Guest Sermon - Landon Kijak

Just us for a one-off sermon from special guest speaker, Landon Kijak

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Welcome to Family Church's Sermon of the Week. We're so glad you're here. Each week we share a message from God's Word to encourage your heart, strengthen your faith, and help you grow in your walk with Jesus. We hope this time blesses you and draws you closer to the heart of God.

SPEAKER_01 0:19

When John reached out to a couple of us and said, Hey, can anybody speak tomorrow? I shot my hand up and I said, I got it. I love it. Any opportunity that I get to hang out with you guys, I'm taking it because I love your atmosphere. I love the vibe. I love the culture that you guys are creating here. And just to be a part of that and spend a day with you, I'm all about it. And so I got the text around 9 p.m. last night that someone needed to come up here. So I didn't really jump into the whole Psalm series. I didn't want to step on John's toes. I didn't know what he said or what he's already covered. So I went to the church to grab my laptop and I was just thinking, and what I could spend some time talking with you guys about today. And I arrived at the church and I unlock the door and I'm heading up to my office and it is pitch black. When I arrive, I probably shouldn't say this from the stage, but the alarm wasn't set. Now, that's not abnormal. We have a lot of things going on at the church, uh, people coming and going. So it's not abnormal that maybe two people leave at the same time, or hey, I think he's locking up, but she's locking up and no one locks up. And so I arrive and I scan in, alarm's not set. I'd say whatever. I'm heading up to the office. It is pitch black. I'm walking through the lobby, and all of a sudden, I hear the loudest bang. It was Joey, our drummer, practicing for Sunday service. But in actuality, we had a conversation about what our next steps were and what it looked like to be content. And we sat and we talked for probably 10-15 minutes on contentment. And that's kind of when I decided, hey, I think today, our one-off today is going to be about contentment. Because contentment is hard. If I put a sign outside that said, hey, I have the secret to learning how to be content, this auditorium would be full and we would have to be throwing out multiple services. Because everybody struggles with being content. And we're all guilty of it. We'll be driving in our car. For me, when I dwell on my thoughts the most, I'll be honest with you, it's when I'm in the shower, it's the only quiet time I get. And so when I'm in the shower, I'll be thinking, well, if I just got that promotion, everything would be great. That thing is what I need. Or once I get that, I'll be there. Or I'll have enough. And you think to yourself, okay, when I get that promotion, I'll be there. If I pay off this debt, it will be enough. If I can get one more bedroom and one more half bath in my house, it will be enough. And I put enough and there in quotation marks in my notes because we all know that these are just benchmarks in the road to greed that never truly fill us. These are just benchmarks that we think when we land on it, when we make it there, we're going to be content, but we never are, because it's a void that the Lord was meant to fill, and we're going to talk about that today. How does the Lord fill that void? And so Paul, in the last bit of his letter to the Church of Philippi, kind of writes about if you have your Bible today, we're going to be in Philippians 4, verses 10 through 14, 10 through 13. That's where we're going to be spending our time today. But we're kicking it off in verse 10. This is Paul writing to the church. And Paul, in this season, had just had a wild time. He is in a prison in Rome. And so he's writing and he says, How I praise the Lord that you were concerned about me again. I know you've always been concerned for me, but you didn't have the chance to help me. Not that I was ever in need, for I have learned how to be content with whatever I have. I have learned to be content. And this is how I know that none of us are ever born content, natural human beings. Have any of you guys ever met a content baby? No. No baby is ever content. They always need something, whether it's to be changed, whether it's to be fed, whether it's to be looked after, they're tired, they cry. We are naturally uncontent human beings. We can even see it back in the fall in the garden. We just naturally want more than what we are blessed with in this season. So Paul said, Hey, I had to learn to be content. It is a foreign habit that when we grow in Christ, we will slowly grow to be more content. We pick up in verse 12, I'll reread verse 11. Paul says, Not that I ever, sorry, not that I was ever in need, for I have learned how to be content with whatever I have. I know how to live on almost nothing or everything. I've learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or an empty one, whether it's with plenty or with little. Paul reminds