SPEAKER_00: This sermon was recorded at Faith Evangelical Free Church in Grand Forks, North Dakota.
SPEAKER_01: Take your Bibles with me this morning, not to Philippians, but to Exodus.
SPEAKER_01: To Exodus.
SPEAKER_01: Many of you are familiar with the name Rockefeller.
SPEAKER_01: John D.
SPEAKER_01: Rockefeller, the founder of Standard Oil and America's first billionaire, was once famously asked, how much money is enough?
SPEAKER_01: His answer may be more famous than the question.
SPEAKER_01: Does anybody know his answer?
SPEAKER_01: Just a little bit more.
SPEAKER_01: Yep, just a little bit more.
SPEAKER_01: The online magazine The Economic Times recently noted that Rockefeller's quote has stayed around for decades because it feels true to everyday life.
SPEAKER_01: And then it continued on to make this statement, and I quote, the statement Rockefeller made points to the fact that satisfaction is rarely fixed.
SPEAKER_01: There is always something just out of reach.
SPEAKER_01: Something true to life.
SPEAKER_01: We just always feel as though there's something more, something that's just not quite within our grasp.
SPEAKER_01: I think part of that is because we live in a world that is in some way engineered to ensure that we are never fully satisfied.
SPEAKER_01: The next phone upgrade is right around the corner.
SPEAKER_01: The next new car is coming down the pipeline.
SPEAKER_01: The next stage of life will surely be better than this one.
SPEAKER_01: The next achievement, the next relationship, the next milestone in life, the next experience will surely be the one that finally gives satisfaction.
SPEAKER_01: You ever felt that?
SPEAKER_01: You're dead if you haven't.
SPEAKER_01: We've all felt that in one form or another, right?
SPEAKER_01: Because this is a human problem that goes all the way back to the Garden of Eden, where the first man and woman were given everything they could desire, and they wanted more.
SPEAKER_01: They wanted what God said they shouldn't have.
SPEAKER_01: They decided that what God gave them wasn't enough.
SPEAKER_01: So the world has recognized this problem throughout the ages and worked to find its own solutions.
SPEAKER_01: How do we fix this problem of always needing just a little bit more?
SPEAKER_01: One group of ancient philosophers believed that contentment, satisfaction, depends on your own self-sufficiency.
SPEAKER_01: So you work to train your mind to want less.
SPEAKER_01: You detach yourself from the outcomes of life.
SPEAKER_01: You work to master your own inner world.
SPEAKER_01: You've probably heard similar ideas in our world today.
SPEAKER_01: Those ancient philosophers are truly ancient, but the ideas are very brand new in our world.
SPEAKER_01: They go by the names of minimalism or mindfulness.
SPEAKER_01: Or the advice to simply lower your expectations.
SPEAKER_01: Now, those concepts are similar enough to biblical contentment that you might mistake them for the real thing, but they are not.
SPEAKER_01: Those ideas see contentment as located within yourself, as something that you do, that's something that you decide to be.
SPEAKER_01: It comes from your self-discipline, from your detachment from your world or from the strength of your inner being.
SPEAKER_01: You are the master of yourself.
SPEAKER_01: But the biblical view places contentment somewhere else entirely.
SPEAKER_01: Over the next few weeks, we're going to look at the end of the Apostle Paul's letter to the Philippians, paying close attention to what he says about contentment.
SPEAKER_01: You're familiar, I'm sure, with his claim in Philippians 4.11, where he says, I have learned in whatever state I am to be content.
SPEAKER_01: So that's where we're going.
SPEAKER_01: But this morning I want to lay the theological foundation for that.
SPEAKER_01: Because if we don't understand what the Bible means by contentment, we will either give up on it as an impossible expectation, or we'll simply reduce it to a self-help technique.
SPEAKER_01: And neither one is okay.
SPEAKER_01: We need to understand where contentment comes from and what it's grounded in.
SPEAKER_01: So the biblical word for contentment appears only one time as an adjective in the entire New Testament.
SPEAKER_01: Now, what does that mean?
SPEAKER_01: In Philippians 4.11, the apostle Paul said he was content.
SPEAKER_01: It's an adjective, a word that describes himself.
SPEAKER_01: That's the only place in the New Testament we find the word describing a person.
SPEAKER_01: Isn't that incredible?
SPEAKER_01: One time, describing a person.
