SPEAKER_00: Today's reading is Proverbs chapter twenty-two, verse one to sixteen.
SPEAKER_00: A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches, and favorite favor is better than silver or gold.
SPEAKER_00: The rich and the poor meet together.
SPEAKER_00: The Lord is the maker of them all.
SPEAKER_00: The prudent sees danger and hides himself, but the simple go on and suffer for it.
SPEAKER_00: The reward for humility and fear of the Lord, its riches and honor and life.
SPEAKER_00: Thorns and snares are in the way of the crooked.
SPEAKER_00: Whoever guards his soul will keep far from them.
SPEAKER_00: Train up a child in the way he should go.
SPEAKER_00: Even when he is old, he will not depart from it.
SPEAKER_00: The rich rules over the poor, and the borrower is the slave of the lender.
SPEAKER_00: Whoever sows injustice will reap calamity, and the rod of his fairy will fail.
SPEAKER_00: Whoever has a bountiful eye will be blessed, for he shares his bread with the poor.
SPEAKER_00: Drive out a scoffer, and strife will go out, and quarreling and abuse will cease.
SPEAKER_00: He who loves purity of heart and whose speech is gracious will have the king as his friend.
SPEAKER_00: The eyes of the Lord keep watch over knowledge, but he overthrows the words of the traitor.
SPEAKER_00: And the slugget says, There is a lion outside, I shall be killed in the streets.
SPEAKER_00: The mouth of forbidden woman, it's a deep pit.
SPEAKER_00: He with whom the Lord is angry will fall into it.
SPEAKER_00: Folly, it's bound up in the heart of a child, but the rod of discipline drives it far from him.
SPEAKER_00: Whoever oppresses the poor to increase his own wealth or give to the rich will only come to poverty.
SPEAKER_00: And this is the word of God.
SPEAKER_02: And if you're part of our current leadership cohort, you maybe know or remember something of this story.
SPEAKER_02: We went to the south of Spain uh to to switch off, to unplug from ministry, spend time together as a as a family, went to uh a hotel there for uh about a week or 10 days.
SPEAKER_02: And uh when we arrived, the um the weather wasn't as nice as I expected it to be.
SPEAKER_02: Uh it was colder, it was windier uh than I wanted it to be.
SPEAKER_02: We walked out of the hotel, uh, and the hotel was right on the on the beach.
SPEAKER_02: But the beach wasn't the type of sand that I expected it to be.
SPEAKER_02: Uh it wasn't the type of sand that I wanted it to be.
SPEAKER_02: It was much more shaley or it was kind of that that kind of razor sharp sand that actually kind of cuts your feet slightly.
SPEAKER_02: It wasn't good sandcastle sand, and I was uh I was a bit grumpy uh about that, and um because you know the beach hadn't put the right sort of sand there for for me.
SPEAKER_02: Um uh there was various other things about it.
SPEAKER_02: The the pictures maybe didn't kind of match how it actually was, what I expected it to be.
SPEAKER_02: And so I spent the first few days, and Philippa can confirm all of this, uh, literally sitting under a parasol wearing a hoodie, trying to read a book, just feeling fairly grumpy about everything.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, and not being the nicest holiday companion, um, shall we say.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, you know, the Philippa being very gracious would uh would take the kids off to go and get ice cream to try and give me some space in the fervent uh and often futile hope that she might return to a happier husband.
SPEAKER_02: Uh and after three days, uh she took me to one side and she said, Everybody here is having fun except for you.
SPEAKER_02: Everyone here is having fun except for you.
SPEAKER_02: If you change your expectations and just enjoy what is around you, you'll be much happier.
SPEAKER_02: I don't know about you, although I suspect that I'm not alone in this, but I struggle with uh contentment.
SPEAKER_02: I get discontented uh very quickly.
SPEAKER_02: In part that comes from, you know, a sense of I like things to be a certain way.
SPEAKER_02: There's maybe kind of a, you know, uh these topical weeks in um uh in Proverbs feel like Mark's confession time.
SPEAKER_02: Um I don't know.
SPEAKER_02: Uh you know, people were talking about the emails that I don't send, like, really?
SPEAKER_02: Do you write those?
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
SPEAKER_02: Um, you know, there's uh there's in part a kind of uh a restlessness in me, maybe an entitlement as well.
SPEAKER_02: And so I struggle with with contentment.
SPEAKER_02: I compare myself to to other people and to what they've got, and uh that kind of gnaws at me in a way that it doesn't for Philippa.
SPEAKER_02: It bothers me in a way that it doesn't maybe for for you, but maybe one or two of you here feel that as well.
SPEAKER_02: You find yourself comparing to others.
SPEAKER_02: You get a bit grumbly and a bit grumpy because you're discontented.
SPEAKER_02: And for the longest time I used to think that um that contentment was like the British stiff upper lip.
SPEAKER_02: It's acknowledging that what we have is kind of rubbish, but gosh darn it, I've just got to muscle through.
SPEAKER_02: Okay?
