So let me ask you: Are you content with your life or not? As you survey the landscapes of your life – the hills and the valleys, the roads yet untraveled, is that something you can do with a quiet contentment in your heart, or not?

Is Contentment Really for You?

So come on: On a scale of zero to ten, how content are you with your life? I have a strong suspicion that whilst there are a few outliers out there (a few people who are giving themselves a one or a two because they’re not content at all, and a few who are giving themselves a nine or ten), the vast majority are somewhere in the middle of that bell curve – somewhere between say a four and a seven I’m guessing.

Are you content with who you are, where you live, what you have, your job, your family, your future as you see it at the moment? Are you content or not? It’s worth pondering.

So, what is contentment? Is it a state of happiness or jubilation? I don’t think so. I trawled a bunch of dictionaries, but I failed to come up with a satisfactory definition. A state of happiness and satisfaction was the most common definition, with examples like: He found contentment in living a simple life in the country, or: The contentment of a comfortable retirement.

Of course, it’d be great if we were all able to live a simple life in the country and have a comfortable retirement, but that’s not a reality for the vast majority of people on the planet. The people who are bringing up children, and dealing with the struggles and the joys that all that entails; the people who are working in some fast-paced world with never, it seems, enough time to get everything done they should get to; the people who are struggling with their health; their wellbeing; with their safety … I’m thinking of the many people listening to today’s program in war-torn parts of Africa, from within refugee camps (where I know we have many listeners); I’m thinking of the person who’s just been diagnosed with cancer or just lost one of their children.

Life is a series of valleys and mountaintops, isn’t it, and my sense is that contentment is something we can have whether we’re on top of the highest mountain or in the depth of the darkest valley, I think. But it’s not just me, it’s the Bible; it’s God too. He has a lot to say about contentment as we step out into this series ‘The Road to Contentment’. It’s my job, and my great pleasure, to share with you what God has to say about contentment, so why don’t we kick it off with this Scripture? 1 Timothy 6:3-10:

Teach and urge these duties. Whoever teaches otherwise and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the teaching that is in accordance with Godliness is conceited, understanding nothing, and has a morbid craving for controversy and disputes about words. From these come envy and dissension and slander and base suspicions, and wrangling among those who are depraved in mind and bereft of the truth, imagining that Godliness is a means of gain. Of course, there is great gain in Godliness combined with contentment, for we brought nothing into the world, so that we could take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with those, but those who want to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction, for the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and in their eagerness to be rich, some have wandered away from their faith and pierced themselves with many pains.

All too often I’ve heard Bible-teachers, or people who hold themselves out to be Bible-teachers, promise that following Jesus is going to involve wealth and riches. Can I tell you, if I started teaching that, I know that I personally would be far better-off financially because people seem to want to give lots of their hard-earned cash to people who scratch them where they itch; who tell them what they want to hear: That if you follow Jesus, you’re going to be blessed with this and with that … But if I did that, I wouldn’t be able to refer to myself as a Bible-teacher because, my friend, because as you’ve just heard, that’s simply not what the Bible says. It’s what we’d like the Bible to say, but it’s simply not what it says.

What it does say, however, is this. Listen to it again, and let it sink in:

There is great gain in Godliness combined with contentment, for we brought nothing into the world, so that we could take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with those.

Godliness plus contentment equals great gain. Let me say it again: According to the Bible, Godliness plus contentment equals great gain. It turns out that God places a very high value on this thing that we call contentment. I guess it’s kind of obvious that God wants you and me to be Godly: No one would be surprised by that now, would they? But contentment – did you realise that God wants you to be content, that He wants you to reap the great gain of the fruit of Godliness and contentment?

And that, in stark contrast to what the world offers. The riches of this world that are so … so seductive, all those baubles and trinkets – the things that go way, way above our basic needs of food and clothing and shelter: The things that God is saying to you and me which ultimately, if we chase after them as our main focus in life, will cause us to be pierced with many pains. It’s pretty strong language.

Think back to a time in your life when you’ve been content, just happy with who you are and what you have. Sure; it may not have been perfect, but inside, you had that warm feeling of contentment. Isn’t that something worth having? Isn’t that so much better than having the things that the world tells us are going to make us happy? You and I know that all those things are imposters, and yet we’re tempted to go chase after them anyway. We get our needs and our wants all mixed up, and our wants take over.

Now, I know this is a touchy area because we all have these desires and aspirations that go way beyond our basic needs, some of them really good desires and aspirations too, but there’s a line that we can cross over which robs us of contentment, and that’s what we’re going to be talking about over these coming weeks on the program. Why? Because God wants you to be content. He wants you to experience the warmth of Godliness combined with contentment; all we need to do is discover how.

I wonder sometimes whether we realise how deeply conditioned we are to desire the things we don’t have. Have you ever been puzzled by the tenth commandment out of the Ten Commandments? Let’s take a look at it as a bit of a refresher. Exodus 20:17. It says:

You shall not covet your neighbour’s house. You shall not covet your neighbour’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox or donkey, or anything else that belongs to your neighbour.

What an odd commandment! Don’t steal; don’t murder; don’t lie … Hey, they all make sense. They’re about what we do, but this commandment doesn’t talk about what we do: It talks about what we think and feel. That word covet means to desire deeply. Why does God finish off the Ten Commandments with that one? Because He knows that desiring things we don’t have, and (as in the case of the neighbour’s wife) shouldn’t have, can lead us into things that’ll destroy us. Just let the weight of that truth sink in.

The wrong desires of our hearts are what lead to our destruction, and yet every time you turn the TV on, or open the newspaper or some glossy magazine or visit a website, or even go down to your local supermarket, you’re confronted with advertisements specifically designed to fuel your desire for something you don’t have. It’s so insidious; it’s so pervasive that we don’t even realise it’s going on. The best way to figure out how deeply these desires have their tentacles wrapped around our hearts is to do a stocktake of the things that you dream about. Then all of a sudden, you start to realise what your heart truly desires.

Conflict and Contentment

All right. I know that at this point, some people are struggling with that thing I just threw out there about contentment in the midst of conflict. Perhaps you’re even experiencing conflict right now: An argument or a tension, or some other great trial that’s like an albatross around your neck, weighing you down, robbing you of peace and joy, and contentment.

It’s pretty normal that we find ourselves carrying around heavy burdens: Financial pressure, health worries, simple and basic issues of personal safety and security. Everybody, and I mean everybody, has some of those things in their lives: The weight of other people’s expectations, and you’re struggling to perform; the disappointments when other people don’t deliver what you expected them to. On and on the list goes and you know exactly what your conflict, your trial, looks like right now. And as you stare that thing in the face, the idea that you can be content in the middle of those circumstances seems … well, completely crazy I guess.

You’re quite possibly thinking to yourself: ‘Well, I’ve heard some doozies, but this time, Berni is completely off his rocker’. Let’s kick off with something that Jesus said. Matthew 11:28-30:

Come to Me, all you who are weary and carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.

Ok. A familiar passage for many perhaps, but how often do we stop and think about what that really means? Jesus is nothing if not a realist and here He is, telling us that He gets it. He gets that we’re carrying around heavy burdens; that we’re weary; that we’re tired; that we’re downright exhausted. It’s the picture of an ox dragging a heavy load, and so Jesus pulls alongside and says ‘Look, let’s get yoked up together here. Let’s pull this load together, and I’ll give you some rest – not just any rest, but rest for your soul’.