SPEAKER_01: Yet the concept runs all the way through Scripture.
SPEAKER_01: And that concept is specifically a covenant story.
SPEAKER_01: And by covenant, I mean a relationship.
SPEAKER_01: A covenant is a relationship that is dependent upon parties.
SPEAKER_01: You enter into an agreement with somebody else to be something, to do something on their behalf.
SPEAKER_01: It is one tied in scripture to trust in God's provision.
SPEAKER_01: In Scripture, God's provision for his people isn't arbitrary.
SPEAKER_01: And by that I mean if it was arbitrary, it would mean that God's provision for us is the kindness of a God who just happens to be in a good mood.
SPEAKER_01: And so if things don't go our way, if we don't have what we need, if we're not satisfied, then it must mean that God's not in a good mood.
SPEAKER_01: Or God's not happy with me.
SPEAKER_01: But that takes it away from the idea of covenant.
SPEAKER_01: What covenant does is it tells us that God's provision for his people flows from his personal commitment and love that is binding to his people.
SPEAKER_01: It is initiated by him and it is kept by him.
SPEAKER_01: And when you trace that thread across the scriptures, from Genesis to Revelation, you arrive at a single, very clear conclusion.
SPEAKER_01: True contentment rests in God's covenant faithfulness.
SPEAKER_01: That's where it is.
SPEAKER_01: And if we don't get there, we miss the whole basis for contentment.
SPEAKER_01: I want to trace that with you together this morning.
SPEAKER_01: We're going to go on a Bible road trip.
SPEAKER_01: We're going to begin in the wilderness school of Exodus.
SPEAKER_01: Then we're going to go to the shepherd king of the Psalms and the wise man of Proverbs.
SPEAKER_01: And then we're going to jump to the New Testament.
SPEAKER_01: And those four passages that we're going to look at this morning link together.
SPEAKER_01: And we're going to trace all the way through them to show us that true contentment rests in God's covenant faithfulness.
SPEAKER_01: Look with me first at Exodus chapter 16.
SPEAKER_01: Exodus chapter 16.
SPEAKER_01: Here we go to the wilderness school where we see that God provides exactly enough.
SPEAKER_01: The place to begin is the desert.
SPEAKER_01: Exodus chapter 16, if you want to follow along as I read, says the people of Israel set out from Elim, and all the congregation of the people of Israel came to the wilderness of sin, which is between Elim and Sinai, on the fifteenth day of the second month after they had departed from the land of Egypt.
SPEAKER_01: And the whole congregation of the people of Israel grumbled against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness.
SPEAKER_01: And the people of Israel said to them, Oh, that we had died by the hand of Yahweh in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the meat pots and ate bread to the full.
SPEAKER_01: For you've brought us out into this wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.
SPEAKER_01: Then Yahweh said to Moses, Listen, I'm about to rain bread.
SPEAKER_01: What?
SPEAKER_01: I'm about to reign bread from heaven for you.
SPEAKER_01: And the people shall go out and gather a day's portion every day, that I may test them whether they will walk in my law or not.
SPEAKER_01: And on the sixth day, when they prepare what they bring in, it will be twice as much as they gather daily.
SPEAKER_01: Now look down at verse 13.
SPEAKER_01: They grumbled again because they didn't have meat.
SPEAKER_01: In the evening God brought quail up, and it covered the camp, and in the morning dew lay on the around the camp.
SPEAKER_01: When the dew had gone up, there was on the face of the wilderness a fine flake-like thing, fine as frost on the ground.
SPEAKER_01: And when the people of Israel saw it, they said to one another, Manna, what is it?
SPEAKER_01: That's what manna means.
SPEAKER_01: What is it?
SPEAKER_01: For they did not know what it was.
SPEAKER_01: And Moses said to them, It is the bread that Yahweh has given you to eat.
SPEAKER_01: For this is what Yahweh has commanded, gather of it, each one of you, as much as he can eat.
SPEAKER_01: You shall each take an omer according to the number of persons that each of you has in his tent.
SPEAKER_01: And so they did.
SPEAKER_01: They gathered, some more, some less.
SPEAKER_01: But when they measured it with an omer, whoever gathered much had nothing left over.
SPEAKER_01: Whoever gathered little had no lack.
SPEAKER_01: Each of them gathered as much as he could eat.
SPEAKER_01: And Moses said to them, Let no one leave any of it over till the morning.
