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.
(ESV)
Philippians 4:11-13
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.
(ESV)
Redeemer exists to celebrate and declare the gospel of God as we grow in knowing and following Jesus Christ.
Good morning. Good morning. It is a great honor to be with you this morning and to be invited to share with you from God's word. And, you know, I want you to know that just getting to know Joel, getting to know the elders and wives, we were together last night, of this local church has just been a very very rich experience for me, and so I'm thrilled to be with you this morning. Thrilled to be here this weekend.
Speaker 1:I'm grateful that my wife Kim could join me also. She's sitting in the 3rd row back there. I get to travel pretty regularly and Kim doesn't get to travel with me very often, so I I savor every opportunity I have for us to be together on the road. So thank you for receiving us so warmly. You know, I I don't know what comes to your mind when you hear the word, network, but Sojourn Network is, you know, it's just a group of churches filled with pastors, broken pastors, who love their local church, but realize that their leadership in their local church is going to be stronger if they have a place to go where they can benefit from those that have gone before them.
Speaker 1:They can benefit from counsel and ongoing training and supplemental care, and if there's a problem, if there's a crisis, somebody to help out there as well. So it's really a place where where your pastors and your lead pastor can sit with men who are unimpressed with the size of their intellect or the size of their church or the size of their gifts, men that will ask hard questions and supply very very honest answers and and want to care for each other. And so that's why we've come together as a network of churches because we want to care for each other. But it's not just about care. We also wanna see churches planted.
Speaker 1:So Sojournet network is is is filled with men and women that wanna see the gospel go forward through church planting and love the idea of church planting and we wanna partner together to see church planting happen even more. And, that's part of why I'm so grateful that you are now a part of Sojourn Network because not only do I pray and hope that we're gonna be a blessing to you, but I know you're gonna be a blessing to Sojour Network and then together through our partnership, we're gonna see the mission go forward in an even more God glorifying, God exalting manner. So I'm I'm so glad that you're a part and I'm so glad to be with you this morning. And you can open up your bibles to Philippians chapter 4, please. Philippians chapter 4, to what may be a familiar passage on contentment.
Speaker 1:My prayer is that God would breathe fresh life into it because I've been asked to talk to you about the relationship between our dreams and contentment. The relationship between ambition and contentment. So the title of the message this morning is The Quest for Contentment. Philippians chapter 4 verse 11, Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound.
Speaker 1:In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance, and need. I can do all things through Him who strengthens me. Let's pray together. Lord, I just think about that that last verse there, and we we pray because we we need You this morning. We need Your strength this morning, and we are so encouraged by this promise this morning that we can do all things through Him, through you, because you are at work strengthening us.
Speaker 1:So Lord, strengthen me to preach to these good people, and Lord, strengthen us all to hear from Your Word in a way that makes a deep and lasting impression. In Your name we pray. Amen. Let me begin with a question this morning. How do you respond when you face some incomplete goal or some unfulfilled dream?
Speaker 1:You know, maybe you had a vision for your life, for the path of your life, but you haven't even started down that path of your life yet, or you can't find the path for your life yet or or you're on the path, but you feel the journey is so much slower than you expected that it would be. And perhaps there's there's a sense where that incomplete goal or that unfulfilled dream just hovers over you like a dark cloud that that settles on you in the form of a statement. It's a statement that haunts you and taunts you at times, and it whispers this paralyzing thought in times that you completely unexpected, by now I should have been, and you can fill in the blank any number of ways. By now I should have been a leader. By now I should have been a better student.
Speaker 1:By now, I should have been married. I should have been employed. I should have had a better life. It's the voice of unsatisfied ambition, and you may not be aware of it, but it can be it can be the voice of discontent. Discontentment happens when our dreams are frustrated.
Speaker 1:In other words, we aspire to something and God did not deliver it in the way that we expected, so we kind of stew in self pity and why why wonder why God is so sloppy in the way that He runs our life. We have not what we desire. Now I wanna be clear to say that to want good health, to want a godly spouse, to want the right job or leadership is not wrong. I mean, it could actually be a sign of a very good and very godly ambition, but the real issue is how we live and how we feel and how we relate to God when we don't get what we want when we want it. Because as John Calvin once said, the evil lies not in the desire, it's that we desire it too much.
