Learn Contentment Through Christ (Part 2)

Sermon Transcript

If you’ve been tracking our study of contentment over the last three weeks, then you know that I love The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment written by the English Puritan Jeremiah Burroughs. This morning I want to tell you about Burroughs the man. Burroughs was a pastor during the English Civil War of the 1600’s. The war was brutal. It lasted about a decade and 200,000 people lost their lives in the British Isles. During the war, Jeremiah Burroughs pastored what was called non-conformist congregation; a church that would not conform to the tyrannical religious practices demanded by King Charles I. Rosaria Butterfield, in her excellent book Five Lies of our Anti-Christian Age, writes that because Burroughs was a non-conforming pastor, he was in constant danger of arrest, imprisonment, and even execution. Can you imagine the anxiety of waking up each day wondering if it was the day you’d be forced out of your job, be thrown in jail, or worse? Can you imagine the pressure you’d feel to comply and conform to the king’s demands? Burroughs didn’t conform. What I find most fascinating about Burroughs is what he chose to preach about to his congregation suffering under religious tyranny. He didn’t preach to them about religious liberty. He didn’t preach to them about when to practice civil disobedience. He preached a sermon series on contentment. Why? Because Christian contentment puts steel in your spine in an age of bendy conformity, compromise and cowardice. Contentment is peace independent of your circumstances and when you have it, you can face even the heaviest suffering or most alluring temptation without compromise. Citylight Church – We too are living in an age of bendy conformity, compromise, and cowardice. We need the rare jewel of Christian contentment.

Let’s briefly review what contentment is and is not. Christian contentment is a peaceful heart attitude that delights in God’s Fatherly wisdom in all circumstances. It’s a Peaceful Heart Attitude. Contentment is having a peaceful, quiet heart attitude, even when you have a noisy life. Now, that does not mean that contentment is opposed to feeling afflicted, is not opposed to unburdening your heart to God or a friend, and it’s certainly not opposed to using God-pleasing means to change your circumstances or improve your life. However, a peaceful heart attitude is opposed to letting circumstances unsettle you in a way that distracts you from your God-given responsibilities or leads you to complain and seek relief in ways that don’t please God. It’s a peaceful heart attitude because it delights in God’s Fatherly wisdom. A content heart says with 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 delights in God’s fatherly wisdom no matter what he wisely brings. As Charles Spurgeon once wrote, “O dear friend, when your grief presses you to the very dust, worship there!” Christian contentment is a peaceful heart attitude that delights in God’s Fatherly wisdom in all circumstances.

How do we learn contentment? We’ll never arrive, but how do we make progress in learning contentment? 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. That brings us to the big idea of our passage this morning, and it’s part two of the big idea from last week: Learn contentment through Christ. How do we learn contentment through Christ? We explored five ways las week and we’ll explore four more this morning.

GRASP GOD’S PROVIDENCE

We learn contentment by grasping, by taking hold of the truth of God’s providence. Providence means, as one reformed theologian puts it, that God “works out all things, not just some things, according to the counsel of His will.” God has a plan and purpose for this world and he works everything – from the smallest to the greatest – for the achievement of that purpose. That’s God’s providence – he governs all things according to the counsel of his will and the good of those who love him. If you do not have a steady grasp of the doctrine of God’s providence, you’ve got no chance of learning contentment. How can you have a peaceful heart attitude that delights in God’s fatherly wisdom in all circumstances unless you grasp by faith that God is wisely governing all things, not some things? The Lord Jesus Christ connects God’s providence to our contentment this way: Matthew 10:29-31 – Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father. [30] But even the hairs of your head are all numbered. [31] Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows. God’s perfect providence extends even to the sparrow, therefore, have a peaceful heart attitude; you are of more value than many sparrows. Grasp onto the doctrine of God’s providence everyday and you’ll learn to have a peaceful heart attitude that delights in God’s fatherly governance of all things.

