lot of grief here because he lost faith for a moment.

But you never know, you know what Peter never does in this situation compared to any other time?

He realizes that Jesus is right there and he can save him.

Rather than saying, like we did in the first passage, who is this man?

They actually say, You are the Son of God.

You are King and you save us.

When we're in the storm, we should actually look a lot more like Peter here.

Lord, we know you're there.

Save us.

And that doesn't matter what storm in life that we're in.

And I'll look around this room and I know a lot of you guys.

I know a lot of your stories.

And can I tell you that's an honor to be able to know those things and to walk together in those things.

So I know there's a lot of struggles.

I know there's some physical health.

I know there's some mental health.

I know there's uh an addiction background.

I know there's there's emotional.

You're dealing with anxiety, there's there's depression, there's all these things.

Can I tell you, the Lord hasn't left you.

You may be in a storm, but he's right there with you.

We have a s we we say it around here often.

Everybody is either coming out of a storm in the midst of a storm, or you're about to go in one.

So if you're about to go in one, praise the Lord.

If you're in one, praise the Lord.

And if you're coming out of one, praise the Lord.

Because he's got you.

He never leaves us.

And you know what?

We can have that viewpoint when we pull out and we can have this contentment, this settled confidence in the plan and the blessings of Jesus Christ.

God never designed the world to be the way that it is today.

When he actually designed it, we see it in Genesis before the fall of man happens, before sin enters into the world.

But because we I think we know a little bit better than the Lord, sin enters and it fractures everything.

The Lord wants to walk with you through this storm.

He's got you.

And can I tell you he redeems it?

Because here's the thing, guys.

Contentment is being satisfied in what God has blessed us.

And then my my favorite part here is contentment enables us to live to give.

So if you are in a storm right now and you are truly content, you can pull back and you can start thinking of others, and you can actually be satisfied, fulfilled in the space that God has blessed you.

Can I tell you?

Your storm is not there for nothing.

Your storm is not there for nothing, guys.

God's word actually tells us it is by the blood of the Lamb and the word of our testimony.

If you are in a storm, you get to walk with somebody else who's going through that storm.

Or if you've gone through that storm, you can walk with somebody else and encourage them to say, hey, I'm right here with you.

Guess what?

I was dealing with that same thing back then.

And we're gonna walk through it together because you know why?

The Lord is good.

The Lord makes all things good.

And so if your thing, if your storm right now is not good, he's not done with it.

Now he may not be done with it until you get into heaven.

I mean, Paul talks about it, he has a thorn in his flesh, it keeps him humble.

Maybe you have that same thorn.

The Lord will redeem it, though.

That idea of the prosperity gospel, sometimes in American culture and American church world, we we shy away from this idea of blessings.

God wants to bless.

He does.

Sometimes that blessing is here on this earth, sometimes that blessing is in heaven.

What we have to be okay is saying I'm gonna be satisfied in what God has blessed me with now.

And here's the thing: contentment enables us to live to give.

Around here, we have we have five core values of the church of RLC.

And one of ours is the idea of living to give.

Look at this.

Jump back into Philippians here.

Philippians chapter four.

It says, at the moment, this is verse 18, it says, At the moment, I have all that I need and more.

I am generously supplied with the gifts you have sent with apaphroditus.

Now, if you don't know who apaphroditus is, go back.

I think it was March 1st.

Pastor Derek, our student pastor, he actually came and he did a full message on Epaphroditus.

I ain't got time for that, okay?

I got nine minutes left.

We're almost there, trust me.

All right, so we go check that out on YouTube, you have Facebook, all the things.

So, so you sent me gifts with aphroditus.

They are a sweet-smelling sacrifice that is acceptable and pleasing to God.

And this same God who takes care of me will supply all of your needs from his glorious riches, which have been given to us in Christ Jesus.

Now all glory to God, our Father, forever and ever.

Amen.

Give my greetings to each of God's holy people, all who belong to Christ Jesus, the brothers who are with me, send you their greetings, and all the rest of God's people send you greetings to, especially those in Caesar's household.

May the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit.

We see a bunch of different ways that we can live to give here.

The obvious one is financially, right?

The church at Philippi, they are giving towards Paul so he can go do the mission that Jesus Christ has set before them.

What about time, gifts, and abilities?

What about our role in life?

Right here, we have Paul, who's an apostle, got Epaphroditus, and then we have all the people in Caesar's household.

God has placed each and every one of us in a role and in a specific space in life to use us.

I think it's 1 Corinthians chapter 12, talks about if the first part you have the spiritual gifts, and then the second part you have the the body of Christ, us.