us, and he says, Hey, there's a secret to being content. And we're going to talk about that secret in a minute, but before we get too much into this secret, we can just look at the course of the Bible. Time and time again, us as followers of Christ, us as the people of Israel, the people in the Bible, we struggle with contentment. And I think it's hard because we can sit here and we can go, oh, when we look at the story of Job, I understand it may be hard, but to be in Job's situation, we must be content. Like when we are struggling, we need to go and we need to seek the face of the Lord. I get that. We struggle and we when we're struggling, we need to be content. But I think and maybe it's even in this area, we struggle with what Paul also said. I have learned to be content when my stomach is full. I have learned to be content when I have plenty. The people of the Bible, whenever they received a blessing of God, whenever myself, I'll be honest, whenever I receive a blessing from God, I also find myself kind of drifting away and only seeking his face again when I'm in need. But how do I learn to be content when my stomach is full? How do I learn to be content when I have plenty? Because the people of the Bible, we struggled with this. It's something that we struggle with. We are naturally sinful and we naturally desire more. And there's one little side topic that I want to hit real quick before we dive into the secret that Paul talks about. And it is contentment in Christ does not mean complacency in Christ. Contentment in Christ does not mean complacency in Christ. When we are content in the season that the Lord has placed us in, it does not mean that we don't still have active work that the Lord has set out for us. As long as there are unbelievers in the cubicle next to you, as long as there are children who need a meal, need the Lord, need to be saved, we as believers actively have work that we need to be doing. So we can be content where Christ has us in this season, but that does not mean don't work hard to be a good father or a good mother. That does not mean do not work hard at your job and do good work in the representation of Christ. We are called to be activists for the Lord. We are called to be ambassadors on this earth. And so I think sometimes we can water down the word content so much that sometimes it can get almost to the point of laziness or contentment. Or sorry, of complacency. And it's our job to be activists for the Lord. Contentment means being satisfied in Christ while faithfully pursuing what He's called you to do. Complacency means settling for comfort instead of continuing to grow in obedience. So now that we've kind of attacked this and we've talked about the problem, which is how do we be content with full stomachs with empty stomachs, with little and with much, what is the secret that Paul talks about? And it's Philippians 4, verse 13, which I think is maybe one of the most misquoted verses in all of the Bible. And I'm sure there's more out there that I'm blanking on, but this is what it is, and we all probably know it. For I can do everything through Christ who gives me strength. I can do everything through Christ who gives me strength. And the reason I think this verse is taken out of context is simply because we read it and we think that if we really trust Jesus enough, we can accomplish whatever we set our minds to. And let me give you a real-world example. We're in Patriot High School right now, there's a gymnasium, probably somewhere in this school. We could all stand up, head down there, someone can toss me a basketball, and I can say, hey, through the strength of Christ, I am going to dunk this basketball. We all know the outcome of said situation. I can say, well, my strength will get me a quarter of the way there, and then the Lord's strength is going to fill the gap and I'm going to be able to dunk. Trust me. That is not how it works. And sometimes we misinterpret the order of operations when it comes to this verse. We think, well, if I put in this much effort, the Lord will just fill in the gaps. If I try this much, the Lord will come alongside me and tie up my loose ends. And I can do whatever I want. I can win the baseball game because I can do everything through Christ who gives me strength. But in actuality, Paul is talking about it's not a I thing. It's a Christ is my everything thing. The secret that Paul is talking about is that it is our job to understand that we need Christ to do for us what we can't do for ourselves. We need Christ to do for us what we can't do for ourselves. Which means Paul had learned to fully rely on the strength of the Lord. I think there's a guy out there, I think he is a perfect illustration of what this looks like. And that guy is named Tim Tebow. Tim Tebow is the guy who kind of coined the verse, he put it on his eye black. Uh Philippians 4 13, he wore it all the time. And Tim Tebow went out and with that verse on his I Black, he won a Heisman, he won a national championship, like he did all these things. But then