SPEAKER_01: But they did not listen to Moses.
SPEAKER_01: Some left part of it till the morning, and it bred worms and stank.
SPEAKER_01: And Moses was angry with them.
SPEAKER_01: Morning by morning they gathered it, each as much as he could eat, but when the sun grew hot it melted.
SPEAKER_01: Have you ever seen bread melt?
SPEAKER_01: I don't I haven't experienced that one yet.
SPEAKER_01: This is a very unusual situation.
SPEAKER_01: Bread rains, as in falling from heaven.
SPEAKER_01: It is compared to dew that forms on the ground.
SPEAKER_01: But it has substance to it.
SPEAKER_01: It tastes like honey.
SPEAKER_01: And it is satisfying, and it fills people, and then it melts.
SPEAKER_01: There's never been a substance like this since.
SPEAKER_01: Israel had just crossed the Red Sea.
SPEAKER_01: They've seen God totally obliterate the most powerful army on earth at the time.
SPEAKER_01: How did he do it?
SPEAKER_01: With water, naturally.
SPEAKER_01: They've sung about it on the eastern bank of the Red Sea.
SPEAKER_01: They've looked back and they've seen the waters come crashing in and seeing God destroy the enemy.
SPEAKER_01: They are now not only free, but totally free.
SPEAKER_01: They have no fear of their enemy because the enemy is gone.
SPEAKER_01: They are now out of slavery, free to be on their own, free to follow God, free to love Him, free to worship Him, free to trust Him.
SPEAKER_01: Then they're hungry.
SPEAKER_01: Two months in.
SPEAKER_01: And the singing stops.
SPEAKER_01: Don't you just wish we would have died in Egypt?
SPEAKER_01: Here we are out in the desert.
SPEAKER_01: At least back in Egypt, we had meat and pots.
SPEAKER_01: Sit by the river and eat all the bread we want.
SPEAKER_01: Do you get what's happening there?
SPEAKER_01: In that moment, slavery tasted better than freedom.
SPEAKER_01: And that's the skeleton, really, of discontent.
SPEAKER_01: It rewrites the past as paradise in order to resist or ignore the pain of the present.
SPEAKER_01: And God's response here is incredible.
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't rebuke them, he doesn't lecture them.
SPEAKER_01: It says they grumbled against Moses and Aaron, as if Moses and Aaron were supposed to have this all planned out, right?
SPEAKER_01: Figure out how they're going to feed people for months on end in the desert.
SPEAKER_01: God doesn't rebuke them though, he feeds them.
SPEAKER_01: He feeds them.
SPEAKER_01: Bread from heaven every morning, six days a week.
SPEAKER_01: Always enough for the day.
SPEAKER_01: And on the sixth day, enough for two days.
SPEAKER_01: Because they weren't to go out on the Sabbath day.
SPEAKER_01: They were to gather enough on the sixth day for the sixth and the seventh day.
SPEAKER_01: Not what you want to gather, but what you need to gather.
SPEAKER_01: Enough for today.
SPEAKER_01: And then on the sixth day, enough for today, and also enough for tomorrow.
SPEAKER_01: And what happened when people took more?
SPEAKER_01: It rotted.
SPEAKER_01: It bred worms overnight.
SPEAKER_01: But why did they take more?
SPEAKER_01: Because they'd been hungry.
SPEAKER_01: They'd been dissatisfied.
SPEAKER_01: And so when you have an abundance, you gather more because it seems like an excess in the moment when you're hungry is a security blanket.
SPEAKER_01: But that security blanket breeds worms just overnight.
SPEAKER_01: And it stinks.
SPEAKER_01: But amazingly, if you gather extra on day six, it doesn't grow worms and stink.
SPEAKER_01: It keeps fresh.
SPEAKER_01: So God had God had built provision for the Sabbath day into the manna itself.
SPEAKER_01: Discontentment, friends, exposes our ignorance that we need God more than anything else.
SPEAKER_01: Listen to what Deuteronomy chapter 8 tells the Israelites, that they most likely could have not known in the moment of Exodus 16.
SPEAKER_01: Looking back, 40 years later, Moses says to the Israelites in Deuteronomy chapter 8 and verse 3, he says, God humbled you, and he let you hunger, and he fed you with, what is it?
SPEAKER_01: That he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of Yahweh.
SPEAKER_01: Friends, the desert wasn't a detour from what God wanted to accomplish.