The reason that we’re kicking off with this today is that we somehow imagine that everything has to be going right and well for us, in order for the blessing of God to kick in on our lives. ‘When I get my finances sorted out; when my kids finally get through those difficult teenage years; when I find a boss and a job that’s just tickety-boo perfect; when … whatever, then I’ll experience God’s blessing. Then I’ll find rest for my soul. Then, I’ll finally be content; perhaps with a happy, well-provisioned retirement’.

But Jesus is saying: ‘No, that’s not right at all. Right in the middle of the tough times, right when the conflict is greatest, the burden is at its heaviest, and you’re the most exhausted you’ve ever been, right when you’re at the end of your tether, that’s the perfect time to experience His rest and His contentment.

See, we live in such a performance-oriented world that tells us we should be successful. It’s drummed into us day after day so that we get to the point when we won’t even admit it to ourselves, let alone to God or to anyone else, but ‘Life’s not going that well, and now would be a really good time for Jesus to pull up alongside next to me so that I could have rest for my soul’.

Now please, don’t for one moment imagine that I have a perfect life, where everything is always going swimmingly well. Granted; many of the consequences of some of the ingrained sin in my life, that God’s been dealing with over almost the last twenty years, a lot of that’s gone! But He’s got plenty left to deal with, and in any case, our enemy (the devil) isn’t always so pleased with a guy who’s telling people about Jesus, so he’s on my case, I can tell you: Obstacles, road-blocks, attacks … Satan is alive and well and doing his thing, so I’m talking to you from out on my battlefield, not in some nice safe cloistered lecture-theatre.

This isn’t a theory lesson; this is the practical, and I can tell you that when it comes to contentment, the only place I’ve ever found it is yoked (tethered together with) Jesus, pulling the heavy loads that He’s called me to pull, with Him by my side, helping me to carry those loads.

Your loads are different to mine, but we all have heavy loads; we all have burdens; we all have things in our life that aren’t going to go the way that they should be going, and we sit down in the lounge crying out ‘God, why me? What’s going on?’ We don’t for a minute recognise that God is right there, and He wants us to experience contentment in our lives.

Here’s my definition of contentment: Being happy to accept who we are, where we are, what we have, and what’s going on, without trying to wish any of it away. Life’s meant to have some pain in it. Life’s meant to have some suffering in it, because those are the very places where we have the opportunity to reach out to Jesus and accept His offer:

Come to Me, all you who are weary and carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you and learn from Me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For My yoke is easy and My burden is light.

And when we do, we discover that with Him, we can do just about anything. We can face the world and all of its troubles; we can carry heavy loads with rest in our soul and contentment in our heart. That’s what the apostle Paul discovered. It’s exactly what he discovered in a Roman dungeon, on death row, when he said (Philippians 4:11-13):

I’m not referring to being in need, for I have learned to be content with whatever I have. I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plenty. In any and all circumstances, I have learned the secret of being well fed, and of going hungry; of having plenty, and of being in need. For I can do all things through Him who strengthens me.

Do you get it? For Paul, contentment wasn’t at all dependent on his circumstances. He’s content with whatever he has, whatever he is, whatever’s going on around him, whatever’s happening to him. He’s content even when his stomach is grumbling because he’s discovered that in his experience, he can get through anything through Jesus who strengthens him. And just as he sat there in his dungeon having learned to be content through experiencing all manner of things with Jesus by his side, so can you and I. All we need to do is draw close to Jesus.

Let’s go back to that picture of those two oxen yoked together: Jesus on one side, you on the other side. The point is they’re both carrying the load, but in order to do so, they have to be close together; shoulder to shoulder, heading in the same direction. When you’re close to someone, you can sense their mood; you can hear their whispers; you can feel what they’re feeling; you don’t even have to say a word. And when one turns slightly to the right, the other one just follows naturally along. That’s the picture of a life with Jesus: Journeying through life yoked together.

The problem for way too many people is that they’re miles away from Jesus, in the sense that they haven’t been spending time with Him; they haven’t been praying and seeking His will; they haven’t been reading His Word and thinking about it and chewing it over and praying it over and listening go Him; they haven’t been willing to yield to His direction and guidance, and so then, when the going gets tough, they’re wondering: ‘Where is Jesus?’

Let me say this to you, and to me: We all need to hear this. He’s been there all along, dummy. Once you accept Jesus into your life, He’ll never leave you and He’ll never forsake you, and He’s not the One who wandered off; you have; I have. Contentment is the blessing that comes in the good times and in the bad when we’re close to Jesus, so step one: Get close to Jesus. Make time for Him; read His Word; pray; listen; fellowship with the Lord through the power and the presence of the Holy Spirit in you. Looking for contentment? This is the only place you’re going to find it, let me tell you.

It’s All About Focus

The thing that strikes me about the apostle Paul is that after he met Jesus on the road to Damascus, the focus of his life changed completely. Up to that point, sure, Paul had been a religious man; he’d been a Pharisee, following all the rules of God’s law to the nth degree, but after he encountered Jesus – the risen Jesus out there on that road, this man who was so much about rules and regulations gained a joy and a contentment that goes completely beyond anything that we can possibly understand in the natural realm.

We were looking earlier at the contentment he expressed about his circumstances, sitting there (as he was) on death row in a Roman dungeon, but a little earlier in that same chapter (Philippians 4:4-6), he writes this. He says:

Rejoice in the Lord always; again, I will say to you: Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone, because the Lord is near. Don’t worry about anything, but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Those are the words of a man who is so at peace, so content with what God’s called him to do and where God’s placed him to be, and even the threat over his life. Completely content. Completely at-peace. So much so that he can’t contain it. So much so that he has to cry out from his prison-cell: ‘Rejoice in the Lord always; again, I say rejoice’.

Friends, that’s what happens. Contentment wells up within us, until it becomes not just a nice warm feeling, but an uncontainable river of joy. Something we can’t keep inside. We have to let it out, but it all begins and ends with a life that’s completely focused on Jesus: The Christ, the Son of God, who knows what it is to suffer; a man of sorrows; a man of tears, the prophet tells us. Everything about Paul was focused on his Lord and his Saviour, Jesus. That’s what gave him the contentment and the joy beyond belief.

So, what about you? What about your life? What’s your focus? Are you focused on you, or are you focused on Jesus? Are you focused on what you want to get out of life, or are you focused on what Jesus has called you to do? They’re questions we need to be asking ourselves because that’s where contentment lies, or not. The longer we keep trying to click the ticket as it were, as long as we’re always looking for what’s in it for us, we’ll never find the contentment we’ve been looking for.

I want to challenge you today to go back and read that whole chapter in 2 Corinthians (2 Corinthians 4) and ask yourself: ‘Is this how I’m living my life?’ Because if it’s not, it should be. This is the beginning of the road to contentment. Elsewhere in 1 Corinthians 7:17, Paul writes:

Let each of you lead the life the Lord has assigned, to which God has called you.

We’re going to talk about that a whole bunch more another time, but for the moment, can I just say this to you? Get on with your life! Go and live the life that the Lord has assigned to you – the life He’s called you to. Stop worrying about what’s in it for you; stop being surprised when it involves suffering; stop trying to wish that suffering away … Just get on with it, the way that Jesus got on with the business of saving you, through His death on the cross. There is such great contentment in Christ, and in Christ alone; in the life that He’s called you to, the one He’s preordained for you – in that life alone. Just go and live that life for Jesus, and you’ll be amazed how all the other stuff just stops mattering.

Contentment. Who doesn’t want that? Problem is that we all have stuff going on in our lives that seem to rob us of contentment. Okay, so perhaps God does want you and me to be content. But some days, that just feels like mission impossible.

