Learn Contentment Through Christ (Part 1)

Sermon Transcript

“When peace, like a river, attendeth my way, When sorrows like sea billows roll; Whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say, It is well, it is well with my soul.” Those are the opening words to one of the best known hymns in the history of the Christian Church: It Is Well With My Soul. The author, Horatio G. Spafford, was a devout Christian layman from Chicago. Spafford was also a very wealthy man, having established a successful legal practice as a young businessman. However, Spafford invested a significant portion of his wealth in real estate along Lake Michigan’s shoreline, and he lost everything overnight in the great Chicago Fire of 1871. Having. Just before he lost his wealth, his son died. But it would get worse for Spafford. Hymnologist Kenneth Osbeck tells the story: “Desiring a rest for his wife and four daughters as well as wishing to join and assist Moody and [his musician Ira] Sankey in one of their campaigns in Great Britain, Spafford planned a European trip for his family in 1873. In November of that year, due to unexpected last-minute business developments, he had to remain in Chicago, but sent his wife and four daughters on ahead as scheduled on the S.S. Ville du Havre. He expected to follow in a few days. On November 22 the ship was struck by the Lochearn, an English vessel, and sank in twelve minutes. Several days later the survivors were finally landed at Cardiff, Wales, and Mrs. Spafford cabled her husband, ‘Saved alone.’” Spafford left Chicago right away to join his wife. It is said that Spafford wrote “It Is Well With My Soul” as his ship approached the area of the ocean where the ship carrying his now deceased daughters had sunk. In his most painful moment, he wrote a hymn that is a prayer, “When peace, like a river, attendeth my way, When sorrows like sea billows roll; Whatever my lot, thou hast taught me to say, It is well, it is well with my soul.” Those are the words of a man who learned to be content in God in all circumstances. We revere that kind of contentment, we respect & admire it, but even more we long to experience for ourselves. We long to be able to say with the Apostle Paul in Philippians 4:11, “Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content.” That’s what this month is all about.

We began to learn contentment by discovering what true contentment really is and why contentment is a treasure worth digging for. Our working definition is, “Christian contentment is a peaceful heart attitude that delights in God’s Fatherly wisdom in all circumstances.” Let’s slow down on that definition for the sake of review. We’ve learned that Christian contentment is, first of all, an inward thing, a peaceful heart attitude. Contentment is not having a peaceful looking demeanor while a storm is brewing on the inside. Rather, it’s a quiet heart even when you have a noisy life. Of course, it’s important to keep in mind that a peaceful heart isn’t opposed to feeling afflicted, it’s not opposed to unburdening your heart to God and a trusted friend, and a peaceful heart is definitely not opposed to using God-pleasing means to improve your life or change your circumstances. However, a peaceful heart is opposed to allowing your circumstances to lead you into a place of deep, sinking discouragement that distracts you from your God-given responsibilities or leads you to seek relief through means that don’t please God. It’s a peaceful heart attitude. Secondly, we’ve learned that contentment is not self-mastery, rather it’s a peaceful heart attitude that delights in God’s Fatherly wisdom no matter how he chooses to order our circumstances. A content heart says with Jeremiah Burroughs, “The Lord knows how to order things better than I. The Lord sees further than I do: I only see things at present but the Lord sees a great while from now. And how do I know but that had it not been for this affliction, I should have been undone.” Contentment is a peaceful heart attitude as a result of delighting in God’s Fatherly wisdom, even when he wisely brings the waves of trials into our lives. As Spurgeon said, “I have learned to kiss the waves that throw me up against the Rock of Ages,” that is, Jesus Christ. Christian contentment is a rare treasure worth digging for. How wonderful and compelling it is to be a church who has learned to honestly say in all circumstances, “it is well with my soul.”

That’s where we’ve been. This morning and next Sunday our goal is to answer this question: How do we learn to be content in all circumstances? How we do we learn to have a peaceful quiet heart attitude that delights in God’s Fatherly wisdom in all circumstances? The answer is found in Philippians 4:12-13 – 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. We learn contentment through a person. That brings us to our big idea of our passage this morning and next week: Learn contentment through Christ (Part 1). Learn contentment through Christ. This morning we are going to explore five ways that we learn contentment through Christ. Five ways that Christ teaches us to be content in all circumstances. As usual, we’ll rely heavily on God’s word and The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment by Jeremiah Burroughs.