SPEAKER_01: The desert was the lesson.
SPEAKER_01: The desert was where God took his people to cause them to hunger so that it would expose a much deeper need.
SPEAKER_01: A need that God would meet only with himself.
SPEAKER_01: I said it a minute ago and I'll say it again.
SPEAKER_01: Our discontentment exposes our ignorance or sometimes our pride, our refusal to recognize and admit we need God more than anything else.
SPEAKER_01: More than food, more than clothing, more than a roof over our heads, more than anything that life can bring.
SPEAKER_01: Moses, a few verses later in Deuteronomy chapter 8, gave a warning that might be one of the most sobering passages about contentment in all of Scripture.
SPEAKER_01: He says in verses 9, 10, all the way through verse 15 or so, I think, he reminds the people that when you come into the land, watch out.
SPEAKER_01: Beware.
SPEAKER_01: Because when you come into the land of promise, you're going to eat, you're going to drink, you're going to have property, and you're going to have all that you want.
SPEAKER_01: You're going to be more than satisfied.
SPEAKER_01: Watch out lest your heart be lifted up and your stomach full, and you forget Yahweh your God.
SPEAKER_01: Contentment isn't just a poverty problem, it's also a prosperity problem.
SPEAKER_01: Because the person who hoards manna and the person who forgets God amidst abundance makes the same mistake.
SPEAKER_01: Both have stopped trusting the giver and instead are holding on to the gift.
SPEAKER_01: And we do that too, don't we?
SPEAKER_01: Maybe not by storing up manna or bread, but maybe by hedging all of the uncertainties of life with one more layer of financial stability.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe one more contingency plan, one more backup.
SPEAKER_01: I've lost too many computer files that I have backups of backups of backups of backups.
SPEAKER_01: And the anxiety that is always underneath the surface there, underneath the accumulation that we put on top of it, is the same kind of anxiety that drove Israel to gather up extra manna.
SPEAKER_01: It's the anxiety of a people who have quietly stopped trusting that God has covenanted with them to be enough for today and enough for tomorrow.
SPEAKER_01: This is the first truth we need to understand about contentment.
SPEAKER_01: It's that it's not a personality trait.
SPEAKER_01: It's not something that you are or you have.
SPEAKER_01: It's not something that some people are born with and some people aren't.
SPEAKER_01: It is a learned covenant, a relationship posture.
SPEAKER_01: It's the daily discipline of trusting that the God who provided manna yesterday will provide enough for today.
SPEAKER_01: And you know, Israel didn't learn it in a classroom.
SPEAKER_01: They didn't learn that lesson in a controlled environment.
SPEAKER_01: They learned it one morning at a time, probably on their knees in a desert, picking up little pieces of cracker-like substance.
SPEAKER_01: Gathering only what they needed day by day.
SPEAKER_01: And that's still how contentment is learned.
SPEAKER_01: Now move to the Psalms with me.
SPEAKER_01: To the shepherd king.
SPEAKER_01: You know the passage?
SPEAKER_01: Psalm 23.
SPEAKER_01: Here's where we learn that contentment is a covenantal trust.
SPEAKER_01: That God has covenanted with us.
SPEAKER_01: And we can trust him.
SPEAKER_01: So we're fast-forwarding now hundreds of years from Exodus.
SPEAKER_01: David is king, he has survived the wilderness himself by running from Saul.
SPEAKER_01: He's slept in caves.
SPEAKER_01: He's eaten whatever he could find.
SPEAKER_01: Never knowing if tomorrow is going to bring rescue or death.
SPEAKER_01: And out of that experience comes one of the beloved songs of all time.
SPEAKER_01: You know it.
SPEAKER_01: Yahweh is my shepherd.
SPEAKER_01: I shall not want.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, now we think about it a little bit differently, don't we?
SPEAKER_01: That opening line is far more significant than it might seem at first glance.
SPEAKER_01: For the the word there for want, I shall not want, is the same word that Moses used back in Deuteronomy chapter 2, reminding that wilderness generation, that desert generation, something extremely significant.
SPEAKER_01: He said in Deuteronomy chapter 2, these 40 years, Yahweh your God has been with you, and you have lacked nothing.
SPEAKER_01: David, in the very first line of this psalm, is drawing on the lessons of the wilderness generation.
SPEAKER_01: He's drawing on the lessons learned in the desert of life.
