Finding Contentment

Good morning. It's great to be with you after Christmas, before the new year.

Let's begin this morning with prayer.

Jesus, we need you today.

God, I think of the song that our hearts are prone to wander.

God, we need you. We need your help to aim our hearts at you.

So I pray this morning, as we listen to your word, God, that you would help us.

We need your help today to lead us, to guide us, to change us.

We thank you that you are so gracious that you would do those things.

You wouldn't just leave us here to wallow in our sin and our problems.

God, would you come to save us, to rescue us? to help us.

So would you do that again today? We thank you, God, in the name of Jesus. Amen.

I recently bought a car. It's like a year or two old.

And when I went and bought it, it was like on the lot. It was like the first

day that it was on the lot. Like they got it and I showed up and bought it that day.

And so there were like some recall items with that model that they had to fix.

And so they said, you know, so we're going to, we know you just bought this

car, but we're actually going to keep it.

And we're going to give you a loaner vehicle while we wait for the part to come

in. And we'll fix your car.

And the trim model, the trim level that I got in mine is pretty just middle of the road.

The loaner they gave me was not. It was like the top.

Like there was no other higher trim that you could get of this car.

And so you get in it and it's got facial recognition when you sit down.

And so you set up your profile and then it like adjusts all the seats and everything

around you to fit like your height and all this kind of stuff.

It was great. And then, you know, you have like these white air-conditioned

leather seats, which are fantastic if you have small, messy kids.

And those are really, really nice as well. And I am pretty sure as I drove down

the street, I could hear it whispering to me, Daniel, you are amazing.

And so the time came when they finished working

on my car and they called me it's about a week and a half two weeks later

and I said can you come pick up your vehicle and so I did I drove to the dealership

walked in got in my car I said what is this what have I bought like this didn't

welcome me by name when I got in the car there was no facial recognition this

is an ordinary seat that I'm sitting in,

and I swear as I drove off the lot, I heard it say, Daniel,

you are almost great.

And this is silly. I like my car. And I think the dealers do that because like,

oh, we can just upsell you then, you know.

But actually, I actually like my car. And I'm being silly with this.

But we live in a culture where discontentment is encouraged, if not prescribed.

The day after Christmas, I woke up to emails in my inbox that said,

didn't get what you wanted for Christmas? We've got you covered.

Yeah. There was a documentary that came out a while back, and it's a longer documentary.

You can still find it on YouTube. I believe it was a PBS documentary initially,

but it's called The Century of Self.

It's four parts. I think it totals like seven or eight hours long, something like that.

And in this, they talk about the modern day age of advertising that we're in and how we got here.

And they begin talking about Sigmund Freud and his work that he did.

And it's actually one of his relatives who was in the advertising industry that

came along, and he began studying Freud, and then he went and studied, wait for it,

Nazi Germany, where he was like, what are they doing to entice their people

to believe in these ideologies and to follow?

And what they found, and really what transformed modern-day advertising,

is up until that point, advertising had been what I'm going to call,

I don't remember the term, they used usefulness advertising.

You should buy our tube of toothpaste because it cleans your teeth better than

any of the other toothpastes that are out there.

That's why you should buy our toothpaste. And what they found is that's not

nearly as effective as what I'm going to call vanity advertising.

You need our toothpaste because it's going to make you look the best in those

Instagram selfies that you take.

Your teeth are going to be whiter than anybody else's teeth.

And if you don't buy our tube of toothpaste, your life will probably be terrible.

And so now, we're living in this age of advertising today, where it's estimated

that between all of our different forms of media that we have,

we are exposed to roughly 5,000 to 7,000 advertisements every single day.

That means that every day we are told we're not pretty enough,

we're not strong enough, we need to lose weight, we need more money,

we spend too much money, we don't spend enough money, we better have better investments,

we'd be better off with some sort of pharmaceutical in our lives.

We're probably sick already, even if we don't know it.

We need better devices, Our gadgets are old. We need better cars.

You're going to need a bigger boat.

That way, thank you. Yeah, you got it.

That way we may be entitled to some sort of compensation in our lives.