SPEAKER_02: I just gotta just gotta, you know, keep calm and carry on.
SPEAKER_02: Um and it's an acknowledgement, this is this is this is crap, uh, but I've just got a barrel on a head.
SPEAKER_02: That's what I thought contentment was uh for a long time.
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes you can also think that contentment is well, I mustn't have any desires.
SPEAKER_02: You know, in order to be content, I need to kind of get rid of all ambition and all drive.
SPEAKER_02: That's much more of a kind of an Eastern idea.
SPEAKER_02: You know, the the enlightenment that the Buddha finds is that he frees himself from all earthly desire, and so he finds peace.
SPEAKER_02: Maybe you think, well, that that's that's the biblical encouragement.
SPEAKER_02: But you read the rest of the book of Proverbs and you read things like, Go to the ant, you sluggard.
SPEAKER_02: You know, there's lots of commendations of hard work and ambition and drive and all of those things.
SPEAKER_02: So where does where does my discontented heart go?
SPEAKER_02: Well, one of the things that I've realized through our study in the book of Proverbs is that biblical contentment doesn't seek to remove our desires, it seeks to reorder them, to give us different, better, more life-giving, more joyful priorities.
SPEAKER_02: And that it's less about just muscling through, but resting in who God is and what he's doing in our life.
SPEAKER_02: This passage picks up a few ideas that I think help us, a few principles that help those of us who struggle with contentment, to see what biblical contentment looks like.
SPEAKER_02: And the first is right there in verse one.
SPEAKER_02: And it's that contentment seeks integrity over image.
SPEAKER_02: Look at it with me.
SPEAKER_02: Proverbs 22, verse 1.
SPEAKER_02: A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches, and favor is better than silver or gold.
SPEAKER_02: At various points through the book of Proverbs, you get the you get the it is better comparisons.
SPEAKER_02: It is better to do this than to do that.
SPEAKER_02: And sometimes it's a choice between two good things.
SPEAKER_02: Which is better, good name or gold.
SPEAKER_02: And the Proverbs kind of said, well, both are good, but if you've got to choose between one of them, choose the choose the good name, choose integrity over riches.
SPEAKER_02: Choose integrity over over image.
SPEAKER_02: Because the biggest species of discontentment that exists in our hearts is this hunger, the uh the desire for more.
SPEAKER_02: I need more, more success, more stuff, more money, more followers, more influence.
SPEAKER_02: And it gnaws away at us, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_02: Not getting what we think that we deserve, and that can lead us to resentment.
SPEAKER_02: It can lead us to resentment of the others who have.
SPEAKER_02: But goodness me, you think that you're entitled to something, you think you deserve something and you don't get it?
SPEAKER_02: You know, do you know just who that can lead you to resent?
SPEAKER_02: God.
SPEAKER_02: Thinking he hasn't given me this thing that I have worked so hard for.
SPEAKER_02: I have sacrificed so much for this.
SPEAKER_02: And he hasn't given me that.
SPEAKER_02: Like the older brother.
SPEAKER_02: Remember the older brother in uh in Luke 15 where uh Jesus tells a story of it's commonly called the prodigal son, but really it's about two sons.
SPEAKER_02: And the prodigal son gets welcomed back after squandering all of his wealth.
SPEAKER_02: And the father embraces him and throws a great party, has a huge celebration, and the older brother, the older brother stayed at home the whole time, working his backside off, sacrificing everything for the father.
SPEAKER_02: And he sees how the younger brother's being treated and he resents him for it.
SPEAKER_02: And what's worse, he resents the father.
SPEAKER_02: And so the father goes out from the party and says to the older brother, why won't you come in?
SPEAKER_02: Remember the older brother's response?
SPEAKER_02: The older brother looks at him and says, All these long years I've worked for you, and you haven't even given me a small goat that I might celebrate with my friends.
SPEAKER_02: Do you hear the entitlement?
SPEAKER_02: Do you hear the resentment?
SPEAKER_02: A discontented heart can lead you to hating others, resenting others, being bitter towards others, but goodness me, it can gnaw at us in a way that makes us resentful towards God, can't it?
SPEAKER_02: And so what we do is we become tempted to sacrifice our character, our integrity, our faith for the gain that we want, for the thing that we desire.
SPEAKER_02: We begin to locate our identity, who we are, in what we can achieve, what we can earn, where we live, who we're in a relationship with.
SPEAKER_02: But verse one reorders our priorities.
SPEAKER_02: It still wants us to pursue things, it still wants us to pursue something.
SPEAKER_02: But the wise person seeks integrity over image, character, over status.
SPEAKER_02: You might compare this with Proverbs 16.
SPEAKER_02: If you take a note shot down Proverbs 16, verse 8, let me read it to you.
SPEAKER_02: Better is a little with righteousness than great revenues with injustice.
SPEAKER_02: Let me read it again.
SPEAKER_02: Better is a little with righteousness than great revenues with injustice.
SPEAKER_02: These better comparisons show us how we ought to reorder our priorities.