Speaker 1:And when our aspirations, our dreams, our ambitions become demands, people become discontent. We have not what we desire. Now there are a number of things I want to talk about today, but I want to telegraph to you right up front where we're headed. I want to telegraph to you right where I want to end up at the end of our time. I believe it is a key to contentment, and it is it is summed up in the words of one of my favorite Puritan authors, Thomas Watson, who once said, if you have not what you desire, you have more than you deserve.
Speaker 1:Let me say that again. If you have not what you desire, you have more than you deserve. So that's our destination. In fact, I'm gonna suggest that that's a feature of this passage as well, but for the moment, let's just move it to the side. Let's leave it hanging suspended off to the side and let's return to Paul and to the context and a bit of line upon line scrutiny of this passage.
Speaker 1:So here, Philippians chapter 4, we meet once again Paul. And let's keep in mind as we're reading this that he's not perched atop some high back chair with a comfortable back pillow behind him, but this dude is in prison. He is in prison. And the church that he's writing to is experiencing attacks both from the outside and also substantial, well, important disunity on the inside that he has to pay attention to. There's a kind of division taking place.
Speaker 1:And so in chapter 4, he wants to address specifically their financial support. He thanks God for their financial support, but he then says he doesn't need their financial support. And basically, this is the way that he say says it to them in verse 11. Not that I'm speaking of being in need. Now keep in mind, he's certainly talking here first and primarily about his financial need, but it clearly goes beyond financial need because he goes on to say, for for I have learned in whatever whatever situation I am to be content.
Speaker 1:Now let's just stop there for a second. Let's ponder what Paul's saying here, because this guy is in prison. Paul is in prison and restrained. In fact, Paul is in prison, restrained, constrained, but he defines himself as not being in need. How does that work?
Speaker 1:He says he goes on to answer that. He says it's because I've unlocked what he calls is the secret of contentment. What Jeremiah Burroughs called the rare jewel of Christian contentment. And this is how Paul described himself. He said, in whatever situation I am, I have learned to be content.
Speaker 1:And so as not to leave a speculator on what that could possibly mean, he basically defines it. He says, I can abound and I can be brought low. I can face plenty and hunger, abundance and need without being plagued by that statement of, by now I should have been something more than I am. See, as we begin to wade into this epistle to the Philippians, we discover a kind of of paradox. There's a tension.
Speaker 1:In fact, the tension is illustrated in the contrast between chapter 3 and chapter 4. In chapter 3, Paul's telling the Philippians, now I want you to press on toward the goal of the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Go for it. Love Jesus. Press on.
Speaker 1:Do all you can. And then in verse 4, it all kind of skids to the hall to a halt where he says, but I've learned in whatever situation I am to be content. In other words, in Paul, somehow he was able to live hungering for more, but happy with less. Aggressively desiring more, but satisfied with the old. In fact, he was able to sit in prison and yet be ambitious to be with them, to take the gospel to them, and have the fact that he's in prison and not able to have a particular dream delivered to him in that particular season of life consume him and eat away at him.
Speaker 1:In other words, to not submit himself to the decay and the demoralizing thought of, by now, I should have been something more than what I am. In other words, somehow for Paul, his engagement with God and the work of the Spirit and the gospel in his life, through that he was able to be satisfied and at peace with God's will in all situations. In fact, he was able to be satisfied and at peace with God's will in all situations without giving up his dreams. See, I wanna suggest to you that one of the ways that we try to punish God for the poor decisions we think he makes in our life is we don't say as Christians, You know what? That's it.
Speaker 1:You're not delivering, therefore I'm gonna bail out. I'm totally gone. I'm gonna go become a Muslim, or I'm just gonna become an atheist. No. That's not how the majority of Christians relate to unsatisfied dreams and desires.
Speaker 1:Many Christians, what they do, they say, Oh, oh I get it. Okay, you hold all the cards, you don't tell me anything about what's going on, you just roll forward with your will. I don't have any indication of where this thing is supposed to go. I pray and pray, you don't deliver, I get it. Well this is how I'm gonna respond to that.
Speaker 1:I'm walking off the field and I'm sitting on the sidelines, and I'll be over there, and you can come and get me if you want me. See, Paul was in prison. Here's a man with fierce desires, and burdens, and dreams, and aspirations to love the people that he was connected to, to take the gospel to places he had never been, but he's sitting in prison and he's saying, but I'm content. See for Paul, his sense of significance was never situational. It was never attached to his status.