Mission Impossible

Today we’re going to head off on a journey with the Apostle Paul that’s a bit of a mission impossible. Paul was a guy who, in the first century had persecuted Christians. That was, until he encountered Jesus on the road to Damascus. That meeting totally changed his life. To the point, where he went out and started sharing the Good News of Jesus with the rest of the world … a complete turnaround.

We’re going to pick up some of the story today as he recounts it to his friends in Corinth. Now, Corinth was a racy place, a busy city at the intersection of a couple of major trade routes from east to west. It was a city full of immorality and so even though there was a church there in Corinth, a large, thriving church, they were into a lot of stuff – reflective of the culture in which they lived, which was far from godly.

So the Apostle Paul wrote them a letter, we call it 1st Corinthians, these day’s it’s one of the books in the New Testament of the Bible. And it’s a pretty harsh document. A tough going over for the Corinthians.

But we’re going to pick up the story in the second letter that he wrote to them, 2nd Corinthians, because in it, he shares much of the story of his journey thus far. And I have to tell you, it was seriously a case of mission impossible, or so it seemed from a human perspective. Especially when it comes to experiencing contentment, which is what we’re talking about in this series of messages The Road to Contentment.

So, let’s join the apostle Paul. We’re going to read 2 Corinthians, chapter 4 from beginning to end. Paul writes:

Look, since it is by God’s mercy that we are engaged in this ministry, we don’t lose heart. We have renounced the shameful things that one hides; we refuse to practice cunning or to falsify God’s word; but by the open statement of the truth we commend ourselves to the conscience of everyone in the sight of God. And even if our gospel is veiled to those who are perishing, in their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For we don’t proclaim ourselves; we’re proclaiming Jesus Christ as Lord and ourselves as your slaves for Jesus’ sake. For it is the God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ who has shone in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

But listen, we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it might be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and doesn’t come from us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying the death of Jesus in our bodies, so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies. For while we live, we are always being given up to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus may be made visible in our mortal flesh. So, death is at work in us, but life in you.

But just as we have the same spirit of faith that is in accordance with scripture – ‘I believed, and so I spoke’ – we also believe, and so we speak, because we know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus, and will bring us with you into his presence. Yes, everything is for your sake, so that grace, as it extends to more and more people, may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God.

So we don’t lose heart. Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. For this slight momentary affliction is preparing us for an eternal weight of glory beyond all measure, because we look at not what we can see, but what we can’t see; for what we can see is temporary, but what we can’t see is eternal.

So, do you get the picture here? Paul and his ministry team weren’t having a particularly easy time of it, were they? That’s an understatement. They were doing it really tough.

When was the last time that you were feeling afflicted, perplexed, persecuted, struck down? Paul is out there proclaiming the truth. He’s forsaken the shameful things, the sins of his past; he’s not proclaiming himself, he’s not building an empire for himself. He’s not building a reputation for himself. No. He’s proclaiming Christ. He’s doing all the right stuff. Out there on the road, telling people about Jesus and yet he’s facing this onslaught, this barrage of persecution to the point where he’s in fear for his very life.

So when all this happens, is he complaining about it the way that perhaps you and I might? Is he trying to wish it away? Is he trying to avoid it? Is he dreaming of a better, easier life?

None of those things. Instead, he downplays it all, calling it a momentary affliction. See discontentment is when we want our circumstances to change, so that things will be better for us so that then … this is what we think to ourselves … then we can be content.

But Paul is completely content. Completely. He wouldn’t change a thing. He’s out there getting about God’s business of winning souls, completely focussed on Jesus; completely focussed on what Jesus has called him to do. Completely. That’s the secret. Jesus is his contentment. The promise of what is to come is his contentment.

His body is being tried and tested on the outside, but on the inside he’s growing richer, more powerful in his faith, more content with what the Lord’s called him to do. My friend that’s the secret. That’s the answer. Paul is living his life … listen to this … in glad submission. I’ll say it again … in glad submission to Jesus. The moment we gladly give ourselves over to the Lord, we stop wishing that we could change this or change that, because those things cease to be important.

I can tell you from personal experience that in moments of selfishness and weakness, which we all have, contentment evaporates. But when I spend time with Jesus, when I get back to who He is and what He’s done and what He’s calling me to do, can I tell you, the rest of what’s going on, the things that I have to tolerate sometimes and suffer … they cease to matter. Contentment returns.

The Power of Repentance

What are the nasty little sins that you’re hanging onto in your life? You know … you’ve given everything else over to God, except … except just this one.

It may be something like gossiping and complaining, something that’s evident to all. Or, it may be something that you do in secret – sexual immorality – that nobody except God and you can ever see. Whatever it is, there is no such thing as a small, insignificant sin.

If that one thing you’re holding back from God were the only sin in all of human history, Jesus would still have come to die for you, because the penalty for that one little insignificant sin is eternal separation from God. No sin is small to God. And as things turn out, no sin is too small for Satan either.

Because it gives him a foothold into your life. In fact, he doesn’t even need a foothold, just a toehold will do.

Ephesians chapter 4, verse 27 tells us that we shouldn’t make room for the devil. And there’s a reason for that.

When I was in the military studying tactics and strategy for war, one of the things they taught us was that if you were invading a piece of land from the sea, the first thing that you had to do was establish a beachhead. A small piece of land that you’d secure by putting your forces on the ground, so that you could safely land the rest of your force.

Without that secure beachhead it was impossible to land the rest of your force and complete your objective.

And putting the shoe on the other foot, if you were the defending force on the land, trying to stop an enemy invading you from the sea, you would do everything you possibly could to deny them a secure beachhead, because you knew that without it, they’d fail.

That one bit that we’re holding back from God is like a secure beachhead for Satan. Because only the power of God can secure it for you. Problem is, you’ve kept God out of that part in your life, so you are giving Satan free reign to plunder the rest of your life from that one beachhead. Let me ask you – when that happens, can you really blame God for a lack of contentment in your life? Well, of course not.

Contentment is a gift from God. It’s really important to Him, He really wants you and me to be content. But sin is going to rob us of that contentment each and every time. That’s why repentance is such a powerful thing – because whilst you’re under the power of sin, you can’t be content.

Let’s continue with the Apostle Paul in 2 Corinthians chapter 7 as he shares the power, God’s power, of repentance with us:

Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, making holiness perfect in the fear of God.

For even when we came to Macedonia, our bodies had no rest, but we were afflicted in every way – disputes without and fears within. But God, who consoles the downcast, consoled us by the arrival of Titus, and not only by his coming, but also by the consolation with which he was consoled about you, as he told us of your longing, your mourning, your zeal for me, so that I rejoiced still the more. For even if I made you sorry with my letter, I don’t regret it (though I did regret it, for I see that I grieved you with that letter, though only briefly). Now I rejoice, not because you were grieved, but because your grief led to repentance; for you felt a godly grief, so that you were not harmed in any way by us. For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation and brings no regret, but worldly grief produces death. For see what earnestness this godly grief has produced in you, what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what alarm, what longing, what zeal, what punishment! At every point you have proved yourselves guiltless in this matter. So although I wrote to you, it was not on account of the one who did the wrong, nor on account of the one who was wronged, but in order that your zeal for us might be made known to you before God. In this we find comfort.

In addition to our own consolation, we rejoiced still the more at the joy of Titus, because his mind had been set fully at rest by all of you. For if I have been somewhat boastful about you to him, I was not disgraced; but just as everything we said to you was true, so our boasting to Titus has proven true as well. And his heart goes out all the more to you, as he remembers the obedience of you all, and how you welcomed him with fear and trembling. I rejoice, because I have complete confidence in you. 