1 Corinthians 12 · chapter mention

That we all have different gifts, abilities, and talents, and then also God uses those in all different ways.

Maybe you are a big toe in all of this.

Do you know we can't really stand with good balance without a big toe?

Everybody's gotta have an armpit.

We all have a role.

Maybe, maybe your role is to work in a factory.

I love this.

I was talking to a guy uh not too long ago, and he was at the time searching for a job, and he said, Man, you know, I'd I'd love to be in a factory.

Okay, awesome.

Why is that?

So, you know, I can go in and do my eight to twelve hours depending on where it's at.

I can be a witness there in the factory.

You know what I get to go do after that?

So, what's that?

I get to go home to my wife and my son.

And I can be a rock star husband, and I can be a rock star uh father as best as I can.

It's like, man, that's awesome.

Yeah, the other day I was doing, we were doing some cleaning around the church, and one of the people that was with me, she she looks at me and she goes, you know, it's an honor to clean the house of God.

I man, talk about a heart posture?

That's awesome.

It's an honor that we get to do this thing.

It's an honor that I get to serve as an administrative pastor.

It's an honor that I'm a husband and a father.

It's an honor to be a friend.

It's an honor for you to be a teacher, it's an honor for you to be whatever you are because God has placed you there for a reason.

And so be content in the space that God has put you in right now and do it to the best of our abilities because God wants to use it.

I told you, contentment, something we've all heard of.

One of the easiest things to talk about, one of the hardest things to put in practice.

I don't have time to go here.

One of the things that didn't make it into the sermon, we hear about Caesar's household here.

Uh, Christians should be in politics, okay?

That's that's another thing.

You want to find me after I gaslighted you, that was completely intentional.

But but the people in Caesar's household there, it's actually not talking about Caesar, it's likely talking about slaves and people who worked around him.

He says that that Caesar's household sends you greetings.

Guys, whatever role God has placed you in, do it to the best of your ability.

Do it to honor God, to worship God, and then share Christ with them there.

It's not often people are actually just gonna naturally come into the church.

Every now and then that'll happen.

You know what brings people into the church?

You you living as a Christ follower, when your life is changed, people see that and they want that.

Everybody deep down in them, I don't care who you are, you're the deepest, coldest atheist, they are looking for something.

You know why?

Because God put that inside of us.

And when they see our lives change, they want a hold of that.

Hey, hey, what's different about you?

Well, I gave my life to Christ.

Well, what does that mean?

Well, let's talk about it.

There's nothing more fun, nothing more fun than getting to walk with somebody through the steps of salvation.

Can I tell you that's not meant just for pastors?

That's meant for all of us.

When Jesus says, go forth and make disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, when he says that, he's not necessarily just talking to pastors, he's talking to all of us as disciples.

We get to be a part of that.

Man, that's fun.

I remember that, I still remember the first time I ever did that.

I walked away, I was shaking, I was so excited.

To this day it hadn't changed.

If I ever need that rekindling to spark again, I just think of that.

Because we're not just talking about something here on this earth, we're talking eternity.

Can I tell you that requires contentment?

That requires you stepping out of your comfort zone a little bit to say that God is greater than I.

I'm content when I think of myself less.

I'm gonna be satisfied in what God has blessed me, and then I'm also gonna live to give.

Live to give, guys.

It's awesome.

God actually tells us in the book of Mark that we should be, as leaders, we should be serving others.

That's what we're supposed to do.

We're supposed to live to give.

I think Paul intentionally leaves this part to the very end.

Because I think it's the hardest thing.

Living to give, maybe that's financially.

Finances, uh, they can be a touchy one to talk about in church.

And rightfully so.

It is it is rightfully so that people are skeptical to give to the church.

You know why?

Because the church as an entity has actually abused that.

It can be hard.

Can I tell you, every single person who has abused that, they are going to have to answer before God for that.

Our role is to say, I am gonna give because God has called me to give.

It's an act of obedience.

Now it's not begrudging obedience, it's not doing it because we have to, it's doing it because we get to.

Maybe today's the day that you're you're praying through and the the Lord's wrestling with you on that financial front.

Maybe that's what you need to come pray about here in just a few minutes.

This isn't technically an altar, but but here is a space to pray.

If you need to come pray, please come here.

If you need to go back to the prayer table, we have prayer warriors.

And when I say warriors, man, they are rock solid.

They are on the front lines fighting for us as they pray.

And they would love to pray with you through those things.

But is today the day that you need to be content in what God has given you?

Do you need to give Maybe you need to give them your time.