SPEAKER_02: That there is more to life than riches.
SPEAKER_02: There is a deeper contentment to be found.
SPEAKER_02: Again, does this mean that riches or gain are bad?
SPEAKER_02: No, in fact, Proverbs actually speaks quite positively about riches and gain and money.
SPEAKER_02: In fact, uh it says that really kind of material gain is part of the reward for righteous living.
SPEAKER_02: Again, this is we're in the realm of principle for life rather than absolute cast-iron promise, because we live in a world that's tainted by sin.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus says, in this world you will have trouble.
SPEAKER_02: And there's plenty of very poor Christians who are rich beyond measure in terms of their character and godliness.
SPEAKER_02: Where wisdom is challenging us here is to say that if you have a choice between these two things, on one side there's there's character, integrity, godliness, and on the other, there's gain, but it's going to cost you some of this.
SPEAKER_02: Proverbs says, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_02: Don't sacrifice godly character for worldly gain.
SPEAKER_02: You remember the words of Jesus?
SPEAKER_02: What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and yet forfeit his soul?
SPEAKER_02: It's the fool who sacrifices those things for gain.
SPEAKER_02: To be contented then is to prioritize growing in godliness over gain of gold.
SPEAKER_02: It's to prioritize a deepening of character rather than of wealth.
SPEAKER_02: To prioritize integrity will be an anchor to our souls in those decision moments, in those forks of the road that have stood behind us in the graphic all these weeks, when we have the opportunity to gain something at someone else's expense, or in an unjust way, or in a secretly deceitful way.
SPEAKER_02: And we think, actually, though no one will see, I'm not going to harm my own soul.
SPEAKER_02: I'm not going to harm my own integrity, my own character by going this way.
SPEAKER_02: Moreover, it reframes for us what success really is.
SPEAKER_02: We do not build a legacy through stacking up of achievements.
SPEAKER_02: We build a legacy that's worth remembering.
SPEAKER_02: We build a legacy that will echo down through the generations.
SPEAKER_02: We build a legacy that will outlast us by prioritizing faithfulness.
SPEAKER_02: Eugene Peterson, uh the guy who actually translated the message version of the Bible, a guy called Eugene Peterson, he's since gone to glory, but he described uh he described the Christian life this way.
SPEAKER_02: He said that the Christian life is long obedience in the same direction.
SPEAKER_02: The world doesn't value that, the world doesn't prize that, but that's what you want to aspire to.
SPEAKER_02: Long obedience in the same direction.
SPEAKER_02: That's what will reverberate through your children and your grandchildren.
SPEAKER_02: That's what will impact the people around you and your friends.
SPEAKER_02: That at those decision points when you can sacrifice integrity, when you can just give up a little bit of your honesty, a little bit of your character, that you won't do it.
SPEAKER_02: You won't hawks yourself in those ways.
SPEAKER_02: That's a Harry Potter reference, by the way.
SPEAKER_02: C.S.
SPEAKER_02: Lewis says this, he says, Aim at heaven, and you'll get earth thrown in.
SPEAKER_02: Aim at earth, and you'll get neither.
SPEAKER_02: Aim at heaven, aim at godliness, aim at integrity.
SPEAKER_02: And Proverbs says that the likelihood is that actually you will be blessed.
SPEAKER_02: That God will see your stewardship of the things that you have, and he will bless you.
SPEAKER_02: Look at verse 9.
SPEAKER_02: Whoever has a bountiful eye, that's whoever has a generous eye, will be blessed.
SPEAKER_02: Why?
SPEAKER_02: Because he shares his bread with the poor.
SPEAKER_02: Aim at heaven, and you'll get earth thrown in.
SPEAKER_02: How can we invest in character over our image?
SPEAKER_02: Let me give you a couple of little ways to kind of begin working this kind of character muscle a little bit.
SPEAKER_02: First, seek to be honest in small things.
SPEAKER_02: You know, we we all know to kind of avoid the big black lie, but we often kind of explain away and kind of dismiss the kind of little white line.
SPEAKER_02: So we we just kind of work uh an invoice in our favor just a little bit more, and or we kind of we zhuzh up our our our C V, kind of fudge a work report a little bit.
SPEAKER_02: We aren't as diligent with our citations, you know, we've read an idea and we're like, no, look, it'll be fine.
SPEAKER_02: You practice honesty in small things.
SPEAKER_02: Or how about this?
SPEAKER_02: How about to kind of do an audit and ask yourself, how closely does your online persona align with who you are really?
SPEAKER_02: Or are they two different people?
SPEAKER_02: Or third way might be why don't you try practicing some unseen kindness?
SPEAKER_02: That's secret service.
SPEAKER_02: Not secret service.
SPEAKER_02: Uh don't know why I wrote it down like that.
SPEAKER_02: Uh it's funny how things sound weirder coming out uh than they are writing them on a Friday afternoon uh while you're seeing all the sunshine outside.
SPEAKER_02: Don't join the you can join the secret service if you want.
SPEAKER_02: Maybe you are part of it.