SPEAKER_01: And he applies that wilderness desert lesson to his own story.
SPEAKER_01: What God did for Israel in the desert, Yahweh did for David in his own desert.
SPEAKER_01: He is the faithful shepherd who provides enough so that you never lack.
SPEAKER_01: And if you don't lack, you can be satisfied.
SPEAKER_01: Now the psalm, right, doesn't promise an absence of difficulty.
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't say that the path before us is smooth.
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't say we're not going to trip.
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't say that we're not going to get sniffed at by the wolves chasing us or by the lions chasing us.
SPEAKER_01: There are valleys, deep, dark, shadowy valleys.
SPEAKER_01: There are threats surrounded by enemies.
SPEAKER_01: Friends, contentment in Psalm 23 is not the absence of hardship.
SPEAKER_01: Contentment in Psalm 23 is the presence of the shepherd in the middle of hardship.
SPEAKER_01: It's his covenant presence with you.
SPEAKER_01: The meal is served in the middle of hostility, in the presence of the enemies.
SPEAKER_01: The cup overflows not after the enemies are defeated, but while they're still present.
SPEAKER_01: Goodness and mercy are described as pursuing him all the days of his life, even through the dark and shallow days.
SPEAKER_01: We tend to think of contentment as something that's possible only once the hard season ends.
SPEAKER_01: All I have to do is get through this.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: Once the diagnosis is resolved, once this debt is paid off, once the relationship heals, but that's not what Psalm 23 teaches us.
SPEAKER_01: The shepherd doesn't remove King David from the valley of the shadow of death.
SPEAKER_01: No, he doesn't take him away from it.
SPEAKER_01: He walks through it with him.
SPEAKER_01: The table isn't set after the enemies have scattered.
SPEAKER_01: It's set while they're present and watching.
SPEAKER_01: Boy, that's a comfortable meal.
SPEAKER_01: The contentment David describes isn't downstream from his circumstances improving.
SPEAKER_01: It's present with him because the shepherd is present with him.
SPEAKER_01: It's just like the manna.
SPEAKER_01: God didn't take them out of the desert.
SPEAKER_01: He provides just enough for them in the desert as he shepherds them through it.
SPEAKER_01: So David's report here is not a report on how life is going for him.
SPEAKER_01: It's a stated declaration of trust in the faithful God and his covenant promises.
SPEAKER_01: What Yahweh covenanted to be for his people in the desert, he is for David.
SPEAKER_01: Yahweh is my shepherd.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore, regardless of what surrounds me, regardless of my circumstances, I shall not want.
SPEAKER_01: Contentment, in other words, is relational before it is circumstantial.
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't come from what you're going through in life, but from who has entered into an eternal relationship with you to be enough for you.
SPEAKER_01: A prayer.
SPEAKER_01: This is a man by the name of Agur, the son of Jacob.
SPEAKER_01: Chapter 30.
SPEAKER_01: The words of this man.
SPEAKER_01: And I am worn out.
SPEAKER_01: Do you feel that?
SPEAKER_01: Sort of like Elijah.
SPEAKER_01: After conquering the prophets of Baal, he runs away from Jezebel and just collapses.
SPEAKER_01: And he asks God, just kill me.
SPEAKER_01: Just take me home.
SPEAKER_01: Look at verse 7, chapter 30.
SPEAKER_01: Two things I ask of you.
SPEAKER_01: Don't deny me before I die.
SPEAKER_01: Remove far from me falsehood and lying.
SPEAKER_01: Give me neither poverty nor riches.
SPEAKER_01: Feed me with the food that is needful for me.
SPEAKER_01: Lest I be full and deny you and say, Who is Yahweh?
SPEAKER_01: Or lest I be poor and steal and profane the name of my God.
SPEAKER_01: Now I skipped a very important verse in doing this.
SPEAKER_01: Now go back and look at verse 5.
SPEAKER_01: Every word of God proves true.
SPEAKER_01: He is a shield to those who take refuge in him.
SPEAKER_01: So there's this there's this mournful cry of God, I've just, I can't do this anymore.
SPEAKER_01: And then we go to the other end and say, God, just give me enough.
SPEAKER_01: And in between is this reminder of God's covenant faithfulness to the desert generation, to the shepherd king, every word of God.
SPEAKER_01: And what did Moses say?
SPEAKER_01: That's what you really need to learn is that what you really need is more of Him.