Now, Paul here talks about making the Corinthians, whom he’s writing to here, sorry with his letter. He’s talking about his first letter to them – that book in the New Testament that we now call First Corinthians – which was a sternly written letter, admonishing them for all kinds of sin, for sexual immorality, for idol worship, for disunity, all sorts of things. If you or I received a letter like First Corinthians, I tell you, we’d be pretty hurt and annoyed I’d expect.

All the while Paul and his friends are suffering greatly for the sake of proclaiming the Good News of Jesus Christ. So, Paul sends his friend Titus to Corinth, to see how the Corinthians are getting on after his first, rather harsh letter and Titus comes back to report that the letter’s had the most amazing impact, because they have … repented. They’ve turned away from their sins. They’ve let God in to reign and to rule as Lord.

It was a letter that led the Corinthians to grief … discontentment if you will. They realised their ways and they realised they had to change. That godly discontentment led them on a path to repentance. And that’s exactly what’s meant to happen. For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation and brings no regret, but worldly grief produces death.

Sometimes the reason we’re not contented is that sin is robbing us of our contentment. But when we come to our senses and change our minds – and that’s what the word repentance means – then that grief leads to salvation without regrets. That’s the place where contentment begins.

That’s the power of repentance. Repentance brings contentment. Its cause and effect.

Generosity of Spirit

So far, over the course of this series, we’ve been discovering how to get our lives on the road to contentment. We’ve seen God’s plan is very much that we should be content. In fact, He places a high premium, a high value indeed on contentment. It is, if you will, a normal part of living our lives for Him, no matter what happens to be going on around us. In 1 Timothy chapter 6, verses 6 and 7 He says to us through the Apostle Paul:

There is indeed great gain in godliness combined with contentment; for we brought nothing into the world, so that we can take nothing out of it; but if we have food and clothing, we will be content with those.

Absolutely there is great value in godliness and contentment. Contentment is that sense that we’re not dancing to the tune of our desires anymore. We look around at what we have … and what we don’t have more importantly … and we don’t feel that restlessness, that nagging desire to have more, to be more, to have more thought of us.

And God particularly wants us to experience that contentment in the face of the conflicts and the trials that we are going through. Again, just as the Apostle Paul did, as his life hung in the balance on death row in that Roman dungeon, when amidst all that, he was able to rejoice and to write these words to his friends in Philippi:

Not that I am referring to being in need; for I have learned to be content with whatever I have. I know what it is to have little, I know what it is to have plenty. And in any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need. For I can do all things through Him who strengthens me. (Philippians 4:11–13)

And today, we’re going to discover another way of finding contentment. One of the things that often robs us of contentment is the desire for more money and the things that money can buy.

I used to be very much trapped in this desire for more wealth before I became a Christian. And the more of it that I gained, the less satisfied and content I became. That’s a terrible paradox, but it’s true. It happens time and time again, which is exactly what God tells us in Ecclesiastes chapter 5, verse 10:

The lover of money will not be satisfied with money; nor the lover of wealth, with gain. This also is vanity.

And so today we’re going to go to God’s radical plan for breaking free from this addiction to wealth, which constantly makes us discontent with whatever we have. And that radical plan involves … radical giving.

Have a listen to this … this is the Apostle Paul writing to his friends in Corinth. He was a man on a mission, to raise support for the Christians in Jerusalem who were going hungry because of a great famine. So he’s encouraging the Corinthians, who are quite wealthy, to give, in the same way that the Macedonians had given.

But the Macedonians as it turned out weren’t wealthy at all. Here is what Paul wrote to the Corinthians:

We want you to know, brothers and sisters, about the grace of God that has been granted to the churches of Macedonia; for during a severe ordeal of affliction, their abundant joy and their extreme poverty have overflowed in a wealth of generosity on their part. For, as I can testify, they voluntarily gave according to their means, and even beyond their means, begging us earnestly for the privilege of sharing in this ministry to the saints – and this, not merely as we expected; they gave themselves first to the Lord and, by the will of God, to us, so that we might urge Titus that, as he had already made a beginning, so he should also complete this generous undertaking among you. Now as you excel in everything – in your faith, in speech, in knowledge, in utmost eagerness, and in our love for you – so we want you to excel also in this generous undertaking.

I’m not saying this as a command, but I am testing the genuineness of your love against the earnestness of others. For you know the generous act of the Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for our sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty we might become rich. And in this matter I am giving my advice: it is appropriate for you who began last year not only to do something but even to desire to do something – now to finish doing it, so that your eagerness may be matched by completing it according to your means. For if the eagerness is there, the gift is acceptable according to what one has – not according to what one doesn’t have. I don’t mean that there should be relief for others and pressure on you, but it is a question of a fair balance between your present abundance and their need, so that their abundance may be for your need, in order that there may be a fair balance.

Now the power of what God’s saying here to us through Paul is this: generosity breeds contentment. Look at the Macedonians – they had so little, and yet they were so eager to give as much as they possibly could. They begged Paul to be able to give to those who had even less than them, their brothers and sisters in Christ, living in Jerusalem who were starving.

Now, you might say to me, ‘Berni, hang on a minute, you’re putting the cart before the horse here. Their giving didn’t breed contentment; it was the other way around. They were already content; and so their generosity was a product of that contentment.’

True. That’s the way it reads. But Paul here is using their example to test the genuineness of the faith and the love of the Corinthians, who were by comparison, very wealthy indeed. This was a lesson for the Corinthians to teach them to be generous, because Paul knew that if they could get through this, if they could give generously and sacrificially, the insidious control that wealth had over their hearts would be broken.

This act of generosity, he goes on to say, is like mimicking Jesus. Become more like the One who gave up everything, so that we might have everything forever. As surely as night follows day, when we start to give sacrificially to God’s work, little by little, the lure of wealth loses its power over us and we start to experience the contentment that God always had planned for our lives.

That’s exactly how it happened for me. I didn’t become a Christian until age 36, by which time I owned a very profitable business and I was earning a lot of money. And I remember Christians talking about this thing … tithing. The idea apparently was to give a tenth of your income to God’s work.

Now, at that point when I became a Christian, I was really well off. And yet week after week I’d go to church, I’d be blessed by the teaching and the fellowship, I’d be growing in my faith, but when the offering plate came around, I’d put in some loose change. Tithing? Ten percent? You have to be kidding me. You’d think for someone who was very well off that it wouldn’t be a problem.

But here’s the thing, when you’re earning a lot of money, 10% is an awful lot of money to give away. But God is gracious and the Holy Spirit worked away at me until eventually, I kind of grimaced and took the plunge. I began to tithe my income. It was hard at first I don’t mind telling you. That was almost 20 years ago, and looking back on it now, I can see how God used that in my life to set me free from the desire to always buy the next thing and the next thing and the next thing.

I have so little desire for things these days, which is completely the opposite of what I used to be like. I always wanted to accumulate stuff, even though it never satisfied me. And I can honestly tell you that the principle that Paul was talking about there in 2 Corinthians chapter 8 … is absolutely true, it works. If you want to be content, if you want to break the power of that desire for wealth in your life … a desire that ipso facto breeds discontent in your heart … then start giving sacrificially to God’s work. And pretty soon, sacrifice will turn into generosity and generosity will overflow into a rich abundance of contentment in your life.

This is always the way it works. Always.

Contentment. It’s one of the things that each one of us wants, but today, today we look at three of the things that can rob us of contentment – ‘Girls, Gold and Glory’.

Girls and Guys

In the days when I was studying at Bible-college, a good many years ago now, the principal of the college was a man by the name of Barry Chant, and I remember quite distinctly he came down to the common area where we all gathered before lectures, and he announced that today was exactly fifty years since he’d started following Jesus. Fifty years! And the more I came to know him, as a teacher, as a colleague ultimately, and as a trusted counsellor and friend, I realised how much his life had been impacted by fifty years of walking with Jesus. The man has a maturity and a wisdom that are quite remarkable.