Why is grasping God’s providence by faith each day so important for learning contentment? A few reasons. First, grasping God’s providence provides perspective. Grasping God’s providence reminds us that our lives are like a mosaic; a piece of heart made up of many small pieces. We only see the small pieces of our circumstances up close and, like a Mosaic, the pieces often look meaningless. However, our Father sees the whole beautiful picture that he is working every piece toward. Providence provides perspective. As Burroughs says, “Not only in good things does a Christian have the dew of God’s blessing, and find them very sweet to him, but in all the afflictions, all the evils that befall him, he can see love, and can enjoy the sweetness of love in his afflictions as well as in his mercies. The truth is that the afflictions of God’s people come from the same eternal love that Jesus Christ came from.” Second, grasping God’s providence helps us learn contentment by teaching us to take the blessings and mercies of life personally. Blessings and mercies aren’t a given, they’re a gift. Friends – never just eat a steak, never just enjoy an evening of fellowship with friends, never just get a raise, never just go on a date with a godly person, never just rock your baby to sleep. Instead say, “How good of God to give me this. It comes from his hand of providence.” Have a PhD level understanding of God’s blessings and it will give you a quiet heart attitude that delights in God’s Fatherly providence in all circumstances. As Martin Luther once wrote, “The sea of God’s mercies should swallow up all our particular afflictions.” Finally, grasping God’s providence helps us make a favorable interpretation of our circumstances. The doctrine of God’s providence helps us believe the best about God, even when things aren’t going our way. A young girl should not say, “why isn’t my coat as long as my older sister’s.” She should make a favorable interpretation: my parents must be withholding the coat I love because they know I’ll trip over it. Grasping God’s providence helps us believe the best about God. So, when a trial or annoyance comes, keep a peaceful heart by saying, “are not two sparrows sold for a penny? And not one of them falls apart from my Father. Heart, be at peace, I am more valuable to my Father than many sparrows.” And when you enjoy a mercy or blessing, whether large or small, never just experience it. Say, “how good of God to have given me___.” To keep a peaceful heart attitude that delights in God’s Fatherly wisdom in all circumstances, grasp God’s all-good, all-governing providence.

STAY IN CLOSE TOUCH WITH GOD

To learn to have a peaceful heart attitude that delights in God’s Fatherly wisdom in all circumstances, it’s not enough to grasp that God is governing all circumstances by his providence. It’s not enough to grasp his providence abstractly, to have a content heart we have to stay in close personal touch with God and enjoy friendship with Him. Second only to my epic wife Andrea, my best friend in all the world for the last twenty years is a man named Jeremy Hart. He and I talk on the phone from 6-7am every other Thursday. It’s a delight, not a chore, to stay in close touch with Jeremy. How much more of a delight to stay in close touch with God who made Jeremy. The God of the Bible is, among other things, called the God of peace. We learn to have a peaceful heart attitude in all circumstances by staying in close touch with the God of peace in all circumstances. Isaiah 26:3 – You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.

Since Jeremy lives in Ohio, the anchor for staying in close touch with Jeremy is our every other weekly scheduled phone call. Since our Father is in heaven, the anchor for staying in close touch with him is regular, even daily scheduled time together in prayer. When it comes to these scheduled daily times to stay in close touch with your Father, I’m a bigger believer in “back to the basics.” Our Father speaks to us through his written word, the Bible, and we speak back to him through prayer, which is pouring out our hearts to God in praise, petition, confession of sin and thanksgiving. Keep it simple; read the Bible and pray. Like my calls with Jeremy, put your time with God on the calendar and keep it like your most important appointment. Now, I know that most of you want to stay in close touch with God, but you find it really difficult to enjoy regularly scheduled time with him. God sees your heart. He knows your desire. He wants to help you. Ask him to help you keep your regular time to stay in close touch with him. Also, try to identify what the barrier is and talk to a Christian who has overcome it. If you’re a new mom and struggling to keep your time with God, talk to my wife or another woman who has kept their time with God through the little years. If you’ve got a busy job or high pressure degree program, talk to someone who kept their time with God through similar circumstances. If your phone eats away precious time with God, talk with someone who has overcome the phone. It’s worth it. Burroughs writes, “the reason why we are so troubled with our nakedness, with any wants that we have, is because we converse so little with God, so little with spiritual things; conversing with spiritual things would lift us above the things of the world. Those who are bitten or struck by a snake, it is because they tread on the ground; if they could be lifted up above the earth they need never fear being stung by the snakes which are crawling underneath.”