SPEAKER_01: So that you learn in walking with God that He is enough.
SPEAKER_01: So so far we've seen contentment taught in the wilderness, we've seen it declared in the Psalms, but here in Proverbs 30, there's something different.
SPEAKER_01: Here, contentment is prayed for.
SPEAKER_01: It's prayed for.
SPEAKER_01: Two things I ask.
SPEAKER_01: Please don't deny me before I die, because I'm close to it.
SPEAKER_01: Remove from me falsehood and lying.
SPEAKER_01: Don't make me poor, and don't make me rich.
SPEAKER_01: Boy, that guy is sick, isn't he?
SPEAKER_01: That's our natural kind of reaction.
SPEAKER_01: That phrase, the food that is needful for me, it means something like my allotted bread, my portion for today.
SPEAKER_01: It could very well be an echo of that wilderness element of just enough for today.
SPEAKER_01: It's the sentiment behind the Lord's statement in teaching the disciples to pray, give us this day our daily bread.
SPEAKER_01: The bread for today, the amount, the portion that I need for today.
SPEAKER_01: So Jesus taught his disciples to pray as Agur prayed, for sufficient, daily, God-appointed provision enough for today.
SPEAKER_01: So Agur prayed that God would be to him just as he was for the people in the desert and just as he was for David.
SPEAKER_01: Why does Agur pray this way?
SPEAKER_01: Well, he tells us.
SPEAKER_01: Verse 9, I don't want to be full and then deny you.
SPEAKER_01: And I don't want to be hungry so that I steal.
SPEAKER_01: Here's a guy who knows his theology.
SPEAKER_01: He's worked through his applied theology to his life.
SPEAKER_01: He knows who God is and he knows what God, who God is and how God works, but he also knows his own heart.
SPEAKER_01: He knows that if he has more than enough, he'll be tempted to think that he is self-sufficient.
SPEAKER_01: But he also knows that if he's too poor and too hungry, he might dishonor God by stealing.
SPEAKER_01: So he has internalized that very first wilderness warning.
SPEAKER_01: What Moses taught as sort of an external caution, Agur has made into a personal daily prayer.
SPEAKER_01: The only safe place for my life and my heart is the place of enough.
SPEAKER_01: Not too much, not too little, enough.
SPEAKER_01: The only safety net is dependence on the God who provides enough for today.
SPEAKER_01: Now notice what Agur does that David does not do.
SPEAKER_01: David declares, I shall not want.
SPEAKER_01: I trust my covenant God, so I'm not going to lack anything.
SPEAKER_01: I know that, I trust that, I believe that.
SPEAKER_01: This is my faith declaration.
SPEAKER_01: Augur, though, asks for that.
SPEAKER_01: He prays for it.
SPEAKER_01: And that's not a contradiction.
SPEAKER_01: It's more like, here's the next step, here's the next progressive step.
SPEAKER_01: It takes wisdom to understand that contentment needs to be desired.
SPEAKER_01: It needs to be sought after.
SPEAKER_01: Because our hearts don't naturally drift into contentment.
SPEAKER_01: They naturally drift into discontentment.
SPEAKER_01: The wise man asks God to keep him content and satisfied with faithful provision each day.
SPEAKER_01: So Proverbs 30 turns Psalm 23 into a daily prayer.
SPEAKER_01: What David declared, Augur requests as a life circumstance.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, keep me in that place.
SPEAKER_01: Give me my appointed bread for today.
SPEAKER_01: Not more, not less, just enough.
SPEAKER_01: Because Augur knows that's how he keeps his faith in the covenant God.
SPEAKER_01: Now let's look to the New Testament.
SPEAKER_01: Second Corinthians.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know how often we run to this passage as a contentment text, but I think it applies.
SPEAKER_01: Second Corinthians chapter 12.
SPEAKER_01: Here is where we move from God's covenant faithfulness to the people of Israel to God's new covenant faithfulness to his people in Christ.
SPEAKER_01: And here is where we learn that God's grace is always sufficient.
SPEAKER_01: Agur prayed to be kept in that place of dependence.
SPEAKER_01: He recognized it might not be comfortable, it might not feel always good and safe, but it's best.
SPEAKER_01: And I know it and I believe it.
SPEAKER_01: Please keep me there.
SPEAKER_01: Paul, the apostle, was put there by force.