Our homes aren't sufficient.

They're not big enough. They're not clean enough. We need better furniture.

We need more land. We probably need to adopt more pets.

We're probably the wrong gender. Our spouses aren't good enough.

Our jobs aren't good enough we need better vacations we need more and then Old

Spice shows up with a weird commercial telling us that we're dirty and we smell bad.

I mean if we're looking at the thousands of advertisements that are bombarding

us every day our lives are terrible they're terrible how are we making it here.

And yet, something inside of us knows that this isn't the way we should be viewing

the world or the way to live.

So how do we break free and live a truly contented life?

I think that Paul's writing to the Philippians in our text this morning can be a huge help for us.

A little backdrop to this story. Paul is writing to the church in Philippi from

prison, and we're not exactly sure what kind of prison it was.

It could be a prison the way we think about prison.

It might have been, you know, house arrest, something to that effect.

But he's writing from prison, and this is not an ideal situation for him.

And the church that he's writing to is also not in an ideal situation.

They've had some internal struggles, some arguments and different disagreements

inside of it. There's been some incorrect teaching that's been going on inside this church.

But they also have some external struggles. It seems that they are under persecution as well.

Paul references it in Philippians chapter 1, and he talks about them suffering

Philippians 1 · chapter mention

for Christ's sake and that they are having the same struggles that he had when he was there.

And we look back to Acts chapter 16, where he talks about those struggles and

Acts 16 · chapter mention

being imprisoned in this area for casting out a demon, for preaching the gospel.

So they're not in a great situation either, and it's in this context that Paul

writes these words in Philippians 4, 10 through 13.

I rejoice in the Lord greatly that once again you renewed your care for me.

You were in fact concerned about me, but lacked the opportunity to show it.

I don't say this out of need, for I've learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am.

I know both how to have a little and I know how to have a lot.

In any and all circumstances, I have learned the secret of being content.

Whether well-fed or hungry, whether in abundance or a need, I am able to do

all things through him who strengthens me.".

In all that Paul is experiencing and the Philippian church is experiencing,

he writes about being content.

If there's anybody who could have cried out about the injustice of the world

around him, the inequality, it was Paul at this moment.

And yet he talks about being content, living a contented life.

And so as we dive into this this morning, I want to talk about the what of contentment,

the why of contentment, and the how of contentment.

What is contentment? Why contentment matters?

And how do we get it? How do we live a truly contented life?

So let's begin with what does Paul mean by being content?

And the word that he uses here, the word contentment, the word content that

he uses here is an interesting one.

And it might even confuse us a little bit when we read it. Because the word

itself means sufficient in yourself, adequate, needing no assistance.

It's this idea of self-sufficiency. I don't need anybody else. I can do this on my own.

I've got this. I'm strong enough. I'm smart enough.

I built myself up to a degree that I am self-sufficient, which kind of sounds

a lot like our American ethos when we think about it that way.

Be strong. Find your inner strength. You don't need anyone else.

Pull yourself up by the bootstraps. Anything is possible if you stick your mind to it.

Everything you really need comes from within yourself. You just have to find

it, which would make sense because we pulled a ton of our cultural values from

Greek and Roman philosophy, where Paul was at the time.

And so we might rephrase this and say it a little bit differently.

I've learned to be self-sufficient in whatever circumstances I am.

I've learned to be self-sufficient in whatever circumstances I am.

Is that what Paul is really saying here? Because if you've read Paul enough,

it doesn't really sound like Paul.

So what is really going on here? And what we find in this passage is that Paul

is actually parroting in this text the Stoic philosophers of his day.

These are prominent voices in their culture.

They were very influential voices in their culture. This is a cultural line

of thought that had permeated a lot of the different places there.

And it's this idea that strength, they would argue that strength comes from

within, and you can be self-sufficient, living in harmony with the world around

you in whatever life throws at you.

Whether you're living the minimalist lifestyle or the maximalist lifestyle,

you can be a self-sufficient person.

Of course, Paul does take it to a place here that the Stoic philosophers would

not have liked when he says he knows how to have a little.