BE RECONCILED TO GOD

We can experience no peace unless we are in a right relationship with the God of peace. The WSC says, “The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.” Therefore, we cannot experience the peace of fulfilling our created purpose unless we are in a right relationship with God. We can only have a peaceful heart attitude that delights in God’s Fatherly wisdom in all circumstances if we’re in a right relationship with God, trusting Him as our Father. This truth reveals our biggest problem and the greatest barrier to contentment: alienation, separation from God. Each and everyone of us have sinned, we failed to do and be what God requires in his law, and the result is that we are all by nature and choice separated, alienated from God. We have no lasting peace because we don’t have peace with the God of peace. We cannot delight in God’s Fatherly wisdom if he’s not our Father.

That’s why the first way we learn contentment from Christ is by being reconciled to God through Christ. God is holy and just, we are sinful and separated, but Christ died to reconcile us into a peaceful relationship with God. Romans 5:1 – Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Justification is an act of God’s grace, where he forgives all our sins and declares us right with him, only because of the righteousness of Christ received as a gift through faith alone (inspired by WSC, 33). Since Jesus lived a perfectly righteous life on my behalf and died to take the penalty for all my sin, through faith in Him I’m declared at peace with God! Through faith in Jesus, God the Father treats you as though you’ve never sinned, are as righteous as Christ, and adopts you as his precious, beloved son or daughter. That’s the foundation for contentment: being reconciled to God as your Father who governs your every circumstance with perfect wisdom. Jeremiah Burroughs writes, “Before, the soul sought after this and that, but now it says, I see that it is not necessary for me to be rich, but it is necessary for me to make my peace with God; it is not necessary that I should live a pleasurable life in this world, but it is absolutely necessary that I should have pardon of my sin; it is not necessary that I should have honor and preferment, but it is necessary that I should have God as my portion, and have my part in Jesus Christ, it is necessary that my soul should be saved in the day of Jesus Christ.” Have you been reconciled to God through trusting only in what Jesus has done for you rather than what you do? A peaceful heart attitude is the result of being at peace with the God of peace. And you can go forward into contentment each day by going backward into your justification.

DENY YOURSELF

Self denial is central to Christian faith. Jesus said, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. [25] For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matthew 16:24-25). Jeremiah Burroughs says that self-denial is the first lesson that Christ teaches a person in the school of contentment because self-denial softens your heart. Jeremiah Burroughs writes, “You know how when you strike something soft it makes no noise, but if you strike a hard thing it makes a noise; so with the hearts of men who are full of themselves, and hardened with self-love, if they receive a stroke they make a noise, but a self-denying Christian yields to God’s hand, and makes no noise.” Christ teaches us contentment by telling us to take up our cross and die to ourselves daily. A self-denying heart is soft and can remain quiet even when struck by afflictions. Burroughs is correct when he writes, “A man who is little in his own eyes will account every affliction as little, and every mercy as great…There was never any man or woman so contented as a self-denying man or woman.” The path to having a peaceful heart attitude that delights in God’s Fatherly wisdom in all circumstances is the path of self-denial.

What does self-denial on a daily basis actually look like? At core it looks like melting your will into God’s will. Self-denial looks like praying each morning and all day as Jesus taught us, “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10). A peaceful heart attitude in all circumstances comes as we pray for God’s will to be done and make what he does what we will. I love Burroughs insight, “It is by this that a gracious heart gets contentment; he melts his will into God’s, for he says, ‘If God has glory, I have glory; God’s glory is my glory, and therefore God’s will is mine; if God has riches, then I have riches; if God is magnified, then I am magnified; if God is satisfied, then I am satisfied; God’s wisdom and holiness is mine, and therefore his will must needs be mine, and my will must needs be his.’ This is the art of a Christian’s contentment: he melts his will into the will of God… Simple example: I am tempted to have a noisy heart about Citylight’s facility build-out on Main Street taking longer than we planned. However, when I deny myself, take hold of the reality that it’s ultimately God’s will that it takes longer than I planned, and his will is really what I want and my will, then my heart begins to quiet. Quiet your heart each day through actively melting your will into God’s will.