I say that as a preface because I’m about to share with you something today that he shared with me all those years ago. We were studying in our various dreams of academia to become ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and I recall one lecture where he talked about the three things that generally bring ministers unstuck. They’re really easy to remember because they all start with the letter G. Would you like to know what they are? ‘Girls, Gold and glory’. Pretty simple. Pretty powerful, and the more I think about it, those are the very same things that bring us unstuck in our search for contentment: Girls or (in the case of women) guys, gold, and glory.

I want to kick off with the first one of those today because unless we get this girls/guys thing under control, then we’re not going to be content. And the whole subject of the boy/girl, man/woman relationship and intimacy thing isn’t an easy one to talk about in this day and age without sounding a bit anachronistic, because attitudes and lifestyles have changed a lot.

See, these days, intimacy before marriage and indeed outside marriage is pretty much accepted in most societies as a fact of life. I think the current term is ‘Friends with benefits’, where people engage in casual sex to meet their physical needs without the emotional entanglement of an exclusive boy/girl relationship, and most couples who get married today have slept together before they get married.

I heard a statistic the other day that fully thirty percent of married Australian men have visited a prostitute, not to mention the office affairs, unfaithfulness and marriage breakdowns arising out of those extramarital affairs.

And as the world around us becomes more and more accepting of promiscuity as purely a lifestyle-choice, I start to find myself wondering: ‘Hang on a minute. Is it me that’s going crazy here? Am I the one who’s out-of-touch by believing that physical and sexual intimacy belongs inside a marriage, in this completely exclusive lifelong relationship between one man and one woman? Is the Biblical position on this still tenable in this day and age?’

Then I pinch myself, and I realise that what Jesus has to say is as applicable today as it was two thousand years ago because truth, His truth, is timeless, and this is what Jesus said when the religious leaders of the day came to ask Him about divorce. He said (Matthew 5:27-32):

You have heard it said, ‘You shall not commit adultery’, but I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one of your members than your whole body to go into hell. It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce’, but I say to you that anyone who divorces his wife except for grounds of un-chastity causes her to commit adultery, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

That seems pretty harsh, doesn’t it? Pretty tough and rigid. If Jesus were alive today, they’d probably call Him an extreme conservative: A fundamentalist, but there’s a reason that Jesus takes this apparently hard-line, and that reason is that God created us male and female, in order that those of us who so choose can live in a lifelong intimate marriage as husband and wife. Plain and simple. Again, here’s what He said, quoting this time the first book in the Bible – the book of Genesis (Matthew 19:3-9):

Some Pharisees came to Him to test Him and they asked Him, ‘Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for any cause?’

And Jesus answered, ‘Have you not read that the One who made them at the beginning made them male and female, and said ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’, so they are no longer two, but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let no one separate’. 

They said to Him, ‘Why then did Moses command us to give a certificate of dismissal and to divorce her?’

And He said to them, ‘It was because you were so hard-hearted that Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning, it was not so. And I say to you whoever divorces his wife, except for un-chastity, and marries another commits adultery’.

The point is that we were created to be husband and wife and when we try to mess with that, when we try to break that, it doesn’t work. Our physiological drive to reproduce is a very strong one: Stronger in some than others, to be sure, but a strong one nevertheless. It’s a gift from God, and it’s a gift that is satisfied completely in the context of marriage, as God has always planned.

You can’t be content chasing girls (or guys, as the case may be) outside marriage. It might seem fun at the time, and exciting and alluring – fabulous, but in the end, it leads to emptiness and to loss because sex without love is always empty. For me there is no one, there can never be anyone, as beautiful as my wife. She’s mine, and I’m hers. Exclusively. No exceptions; and in that, my friend, there is such great contentment. So, if you find your eye or your heart wandering, remember this: If you wander, you will never, ever be content … ever.

Gold

They say that love makes the world go round, but so far as I can see, it seems to be money these days that makes the world go round or at least, it certainly makes our economies tick over. In fact, it seems to me that economies, governments and people at large, ordinary punters like you and me, are addicted to conspicuous consumption to fuel our own personal growth and wealth and status and luxury and what other people think about us, not to mention fuelling the holy grail of a prosperous nation: Economic growth.

I really don’t think we even begin to realise how addicted many of us are to overconsumption: The next thing; the next dress; the next car; the next house, each one bigger and better and brighter and shinier than the last one.

Noam Chomsky, who I know some people consider to be a rabid left-wing critic, says something that really resonates with me, as I look dispassionately at the multi-trillion-dollar advertising industry that bombards me constantly with the exhortation to spend up big. He says this: ‘All over the place, from the popular culture to the propaganda system, there is a constant pressure to make people feel that they’re helpless – that the only role they can have is to ratify decisions, and to consume’.

Pretty much true, isn’t it? Advertising puts its finger on your feelings of inadequacy, in order to get you to purchase the thing that they say will make you feel adequate, even when that thing they’re selling us may not be all that good for us: Heart-healthy margarine when in fact, it’s more bad for us than it is good for us; wrinkle cream – come on, you women, which one of you can resist the advertising line: ‘Look ten years younger in just fourteen days’. Analyse any advertisement – television, radio, print, billboard, and at its heart, it points out our sense of inadequacy and promises to deal with that problem to make us content, if only we’ll part with our hard-earned cash. It’s true.

Now, am I saying that all consumption is bad? No. Am I saying that we should all be poor as church mice? No, but what I am saying is that in our yearning to feel satisfied, many people swallow this implicit lie that the advertising industry’s telling them, and they go looking for their satisfaction and their contentment in wealth and the things that it can buy, only to spend a fortune to discover that they’re living a shallow life and there’s simply no contentment in wealth.

Well, let me save you some trouble: God’s known that for rather a long time, and He’s gone to the trouble of telling us that over and over again. Here it is through the words of one of God’s servants King Solomon, who was one of the richest and wisest men who’s ever walked the planet. Ecclesiastes 5:10-11:

The lover of money will not be satisfied with money, nor the lover of wealth with gain; this is also vanity. When goods increase, those who eat them increase, and what gain has their owner but to see them with their eyes?

As an experienced practitioner in trying to satisfy myself with wealth, I can tell you that word from God’s Bible is absolutely true. Now I don’t know where you’re at, but I’m aware that many of the people listening today may not have a relationship with Jesus, so when I share something from the Bible, you’re thinking: ‘Well, yes, so what?’

Fair enough, so let me share with you something the great British journalist Bernard Levin wrote, and he’s a man who’s a professed atheist. ‘Countries like ours are full of people who have all they desire and yet lead lives of quiet desperation, understanding nothing but the fact that there’s a hole inside, and no matter how much food and drink we pour into it, however many motorcars and TVs we stuff it with, however many well-balanced children and loyal friends we parade around the edges of it, it aches’.

So many people relate to that paradox. The more we try to fill ourselves up, the emptier we feel. The more we consume, the less satisfied we are, so what are you consuming? What are you spending your money on, and how much does this desire to have, have its dark tentacles wrapped around your heart with a vide-like grip, that’s robbing you of the contentment that God wants you to have?

I was talking to a man, a farmer, just before Christmas last year and he was telling me how grieved he was at the consumerism that he was surrounded with at Christmas. He and his family had decided not to give one another Christmas presents anymore because they had all they needed. They decided to give to those in need instead.