And he's not just referring to a minimalist lifestyle. He's taking it further,

talking about the language that he uses here as one of poverty and abasement and humiliation.

This isn't the language of strength. It's the language of weakness,

knowing how to be self-sufficient even when you're not strong,

when you don't have the strength within yourself.

Well, how does that work? That's a little bit confusing when you start to think about that.

And so we're going to come back to this in a little bit, but I also want to

talk about what contentment is not, because I think that it can be confused

sometimes when we read this, because it can be taken, like a lot of things,

we can take things in different ways when we read it.

Paul says here, I rejoice in the Lord greatly that once again,

you renewed your care for me.

You were in fact concerned about me, but lacked the opportunity to show it.

I don't say this out of need, for I've learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am.

And again, a little context here as we look at this. The Philippian church has

supported Paul in the past, and now they're supporting him again.

They've sent some kind of gift to him. We don't really know what that gift is,

but it was some support for his ministry and for himself and his travels and

whatever it was that he was doing at that time.

And he says this, thank you for the gift. You've revived your gift for me.

And then he kind of like almost backpedals just a little bit to say,

oh, and I know this wasn't like you just stopped giving.

I know there are outside circumstances that were there.

Like, I want to make that clear. I'm not like guilting you or shaming you.

There were some circumstances that were there that prevented you,

but now you've revived this gift, and I'm so thankful for it.

And then he says this phrase here, I don't say this out of need.

I don't say this out of need. One of the complications that we have when we

read Scripture is that we're very good at reading our situations,

our beliefs, our cultural assumptions,

our own narratives into Scripture.

And when we do that, we oftentimes end up with wrong assumptions.

We come away with some different kinds of thoughts than what Scripture is really saying.

And this is not an encouragement to read the Bible less. This is an encouragement

to read the Bible more so that we can understand it better, what it's actually saying to us.

What is the Bible actually saying? I mean, this is why study is so important

and has been one of the Christian practices from the very beginning of Christianity.

And the problem is I've heard so many people say and so many people I've experienced

this so many times, maybe I've even battled this a little bit myself,

but we find this verse and we read, I don't say this out of need.

And what we take that is within our Western American individualistic cultural

mindsets, is that maybe we shouldn't tell people our needs.

We shouldn't tell people our struggles. We should just be dependent on Jesus,

because that's contentment, right?

Maybe suffering silently because Jesus is enough.

And we hear the partial truth in that. Jesus is enough.

He is enough, but that doesn't mean that we struggle by ourselves and call it contentment.

It doesn't mean that we struggle silently and call it contentment.

The problem comes when we are in need, but we are too embarrassed or ashamed

or under the cultural assumptions that it is wrong to be in need.

And so we don't say anything at all. We might say something like,

I'm just going to be content with where I am.

But it's in that place that maybe we don't address the sins of others around

us, because I'm just going to be content.

And there does have to be some balance with that. And if you need some balance,

you should go back to our series, Relational Drama, that we did earlier this

year. It's on our website.

But sometimes we get hurt by people.

And rather than seek reconciliation, rather than seek repentance,

rather than seek forgiveness, we say, oh, I'm just going to be content with where I am.

Or maybe we take the carefree approach to life. Our lives might be falling apart

around us, but we think, well, gosh, we're Christians. We're supposed to be

okay. We're supposed to be content.

So outwardly, we try to look like we're doing great. We're blessed.

But inside, we are struggling.

Or maybe we're struggling with anxiety, but we know we're supposed to give it

to Jesus and be content, so we put on a brave face and act like nothing's wrong.

What about when we're genuinely suffering? I'm supposed to just trust in God,

right? I don't want to be a burden to other people.

I'm just going to be content with where I am.

But if that is the true Christian life, Paul doesn't really seem to follow these rules.

If we go to 2 Corinthians, we see a ton of examples in there.

I'm going to read a couple for us right now.

2 Corinthians 1.8, For we don't want you to be unaware. We don't want you to

be unaware, brothers, of our affliction that took place in Asia.