Now, we do not only stay in close touch with God through our daily, scheduled time with him. Jeremy and I stay in touch by texting in between our every other weekly calls. In the same way, we stay in close touch with God by letting our hearts out to him as soon as we are troubled by even the slightest thing. Burroughs writes, “Other men or women are discontented, but how do they help themselves? By abuse, by bad language. Someone crosses them, and they have no way to help themselves but by abuse and by bitter words, and so they relieve themselves in that way when they are angry. But when a godly man is crossed, how does he relieve himself? – He is aware of his cross as well as you, but he goes to God in prayer, and there opens his heart to God and lets out his sorrows and fears, and then can come away with a joyful countenance.” Stay in close touch with God by letting out your heart to him as soon as you’re troubled and taking hold of one of his promises. Learn contentment through Christ who died and rose to reconcile you to God so that you can stay in close touch with Him.

CONSIDER YOURSELF DEAD TO THIS WORLD

The Apostle wrote that he had learned to be brought low in this world and to abound in this world. He had learned how to be content in plenty, hunger, abundance, and need. How did Christ teach him that kind of contentment in this world? Through Christ, Paul had been crucified to this world. Galatians 6:14 – But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, by which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world. Paul learned to have a peaceful heart attitude that delights in God’s Fatherly wisdom in all circumstances by considering himself crucified, dead to this world. If you consider yourself dead to this world, then your heart can be quiet no matter what this world throws at you.

What does it look like, practically, to consider yourself dead to the world each day, so that you learn to have a peaceful heart attitude in all circumstances? First, it means that you do not promise yourself too much in this world. In 1 Timothy, Paul likens the Christian to a soldier. A soldier does not promise himself too much comfort in wartime. Burroughs writes, “Those who look at high things in the world meet with disappointments, and so they come to be discontented. Be as high as you will in spiritual meditations; God gives liberty there to any one of you to be as high as you will, above angels. But, for your outward estate, God would not have you aim at high things; ‘Seekest thou great things?’ said the Lord to Baruch, ‘seek them not’ (Jer. 45:5)…” Second, considering yourself dead to the world means not dwelling too much on your afflictions in this world. Burroughs writes, “Let not men and women pore too much upon their afflictions: that is, busy their thoughts too much to look down into their afflictions. You find many people, all of whose thoughts are taken up about what their crosses and afflictions are, they are altogether thinking and speaking of them. It is just with them as with a child who has a sore: his finger is always on the sore; so men’s and women’s thoughts are always on their afflictions…Oh, no marvel that you live a discontented life, if your thoughts are always poring over such things. You should rather labor to have your thoughts on those things that may comfort you.” One of the reasons why so many therapists can’t help you is because their techniques teach you to busy your thoughts with your afflictions, rather than busying your thoughts with Christ, his word, his comforting presence for every sorrow, and his promise to never leave or forsake you. Finally, considering yourself dead to this world means spending more thought and energy on killing your sin than removing your afflictions. Colossians 3:5 commands us to put to death what is earthly, sinful, in us. The more you seek to kill your sin, the more content you’ll be in all afflictions. Burroughs writes, “When a Christian is consumed with the burden of killing their sin, they will not be consumed with the burden of their affliction. By taking on the burden of our sins, we are relieved from the burden of our afflictions…if you so fall to bemoaning your sin before the Lord, you shall quickly find the burden of your affliction to be lighter than it was before. ” Consider yourself dead to this world and you will find growing within you a peaceful heart attitude that delights in God’s Fatherly wisdom no matter what happens to you in this world.

EXERCISE FAITH

When it comes to learning contentment, reason is incredibly important. We must grasp God’s providence and reason it down into our hearts. We must stay in close touch with God, filling our hearts with him so that they’re too heavy to be shaken. We must consider ourselves, reason ourselves, dead to this world, but when reason won’t do the work, put faith to work. When reason won’t do the job, put faith to work and walk by faith, not by sight, into contentment. Burroughs writes, “What can you do by your faith? I can do this: I can in all states cast my care upon God, cast my burden upon God, I can commit my way to God in peace: faith can do this. Therefore, when reason can go no higher, let faith get on the shoulders of reason and say, ‘I see land though reason cannot see it, I see good that will come out of all this evil?” God the Father did not spare his own Son, but gave him up on the cross to save and forgive all who trust in Him. Since He gave his Son for you, he will give everything you need. By faith, you have a peaceful heart attitude that delights in God’s fatherly wisdom in all circumstances.