If there’s one thing that’ll rob us of contentment faster than just about anything else, it’s greed. And if there’s one thing that’ll set us free from that terrible malady faster than anything else, it’s generosity; letting things go; giving to those who need more than we do.

I was quite shocked actually how prevalent is the exhortation in God’s Word to give generously. It’s something that God tells us to do all the time: Not because He’s in desperate need of our cash to fund His work (although that is how God funds His work on this earth – through His people), but because He wants our hearts, and He knows that our hearts are tethered firmly to our wallets, and the way He sets us free from the discontentment of putting our hope and our trust and our desire in wealth is by getting us to part with it sacrificially. Have a listen to this. 2 Corinthians 9:6-8:

The point is this (writes Paul). The one who sows sparingly will reap sparingly, and the one who sows bountifully will also reap bountifully. Each of you must give as you have made up your mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance, so that by always having enough for everything, you may share abundantly in every good work.

You see, God’s plan is to set us free from this addiction to wealth so that we can be content.

Glory

Have you ever seen one of those old western movies, where the bad guy comes into the bar, and he starts to shoot at the feet of the good guy to make him jump and dance? And so the good guy’s jumping and dancing to avoid being shot in the foot. Depending on the scene, sometimes it’s funny, like in the final movie of the ‘Back to the Future’ trilogy, and at other times it can be really quite serious and scary, but anyhow, it’s a motif that’s repeated over and over again in many-a western movie.

Now, just think about the guy who’s being shot at – the one who’s doing the jumping and the dancing. What do you imagine is going through his mind? Shock? Terror? Fear? The adrenaline must be pumping to stop him from being hit by a bullet. The one thing that’s not going through his mind at that moment is peace and contentment. Obviously, it’s a bit difficult to be content when someone’s shooting at you, right?

And yet that in a sense is how many people are living their lives, because they’re so worried about what other people think of them. They’re so concerned about their reputation. They’re worried about what people are saying behind their backs, and all that comes from the fact that we want people to think well of us and to speak well of us and to like us. We worry about our reputations more often than we worry about whether or not we’re doing the right thing, and whether or not our lives are honouring God.

I can again speak with some authority on this, because I used to be really concerned with what other people thought about me. Well, I can tell you, if that still bothered me, I wouldn’t be able to do what I’m doing now. Some guy’s put a video clip up on YouTube claiming I’m a heretic. As well as lots of encouraging phone calls and letters and e-mails, I get the odd rude one or disparaging one too and … well the odd video on YouTube. If those things got to me, I simply wouldn’t be able to keep on going.

The miracle in my life is that God transformed me from someone who tried to be everything to everyone to someone who’s content with who I am and probably more importantly, who I’m not; what I can do, and what I can’t do. I (like you) have strengths and weaknesses, and I’ve come to grips with the fact that some things I’m just not good at, but it wasn’t always like that for me.

And so, when you try to be everything to everyone, when you’re running around keeping up appearances, man, that is seriously hard work! That’s exhausting, and it was only when I started feeling safe in Jesus that I started caring less and less what people thought of me and said of me. I’m me, and do you know what? I do my best; often times I say things as God tells it through the Bible, and that seems to be out-of-step with contemporary thinking. Well, that’s it. Can’t be any more or less than I am.

The problem comes when our reputation is more important to us than our relationship with Jesus. Let me say that again because it’s important: The problem comes when our reputation is more important to us than our relationship with Jesus. The problem comes when we go looking for glory for us, and we forget that God doesn’t share His glory with any man, which is precisely the point that Jesus made in a powerful way. Have a listen to this (John 5:30-47):

I can do nothing on my own (said Jesus). As I hear, I judge, and my judgment is just because I seek to do not My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.

You see, if I testified about Myself, My testimony wouldn’t be true. There is another who testifies on My behalf, and I know that His testimony to Me is true. You sent messengers to John, and he testified to the truth: Not that I accept such human testimony, but I say these things so that you may be saved. He was a burning and shining lamp, and you were willing to rejoice for a while in his light, but I have a testimony greater than John’s. The works that the Father has given Me to complete, the very works that I am now doing, testify on My behalf that the Father sent Me. And the Father who sent Me has Himself testified on My behalf. You have never heard His voice or seen His form, and you do not have His Word abiding in you because you do not believe in the One whom He sent. 

You go searching the Scriptures because you think that in them, you have eternal life, and yet it’s they that testify on My behalf, yet you refuse to come to Me to have life. I don’t accept glory from human beings, but I know that you do not have the love of God in you. I have come in My Father’s name and you do not accept Me. If another comes in his own name, you will accept him. How can you believe when you accept glory from one another and don’t seek the glory that comes from the One who alone is God?

The point that Jesus is making here is that He’s not here to build an empire. He’s not here to build Himself up into an empire to be weighted on hand and foot. He’s not here to get more disciples than the other Rabbis although, in the end, that’s exactly what’s happened. Jesus came to do His Father’s bidding, and when people (those people with whom He was speaking) didn’t accept Him as the Son of God, He knew precisely why it was: He put His finger right on the problem. Let me read it to you again – the last verse (verse 47). Jesus asked this question:

‘How can you believe when you accept glory from one another and you don’t seek the glory that comes from the One who alone is God?’

Good question! Right question! If people are seeking their own glory from one another – accolades and awards and pats on the backs and compliments, it’s a sure sign that they’re more interested in their own glory than God’s glory.

A little later, Jesus said to His disciples: ‘The time has come for the Son of Man to be glorified’. Do you know what He was talking about? He was predicting His crucifixion. To Jesus, being glorified means sacrificing everything for you and me, and now He sits at the right hand of the Father.

One of the reasons that so many people aren’t content is because they’re chasing the glory of men, the glory of their own reputations. And because people are fickle, you end up riding a rollercoaster of public opinion. That’s no way to find contentment, is it? So long as you worry about your reputation, and what other people think and what other people say, you can never be content … ever, and Jesus knew that. That’s why He said to them: ‘I don’t accept glory from human beings’. Elsewhere John records that Jesus, on His part (John 2:24-25):

Would not entrust Himself to men because He knew all people and needed no one to testify about Him, for He Himself knew what was in everyone.

So, who were the ‘Them’ that He didn’t entrust Himself to? The crowds that were following Him because they saw all the miracles He was doing. In other words, He didn’t get sucked in by all the people who were oohing and ahhing at His miracles because He knew that they were the very same people who would one day be shouting: ‘Crucify Him’.

Yes, we have relationships. Yes, we trust those whom we love, and our close friends. Yes, we listen to trusted advisors who come to us and tell us some hard things sometimes about ourselves … That’s how it should be, but the fickle opinions of people who are serving their own needs, the completely valueless taunts and words of flattery from people who themselves don’t have a strong and decent character, are not the yardsticks for our performance.

If we listen to them, then we’re no different to the cowboy dancing to the shots of the bad guy in the western movies. The only yardstick to measure who we are, and whether we’re living a good life or not, is God; and we find His yardstick, His measure, in His Word the Bible. The beauty of that is that His Word is true, and when we fail, and when we fall short, you and I (in Him) – we have forgiveness, through the grace of Jesus Christ. Mate, that’s where you find contentment. Nowhere else.

Not everybody on this planet is meant to get married. Some will stay single all their lives. Others will find themselves single again, through marriage breakdown, or the death of their spouse. Question is – can a single person be content?

Finding Contentment in Singleness

The last time we talked about marriage and family on the program … last year I think it was … I had a number of requests from single people to talk about singleness. So today, as we chat about contentment again, I thought that that would be a great thing to do.Because there are some people who don’t want to be married. There are some people who were never meant to be married.