We were completely overwhelmed beyond our strength so that we even despaired of life.

2 Corinthians 2.4, addressing relational issues. For I wrote to you with many

tears out of an extremely troubled and anguished heart, not that you should

be hurt, but that you should know the abundant love I have for you.

He doesn't hide it. 2 Corinthians 5.2, indeed we groan in this body,

desiring to put on our dwelling from heaven. Life is hard.

Life is hard. Sometimes I wish I wasn't here. I was in heaven.

2 Corinthians 7, 5, in fact, when we came into Macedonia, we had no rest.

Instead, we were troubled in every way.

Conflicts on the outside, fears inside.

We can admit our fears. And go read 2 Corinthians 11, 22 through 27,

where Paul lists out all of these areas.

He's faced hardships, physical abuse, hunger, all of these different things.

And then he finishes in 2 Corinthians 11, 28, not to mention other things.

There's a daily pressure on me, my care for all the churches,

which other versions say, my anxiety for all of the churches.

Paul didn't hide his struggles or his weakness, his need, his pain.

He didn't hide it in the name of contentment.

And the problem is if we do hide these things, if we just keep them within ourselves,

we really, we try to be self-sufficient in those places and we don't give others

the opportunity to serve us and be a gift, as the Philippian church was, to Paul.

We don't give others the opportunity to pray with us, to sit with us,

to support us when we're really in need, to share our burdens,

because we just want to be content.

Keep it to myself.

We'd also rather be on the helping side rather than the in need side,

of course. It's much better to be on the helping side than the in need side.

But scripture doesn't tell us that we're never gonna be in need.

In fact, if we look at the life of Paul, we'll find that sometimes God leads

us right into a place of need or pain or difficulty.

This is why Paul also writes in 2 Corinthians 9, my grace is sufficient for

you, for my power is perfected in weakness.

Which echoes Isaiah 40, 29. He gives strength to the weary and strengthens the powerless.

Paul is using the language of the Stoic philosophers here to bring up a point,

but he essentially answers their own question for them.

The secret, as Paul says, is not self-sufficiency, but Christ-sufficiency.

I'm able to do all things through him who strengthens me

he says in verse 13 which is a

verse that's been taken out of context all over the place in our

culture I remember when I heard this when I was a kid I can do all things through

Christ who strengthens me and so I began to pray that I would fly through Christ

who strengthens me I think some of you probably did as well that would have

been really cool that it happened but bless my childlike little heart,

I probably should have realized in that prayer,

that that's not what Paul was talking about.

It was Paul saying that true contentment does not come through a strength within

ourselves, but a strength that comes from outside of ourselves, in Jesus.

So why, though, is Paul even addressing this? Why would he toss this into a

passage where he's thanking the Philippian church for their gift.

And additionally, why are the Stoic philosophers talking about this?

Why is this a cultural discussion that's being had in that time?

And I think that the answer is kind of simple. It's because it's far easier

to live a life of discontentment.

And this isn't just a Christian problem. People outside Christianity have realized this as well.

You can walk into a bookstore right now and find a gratitude journal.

It's not a Christian journal.

It's just a realization that we need to be thankful for things that are around us.

Because to be discontent is easy. If contentment is self-sufficiency or if contentment

is Christ-sufficiency, then to be discontent allows us to place the blame neither

on ourself or our trust in Christ, but on something else entirely.

We get to place the blame somewhere else. It's because I don't have enough,

because they're not enough, because that is not enough.

There's always going to be some need, something outside of us that we could

have that would make our lives better.

And it's not just a modern problem, this seems to be the human story as well.

When we look back to the creation account

in Genesis, we find whispers of discontentment happening even there.

A serpent comes to Adam and Eve with a message, you aren't sufficient.

You could be more. You could be like God.

And off the top of your head, who can tell me what the 10th commandment is?

Boom, quick. I don't know who said that, but there you go. Great. Awesome.

First service didn't get it. Yeah. There's a lot of silence there.

Yeah, thou shalt not covet your neighbor's wife, your neighbor's possessions.