with the same verse on his I Black, he got cut from multiple NFL teams. Like this guy was supposed to be the next great thing, but yet he got cut from multiple NFL teams. And Tim Tebow, I've never seen somebody leverage their platform better than he has. I mean, he got cut from the NFL, and now he's doing marvelous, marvelous things for the kingdom, and we get to be a part of them with Night to Shine, and it is so awesome to see the work that we get to just kind of be champions of that he is putting forward. But that is an individual, it's kind of like Paul, who's learned, hey, whether I am winning Heisman's or I am getting cut from NFL teams, the Lord is where I'm going to be content in, and nothing else really matters. And so it's on us to understand, hey, it is our job to fully surrender in Christ, to fully be a part of Christ, to fully submit to the authority and lordship of Christ. And when we do that, that is when we'll fully learn to be satisfied. Being satisfied in Christ is hard. And when I say this, I don't mean it at the family church. I don't mean it at Park Valley. I just mean church as a big C, like all Christians from the dawn of time to now. I think sometimes we struggle with playing offense. When it comes to, we understand that we struggle with contentment, but we recognize that there is an enemy out there who's going to slip lies into our ears and slip lies into our minds. How are we going to address said lies? So I came up, or I didn't come up with them, I learned, I researched last night, kind of put together a list of five things that I think rob us of our ability to be content within the Lord. And in John 10, 10, this is the first half of John 10, 10, it says the thief's purpose is to steal, kill, and destroy. So if we understand that there is a thief out there, there's a being out there, his name is Satan, he has a name, he has a title. There's a being out there who wants to steal, kill, and destroy your contentment within Christ. He wants to take a lot more than that, but he wants to start with our ability to be content. And especially, I'll be honest, in this area. In this area, it's even a harder struggle to be content because there's always the next best greatest thing out there for us. We live in an area, whether you want to talk about just the West and the country we live in, or just the area within the country we live in. We have a different type of struggle with contentment, and I think it's our job to identify that and realize that because of the blessings that the Lord has bestowed on us, it is our job to wrestle with contentment, maybe a little bit more. And so these are the things that the enemy will whisper into our ear that will kind of contradict our contentment within Christ. And the first one is an enemy of contentment is entitlement. The enemy of contentment is entitlement. If you think that all the good things in your life are going to be handed to you, are going to be just gifted over to you because you are who you say you are, or you do what you say you do, then it is going to make us very sour individuals. Because truly, we, because of our actions, because of our sin nature, are entitled to nothing. We truly don't deserve anything, but the Lord has blessed us enough, and it is our job to push past the entitlement and understand that the Lord has blessed us with where we are, with what we have and what he has given us in this season. And I understand that we all kind of volunteer and we tithe, and sometimes we may even think that because of what we do, we are the Lord's favorite. But truly, our bests and our best actions and our best intentions, it says, are filthy rags in the eyes of the Lord, and so it's our job to put aside our entitlement and look at Christ and say, Lord, because you have given me everything I have, I'm content. If I have nothing, I'm content. If I get the bonus, I'm content. If I lose my job, I'm content. Because it truly doesn't matter because you and I am in the palm of your hand, and that is all that matters. I am safe where you have put me. An enemy of contentment is fear and anxiety. An enemy of contentment is fear and anxiety. Fear causes you to put your trust in your circumstances. When we're afraid of something, we put our trust in our circumstances and we're misplacing our trust from where it belongs, which is our Heavenly Father, our Creator. Like I just mentioned, when we're exactly where we're meant to be, we're in the palm of the Lord's hand. And when we're putting our fear and our anxiety in places that are elsewhere, we're robbing the Lord of his lordship and the ability that he has given us to understand that he has us exactly where we're meant to be. I just took a trip up to Yosemite National Park. It was awesome. And there's a mountain there that is called El Capitan. And so we went there, I saw this mountain, I was like, that is crazy. And you could watch, you can pull over onto the side of the road, and you can watch people climbing this with ropes, and they like spend the night. It takes a couple days. They'll