Speaker 1:There was a sense that for Paul, his peace did not rest in in anything within himself, with anything within his environment. It rested in God and God alone. I remember reading a quote about, Jonathan Edwards where it's one said of Edwards that, quote, his happiness was out of the reach of his enemies. I remember hearing that thinking, Wow, now could that be said of me? What about you?
Speaker 1:Is your happiness outside of the reach of your professor or of your boss? Or let's make it more personal. Is your happiness outside of the reach of your spouse or your children? This is just another way to ask the question, have I become content? Now I realize we read Paul's words and we just think, this is this is untouchable.
Speaker 1:This was just a Paul thing. This is what you get when you go to the 3rd heaven and you chill out up there for a while, and then you come back and you kinda get the consolation prize of contentment in this life. Right? No. That's not the way it was for Paul.
Speaker 1:Paul said, I have learned the secret. See, this one's not included with conversion, by the way. This isn't part of the conversion package that people get upon regeneration. I wish it was. I wish this is the kind of thing where, you know, it's like an email, it's like it's like an attachment on an email.
Speaker 1:You point, you click, you attach, boom, it's in, it's there, it's applied, but it doesn't work that way. Paul says, I have learned. I have acquired. I have developed, and the good news for us this morning is it was available to Paul and it's available to us as well. So let's look at how it worked for Paul by reading on in this passage.
Speaker 1:He says, 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. It's almost as if to help the Philippians understand what he's trying to say, he specifies the field of play for contentment. You know, kind of 2 different ends of the field, 2 different ends of the life spectrum, and everything he's talking about plays out somewhere on this field. In other words, the experiences where contentment engages our dreams, plays out somewhere on this field that he's talking about, these two experiences of abounding and brought low and plenty and hunger.
Speaker 1:You know, all of life is represented somewhere here. And so 1st Paul talks about the good times, his times when those times when his dreams and his desires and his aspirations and ambitions are fully satisfied. He uses words like abundance, and abounding, and plenty. He's talking about the good times. He says, I can do that.
Speaker 1:He says, Those times that you get a raise, that you get the job that you wanted, that you pass the test, or you get the girl or the guy, or you're, you know, you're selected for a role that you've been dreaming about. You know those dream those times when our dreams in life are coming alive and life is getting good and our ambitions are fat and happy, To adapt the Watson phrase, we get what we desire. Now listen. This is what Paul says. Paul says, yeah, I know how to do that.
Speaker 1:I know how to do that. Paul says, I know how to abound. I know how to do plenty. I mean, there there's almost an instinct to think when you read that. I mean, yeah.
Speaker 1:I mean, like, don't we all know how to do plenty? Don't we all know, Lord, doth thou doubt that thy servants know how to do plenty? Smite me with Alexis, oh lord, and I will show you that I can do plenty and abundance and abounding in a way that will glorify you. And have you ever noticed that our our dreams are always dreams of abounding, always dreams of abundance? It's it's rare to dream low.
Speaker 1:It's rare to aspire to be poor. You know, Johnny wants to be homeless. Go, Johnny, go. Because our our dreams are always a vision of the future where we aspire to be in a better place, a better kind of future. But here's the point that I think lies behind the contentment point that Paul's getting at, and that is that our happiness can't be linked to a satisfied dream.
Speaker 1:Our happiness can't be linked to a vision of the future where everything is always ascending, everything is always becoming more prosperous because always abounding just ain't reality. Certainly wasn't for Paul, but it's also good for us to realize that sometimes our greatest temptations in life can come not through trials and afflictions, but through times of plenty and praise. I think about Proverbs 27 verse 21, where it says, the crucible is for silver, the furnace for gold, and a man is tested by his praise. You don't expect it to end that way. You think it's gonna say affliction for sure.
Speaker 1:A man is tested by his praise. Well think about what that proverb is saying. A crucible, furnace, they both they both test they test things by heating them up. So praise heats the soul, and praise tests the soul, and praise can reveal much about the soul as it comes to us in a way that is unexpected, in a way that can reveal at times discontentment. I think of in Esther, you have you have Haman.
Speaker 1:Haman is this guy. He's 2nd in the kingdom. Everybody has to bow and pay homage to Haman, and everybody does bow and pay homage to Haman except for one guy, Mordecai. And so what does Haman do? Haman spends the rest of his life grateful that almost everybody bowed and paid homage to him, right?
Speaker 1:No. No. Haman launches a campaign to exterminate all of the Jews. Why? Because one man would not praise him.
Speaker 1:The praise of most, the praise of almost everyone was not enough. He needed the praise of all. He was only satisfied by the praise of all. His heart was tested. His heart was revealed.