I was having dinner just the other night with a bunch of my classmates from the Royal Military College Duntroon.Now, we graduated from the college over 30 years ago, as officers in the Australian army, so it had been a while. One of the guys, a great bloke, salt of the earth, has never been married. He lives on a yacht on a marina, and works at one of the large, free to air TV stations.

Now, this guy is a live wire – he’s always been that and he always will be. Some would call him eccentric. He is totally content being who he is, being single and I doubt he will ever get married. Knowing him as I do, can I tell you, I think that’s the right choice for him.

No, I am not saying that everyone who’s single is slightly eccentric. It’s just one example. But I think sometimes the rest of us – the ones who are married – sometimes we think that people who have never been married and are never likely to be married are a little bit odd. But that’s not the case.

Some people are meant to be married and others aren’t. That’s exactly what Jesus said. Matthew chapter 19, verses 9 to 11:

And I say to you, whoever divorces his wife, except for unfaithfulness, and marries another commits adultery. So His disciples said to him, ‘Well if that’s the case, isn’t it better not to get married.’ But he said to them, ‘Not everyone can accept that teaching, but only those to whom it is given’.

And so to me, when it comes to contentment and the decision to be married or single, that’s the key. Some can accept the idea of being single. They like the idea of remaining single, and so it’s an awesome choice for them. As we’ll see in a moment, it frees them up to get focussed on God’s work without any restrictions or limitations. The rest of us need to see that as a perfectly valid choice.

Others, like me, can’t accept that. I am not one to remain single. And so those people should seek out a wife or a husband as the case may be and get married. And again that’s exactly what the Apostle Paul says, expounding a bit on what Jesus said. Let’s have a read, 1 Corinthians chapter 7, verses 1 to 9:

Now concerning the matters about which you wrote: ‘It is well for a man not to touch a woman.’ But because of cases of sexual immorality, each man should have his own wife and each woman should have her own husband. The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights, and likewise the wife to her husband. For the wife does not have authority over her own body, but the husband does; likewise the husband does not have authority over his own body, but the wife does. Do not deprive one another except perhaps by agreement for a set time, to devote yourselves to prayer, and to come together again, so that Satan may not tempt you because of your lack of self-control. This I say by way of concession, not of a command. I wish that all were as I myself am. But each has a particular gift from God, one having one kind and another having a different kind. To the unmarried and to the widows I say that it is well for them to remain unmarried as I am. But if they are not practicing self-control, then they should marry. For it is better to marry than to be aflame with passion.

Some people might be surprised about the fact that the Bible is so direct about sexuality, but hey, our sexuality is a big part of who we are. And as we chatted about this the other day, we saw that God’s plan is not for us to fulfil our sexual needs in a casual relationship. Sex is an amazing gift from God … it was, after all, His idea … and so He knows that we are designed for physical intimacy to occur in an exclusive bond that we call marriage.

Not everyone has that need. Paul makes the point that he himself was single – I wish you all were as I am. Why? Because as a single person you can very easily go and serve the Lord wherever He may call. And that’s the key. Come back to it, God made me, God made you. He chose one life for me, he chose another life for you. We are all perfectly made to live the life that God’s chosen for us and that’s the life we should be living. Again, the Apostle Paul – 1 Corinthians chapter 7, verse 17:

However that may be, let each of you lead the life that the Lord has assigned, to which God has called you. This is my rule in all the churches.

I’ve been in churches where single people aren’t included in family barbecues, somehow they’re shunned. I’ve seen it, perhaps you’ve seen it too. And those of you who are single have no doubt experienced it. I’ve experienced it from the receiving end.

I was single and 36 years old, and often after church on Sundays, a few families would head off and go and have a BBQ together. And they wouldn’t think to invite me along – because I was single. I didn’t have a family at the time. That really hurts. Some churches have singles ministries – well, fair enough, but it’s almost as though we put singles over there in one corner and segregate them from families.

When you think about it, it’s pretty crazy, because if there’s one thing a single person needs, it’s other people around them. So I say to those who are single, if you are content being single, for goodness sake, stay single.

Singleness is not a disease. It’s something that God chooses for some people, and it’s a high calling indeed, as it was for the Apostle Paul. It can be an absolutely wonderful way to live your life. It can be a completely satisfying way to live your life. In fact the worst thing that a person can do who feels called to be single is to get married and I think that life would be just a nightmare.

But if you’re not content being single, then as Jesus says, the Apostle Paul says, for goodness sakes, get married so that you can be completely fulfilled. Do what God made you to do. Be who God made you to be. Live the life that the Lord has assigned, to which He has called you.

One of the most difficult things is the situation though where someone finds themselves single again, either through the death of a loved one, or through marriage breakdown and divorce. We don’t have time to go into the single–again situation fully today. But I promise that one day in the not too distant future we will do that.

But for the rest of us, we need to understand that those who were once married and now find themselves single again, they need our special love and care and understanding and support. People who have been divorced have typically been through a painful and bloody separation. It hurts terribly when this special, God–anointed relationship between husband and wife, which was meant to last a lifetime, is torn apart.

Is divorce a sin? Sure it is. But so are a lot of other things. And sin always hurts and special compassion is required to love someone through that.

Those who have lost their husband or wife too, they need our love and attention, particularly let me say, the widows, for whom God has a very special heart. Psalm 68, verse 5 said that the:

Father of the fatherless and the protector of the widows is God in his holy habitation.

So, if you know someone who is single again, for whatever reason, there is an opportunity … a great opportunity to show the love and the mercy and the compassion of God. Because the transition from being married to being single is a tough one, as anyone who’s ever been through it will tell you.

And to all you singles out there – be content as you have so much time to spend with the Lord, to draw close to the Lord, to experience His presence in a unique and beautiful way. Let Him be your all in all and cherish greatly your time with the Lord.

A Thankful Heart

You’ve had that experience right? Things are going along okay, but then something happens, at home or at work or maybe, it’s just something going on in your heart, and the contentment you once had … bingo! … it’s gone.

Have you ever stubbed your toe? You know, whack, you hit your big toe on a brick or something. Ouch! It hurts. The rest of your body is fine – your head’s good, your eyes, your ears, your mouth – tick. Arms and legs, fine. Torso, nothing damaged, nothing hurting there. It’s just this one little part of your body, your big toe that is throbbing. And so, despite the fact that every other part of you is fine, all your attention goes to your throbbing toe. And your sense of wellbeing has just evaporated in an instant. All the other good things that were going on around you are completely forgotten as you focus on your aching toe.

Well that’s how it often is with our sense of contentment. You look around – the hilltops and the valleys, the nice sunny happy bits, and the not so sunny and unhappy bits – and your attention has this habit of focussing, of fixating if you will, on the one thing that’s not going well in your life.

You’ve done it, I’ve done it, and it’s a really common thing that happens to us. If we weighed our whole life, all the blessings that God has given us, in the overall scheme of things we should be content, but you know … It’s like that throbbing toe, we just can’t get our minds off that one thing, and that one thing is robbing us of our contentment.

It might be a bit of tension at work, maybe you have a difficult boss, or a peer who’s been undermining you. Perhaps one of your children is going through a really difficult phase in their lives, or your wife or your husband isn’t turning out to be all that you’d hoped for. Or maybe it’s something really big, and you feel like it’s closing in on you, like you’re in a dungeon.

So, what’s the answer? How can you move from discontent to contentment? Well, I’d like to take you into a dungeon to show you how Paul and Silas did it.