SPEAKER_02: Maybe there's a spy in here, who knows?
SPEAKER_02: Uh unseen service.
SPEAKER_02: Or the quiet encouragement that only the person that you're encouraging knows about.
SPEAKER_02: Those things begin to deepen and cultivate our character and grow in us a contentment that prioritizes integrity over image.
SPEAKER_02: Second, contentment rests in the sovereignty of God.
SPEAKER_02: Have a look at verse two.
SPEAKER_02: Don't worry, we're not there isn't sixteen points.
SPEAKER_02: Uh don't worry.
SPEAKER_02: Verse two the rich and the poor meet together.
SPEAKER_02: The Lord is the maker of them all.
SPEAKER_02: In a world that's obsessed with status and comparison, this verse really, you dwell on it, it brings a real kind of centering wisdom to our hearts.
SPEAKER_02: You know, the phrase meet together means something like, here's what the rich and poor have in common.
SPEAKER_02: So that's what meet together means, so have that in your mind.
SPEAKER_02: Here's what the rich and poor have in common.
SPEAKER_02: What is it?
SPEAKER_02: The Lord's the maker of them all.
SPEAKER_02: Those who have less are not less because they are image bearers.
SPEAKER_02: Those who have great gain are not greater because they are image bearers.
SPEAKER_02: Our degrees, our achievements, our career, our house, our bank balance, the car that we drive, none of these determine our worth before God.
SPEAKER_02: Both rich and poor have dignity because they are made with the dignity, honor, value, significance, worth that He bestows on every human being by nature of our creation and birth.
SPEAKER_02: One of the things that centering ourselves on a verse like this does for us, if you can really think that I am no better than this person who has less than me, I am no worse than this person who has more than me.
SPEAKER_02: One of the things that this does for us practically in your day-to-day, because you'll go through seasons of success and you'll go through seasons of failure.
SPEAKER_02: Some of you have experienced what it is to fail, pick yourself up off the mat.
SPEAKER_02: Some of you have experienced great high successes.
SPEAKER_02: But realizing that God's the God's the architect of both of those things, that whether you're rich or you're poor, God you have this in common.
SPEAKER_02: You're made in his image.
SPEAKER_02: Here's what this does for you.
SPEAKER_02: Here's what's centering yourself.
SPEAKER_02: In verse 3 does.
SPEAKER_02: Ready?
SPEAKER_02: I'm going to cite it.
SPEAKER_02: Tim Keller said it.
SPEAKER_02: Tim Keller is a pastor in New York.
SPEAKER_02: I love what he says here.
SPEAKER_02: He says that if you center yourself on this, it means that you won't let success go to your head and you won't let failure go to your heart.
SPEAKER_02: Because failure goes to our hearts, right?
SPEAKER_02: It makes us, it just devastates us.
SPEAKER_02: It makes us rethink all our choices and who we are and what we've done.
SPEAKER_02: And I'm such a fool and I'm such an idiot.
SPEAKER_02: Success, sorry, failure goes straight to our hearts, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_02: Success can go to our heads.
SPEAKER_02: Look what I have done.
SPEAKER_02: Look what I have achieved.
SPEAKER_02: But actually, if you have verse two, deeply embedded in your psyche, the rich and poor meet together.
SPEAKER_02: The Lord is the maker of them all.
SPEAKER_02: God is sovereign over the rich and the poor.
SPEAKER_02: He made them both in his image.
SPEAKER_02: That means that you're not the sole architect of your achievements.
SPEAKER_02: Nor are you defined by your losses.
SPEAKER_02: God is neither impressed by your CV, nor is he shocked by your setbacks.
SPEAKER_02: But finding this rest is hard, isn't it?
SPEAKER_02: This is perhaps one of those cases where in our heads we know this to be true.
SPEAKER_02: But it's hard to kind of make that distance.
SPEAKER_02: The distance between our heads and our hearts can seem very, very long, can't it?
unknown: Yeah.
SPEAKER_02: Remember another pastor talking about how human beings are like broken vending machines.
SPEAKER_02: You know you go to a vending machine back before you just press the green button and tapped.
SPEAKER_02: When you had things in your pockets called coins, uh, you put a coin in the vending machine and you know that, you know that that disheartening sound when when you put a coin in and you know that it hasn't clunked down in, just that kind of dead sort of click.
SPEAKER_02: Oh, okay, it hasn't gone.
SPEAKER_02: And so what do you do?
SPEAKER_02: Hasn't gone all the way down, and uh that uh that that chill bottle of Coke Zero or or Club Rock Shandy, it's far better, right?
SPEAKER_02: Uh club rock, it's right there.
SPEAKER_02: You're thirsty, and the coin hasn't gone down in.
SPEAKER_02: What do you do?
unknown: Poof.
SPEAKER_02: You slap it on the side, right?
SPEAKER_02: Give it a give it a dunt, give it a nudge, give it a give it a bash.
SPEAKER_02: We're like that.