SPEAKER_01: But this is a Paul that is maybe a slightly different person.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe that's not the right way to say it.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe we're looking at the same Paul but from a different angle.
SPEAKER_01: That's a better way to say it.
SPEAKER_01: We've been looking at the Apostle Paul in a Roman prison for several weeks in Philippians.
SPEAKER_01: This is not the Apostle Paul in prison.
SPEAKER_01: This is the Apostle Paul with a stubborn thorn stuck into his skin.
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't tell us what it is, other than it's painful, it's distracting, and likely demonic.
SPEAKER_01: Three times he asked God to take it away.
SPEAKER_01: Three times.
SPEAKER_01: But God's answer was not removal.
SPEAKER_01: The answer was this in 2 Corinthians 12, verse 9.
SPEAKER_01: God said to me, My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.
SPEAKER_01: Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.
SPEAKER_01: So do you see the path here?
SPEAKER_01: We go from God saying, I want you to learn in the desert that I'm enough.
SPEAKER_01: To David saying, I believe that you're enough.
SPEAKER_01: To Agur saying, Please keep me in that place so that I keep trusting that you're enough.
SPEAKER_01: To Paul saying, please take it away, and God saying, No.
SPEAKER_01: You need to learn all over again that I'm enough.
SPEAKER_01: My grace is sufficient.
SPEAKER_01: That word sufficient summarizes everything we've been tracing since Exodus.
SPEAKER_01: The God who built sufficiency into the manna, who was David's shepherd providing enough, and who gave Agur his appointed portion, now speaks directly to the Apostle Paul, saying, My grace is enough.
SPEAKER_01: It's now the Old Testament covenant promise for God's people, Israel, is now transformed into a personal promise from Christ to the Apostle Paul.
SPEAKER_01: But here's where the new covenant advances beyond what came before it.
SPEAKER_01: The manna was received.
SPEAKER_01: It was picked up on the desert floor day by day.
SPEAKER_01: The shepherd's provision was trusted.
SPEAKER_01: Agur's portion was received.
SPEAKER_01: He gladly received just enough.
SPEAKER_01: But Paul's response here is completely different than the response we see elsewhere in Scripture.
SPEAKER_01: Look in verse 10.
SPEAKER_01: For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities.
SPEAKER_01: For when I am weak, then I am strong.
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to look at these things as though they're delightful things, they're good things.
SPEAKER_01: I'm going to take pleasure in weaknesses and insults and hardships and persecutions and calamities.
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't just tolerate them, he doesn't merely endure them, he's satisfied in them.
SPEAKER_01: How is that possible?
SPEAKER_01: Well, he tells us.
SPEAKER_01: It's because when I am satisfied in my weakness, that's when I am strong.
SPEAKER_01: The thorn hasn't been removed yet, but it has been redeemed.
SPEAKER_01: The very thing that makes the apostle Paul feel insufficient is the means for Paul to experience Christ's power in him.
SPEAKER_01: The weakness becomes the condition under which God's strength is displayed.
SPEAKER_01: Put this to the test, friends.
SPEAKER_01: Where do you feel weakest in serving Christ?
SPEAKER_01: Think about that.
SPEAKER_01: Put it to the test.
SPEAKER_01: Go and serve in that area of weakness and see what happens.
SPEAKER_01: I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of you find that God actually uses your weakness.
SPEAKER_01: Because when you serve in weakness, it demonstrates you're not doing this in your own self-sufficiency, you're doing it in His sufficiency.
SPEAKER_01: This is Christ-likeness at work in a life.
SPEAKER_01: Christ's weakness on the cross became the power of salvation.
SPEAKER_01: The one who was crucified in weakness was raised in power.
SPEAKER_01: And now the apostle who bears a thorn in his flesh participates in that same pattern, not because of the weakness, but through it.
SPEAKER_01: Think about what that means for some of you right now.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you have a thorn.
SPEAKER_01: It might be a physical kind of thing that doesn't go away, can't get fixed.
SPEAKER_01: No matter how many times you've prayed, it's still there.
SPEAKER_01: It might be a circumstance that just won't change, a life circumstance that just seems to have no end, no hope.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe it's a grief that hasn't resolved or a sinful weakness that you're ashamed of.
SPEAKER_01: You've asked for its removal, you've prayed for it again and again, and the answer has been, I'm not removing it.
SPEAKER_01: I emphasize that because that's how it feels, right?