They’d healed a slave girl who had a spirit of divination, and as a result, people weren’t too happy because the owners used to make money out of her, so…

The crowd joined in attacking them, and the magistrates had them stripped of their clothing and ordered them to be beaten with rods. After they had given them a severe flogging, they threw them into prison and ordered the jailer to keep them securely. Following these instructions, he put them in the innermost cell and fastened their feet in the stocks.

Well, about midnight Paul and Silas are praying and singing hymns to God, and all the other prisoners were listening to them. But suddenly there was an earthquake, so violent that the foundations of the prison were shaken; and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone’s chains fell off.

When the jailer woke up and saw the prison doors wide open, he drew his sword and he was about to kill himself, because he thought that all the prisoners had escaped. But Paul shouted in a loud voice, ‘Don’t hurt yourself, we are all here.’

The jailer called for lights, and rushing in, he fell down trembling before Paul and Silas. Then he brought them outside saying, ‘Sirs, what must I do to be saved?’ They answered, ‘Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved, you and your whole household.’

They spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. And at the same hour of the night he took them and washed their wounds; and then he and his entire family were baptized without delay. He brought them up into the house and set food before them; and he and his entire household rejoiced that he had become a believer in God. (Acts chapter 16, verses 22 to 34)

So, Paul and Silas had done the right thing, but a crowd had attacked them because no good deed ever goes unpunished, right? They are arrested, they are severely flogged, they are thrown into prison, into the innermost cell, with their feet in stocks.

There you go! That would be enough to rob you and me of our peace and contentment for the day wouldn’t it? I suspect that if we were in that prison cell, with our wounds aching, we’d be angry, or hurt, or afraid – asking God what the blazes was going on, even sometimes shaking our fists at the Lord. That might be a natural reaction. But Paul and Silas, around midnight we are told, were praying and singing hymns!

PRAYING AND SINGING HYMNS!!!! Can you believe that? They were worshipping God. They were living through this misery with thankful hearts … and the rest is history. God came and busted them out of prison – there is such power in praise and thankfulness.

When we rise above our circumstances, when we lift up our hearts and worship our Lord, He has the power to break us out of our prison of despair.

The rest was history. The jailer was saved, he cares for them, he feeds them, he washes their wounds, his whole household is saved and the next morning they are released.

The single, most unnatural act when we’re in that dungeon with our feet in stocks, is to praise God, to pray, to sing songs, to lift our hearts, to lift our eyes, to lift our hands heavenward and worship God. But that’s exactly what we need to do! Because that act of worship is music to God’s ears. That act of worship from the heart is how we connect with the Lord amidst our desperate circumstances. That act of worship is what so often triggers a powerful intervention from God, to change everything.

The number of times, in my life, when I’ve been sitting in my usual chair in my study, early in the morning, facing this issue or that issue, and I’ve just taken Him at His word and started to worship Him and started to give thanks and started to praise Him, even though that’s the last thing I felt like doing, the number of times He has come and broken me out of my prison cell of despair … well, I’ve just simply lost count.

God shows up every time. I get up and I walk away from those encounters with a sense of joy and peace and contentment, despite the circumstances. To me, it’s like a miracle. How does God do that? I’m really not sure, but He does. He does it again and again and again.

The way we move on from our discontentment is to worship God. It’s that simple. And if you don’t believe me – try it. It works.

It happened to Paul a second time, some years later. He was in a Roman prison, chained to his guard, awaiting his death sentence. Now this short passage from Philippians chapter 4, verses 6 and 7 is going to be familiar to many, but there are two words that I bet you’ve glossed over, as I did for many years. Two words that change everything! Paul says:

Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Did you pick which two words I was talking about? – ‘with thanksgiving’ is the key. How often do we go to the Lord with a problem and we grumble and we complain, as though He’s some call centre operator who can fix a problem with our bank accounts? I don’t know, but I imagine He must get sick of the stinking attitudes from us over and over again as we grumble and complain: ‘Oh God, what are You doing?’

His call is to go to Him with thanksgiving in our hearts, with thanksgiving on our lips, with a sense of wonder and anticipation at what He’s going to do, with a sense of expectation over the good things that He’s going to do. And like any good dad, when He sees one of His kids coming to Him with the right heart, with the right attitude – with an attitude of faith – He can’t help Himself.

In His great and mighty heart filled with boundless love for us, God can’t help Himself. He has to act, because He loves us. And just at the right time He’ll bust you out of your prison of despair and discontentment. He’ll break the shackles that hold you; He’ll set you free with joy and with peace and with contentment in your heart.

He’s such a wonderful God. He loves you so much. Go to Him with thanksgiving in your heart.

Complacency versus Contentment

Well over these last few weeks we’ve been talking a lot … an awful lot … about being content. God’s plan is for us to be content. In His scheme of things, He places a very high value indeed on your contentment and mine. 1 Timothy chapter 6, verse 6, the Apostle Paul writes this:

Of course there is great gain in godliness combined with contentment.

Contentment is about not needing or wanting the next fix, whatever it is, that you happen to be addicted to. As we saw last week, girls (or guys as the case may be), gold and glory are three things that we can so easily become addicted to and ensnared by, and they’re just three of the things that we can get hooked on. There are plenty more.

Whenever we’re hooked on one particular sin … our Achilles heel if you will … we’re always going to be robbed of contentment. Contentedness is that thing that we feel when we’re happy to accept who we are (and who we aren’t), what we have (and what we don’t have), what we’re capable of doing (and what we’re not capable of doing). It’s independent of our circumstances and contentment is always accompanied by godliness. In fact there’s a cause and effect relationship: no godliness, no contentment.

That’s why sin always robs us of contentment.

But I don’t for one minute want you to think that I’m promoting complacency. These are two entirely different things. What I’m not talking about is becoming a spiritual couch potato and just sitting there and not striving to achieve anything and not engaging with the problems of life and not serving other people and not sacrificing to do the Lord’s work.

We’re so easily lulled into this false idea that contentment happens when everything in our little universe is going exactly as we please. Hah! Then we can relax. Then we can sit back. Then we can enjoy life, without stretching ourselves, without being challenged, without even beginning to think about what the Lord wants us to do with our lives; who He wants us to help; what the sacrifices are in following Him.

Jesus made it very clear, that if anyone wants to follow Him, then he or she should take up their cross and follow Him. In other words, be prepared to make sacrifices; be prepared for it to be hard and challenging and painful. And be prepared to give your whole life over to Him. Because if you try to save your life, you’re going to lose it. But if you are prepared to lose your life for His sake, Jesus sake, then you’ll save it.

That’s a paradox that applies to life and it’s a paradox that applies equally to this all too elusive (for some) thing called contentment. Because, the more we try and go the easy road, the comfortable road, the road that we’ve been told leads to contentment, the less contented we become.

The more we stuff ourselves with STUFF, the more bloated and listless and discontented we become. The more we try to use what we have to look after ourselves, the more elusive and fleeting contentment becomes. I come back to it again what the Apostle Paul said in 1 Corinthians chapter 7, verse 17:

However that may be, let each of you lead the life that the Lord has assigned, to which God has called you.

At the end of the day, contentment only happens when we’re living the life that God’s called us to. The one He chose for us before time began. The one He handcrafted us, purpose built us to live. You and I know square pegs do not fit in round holes, yet all too many people are trying to remake themselves in the world’s image, when all along they were formed in God’s image.

You were made to be you. You were made to be good at what you’re good at, and lousy at what you’re lousy at. You were made specifically to live the life that God has planned for you. So go and be you, go and live that life.

The only one that’s going to work for you is the life that God has assigned to you. The one where you won’t find the pot of contentment at the end of the rainbow. No, that’s not how it works. Because if you live the life that God chose for you, He will give you His contentment on the journey. It’s just the way He does it.