And the Hebrew word that's used

here is actually the same word used in the creation story of Genesis 3.6.

Then the woman saw that the tree was good for food and delightful to look at,

and that it was desirable, if we have underlined there.

It's the same word, that it was desirable.

And so she took it and ate it and she gave some to her husband who was with her and he ate it.

We could read this commandment, thou shalt not desire what isn't yours to be desired.

But our hearts are crying out that we need these things to be okay.

We need them in our lives.

Yet even the Stoics realize that this isn't the way that we should be living

our lives. There's something wrong with us.

And notice in our passage this morning how Paul is phrasing all of this.

I know both how to have a little and how to have a lot, whether well-fed or

hungry, whether in abundance or in need.

And oftentimes I think when we look at contentment, we think that when we have

enough, that's when we will finally attain and achieve contentment in our lives. That's what we need.

But what about when we get there? And where is there? What exactly is enough?

Paul talks about being content even when we have enough.

When we're well-fed, when we have abundance, when we have all that we need.

Wouldn't that just be contentment? Why is he saying that even in those places,

we struggle to find contentment?

In 2016, Jim Carrey was asked at the Golden Globes to present the award for

best motion picture comedy.

And I thought about playing this clip. It kind of went viral,

so maybe you've seen it before.

It gets a little bit long with the laughter and applause and things like that.

And so it's truly a funny clip. You should watch it.

But I decided to read it for us here. And he's introduced his two-time Golden

Globe winner, Jim Carrey. And this is what he said when he took the stage.

Thank you. I am two-time Golden Globe winner, Jim Carrey.

You know what? When I'm going to sleep at night, I'm not just a guy going to sleep.

I'm two-time Golden Globe winner, Jim Carrey, going to get some well-needed shut-eye.

And when I dream, I don't just dream any old dream. No, sir.

I dream about being three-time Golden Globe winner, Jim Carrey,

because then I would be enough.

It would finally be true, and I could stop this terrible search for what I know

ultimately won't fulfill me.

And while it's humorous, and it is genuinely funny to watch it,

he's hitting on something deep within all of us that's there.

This idea of contentment, this idea of self-sufficiency is a myth.

We never really get there.

I heard another pastor speaking to Christians a while back, and he said,

as Christians, we long for the mountaintop experiences with God.

But look at the world that we live in. Go to the highest mountaintops and what's there? Nothing.

It's barren. It's incredible to be there, to look out in the world,

to experience the thrill of standing on top of the world, but life isn't sustainable there.

Life is in the valleys where there is warmth and flowing water and breathable air.

If all that will satisfy us is the mountaintop and we're not likely to last

long in this world as contented followers of Jesus.

We'll always be chasing the next thing, never satisfied, longing for what's

next and missing what's now.

Even when we get there, wherever there is, we still struggle to be satisfied.

There's still more to have to be enough.

We need more power. We'll still need more money. We'll still need more fame.

We'll still need more sex. We'll still need more contentment and comfort.

We'll still need more security.

We'll still need more.

Think about Adam and Eve in the garden, walking with God.

They walked with God, and the serpent still shows up and entices them that they could be more. Amen.

So how do we get it? How can we be truly contented in a world where even as

Christians, we struggle with this?

And this is the hard part of it all.

Because I don't think there's some magic bullet that we can just say this morning

and we got it. That's how we do it.

As we read earlier in verses 12 and 13, Paul says, I have learned the secret of being content.

I've learned the secret of being content. He had to learn it.

This isn't something that just comes naturally to us. We have to learn.

Zach Eswine, in his book, Sensing Jesus, captures this as well.

Therefore, those of you searching for something larger, faster,

and more significant, who feel that if you could just be somewhere else,

doing something else as somebody else, then your life would really matter.

Jesus has come to confound you.

I'm not referring to those who need to flee to somewhere else for safety's sake.

I'm referring to the discontented who have not yet learned what it means that

Jesus is our portion and that he is enough for us.

You have wandered far from home.

What did Paul say? He knows how to live in abundance and in need.

And he's learned in all of these places. He's learned in being well-fed and in being hungry.