find spots to camp out and they'll put like a hanging sleeping bag on the side of this mountain. It is the craziest thing in the world. You can never pay me enough to do it. It is, I mean, I don't know if I'm allowed to say dumb, but it's dumb. Like I don't understand why someone would go out there and go, you know what I want to do? I want to dangle something thousand feet up in the air because I think it's gonna be fun. Like that's crazy. But so we go there and then I hear murmurs because everyone's talking about it. There was a guy who decided to go out there and climb El Capitan with no ropes, no nothing. And there's a movie about it on Netflix. We went home, we were at Yosemite for a couple days. We went, we saw it, and I was like, oh my gosh. Went home, watched the movie, and then we went back and we were like, oh my gosh, again. Because you just imagine that this guy goes up and he climbs this mountain, it took him four hours. It takes people a couple days. He did it in four hours. He's one of the greatest, if not the greatest, free soloers of all time. His name is Alex. He's a he then, so after I kind of entered into this and down this rabbit hole of climbing this crazy mountain, I watched one of his TED Talks. And he started his TED talk while saying, Doubt is the precursor to fear. And I could never enjoy the day of climbing El Capitan if I was truly doubting, because when I start to doubt, I fear. And it kind of stuck with me, but I kind of twisted it more into like a Jesus-Juking sense. And I said, Well, shoot, if I'm putting my fear in something, if I'm letting things control, my environment control me, and I am afraid of it, then I'm misplacing my trust, and that means I'm only doubting the Lord, because that is where my heart and my mind should be dwelling. And I'm robbing the Lord of the glory because of the things that I'm dwelling on. And then anxiety as well. Anxiety is missed place fear, and it's missed place stress. Stress is good. Sometimes, sometimes stress is good. But stress can be a motivator, it can be something that pushes you past your limits when it comes to work. Obviously, managing it is tough, but stress is something that can push us. But when we have so much stress that it becomes anxiety and we can't tag it to something, and we can't miss it, we can't put it on something. That is when it is robbing us of being content in the Lord. Anxiety is something that I wrestled with for a super long time, to the point where my days would whisk past me because all I was doing was being anxious about a future scenario that was never going to come true. And my days would fly by and then I wonder, well, what am I doing for the Lord? Because all I'm doing is thinking about something that may never happen in the future. And I was robbing the Lord of his glory because I was putting myself in allowing hypothetical situations to consume me and rob the Lord of what he set before me today. That's why the Lord tells us, don't worry about tomorrow. For today, you gotta worry about today. And then tomorrow, you get new blessings to go through and persevere tomorrow. The Bible tells us, hey, we got to do one thing after another. Don't let your anxious thoughts, and I know it's hard for me, or I've d I battled with it, and it's tough to understand and hear. Well, just don't worry about it. Worry about it tomorrow, because tomorrow's got its own problems. Like it's tough, but when we truly find and remember that the Lord is our shepherd, we can be content with many and we can be content with little. When we can be content with empty stomachs and we can be content with full stomachs, that is when we'll truly be able to break out and break free of the chains of anxiety and fear. Next one, discontentment is dishonoring to the Lord. Discontentment is dishonoring to the Lord. Now here's what I mean. Learning to be content in every situation brings honor to the Lord because you're showing him that you are grateful for the blessings that he's bestowed upon you. Now, when we're being disgrateful, or sorry, discontent, we are dishonoring the Lord because we are basically saying to him, Lord, I know you've given me this, but I want that. We're coveting the things of another, and the Lord has instructed us not to do that because he's placed us here and now with what we have. And so I think it's our job to do something that I didn't come up with, it's just two words, but I like to just kind of do it for myself, and I just call it a spiritual inventory. Because I think, and maybe this is just for myself, or maybe you'll resonate with it, but I think sometimes we like to just because we do it and we go through the motions so often, and we've read the Bible, I've grown up in church, that sometimes, and I this may sound crazy, but sometimes I think that we almost in my head I'll start to believe that, well, Christ died for us because that was just his plan and I deserved it. Like I go through the motions so much and I read the story so much, and I I kind of lose the value that Christ has