PRAISE GOD IN YOUR TRIALS

When Jesus taught his disciples to pray, the first words he taught them to say in Matthew 6:9 were, “hallowed by your name.” That’s how Christ teaches us to have a peaceful heart attitude that delights in God’s fatherly wisdom in all circumstances. Burroughs put it this way: “For if a man is to be free from discontent and worry it is not enough merely not to murmur but you must be active in sanctifying God’s name in the affliction.” This active praising God’s name in your afflictions is what separates Christian contentment from self-mastery, a resolution to not be othered, or simply having a laid back personality. We learn true contentment by praising God’s name in our trials, by actively kissing the waves that throw us up against the Rock of Ages, Jesus Christ. James the brother of Jesus provides some very practical guidance for praising God in your trials. He writes, “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness” (James 1:2). Notice that James does not say, “praise God when you finally see how God has worked your trial for a good purpose.” It’s easy to be content when you see how your trials have worked out for good. But James says that we should count it all joy as soon as we meet the trial, not after we see the blessing in it. That’s the lesson that we learn from Horatio Spafford. He didn’t write It Is Well With My Soul after he saw the good that God was working through the death of his daughters. He wrote it right when he met the place of greatest tragedy and his greatest affliction. One of my greatest longings for myself and for our church as a result of our study in contentment is that we’ll develop an entirely new knee jerk reaction to our trials and afflictions, from the lightest to the heaviest of them. My prayer is that Citylight will be a church full of people whose knee jerk reaction to affliction is right away, immediate praise to God because he sees further, purposes better, and how do we know that if it weren’t for this affliction, we’d be undone.

SEEK FIRST GOD’S KINGDOM

A peaceful heart that delights in God’s Fatherly wisdom in all circumstances is not the result of ruminating on the circumstances that you wish you had, nor is it the result of anxiously worrying about your life. It’s the result of seeking God’s kingdom first when you are brought low and when you abound. As our Lord said, “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? …But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” (Matthew 6:25, 33). Here is the paradox: contentment doesn’t come from changing your circumstances, but from seeking God’s kingdom first in your circumstances. Of course, feel free to use all God-pleasing means to change your circumstances and improve your life. That’s valuable, but it’s not the way to having a content heart that delights in God’s Fatherly wisdom in all circumstances. Contentmentment doesn’t come from changing your circumstances, but from performing the duties of your circumstances. Burroughs writes, “And the truth is, I know nothing more effective for quieting a Christian soul and getting contentment than this, setting your heart to work in the duties of the immediate circumstances that you are now in, and taking heed of your thoughts about other conditions as a mere temptation.” Contentment in marriage doesn’t fundamentally result from changing your marriage or fantasizing about what it might be like to be married to someone else. That’s the path to even more discontent. Contentment results from setting your heart to work in the duties you have as a husband toward your wife or wife toward your husband right now.

COMPARE THE DURATION OF THE TRIAL TO THE DURATION OF GLORY

In Romans 8:18, Paul writes, “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.” In other words, the way that we get a content, peaceful heart attitude that delights in God’s Fatherly wisdom in all circumstances is by actively comparing the duration of our present trials to the duration of eternal life with our Father and how joyful it will be. Imagine the peaceful heart attitude we could have through this active comparison. When the baby won’t sleep, or the career won’t take off, or the boss won’t relent, or the co-workers won’t stop gossiping, or the temptation won’t relent, or the loved ones health won’t recover, or the tragedy strikes or the cool people won’t include you, or the mean people won’t leave you alone, you say to your Father, “This hurts and it’s terrible. However, I know that the longest it can last is one lifetime. Through the grace of Christ, I will never suffer except in this brief life. And then I’ll be with you forever. You’ll wipe away my every tear, you’ll always take me in, your words will always build me, and at your right hand I’ll experience pleasures forevermore. Compared to that, what I am going through is light and momentary. Calm and quiet my soul in your eternal arms.” This is the one comparison that kills discontentment. As Burroughs says, “One drop of the sweetness of heaven is enough to take away all the sourness and bitterness of all the afflictions in the world.”