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes, actually, what failure does, what suffering does, what trial does, is it's God's way of plunking us on the side to get the truths that He's taught us on our heads to clatter down under our hearts.
SPEAKER_02: Here's some practical ways that you might be able to grow in this rest, in God's sovereign care of you, of your family.
SPEAKER_02: Here's some ideas.
SPEAKER_02: Some of them might resonate with you, some of them might not.
SPEAKER_02: Here's one take an actual day off.
SPEAKER_02: Take a day off.
SPEAKER_02: Where you switch off, where you don't work, where you get out of context that make you think about work.
SPEAKER_02: Take 24 hours to rest.
SPEAKER_02: You don't check emails, lock up your phone if you need to, give it to somebody else, leave it behind.
SPEAKER_02: Take a day off.
SPEAKER_02: You were not made to work seven days a week.
SPEAKER_02: Six and one.
SPEAKER_02: Take a day off.
SPEAKER_02: Because it shows actually that you are depending on God that not everything rests on your shoulders.
SPEAKER_02: Here's another idea.
SPEAKER_02: Why not fast from those apps that fuel comparison?
SPEAKER_02: Take a week where you're going to not check your LinkedIn profile or the LinkedIn profile of others.
SPEAKER_02: Take a week where you're actually going to delete Instagram from your phone.
SPEAKER_02: Gosh, it wounded me even to say the words out loud.
SPEAKER_02: Maybe we should try it.
SPEAKER_02: Because it feels so much comparison, doesn't it?
SPEAKER_02: And to take that time to think, okay, I'm not going to sit here and doom scroll through what God is doing in other people's lives, but I'm going to reflect on what's God forming in me.
SPEAKER_02: What's He doing in my life?
SPEAKER_02: And if it's if you're basically after an hour rocking back and forward, you've got an idea of kind of things you need to work on.
SPEAKER_02: Oh, okay, that has more of a hold on me than I thought.
SPEAKER_02: I'm more restless than I thought.
SPEAKER_02: Here's another way to rest in God's sovereignty over your life right now and what he is doing in your life.
SPEAKER_02: Ready?
SPEAKER_02: Practice gratitude.
SPEAKER_02: Reflect on things that you can be thankful for.
SPEAKER_02: Even if your life is really hard right now, work sucks.
SPEAKER_02: Your relationship sucks.
SPEAKER_02: Everything's terrible.
SPEAKER_02: You've got to sit down, center yourself in verse 2, Lord is the maker of them all.
SPEAKER_02: Where can I see his fingerprints?
SPEAKER_02: What can I thank him for?
SPEAKER_02: Practice a little bit of gratitude, my friends.
SPEAKER_02: That will grow your ability to rest.
SPEAKER_02: Not only to say that it affects verse one, it'll grow your character, your dependency, your godliness.
SPEAKER_02: Force yourself to think, okay, what can I be grateful for today?
SPEAKER_02: And maybe there are ways in which you express that gratitude to other people.
SPEAKER_02: Maybe there are things there are there somebody has done something for you.
SPEAKER_02: But because you're in a bad place, you haven't really even kind of got back to them, you haven't really even considered it.
SPEAKER_02: You go back to you send them a text and say, I really appreciate that you did that for me.
SPEAKER_02: Really appreciated that you said that.
SPEAKER_02: Thanks to that that gift.
SPEAKER_02: That was really kind.
SPEAKER_02: It begins to reframe the disposition, the priorities of our hearts.
SPEAKER_02: Fourth and finally to not finally in the whole sermon, finally in point two.
SPEAKER_02: There are four.
SPEAKER_02: Try maybe with a trusted friend or with a pastor, that'd that'd be me, or Ben or Peter, to seek to reframe setbacks with the eyes of faith.
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes what one of the things that suffering does is it blinkers us.
SPEAKER_02: So all we can see is the suffering that's before us, and all we can see is how hard things are and how miserable we are.
SPEAKER_02: And we need an outside pair of eyes to help kind of expand our perspective so that we can see what it is that God is doing.
SPEAKER_02: We can see something of his fingerprints, and that'll help us to rest in his sovereign care of us and grow a contented heart.
SPEAKER_02: Thirdly, contentment prepares without panicking.
SPEAKER_02: Contentment prepares without panicking.
SPEAKER_02: Verse three, the prudent sees danger and hides himself.
SPEAKER_02: But the simple go on and suffer for it.
SPEAKER_02: You might think again that all of this talk of contentment, what that means is, well, I've just got to let go and let God, right?
SPEAKER_02: Just gotta chill out.
SPEAKER_02: God's gonna do what he's gonna do.
SPEAKER_02: I don't plan, I just chill, and whatever comes, he'll see me through.
SPEAKER_02: Uh no, no.
SPEAKER_02: That's not biblical wisdom.
SPEAKER_02: Biblical wisdom commends planning, preparation, saving, investment.
SPEAKER_02: Again, remember when we talked about the ant?
SPEAKER_02: What does the ant do?
SPEAKER_02: Well, the ant she she beavers away to mix our animal metaphors, right?
