Contentment

Hey BlueOaks church..it’s been a few years since I have gotten to come share with you and I am so excited to be with you today…

Well today we are going to considering something that is very near and dear to my heart…We are going to talk about

The Hope Of Contentment

I once heard John piper say…
“The Christian life is not a life of perfection but of fighting”

And finding contentment can be one of those battles for sure.

Sometime I feel like I am a contradiction of terms…haha…ever feel that way?

I love watching things like this…”million dollar listing” and “living big in a tiny house”

I am going to be honest I watch DDE all the time Lambo, Mclaren’s, etc….but my driveway is filled with 2002, 2010, and 2014 Prius’s.

And than I seem to be drawn to guys like this…Andy Elliot “If you don’t have a six pack your fired” and guys like the Dahli Lama…Just sit and work towards desiring nothing…

It’s a pretty intense world we live in…If your not doing enough do more, if you are doing to much do less…there is a constant pursuit of something, and constant challenge that you are not where you should be and bottom line is…if you feel this pressure…

It is hard not to be captured by desires for more in our culture:

Always more to do, more to accomplish, more to become…

It can often be a very daunting journey….

And as we consider the scripture we can see this battle, in my opinion, starting way beck in Genesis 3…

Genesis 3:6
When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.

I really believe what we are seeing here in this story is the power of wanting more…

Adam and Eve were well taken care of in the garden, but the desire for more, better food, pleasure, wisdom, etc. captured their hearts and minds…drove them to want more, potentially thinking that more is what they needed to get what they wanted…

“Here we see how the barrier between Adam and Eve and the tree creates an excessive drive by making the fruit of the tree into something excessively desired. While Adam and Eve can try to content themselves with substitute objects, they remain enchanted by the illusion of what lies out of reach.”

And that is the kicker in my opinion…the problem is not just that we are busy striving to achieve, produce, or grow…the problem lies in being consumed that “that” (whatever “that” is) is what I need to be satisfied, happy, or fulfilled…

One of those business coaches I find myself listening to said
“If I don’t make 400K a year I am failing as a man, a husband, and a father”.

Talk about chasing the fruit…or at least causing others to feel the need to….not only the fruit of having more but how that reflects on me as a person as well….pretty heavy…

The feeling of lack can be very powerful and drive us to the illusion that what we need is just around the corner.

This battle is real, it’s real for me at least, and I have come to believe in many ways it’s a mind game…it’s a place of faith and trust in how I see the world and how I believe it all works…

And here is what I want us to consider today…

Through the presence of Jesus there is a wonderful contentment available…because it’s “in here” instead of “out there”

And in my opinion that is a big deal and something to focus on in a world that continuously makes us feel we need more…

John 14:27
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.

I teach I teach a 11th grade worldview class at Rancho Christian HS…The week after Easter in my class we talked about the implications of the resurrection…yes sins are forgiven and no longer accounted to us…amazing truth…

But that Christ is alive and still here and present in our lives is just mind blowing?

Romans 8:11
And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you.
Dallas willard wrote a book called “Life without Lack”. Such a powerful book about this contentment that comes from god being with us, from the inside out….

The book is based on Psalm 23:1-3 where you find this verse…

The LORD is my shepherd, I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he refreshes my soul.

What a verse to focus on…I lack nothing in Christ…his presence can help me to feel like I am lying down in a green pasture or by a quiet streams…What a picture…

Over the past year I have found that we have our TV on all the time when we are home…any of you find that as well?

***But here is what is on it…****than a commercial comes on and we scramble for the remote, haha….

something that brings stillness, calmness, tranquility in into our home. A reminder of Psalm 23..

But even more to remind us of what the presence of Christ can do in our hearts and minds right now, right here…Listen to what Dallas Willard said in Life without Lack…

The gospel that Jesus himself proclaimed, manifested, and taught was about more than his death for the forgiveness of our sins, as important as that is. It was about the kingdom of God—God’s immediate availability, his “with-us-ness” that makes a life without lack possible. -Dallas Willard

His with-us-ness…Christ rose, he is alive, and he is with us now and forever more…

And in that presence is freedom, beautiful freedom…

2 Corinthians 3:17
Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom.

Freedom from what?