Speaker 1:I brought a great quote by Spurgeon this morning. He once said, quote, The Christian more often disgraces his profession in prosperity than when he is being abased. And you know what? Paul discerned that. Paul understood that.
Speaker 1:He discerned the temptations that come with abounding and plenty and abundance, and so he treated plenty and hunger just the same. He treated plenty and hunger as places he could potentially seek his satisfaction outside of Jesus. And so that's kind of the one set of experience down down the one end of the field, the plenty, the abounding, the the abundance. But but there's this other side as well, this whole other set of experiences that Paul describes. And it's those times where your dreams are starved, your desires are not being satisfied, your ambitions are not being filled at all.
Speaker 1:Paul talks about it as being brought low, facing hunger, facing need, the hard times, the by now I should have been times of our life. And maybe you're there right now, maybe you've been passed over at work, or you had some great idea that you really thought were gonna move things forward and it was totally rejected. Maybe you've had a friend really disappoint you or or a leader disappoints you or you know, the housing arrangement that was set up has just exploded in midair, or marriage is is so much harder than you ever expected or that you ever signed up for, or there's some way that you completely unexpectedly failed. You failed, and there's a sense where right now, even though you're younger, maybe right now it feels like your dreams are on a respirator, and they're gasping for air. In other words, your ambitions are starved.
Speaker 1:We have not what we desire. Paul says, Yeah, I've learned to do that too. I've learned to be brought low, which means that Paul could be content in God even in those kinds of seasons, that Paul could be content when he was brought low, when it wasn't a time of plenty, when these dreams that he had were not satisfied in the season that he thought he were. He could live with a thorn in his side. He could live with weakness.
Speaker 1:And here's the thing, we all have these. It's part of the way God designed humanity in a fallen world. We all have to confront this. These times where it just seems like we're running along as fast as we can and there's a boulder that appears in the road unexpectedly, and we slam into the boulder so hard that the shock forces us to drop our dreams to the ground. I mean maybe sometimes it's not a boulder at all, maybe it's just something really little, you know, something that just agitates you, more like a pebble in the shoe.
Speaker 1:You know, you're trying to run, but you just can't run as quickly as you wanted to because this pebble is in the shoe and it slows you to a walk toward the future you desire. You just wanted to get there so much quicker than you expected, and you can't get there because of this pebble, this unexpected illness, this this financial expense that we weren't expecting, this job change that just isn't working out, or or this physical limitation that I never thought I would have at this age, this this weakness that seems to be surfacing in my life that I never really thought I would have when I was a teenager, yet it seems to characterize me every time I turn around now. Let me give you an illustration. It's just a just a small one, but it comes from my own life. One one day, I'm I'm sitting in the family room reading a book, and Kim is sitting over on the couch and and she's reading a book, and Kim thinks she hears water running in the basement.
Speaker 1:And so she says to me, Dave, is one of the kids in the basement shower? And I listened. I said, No, I don't think so. She said, Oh, okay. And I said, oh okay.
Speaker 1:I went back to reading. And about 10 minutes later, this kind of stray thought pierced my consciousness. I remember thinking, wait a minute, We don't have a basement shower. And I immediately got up and I went running downstairs, and it was it was actually quite a sight to behold because there was a there was water running in the basement because there was a hole in the side of the basement wall and a pipe had burst, and it was shooting water all the way across the basement, and it was splashing off of the wall on the opposite side of the basement. And in fact, when I first looked at it, it would I just thought, hey, if if this were not my house, this would be pretty cool because that's a pretty cool sight.
Speaker 1:It's going across the basement. But the problem was it was my house. And there was another problem as well, and that was that I missed the what to do when the pipes break and you need to shut down the water real quickly class in high school. So I'm just running around the base. I'm like flipping light switches and and turning knobs because I have no idea whatever to do.
Speaker 1:And so Kim gets on the phone because I've got this neighbor. I'll call him Randy. Randy is one of these guys who just knows how to do everything, everything. I hate Randy. Hey, what'd you do this weekend, Randy?
Speaker 1:Well, I had a few extra hours, so I decided to install a helipad on the top of the house. You know you know, that one of one of those guys. So so I'm just but at this time, I'm standing in the in the basement. The water's probably 2 inches at this point. I'm just standing there because I flipped all the switches I know to flip, and nothing's shutting down the water.