SPEAKER_02: Um, the ant's beavering there.
SPEAKER_02: And uh what does she do?
SPEAKER_02: She she makes hay while the sun shines, she does her harvesting in summertime, she stores up for the winter, she does all of these things.
SPEAKER_02: She gathers and works.
SPEAKER_02: And here in this verse, it talks about the prudent.
SPEAKER_02: The prudent are like that.
SPEAKER_02: They're the people who have a degree of foresight, they kind of know what way the wind is blowing, and they know how to act.
SPEAKER_02: The simple, by contrast, are those who are, by contrast, are those who are caught off guard.
SPEAKER_02: But where contentment comes into this is it challenges us and it equips us at the level of motive.
SPEAKER_02: You see, without contentment, our planning becomes a way of controlling.
SPEAKER_02: Budgeting becomes a way of hoarding or greed.
SPEAKER_02: And our diligence, our hard work, our ant like beavering away, without contentment, what happens to that?
SPEAKER_02: It becomes laced with anxiety.
SPEAKER_02: To prepare in a way that rests in God's care of you is about stewarding what he has given you, what he has entrusted with you.
SPEAKER_02: Not seeing your wealth as a means of self-reliance, but as a means of acting wisely in the world and being a blessing to others.
SPEAKER_02: The content person plans not out of fear of lack, but out of a desire to honor God with what he has given him or her, out of a desire to bless others.
SPEAKER_02: So contentment doesn't just mean passivity, sitting back and uh and letting your life pan out whatever way.
SPEAKER_02: It means planning for your future without being mastered by your future.
SPEAKER_02: It means planning for your future without being mastered by the anxiety of what if.
SPEAKER_02: Again, what does this mean practically?
SPEAKER_02: You should look ahead.
SPEAKER_02: The wise person thinks about his future, her future, plans ahead, sees danger coming, and makes plans to avoid it.
SPEAKER_02: This might mean that actually one of the things you need to do is just slow down slightly in your decision making.
SPEAKER_02: Maybe you've been a little bit hasty in the past and made some decisions that have not gone as well as they might have.
SPEAKER_02: Because you've rushed.
SPEAKER_02: Maybe you need to slow down your decision making.
SPEAKER_02: Maybe take take some wise counsel.
SPEAKER_02: Get help to discern before moving forward.
SPEAKER_02: Maybe it means that what you need to do is you need to create some margin in your life, to leave time in your schedule for interruptions, for rest, for others, to leave margin in your budget for emergencies, or to be a blessing.
SPEAKER_02: The contented heart sees all that you have, all that you possess from your time, your gifting, your treasure, your wealth, sees all of it as something to be stewarded, to be kept in trust, as a way of honoring God and blessing others, rather than as something to hoard and that we have achieved and now possess by our own strength.
SPEAKER_02: The contented heart, or in the contented heart, our monthly spend is shaped not by comparison, but by your faith, by your values.
SPEAKER_02: We must pray for wisdom and a contented heart as we manage what God has entrusted us with.
SPEAKER_02: And then fourthly, and finally, contentment fuels generosity, but discontentment breeds injustice.
SPEAKER_02: Verse nine, whoever has a bountiful eye is blessed, for he shares his bread with the poor.
SPEAKER_02: Verse 16, whoever impresses the poor to increase his own wealth or gives to the rich will only come to poverty.
SPEAKER_02: How do you begin to be a generous person?
SPEAKER_02: Does it begin with your balance?
SPEAKER_02: No.
SPEAKER_02: It begins with your heart.
SPEAKER_02: Generosity doesn't begin with abundance, it begins with contentment.
SPEAKER_02: That if you are content in who you are and who God has made you, if you're content in what He has given you, then all the things that He has given you, you'll hold with a more open hand.
SPEAKER_02: It's the discontented heart that closes our hands tightly.
SPEAKER_02: The reason we can be generous is because we are content with what we've been given, that it isn't ours to begin with.
SPEAKER_02: We're called to manage it for a time and be a blessing to others.
SPEAKER_02: What's more, our our wealth, the things that God has given us, they don't achieve our identity.
SPEAKER_02: Rather, as believers in Jesus, one of the things that happens when we come to faith in Jesus is that he gives us the gift of a new identity that can never be shaken, never be taken away.
SPEAKER_02: It's given us a it's a it's a great gift, it's an undeserved kindness to us by our loving Heavenly Father who says, You are my son, you are my daughter.
SPEAKER_02: I'm throwing a party for you, prodigal, but the fattened calf has been killed.
SPEAKER_02: Come on in.
SPEAKER_02: We are going to celebrate.
SPEAKER_02: That's who you are.
SPEAKER_02: You're not a slave, you're a son.
SPEAKER_02: Do you know that?
SPEAKER_02: That's what the gospel offers you.
SPEAKER_02: Some of you here this morning think that if I became a Christian, that would mean slavery and oppression for me, that I'd have to give up the things that I prefer.
SPEAKER_02: No, no, no.