Maybe you need to give them your ability.

Everybody in here has ability.

Go back to that lady.

Maybe she's a killer queen.

I mean she was blaming.

We don't want one room, and she's got like half the building.

Because she knows it's a it's a service to the Lord.

Yes, to you guys and meet of sure.

It's a service to us.

But it's primarily a service to the Lord.

What is it that you need to stand in contentment?

Because here's the thing, guys.

We are all a piece of God's work.

We are a piece of God's work.

We can't do this life on our own.

If you've talked with me before, you know that I often say that you need a 3 a.m.

friend.

You can call any friend at about noon, 12 o'clock, and they'll probably help you with something.

But a 3 a.m.

friend is when everything's gone bad.

Everything's rough.

It's in the middle of the night.

You're struggling by yourself.

You have that 3 a.m.

friend that you can call.

I get in trouble for it.

I might as well get in trouble.

Hey, my email is Chris Durham RLC at gmail.com.

If you got a if you want to email me, feel free to.

I'd love to have a conversation with you.

But you gotta have a 3 a.m.

friend.

Because you can't do this alone.

We are all a piece of God's work.

Just as 1 Corinthians chapter 12 talks about the body of Christ, there is not a singular body, there's not a single ligament by themselves.

1 Corinthians 12 · chapter mention

A ligament by themselves, they die.

You're not strong enough, just as I'm not strong enough to do this thing by ourselves.

We have to find contentment in the Lord first, and then we need to invite somebody else in with it.

I'm not saying invite everybody, but find somebody.

Somebody that you can actually walk in life with.

They're hard to find.

Because guess what?

You're gonna get burnt.

You're gonna get hurt.

You know why?

Because we're people.

We're a bunch of broken people, but we serve an amazing Savior that unites us all.

What is your point of contentment?

And as we close, we are closing out the series through Philippians.

It's been an amazing time as we've gotten to just sit in God's word for four chapters.

What peace are you needing to be a part of today?

Do you just need to sit in joy?

Do you need to be in Epaphroditus?

Do you need to find contentment?

As we close out, I want to just kind of cover us with a psalm.

Psalm 91 says, Those who live in the shelter of the Most High will find rest in the shadow of the Almighty.

This I declare about the Lord.

He alone is my refuge, my place of safety.

He is my God, and I trust him.

For he will rescue you from every trap and protect you from every from deadly disease.

He will cover you with his feathers and he will shelter you with his wings.

His faithful promises are your armor and protection.

Do not be afraid of the terrors of the night, nor the arrow that flies by the day, do not dread the disease that stalks in the darkness, nor the disaster that strikes at midday.

Though a thousand fall at your side, though ten thousand are dying around you, these evils will not touch you.

Just open your eyes and see how the wicked are punished.

If you make the Lord your refuge, you make the Most High your shelter.

No evil will conquer you, no plague will come near home.

No, for he will order his angels to protect you wherever you go.

You will trample upon lions and cobers, you will crush fierce lions and serpents under your feet.

And the Lord says, I will rescue those who love me, and I protect those who trust in my name.

When they call on me, I will answer.

I will be the one be with them in trouble.

I will rescue and honor them, and I will reward them with a long life and give them my salvation.

That is the promise of the Lord.

He never leaves us, he never forsakes us, he's always there.

But we have to let him be.

Or maybe you are coming out of that storm and you're just worshiping Jesus.

But everybody's doing the same thing in that space.

The whole point of worship, whether that's through prayer or through song, is to lift our eyes up rather than on ourselves.

And so here's what we're gonna do here in just a moment.

We're gonna have a time of worship.

Don't let this moment pass by without looking up.

Let's pray.

Our Father, God, thank you.

We thank you that you love us enough not to leave us where we're at.

God, as you're moving and as you're speaking in people's lives, Lord, we trust you and we give all authority to you.

Lord, I pray for courage for each and every person in this room.

Lord, if there's somebody that you're tugging on right now and they don't know if they need to step into that or they even want to step into that, maybe they're gonna be embarrassed because the person next to them has thought that that person has been saved their entire life, but they never truly surrendered to you.

They never truly found contentment in you.

Lord, I ask that you will give them courage, that they will be brave in your name because they can come to you.

That you want to fulfill them completely.

God, we worship you for that.

Lord, I pray for contentment.

I pray that we will take our focus off of ourselves long enough to point back to you.

God, we worship you.

Jesus, you're awesome.

And we thank you for all that you do.

Be with us, God, in the name of Jesus Christ.

Amen.

If you would, all around the house, let's go ahead and stand and let's worship today.