Speaker 1:Randy walks into the back door. He locks eyes with me. He walks across the basement like this. He opens up a door into a closet. He reaches in.
Speaker 1:He shuts the water off. He turns around, continues locked out. He walks out of the back door. Now, here's the thing. I've got dozens of stories like that because I am a moron when it comes to things around the house, and and those are low moments.
Speaker 1:We all have them. And and yeah, that's a kind of comical one, but let's be honest, it it gets a lot worse, doesn't it? In fact, just ask yourself this question, where where's the pipe gushing in your house right now? Is it your marriage? You know, there's something bleeding, there's something that's coming out and it's unidentified, Or you're parenting with the kids, you just didn't expect it to be like this.
Speaker 1:It's too, you know, I didn't This is not what the brochure said at all. This is not what the conference has talked about. Maybe your boss is just bursting your pipe, you know, bursting your pipe every day. Maybe it's the economy. Economy, you know, economy has been tough.
Speaker 1:It's been in the downturn. There have been job losses, income reductions. In other words, here's the point. Don't miss the point. It's laying some low.
Speaker 1:We're low. You're feeling low. This is what Paul said. I've learned to be brought low. In other words, his contentment was not circumstantial.
Speaker 1:His contentment was not based upon where he was or what he was doing. God was the same to him in plenty and in want. Paul's happiness was not linked to his dreams or the satisfaction of his desires or the satisfaction of his ambitions. And I find this so provoking because I'm not like that. I'm not like that.
Speaker 1:What about you? How do you do when your dreams and your life just don't intersect with each other, you know, where life seems to force you down rather than lift you up? You know, life can change when we begin to see the denial of our dreams differently than we tend to see them, the denial of our aspirations and our ambitions differently. In other words, it's not ultimately a penalty from God or a punishment from God. It's really God faithfully because he loves us defining the path of our walk.
Speaker 1:I don't know if your experience is anything like mine, but but you know the journey for me has been like I'm walking down this hallway, and there are times when in the wisdom of God it will seem like He's leading me through a door, and I will seek counsel when it seems like counsel says go through the door, and I will pray and it seems like prayer says go through the door, and I'll try the door and the door will be locked. In fact, not only locked, but the door will be bolted shut, unable to move. And it seems like everything God has for me is somehow behind that door in that room, but I just can't get through the door. And so I try to pray through the door and I can't get through the door. I beat on the door and can't get through the door.
Speaker 1:I bloody my hands trying to break down the door and just can't get through the door. And there have been times where I've collapsed at the foot of the door and laid there for too long. And then the Spirit of God is faithful to do what only the Spirit can do and to breathe life, and to remind me that God is sovereign, and He's not just sovereign and manipulating everything, but He's sovereign and good as well. And somehow, that door remaining shut remains an expression of His love and His goodness. So He dusts me off and stands me up, and I keep heading down the hallway.
Speaker 1:And another door might open unexpectedly, and another door might open because I've prayed about it, another door might remain shut, and I don't always know. I don't get it. I don't understand it, but I do know that God loves us so much that he will act decisively when my wrong desires will lead me into a wrong room. He will defy my sense of what is right to keep a door closed, And he will at times be audacious enough to inspire a dream and a desire that he won't satisfy, simply because the absence of satisfaction of that desire will throw me upon him in a new way, and my desperation will drive me to seek Him and to ultimately enjoy Him and to learn about Him in ways I never expected and to come to terms with the idea ultimately before God that there is no peace in life until we become convinced that our place is His choice, that our place let me let me personalize this. Your place is His choice right now.
Speaker 1:Right now. And that's part of what it means to be content. So let me ask you again, how do you do when your dreams and your life just don't intersect, when life seems to force you down rather than lift you up. I brought a quote by J. I.
Speaker 1:Packer because he says this so much better than I could ever say it. He said, quote, the world's idea that everyone from childhood up should be able at all times to succeed in measurable ways, and that is a great disgrace not to succeed in measurable ways, hangs over the Christian community like a pall of acrid smoke. Can I appeal to you this morning? Let me just make one appeal to you this morning. If you hear nothing else, listen to this appeal right now.
Speaker 1:Don't buy the world's definition of success. Don't buy the world's view of success. That idea that there's no place for trial, no place for failure, no place for unsatisfied ambitions, no place for I must decrease, but he must increase. People live their life craving worldly success never recognizing that God may ordain their hunger to save their soul, That God may ordain their need to save their soul. That God is far more committed to our rescue rescue than our success.