SPEAKER_02: We're moving from slaveship to sonship.
SPEAKER_02: You're given a new identity.
SPEAKER_02: One where you're adopted forever into the family and the household of God.
SPEAKER_02: And so that means that you don't need to work to achieve some new identity, because what can be better and more life-giving than living into who God has declared you to be?
SPEAKER_02: Because of what Jesus has done for you.
SPEAKER_02: Because he has taken away that sin that alienates you from your heavenly Father, and he has brought you close.
SPEAKER_02: Though he was rich, Paul says, he became poor.
SPEAKER_02: He became poor, and in his poverty on the cross, he made us the richest people in all of the cosmos.
SPEAKER_02: In a way that can never be taken away from us.
SPEAKER_02: That's what transforms our hearts.
SPEAKER_02: That's what makes us the most contented, joyful people in the whole planet.
SPEAKER_02: That we can look at the things that we have.
SPEAKER_02: That we can look at our wealth, that we can look at our time and see the needs of others.
SPEAKER_02: Because our hearts are full, our hands can be open.
SPEAKER_02: By contrast, when we feel that that empty, gnawing restlessness.
SPEAKER_02: When we feel that in our hearts, it makes us close our hands and we lose sight of others.
SPEAKER_02: Sometimes it can even make us wish to see others fail so that we could succeed.
SPEAKER_02: Or to exploit the weakness and ignorance of others in order to get what we want.
SPEAKER_02: Whoever oppresses the poor to increase his own wealth will only come to poverty.
SPEAKER_02: And because the weather the weather hasn't been what I ordered.
SPEAKER_02: I have so much going to do, don't I?
SPEAKER_02: To have that gnawing away in your heart.
SPEAKER_02: You need to know that that discontentment is believing the oldest lie.
SPEAKER_02: It's believing the first lie.
SPEAKER_02: It was told by a snake in a garden.
SPEAKER_02: And it was the lie of discontentment.
SPEAKER_02: It was the lie of the serpent going to Adam and Eve and saying, God's holding you back.
SPEAKER_02: If God was really good, he'd let you eat of everything.
SPEAKER_02: I can't believe that he would keep you under his heel like that.
SPEAKER_02: I can't believe that he would want to hold you down.
SPEAKER_02: If you only had this, you'd be happy then.
SPEAKER_02: If you only had this, you'd actually be able to be the master of your own fate.
SPEAKER_02: You'd be able to determine your own destiny.
SPEAKER_02: And suddenly awakening in our hearts is that, yeah, I'd like that.
SPEAKER_02: I can't believe that God has kept that from me.
SPEAKER_02: I can't believe that I have sacrificed so much for him and he has given me nothing.
SPEAKER_02: That's the first lie.
SPEAKER_02: And we've been believing it for generations.
SPEAKER_02: Believing that lie caused Adam and Eve to grasp at that fruit, but what they were grasping at discontentedly was self-reliance.
SPEAKER_02: Status.
SPEAKER_02: Cain, their son, believed that lie.
SPEAKER_02: And it made him envy his brother.
SPEAKER_02: It made him envy and resent Cain to the point where he murdered him.
SPEAKER_02: Judas believed that lie.
SPEAKER_02: He was discontented that Jesus wasn't meeting his expectations.
SPEAKER_02: Jesus wasn't meeting the expectations of the kind of Messiah that he wanted him to be, the kind of Messiah that he needed him to be.
SPEAKER_02: Has Jesus ever not met your expectations?
SPEAKER_02: If you've met the real Jesus, he'll confine your expectations all the time.
SPEAKER_02: Where are you going to go with that?
SPEAKER_02: You're going to change your expectations or are you going to resent them?
SPEAKER_02: Discontented Judas.
SPEAKER_02: Resented that Jesus wouldn't fulfill his dreams of what the Messiah should be.
SPEAKER_02: And so he betrayed him.
SPEAKER_02: For money.
SPEAKER_02: And they resented Jesus' power.
SPEAKER_02: They resented his popularity and his influence, and so they conspired to end his life.
SPEAKER_02: Discontentment, friends, it gnaws in our bones, it kills our generosity, and it stunts our service.
SPEAKER_02: By contrast, we meet the Lord Jesus on the night before he was betrayed, as indeed we will in just a few moments.
SPEAKER_02: And I've told this story before, but it's such a good illustration.
SPEAKER_02: They're in the upper room, it's the night of the Passover, and they're about to begin the Passover meal.
SPEAKER_02: And at that point, Jesus, their rabbi, their leader, their teacher, uh, gets up.
SPEAKER_02: From the table, and he takes off his outer garment and he ties it around his waist, and he fills a bowl of water and he gets down on his knees and he begins to wash the disciples' feet.
SPEAKER_02: He begins to serve them as the most lowly, the most humble.
SPEAKER_02: How can he do that?
SPEAKER_02: Why did he do that?
SPEAKER_02: But John tells us.
SPEAKER_02: John tells us before he says that Jesus got up, he says this.