That's where he's learned contentment, is in these spaces.

To follow Jesus, as we look at Paul's life in our own, is kind of a harrowing tale.

Even as we just left the Christmas season, I loved what was said here at the

Christmas Eve service, that Jesus had everything that he needed in heaven.

If ever there was a place of contentment, that was it. he had everything there.

And yet he chose to come to us as a baby, leaving his place of comfort to come to us.

And he would go on to live a life as Isaiah would tell us, where he was pierced

because of our transgressions.

He was crushed because of our iniquities.

The punishment for our peace was on him.

And we are healed by his wounds, our healing through his wounds.

Our contentment is found in his punishment for our transgressions and iniquities.

And as Paul has said, the secret to being content in all circumstances is through Jesus.

So maybe the best place for us to start is by asking a simple question,

what place does Jesus have in my life?

What place does he have in my life? Is he truly the Lord of all of your life

or is he the Lord of most of your life?

Romans 10.9 says that if we confess with our mouths that Jesus is Lord and believe

in our heart that he was raised from the dead, you will be saved.

Jesus, after spending a season in the wilderness where he's tempted by the devil

with his own discontentment in a way, Jesus culminates that whole conversation

by saying, go away, Satan, for it is written,

worship the Lord, your God, and serve only him.

This idea that Paul is talking about here of Lord is total. It's not partial.

There is no most of your life surrendered to Jesus. In fact,

that question is flawed in and of itself.

Because to say that he is Lord of most of my life really means that he's not

Lord at all, because you're the one who's ultimately in control of what he's

in control of. You're calling the shots.

So what is Jesus' place in your life?

Is he first and foremost? Look at the Christmas that just happened.

Was it really about Jesus for you?

Or was it a time with family, a time away from work, a time to make the kids

happy, Time just to stop for a little bit.

As we look towards the new year, have you invited Jesus into your plans?

Or are you the main driver of your destiny this next year for your business,

your family, your relationships?

What place does Jesus have in your life? How often do you talk to Jesus about

your daily life, not just your problems, but your daily life?

Do we bring him in?

Or are we largely on our own? living primarily a self-sufficient life.

The contentment that Paul is talking about here, the Christ-sufficient life,

isn't necessarily an easy journey.

To be weak in a world demanding strength is quite counterintuitive to us.

It means that peace and contentment come when we lay our lives down,

completely down, to follow him.

Earlier, I talked about the numerous advertisements that come at us every day, that bombard us.

And I hope that we can see that this idea, this concept of contentment is not

just a spiritual principle that we pick up and we put in our theological pockets to talk about,

but that we see the active battle that is raging around us every day,

that's waging war on our souls every single day.

And in response, my hope is that we might pick up our Bibles to wage war right back.

And waging war isn't easy. war isn't pretty war is messy it means picking up

our bibles to wrestle with what it really says in here and to ask ourselves

the different the difficult questions of where is jesus in my life,

what is it in my life that needs to change what have we laid hold of that we

think will bring us contentment and peace what has the world told us even as

christians that we have believed will make us content in this world.

It might mean that we have to repent and go before him.

It might mean that the drastic things in our lives need to change.

But there's some good stuff in this too. Right here, this is something we all struggle with.

And yet we have this community right here that we get to be a part of in this church.

To walk together, to support each other, to help each other out,

to make Jesus our first and foremost in our lives, to know him better,

to truly find our strength in him.

And that's my prayer as we look to this new season this new year maybe we would

get even more engaged here,

because we all need help with this so that we can know him so deeply know him,

that Jesus himself is sufficient let's pray,

Jesus we thank you for today God we thank you that you are sufficient,

God, you are what we need.

And we are bombarded every single day by all of these different messages and

all of these different things that come at us.

And God, I pray that our reaction to that would not be to try to use you to make ourselves strong,

but that we could be weak.

Because you are strong.

God, we thank you that you are our strength.

God, that you lead us,

and you care enough about us to help.

Would you help us to find that Christ's sufficiency,

in our lives? We thank you, God. In the name of Jesus. Amen.