placed on me because he stepped out of his heavenly realm to come and save me. There's nothing that I could do to deserve that saving. And so it's just being content, doing a spiritual inventory, resetting the priorities of your life, whether you do it in the morning, whether you do it in the evening, whether you do it weekly, just taking a break to step back from the chaos of Northern Virginia and going, Lord, where are my priorities at? Are you one? Are you two? Did my kids' sports slip above you? Did my job slip above you this week? Like doing a spiritual inventory that is going to keep you in check with the Lord and allowing you to not be dishonoring to him because of your discontentment. The next one, what will rob you of your contentment is believing that this is your home. And I wasn't smart enough to come up with this illustration, but I do, I don't I'm not a huge fan of traveling. I like traveling, but I do love a good hotel. And then believe it or not, I love even more a good complimentary breakfast. So if you can get me at a hotel, I'm there. If they have breakfast, I'm double there. And so imagine if I got to the hotel. I walk in, I'm like, man, this room is great. And I call down, I call down into the front desk and I go, hey, this is landing in room 114. I love the space, but I don't really care for the carpet. So I reached out to a couple contractors, they're gonna come in, they're gonna put hardwood in. Uh I called into some painters, they're gonna come. I don't really like the puke yellow, I'm gonna switch it to more of a sky blue. Uh I love what you did with the countertops, we're gonna put granite in here, maybe some sterling. I don't even know. I don't know the kitchen lingo, so I'm just making stuff up as I'm up here. But I called down and I said, hey, this is the renovations that I'm gonna do to your hotel. They're gonna look back and they're gonna go, Landon, I love your enthusiasm to fixing up and investing into our establishment, but you're only here temporarily. This is only a short term stay. It's a waste of your money because you're investing. And things that you're going to go home to a better place one day. Because the one bedroom and tiny living room and the couch that stares at the bed and the tiny bathroom is not your home. And it's the same thing when it comes to the Lord and where the Lord has gone before us, where Jesus has gone before us to prepare a place for us. That is our forever home. And when we dwell and we act as if we are just permanent residents of this earth, it is robbing us of our ability to be content because we're coveting things of this earth when in actuality we are called to be looking towards better things and things to come. And Paul writes about this a little bit earlier in the book of Philippians. When he's sitting in jail, he literally says, For me, living means living for Christ. And dying is even better. If I'm here, then I got work to do. I don't need to be renovating the hotel room. I don't need to be changing out the flooring. I got work to do. I got jailers who need to be saved. I got people who need to be healed, and I got people who need to learn about Jesus. I don't need to renovate the hotel room, but I got work to do because when I die, that's when I'll get my glory. That's when I'll enter into the kingdom that the Lord has prepared for me. But until then, there is no hotel room to worry about. It's all about honoring the Lord. That is how we truly step into the contentment that the Lord has called for us. The last one, you will never experience the peace of God if you're not at peace with God. I'll say that again. You will never experience the peace of God if you're not at peace with God. Now, I'll kind of give you, I love examples. For me, like I've never been the greatest student. I love listening to sermons, but when they can connect it to something, it always helps my ADD and my ADHD kind of connect with things. And so I know all about this guy, Tom Brady. I love Tom Brady. I'm a huge New England sports fan. If you want to talk football with me, we can talk Patriots in the uh in the lobby. I'll talk about football until I'm blue in the face. I can walk up to Tom and be like, Tom, you have done so many awesome things for the New England Patriots. I love it. I'm so happy. Like you're the best. And he's gonna look at me and he's gonna go, Landon. Or actually, he wouldn't say that. He'd go, Guy, who are you? I don't know you. Like, why are you talking to me? And I think sometimes we do the same thing with Jesus. We've gone and we've grown up in Iwanas, we've grown up in Sunday school, we've grown up in Christian schools, we know all about this guy, this historical figure, Jesus, because there's more things out there that talk about the historical representation of the historical life that Jesus lived than anybody else. And so we almost think of Jesus as a historical figure and not our Lord and Savior. I know all about Tom Brady, but Tom Brady and I don't have a relationship. I don't know Tom Brady intimately to where I