SPEAKER_02: He says, Jesus, knowing that he had come from the Father, and that he was returning to the Father's side, got up from table, took off his outer robe, tied a tile around his waist, and began to wash the disciples' feet.
SPEAKER_02: What's John telling us there?
SPEAKER_02: John's telling us that what motivated Jesus' service, that lowly, humble washing of dusty, dank disciple feet, is that Jesus knew exactly who he was.
SPEAKER_02: That he was resting in it.
SPEAKER_02: He knew that he'd come from the Father, that he was the one who dwelled in an inapproachable light, who had heard the sound of the seraphim singing in the throne room of God.
SPEAKER_02: He knew exactly who he was.
SPEAKER_02: And he knew that in just a few hours' time that he would be returning to that glory via the shym and the ignominy of the cross.
SPEAKER_02: But the reason why he was able to do all of that is because he knew exactly who he was.
SPEAKER_02: What was Jesus?
SPEAKER_02: He was content.
SPEAKER_02: He was content in who he was.
SPEAKER_02: He was content in the path that was laid before him.
SPEAKER_02: He was resting in it.
SPEAKER_02: And what did that do?
SPEAKER_02: It enabled him to serve humbly, lavishly, generously, graciously, abundantly, sacrificially.
SPEAKER_02: Folks, are you going to believe the lie that God just wants to keep you down?
SPEAKER_02: That God's withholding things because he doesn't like you very much.
SPEAKER_02: Or because he's mean-spirited.
SPEAKER_02: And allow that lie to fester and gnaw at your heart.
SPEAKER_02: Or are you going to rest in who he's made you to be?
SPEAKER_02: And in that, to say, God, there's things that I'm struggling with.
SPEAKER_02: There's things that there's things about my life that aren't what I would prefer.
SPEAKER_02: And I'm struggling to see your your fingerprints in it.
SPEAKER_02: I don't know why you've done this.
SPEAKER_02: I don't know why you've withheld this from me.
SPEAKER_02: Please guard me from a discontented, grumbling, resentful heart.
SPEAKER_02: Help me to see the things that you are doing.
SPEAKER_02: Help me to see with fresh eyes the blessings that there are around me.
SPEAKER_02: And to trust that, and to trust you in that.
SPEAKER_02: You know my heart.
SPEAKER_02: You know my longings, and I'm asking you to satisfy them in ways that I can't imagine.
SPEAKER_02: Remember what Jesus says about his heavenly father?
SPEAKER_02: What time is it?
SPEAKER_02: Oh gosh, it's a quarter to 10, 12.
SPEAKER_02: I'm not going to tell you what Jesus says about his heavenly father.
SPEAKER_02: I'm going to move on.
SPEAKER_02: You can come and ask me afterwards.
SPEAKER_02: Because we need to be finished.
SPEAKER_02: We all want to be known as wise people.
SPEAKER_02: We all want to be known as generous people.
SPEAKER_02: And it begins with a heart that is content, that is at rest in who God is and who God has made us to be.
SPEAKER_02: And so let's, brothers and sisters, come to this table and confess our discontentment in full assurance that God forgives us, that he renews a right spirit within us, and he wants to, longs to, abundantly grow a contented, resting heart.
SPEAKER_02: Practically, how can we grow in our generosity or eschew and turn aside from discontentment?
SPEAKER_02: Well, I would encourage you to take time and consider and pray.
SPEAKER_02: But how you can be generous to others with your time, with your service, with your money, with your wealth, to serve here in God's mission at city in those ways, or to give to something or someone not because you have to, but because you get to.
SPEAKER_02: Or here's one.
SPEAKER_02: Celebrate the successes of someone else.
SPEAKER_02: My goodness.
SPEAKER_02: One of the things that will make you really bitter is when you really struggle to have joy when other people succeed and you don't.
SPEAKER_02: Celebrate other people's successes.
SPEAKER_02: Even if you go home and the tears stay in your face.
SPEAKER_02: Because it will grow a heart that is more at rest, I promise.
SPEAKER_02: God won't waste those tears.
SPEAKER_02: He counts them in his bottle.
SPEAKER_02: He numbers them.
SPEAKER_02: He knows your longing.
SPEAKER_02: This is what a mature Christian would look like.
SPEAKER_02: This is what a mature Christian people at the church would look like.
SPEAKER_02: That's why Paul says at the end of Philippians, he says, you know, I've begun I've known what it is to have a lot, and I've known what it is to have nothing.
SPEAKER_02: I've learned the secret of contentment.
SPEAKER_02: Why?
SPEAKER_02: Because I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength.
SPEAKER_02: It's not me.
SPEAKER_02: He enables me in the lack and he enables me in the abundance.
SPEAKER_02: That's wise Christian contentment.
SPEAKER_02: May I grow in it.
SPEAKER_02: May I, by God's grace, model it better to ye.
SPEAKER_02: And may we all become more mature, more wise in our rested, contented hearts.
SPEAKER_01: If you found this helpful or want to know more about City Church Dublin, visit our website found in the links below.