Yes our sins… but also freedom from chasing the fruit, freedom from contentment being out there somewhere to being in here within us…

In his goodness, God has arranged things so we are able to use our minds to understand and enter his glorious and plentiful kingdom. -Dallas Willard

So yes this is a mind game, it is about faith, its about what you believe and how that effects your life…

So there are two areas I want us to consider today…

In Christ there is a contentment available right where were are and in who we are

First where we are…

Let’s consider one of the most quoted verses in the western world where what we accomplish and what we have is center stage…

Philippians 4:13
I can do all this through him who gives me strength.

We put that on our shoes, in our sales rooms, Tatoo it on our bodies, use it to believe we can do anything we set our minds to (already heard it in the olympic trials)…Now I am not saying that we can’t…but I do want us to consider how this verse might actually be saying something a bit different, something way more powerful in my opinion…

Phil 4:12,13
I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength.

There is something Paul believes in because of the power of Christ in him…that Contentment is available within, no matter the circumstance, seems to be the focus of that verse…
a verse we love to westernize by making it about achieving more, accomplishing greater things, getting more, etc…
I believe it is actually a verse that helps free us from needing those other things.

Christ in us can bring a contentment right where we are and free us from the illusion that it’s just beyond our grasp

And that can free us from constant busyness we celebrate which actually seems to create more burn out, stress, and the feeling of lack, than it creating contentment…

Contentment through Christ can empower us to:
-Simplify our lives and not need so much
-Find more gratitude with what we have
-Consider ways to use our resources to impact the
world around us

This is the freedom Christ resurrection can do in and through our lives if we were to believe it, set our minds on it, and start to make some decisions towards it. Its might not be easy but it starts with a brand new contentment from the inside by the very presence of God…

But desiring things, achievements, accomplishments is not the only thing in the way of our contentment…

There is also how much pressure this world, especially sometime in the Christian world, can put on us to become someone we are not…

A few weeks ago I received a text from a friend that asked this question…

What would you say we are made for?

I have to admit all these verses of how I should act and what I should be doing came to mind
and even the Westminster catechism where you will find the number one answer to that question says “to glorify God and enjoy him forever”…

I get all that, and believe it…

but for some reason I found myself not feeling settled with those answers…And one kept coming to my mind but I kept pushing it away…

I believe I was made to be me

That might sound really simplistic for some of you, but maybe really profound to others…

I spent years and years feeling the need to become something, to strive to be more this or that….even to set more goals to achieve more and have more…

***it was actually from being fired from my youth pastor position when I was 40 at a church I absolutely loved being at that began the journey….

Everything within me wanted to call party foul, I was being treated wrong

But another side of me was wrestling with am I just not good enough, not smart enough, just not enough…

I have been trying over the past 17 years to live into that…

And than a few week ago I was reading through John in the message bible and this verse popped out like a breath of fresh air to my soul…

John 4:23,24
The kind of people the Father is out looking for: those who are simply and honestly themselves before him in their worship. God is sheer being itself—Spirit. Those who worship him must do it out of their very being, their spirits, their true selves, in adoration.”

I read that and sat back and thought…I can do that…if there is anything I can be is my true self…

I just want to encourage you today…

YOU were made to be you…
YOU are right where YOU need to be…
Allow Gods love for YOU to empower YOU today…

It says that we have a high priest who empathizes even with our weaknesses…so let Christ love you today, there is nothing you need to do to earn that love, just receive it and believe that its true…

Christ in us helps us to find contentment in who we are and frees us from chasing the illusion of who we think we need to be.

So not only can Christ is us free us from needing to pursue things for contentment I believe even more importantly he frees us from needing to be someone other than who we are for contentment

and that to me is freedom…that to me is a very beautiful and powerful contentment that comes from Christ and his presence in us…

And in a world that can make us feel like we are truly lacking possession as well as lacking as a person I believe that freedom is needed more than ever before…

Blue Oaks Church
Pleasanton