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes it feels as though God says, No, I'm not removing it.
SPEAKER_01: But the Apostle Paul reveals the true heart behind God's answer.
SPEAKER_01: The Apostle Paul would say to you, that's not the end of the story.
SPEAKER_01: Because the grace of Christ does not always work by eliminating the hard thing.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes it works through the deep, dark valley, full of fear and uncertainty.
SPEAKER_01: It turns your insufficiency into the place where Christ's power is most clearly seen.
SPEAKER_01: Those are not fluffy words meant to make you feel better.
SPEAKER_01: What I've hoped to show is that this is God's covenant, relational promise to you designed to satisfy your most deepest need.
SPEAKER_01: Our relationship with God the Son through the new covenant is not merely about having enough.
SPEAKER_01: It is the discovery that Christ turns your insufficiency into an occasion for his sufficiency to be displayed.
SPEAKER_01: The wilderness is still real.
SPEAKER_01: The valley's still dark, the thorn still hurts.
SPEAKER_01: But the words, my grace is sufficient for you, are the final and fullest word that the covenant God speaks to his people in their need.
SPEAKER_01: Although that's true.
SPEAKER_01: I'm giving you my grace that is sufficient in every circumstance.
SPEAKER_01: That grace defines his relationship with you.
SPEAKER_01: It expresses his promised provision for you, and it anticipates the completion of all that he's going to do in you.
SPEAKER_01: So all of Scripture answers this question from beginning to end.
SPEAKER_01: Where does the human heart find its greatest, most genuine satisfaction?
SPEAKER_01: From the manna measured out in the wilderness to a shepherd's table in the presence of enemies, to a wise man's prayer for daily appointed bread, to an apostle receiving Christ's sufficiency in the middle of his weakness, to that same apostle later sitting in a Roman prison writing to Philippians.
SPEAKER_01: Where does the human heart find its satisfaction?
SPEAKER_01: The human heart finds its satisfaction in the God who has covenanted with his people to be enough.
SPEAKER_01: Not to accumulate, not to store up, not to achieve, not through self-discipline or better circumstances, but through your suffering savior.
SPEAKER_01: The fulfillment of God's promise to his covenant people with his people to be enough for them to be fully satisfied in him is fulfilled in Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: The book of Hebrews tells us that Jesus was the rock in the desert out of which water came.
SPEAKER_01: For the thirsty people.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus himself says he is the good shepherd.
SPEAKER_01: Which means he's enough in the valley of deep dark shadows.
SPEAKER_01: He's the bread from heaven that satisfies.
SPEAKER_01: So he is Agur's answer.
SPEAKER_01: And he is the grace that is sufficient in Paul's weakness.
SPEAKER_01: Jesus is enough.
SPEAKER_01: And he's enough in your life.
SPEAKER_01: And that's where we begin.
SPEAKER_01: But here's where it gets personal.
SPEAKER_01: As if it hasn't gotten personal enough, right?
SPEAKER_01: Contentment like this doesn't just come automatically.
SPEAKER_01: The Apostle Paul says in Philippians 4 11 that he learned it.
SPEAKER_01: It is learned.
SPEAKER_01: It's not his by nature, it's formed in him over time, through hardship, through loss, through uncertainty, through the accumulated experience of trusting a faithful God.
SPEAKER_01: And next week we'll open that text and ask, how does God's people learn to be content?
SPEAKER_01: Hope you'll come back for that.
SPEAKER_01: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_01: Lord Jesus, thank you for who you are.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you for what you've done for your people.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you that you are enough.
SPEAKER_01: Lord, forgive us for not always trusting in your sufficiency for us.
SPEAKER_01: Forgive us for not trusting in your provision, that you know us, that you love us, that you care for us, and you provide for us.
SPEAKER_01: Oh Lord, cause us to trust you more and more each day.
SPEAKER_01: Meet our needs.
SPEAKER_01: Not for tomorrow, yet, but for today.
SPEAKER_01: And as we trust you for today, enable us to trust you for tomorrow.
SPEAKER_01: Because we know and we believe that your grace is sufficient.
SPEAKER_01: So fill us with your spirit and cause us to trust you day by day, moment by moment, until the end.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: That concludes this sermon from Faith Evangelical Free Church.
SPEAKER_00: Our mission is to declare the Word of God and disciple believers into mature, devoted followers of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: You can learn more by visiting our website at faithfree.com.