Speaker 1:And here's the thing, Paul understood that. It's how he was able to find peace and contentment in prison, that his success was not tethered to to a vision of constant ascent in life, that he learned the secret that links identity elsewhere, that our our happiness is not linked to a future that's always abounding. In fact, our happiness is not linked to the future at all. It's linked to the past. It's linked to past suffering.
Speaker 1:It's linked to this idea that that we have more than we deserve, which is part of the reason this entire line of thought delivers into verse 13. It's the secret of contentment unveiled where Paul says, I can do all things through Him who strengthens me. See, Paul wants us to understand the source of his contentment. This is it. You ready?
Speaker 1:This is what Paul says, it's Him who strengthens me. And of course, him who strengthens Paul is Jesus Christ. If you're wondering how somebody who is imprisoned can exalt in his contentment, Paul is saying the secret is rooted in an alien power, a power that exists outside of me. It's in Jesus Christ. And really, the the apostle's words through him literally can be better translated in him.
Speaker 1:So Paul is saying the contentment is learned in Jesus Christ. It's by becoming experts at examining and enjoying what it really means to be in Jesus Christ, which returns us to the heart of what I'm trying to say this morning through the words of Thomas Watson. If we have not what we desire, we have more than we deserve. And the reason why that's so important to grasp is because at the heart of discontent is often this subtle comparison with other people that produces this idea that somehow I deserve better than what I'm getting. I deserve better than what I'm presently experiencing.
Speaker 1:I deserve better than what this this situation, this job, this marriage, this family, whatever. I deserve better than this. And what the gospel does is the gospel breaks into that and turns that complaint on its head by reminding us that regardless of our state, be it humble or exalted, plenty or want, hunger or need, regardless of our state, we live infinitely above what we really deserve. That one sin was enough to send to that sentence us to hell forever, and I don't know about you, but I'm working with 100 of those things each and every week. And yet Christ came and substituted himself for me, for you.
Speaker 1:In other words, he took the punishment we deserved, and he gave us a treasure that we could never earn. And here's the thing, perspective then arrives as we get our eyes off of our circumstances, off of our neighbor, off of that which is around us, and we go to the gospel. In other words, contentment can never be horizontal. It's always something that's vertical. Many people think that the key to contentment comes from, like, this experience of comparison.
Speaker 1:So what I really need to do is kind of head out this afternoon and walk through the hood of Birmingham and just take a take note of where it might be different from the way I was raised, or from what I'm presently experiencing, or how homelessness is different from my experience, or poverty is different from where I'm at right now, as if the key to contentment is horizontal. All I have to do is compare myself with those that are in less favorable conditions. Well, that that can be helpful, but that's not the point. We don't ultimately find contentment by comparing ourselves to those who are worse off. We find contentment by comparing ourselves to what our sins deserved.
Speaker 1:We can find contentment by comparing what we have to what our sins deserved. In other words, we find contentment by remembering the gospel because it's the gospel that breaks in and reminds us of what we really deserve, that we were spiritually wretched, that we were lost, that we were miserable, broken beings, and what's more, we clung prideful to our place and powerless to alter our circumstances and incomprehensibly committed to our own destruction, but in all of that, God was rich in his mercy. And he came to us in the person of Jesus Christ, and he wrenched us free from our irrational commitment to our own demolition. And by dying for us in our place, he gave us reason to live and hope that we'll live again. And so we live grateful and satisfied, not because we have all we want, but because we have received more than we deserve, And that's the secret of contentment.
Speaker 1:And brothers and sisters, when we have it, we are free to be at rest in the present and yet still dream about the future. I mean, Paul's in prison, and he's content. Yet this guy had great ambitions, and in like way, we must live in the present, live at peace in the present. We live at peace and content each day while we still burn for more, and ask for more, and pray for more, and strive for more, and expect more, and live for more, and yes, if necessary, die for more. So if you're here today, you and you have not what you desire, well, take heart and take comfort.
Speaker 1:Don't take a break because you may not have what you desire, but you have more than you deserve. Let's pray. Lord, we we thank You that we live having more than we deserve because of what You have accomplished for us on the cross. God, we pray that reality would grip us this morning even as we sing, even as we close, as we take the Lord's Supper. Lord, through this afternoon, this idea that because of Your love for us, we have more than we deserve and that the fruit of that would be a fresh sense of contentment for our place right here and right now.
Speaker 1:In Jesus' name we pray, amen.