can go, Tom, these are my thoughts, and he's going to care. I can tell you who and how many animals were on the ark and all that stuff, but I don't know and have an intimate relationship with my creator. And let me kind of say it like this: believers, if you're in this room and you were a believer, this is the farthest away from hell, or sorry, this is the closest to hell you're ever gonna be. Being here on earth, because there is glory that the Lord has gone before and is preparing a place for us. Unbelievers, this is the closest to heaven you may ever be. And I want to say it like this because having peace within the Lord, if you are kind of just an unbeliever, then you don't really struggle, or we struggle with contentment, but it almost is just circumstantial happiness because we find these things that make us happy in a moment, but they don't really fill the void that the Lord is meant to fill. Peace with God means understanding that there's nothing that you can do to earn your own salvation. Having peace with God means that you are blazing a trail of understanding and pursuing a relationship with him because that is what he deserves. When you are at peace with God, that is ultimately where contentment is going to be found. It is a learned trait, it is not something that we are born with, and it is a hard trait to develop. And I think over here in this country it is even harder to develop because it's just not what the world wants you to be. The world wants you to buy the next iPhone, to buy the next car, to buy a bigger house. They don't want you to be content because they want you to understand and be craving something and trying to feel that greed, meet that benchmark, meet that checkpoint that truly is not what the Lord has called for us. And so maybe you're here and you're and you're thinking and you go, Okay, well, I experience and I understand what it means to not be content, but I don't know how to fix it. There's a God out there who wants a relationship with you. Like I said, and maybe it's you. I was I grew up in church. I grew up in church my whole life. My dad was a pastor, I go with him everywhere. I thought I was baptized at six, like I thought I knew all about this Jesus guy. But like I said, I was just a fan of Jesus, I wasn't a follower of Jesus. So maybe that's you. Maybe we're gonna do a little spiritual inventory real quick, and you go, hey, I know about this Jesus guy, but I haven't given Jesus my life. I haven't said, Jesus, I submit to you, and I want your will to be done and not my own. So maybe that's where you're at. Maybe you said, I don't even know who this Jesus guy is. I saw a sign out on the street, the logo looked great, and I pulled in because I wanted to just, I just wanted some hope. There's a guy out there who can give you hope. There's a Lord out there who can give you hope, and his name is Jesus. And becoming a Christian is the easiest thing you will ever do. Persevering through a life of Christianity is gonna be one of the hardest things that you will ever do. So let me extend you this free gift. But a free gift with Jesus is just like a present. If I give you a present, I wrap it beautifully, I put your name on and I hand it to you, and you never open it, it's never your gift. Jesus did all the heavy lifting, he wrapped you this nice gift of eternal life and security and learning to be content in any situation with a full stomach or an empty stomach. All you have to do is accept it. All you have to do is submit yourself to him. And if that's something you're interested in, you can repeat this prayer after me. I'm gonna pray for us, and then we're gonna stand up and worship. But if you want to start a relationship with Jesus, it is so easy. And we can talk about it in the front, we can talk about it in the lobby, what your next steps are. But if you want to start a relationship with Jesus, just go something like this, Lord. I know I'm discontent, I know I crave more. That I can never do. Died, rose again three days later for me. Lord, I pray you make me like you, wash me clean. Amen. Lord, I just thank you for all these individuals. Lord, I pray that we just live in an area where we can gather in your name. Lord, we can gather uh as as brothers and sisters in Christ and just spend time learning what it looks like to pursue you and live a life that reflects you. Lord, I'm so thankful for this opportunity just to worship with my brothers and sisters in Christ. Lord, I pray as we go into this next song, we'll put ourselves in a posture of learning to be content with whatever season the Lord has placed us in. Lord, in Jesus' name, I pray, amen.

SPEAKER_00 29:23

Thanks for listening to Family Church's Sermon of the Week. We pray this message encouraged you and helped you grow in your faith. If it blessed you, share it with a friend and follow so you never miss a new episode. You can learn more about Family Church at myfamilychurch.com. If you are in the area, join us on Sunday mornings at 10 a.m. We meet at Patriot High School 10504 Kittle Run Drive.