Your Business Shouldn't Run You: How True Contentment Changes Everything

Finding contentment in God's grace alone provides the foundation for running your business without letting it consume you. We explore how linking our emotional well-being to external circumstances creates an exhausting rollercoaster that conflicts with biblical teaching on sufficiency.

• 1 Timothy 6:6 reminds us there's much gain in godliness with contentment
• Challenging question: Is it God's grace plus something else equals contentment, or is grace alone sufficient?
• Perceived lack doesn't mean God isn't providing—He walks alongside us in wilderness seasons
• Our cup overflows when we find contentment in Christ, not in business outcomes
• This mindset shift requires daily recommitment, not just intellectual agreement
• God calls us to redeem culture by representing Christ well in our businesses

Look for ways this week to represent Christ well in your sphere of influence. Spend quality time with the Lord, don't isolate yourself, and pursue Him above all else.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Kingdom Business
• 0:34 Running Business Without Being Run
• 1:40 Grace Plus What Equals Contentment?
• 3:37 God's Provision in Wilderness Seasons
• 5:14 Finding True Sufficiency in Christ
• 6:32 Called to Redeem Culture

Transcript

Speaker 0: 0:00

What's up, guys? This is Matt with Avoda Talk, or the real Matt Walton. This is your hub for all things Kingdom business business as ministry business strategy. My goal is to provide as much value, minute by minute, each podcast that you listen to. So let's get to it. What's up, guys? This is Matt with Avoda Talk, or at the real Matt Walton, depending on how you found me. And today I want to specifically talk about how to run your business without your business running you, and I'm going to go off on some rabbit holes that are all going to tie back to this.

Speaker 0: 0:34

1 Timothy 6, verse 6 is an awesome verse to me. I just flipped out of it, but it says for there's much gain in godliness only when accompanied by contentment. I've really got to show me that verse a few weeks ago and, man, it really convicted me, because there's so many times when we can do things out of obedience to the Lord or maybe it can be almost become like a religious act, because we're like, well, we're praying, we're doing our quiet time, but are we content with where the Lord has us, and I think of Paul. I can be content with much or with very little, and that's really the desire of where I believe the Lord wants all of us to get to is even whenever we have perceived lacked, we're nothing but, or we're overflowing, excuse me, because who is overflowing us, who is filling us up, and that should be Jesus Christ, and I know so many times. We can start to pursue things outside of the Lord, within business or within our life, and start to allow ourselves to be fulfilled with those things, and then, when we're not getting the results that we believe that we should be getting, we can find ourselves going in this emotional roller coaster, and God wants for us, according to his scripture, to get out of this.

Speaker 0: 1:40

What God shared with me yesterday I spent some time with the Lord up in the mountains yesterday was Matt. Is it my grace is sufficient, plus, maybe, a new job? Is it my grace plus a new job equals contentment or equals sufficiency, or is it my grace alone, my love alone, that equals the contentment or sufficiency? So that is a question that I have for all of you. Does it require something external to come in for you to be content or for you to be sufficient or feel like you're overflowing? You find yourself in this emotional roller coaster and if you do, I believe that the Lord is speaking through me to you right now to try to get both of us to understand that there's much gain with the Lord when accompanied by contentment, and we can find ourselves pursuing the Lord but pursuing these other things over here, albeit they may not be bad, but God knows our heart, exactly why you're pursuing these things and if it's something that is not in alignment with what God wants you to do, you can find yourself feeling empty or feeling like maybe you have to fill yourself up with something. So again, is it grace plus business? Is it grace plus a new job? Equals contentment or equals sufficiency, or is it just God's grace and his mercy and his love alone that equals that sufficiency or contentment?

Speaker 0: 2:58

Understand that if you believe I know this is something that a lot of believers, I think we all, have an understanding that the Lord provides. We see this all throughout scripture that God provides for his people. But if your circumstances don't change, do you immediately go to the Lord did not provide, because there's so many times I share this with people whenever I'm evangelizing out on the streets we look for our circumstances to change and if they don't change, then God's not here. You know God left us alone and God's not here when, in reality, we are walking that path right alongside God and if we allow for God's grace, love and mercy to be sufficient, we will find our cup overflowing. And this is in alignment with what Jesus talked about in Matthew and we see the apostles talk about in some of the first Timothy Corinthians. First Peter talks about this what is your heart posture?

Speaker 0: 3:49

Know that if you believe that the Lord will provide, and maybe you're in that wilderness season before you enter into the promised land, or before you enter into the provision, if you are an emotional roller coaster or maybe an emotional wreck, or maybe you're taking things into your own hand, what God is sharing with me is, matt, I do not want you to be thinking about the possibility of what may come. I don't want you to be thinking well, I know that this is coming. So then, that aids in you feeling somewhat fulfilled. Again. What God continues to share with me is, matt, my grace and love and mercy are sufficient. It is the finished work of that cross, it is the fact that I love you so much that I have forgiven everything that you have done and will do. It is the fact that I have freedom that is available to you whenever you take on my yoke.

Speaker 0: 4:40

And no, it doesn't mean that things get easy. I think a lot of us have a real understanding that things sometimes, whenever we give our life to the Lord, can get a whole lot harder, but again, we have Jesus to walk right alongside us. So, man, I really hope that that encourages somebody today. I know that one of the things that God continues to press into me is just that, and anytime that I start to take things into my own hand, I can feel myself like running uphill. And you may ask yourself like it almost seems like nothing is working for me right now. It almost seems like everything that I dip my hand into. Maybe relationships aren't coming along like they should be, maybe people aren't answering their phone anymore. Maybe your phone is not ringing anymore. Maybe you don't have the jobs that you had at one time, maybe you just find yourself in a perceived lack. And then we look at scripture and we see that, regardless of all of that, if we really trust in the Lord and we really pursue the Lord, that we will find ourselves being overflowing. Our cup will overflow. So are you in that moment right now? And I'll say this too, like it can be a lot of times like daily thing, like easy for us to like write or read a book or do a podcast or listen to a podcast, and do it in those moments. Then, as soon as you step away from that, we can find ourselves like living that out fully.

Speaker 0: 6:03

It has to be a decision that you may have to make by day, week by week. Continue to press into the Lord, because there's great gain in godliness and contentment. It's not godliness plus another job, it's godliness plus contentment. This is what 1 Timothy 6, verse 6 talks about. And I want to ask one more time is God's grace sufficient? Is God's mercy sufficient? Is God's mercy sufficient? Is God's love sufficient, or does it have to be coupled with something else to make it sufficient? So if that's the case, man, I want you to know, man, that God is enough and he loves you so much and man. One last thing is God has called us as Christians to literally redeem the culture, and so look for ways this week that you can represent Christ well present, spend time with the Lord, don't isolate but spend nothing, but just time with the Lord and pursue Him and Him alone.