Address—T. Roach
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I'd like to start tonight by seeing #52152.
Reading verse 40, that's strong and faith abiding. We may too the Savior plead not with Him, our hearts divided, all for Him content to leave. Are we willing to leave behind all those things in this world, in this life that would take our hearts attention away from the Lord? Are we content to leave that behind? Let's sing #252.
Sweet thumb.
Across we spend life and health and health and peace processing from the dying standards for heaven.
Here we rest in wonder feeling.
All your girls on Jesus.
Way.
And the.
Redemption flowing.
From the side revising me.
Here we find the dawn of heaven.
When we.
See, your transplant stands for heaven.
And I saw triumph. Brave.
Oh.
Faith of lighting.
We made to the sacred clean.
Not with them.
I see why.
All for him.
Turn to me.
May we spell God's mind.
Discerning.
To the land for risen go.
Clear. Do you wander? Stay.
All my bright sun Mercy.
I'd like to talk my subject tonight is about being content contentment, and I'd like to start with a verse in Psalm 38.
Psalm 38 and verse 8.
Mercy, I am feeble.
And sore broken I have roared by the reason of the disquietness in my heart.
To be content, I believe means.
To be happy with what one has and not to be desiring something different and to be satisfied.
And to be content is also to not be complaining. And when I am content, I I have accepted God's plan for me and for my life. And I I will trust God completely in every situation in my life. And when I do that, it will give glory to God.
When we are content, it helps us to have a happy and a productive Christian life and contentment.
Contentment in our life is one way we can glorify God practically and by learning to be content, we show God that we truly believe that Jesus is Lord of our life and that we trust Him completely for everything in our life and for all the details of our life and the results of what we do for the Lord, we're able to completely give that to Him and let Him be the Lord of our life.
00:05:14
Well.
I want to go through several points about being content. The first one I believe is being content gives me strength to do whatever God gives me to do.
And let's look at Philippians chapter 4.
Verse 11 to 13.
Being content gives me the strength to do whatever God gives me to do.
Philippians 4 and verse 11.
Not that I I speak in respect of want, for I have learned in whatsoever state I am there with to be content. I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound everywhere and in all things. I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.
It may be that the economy is bad. Maybe your business is suffering and you can't do everything that you used to do.
Maybe you've got to cut back on travel, buying nice things, eating out.
And it might be difficult to accept these changes in our lives.
Can we be content in such circumstances in these verses whatsoever circumstance the Apostle Paul found himself in?
He was confident that he was in God's will, and so he was able to be content. And this means that whether Paul was sick or healthy, whether he was rich or poor, whether he's hungry or satisfied Paul, he accepted that circumstance from the hand of God and the Apostle Paul.
He did not automatically become content just because he was a Christian.
And Paul? He had to learn to be content.
And contentment does not come easy.
How, how, How do we learn to be content? I think contentment becomes by choice.
The Apostle Paul, he chose to be content. He chose to be content with God's will, whatever it was. And Paul also knew that whatever circumstance he was in, whether it was good or bad, he could do all things through Christ.
Through that God had given him to do. And when Paul says that he can do all things through Christ who gives him strength, Paul doesn't mean that he can do great and amazing things. And to play professional football or be a world renowned Dr. or or some some amazing thing like this, this is not what this Paul meant by these verses. Paul means that whatever work that God tells us to do in his will, in his word, God will give us the grace and the strength.
To be able to do that work that He's given us to do, and also if we go through an unpleasant circumstance in our life, the Lord will give us the strength and the grace to endure that difficulty.
But it's not always going to be easy to endure.
But the Lord, He will give us the strength. He will give us the grace to be able to endure through that activity or through that trial that He's given us. And when we have a difficult circumstance and and and we we go through a disease or a chronic condition or perhaps a marital frustration and we often pray to the Lord and we ask the Lord for mercy.
Oh Lord, have mercy on me. Heal me. Take this away from me so I can give you glory. But the Lord he might not answer us with mercy.
He might answer us with grace to endure the difficulty, the affliction, so we can learn to be content. We can learn to be content in any trial so that we can learn to give glory to God not through good health, but in spite of our poor health, or in spite of whatever circumstance the Lord allows in our life. There's a verse in Second Corinthians chapter 12.
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2nd Corinthians.
Chapter 12 This is when the apostle had Paul had a thorn in his flesh, and he asked the Lord for mercy. And he says in verse eight of Second Corinthians 12, verse 8 For this thing I besought the Lord three times that it might depart from me. See that Paul said, Lord, take it away from me. But the Lord said, No, Paul, I will not give you mercy for this instant.
I will give you grace. You are going to live out your days with this affliction, but I will give you the grace to endure verse 9.
He said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee. My strength is made perfect in weakness.
Do we want God's strength in our life? It's only going to come through our weakness and when we ask the Lord for mercy.
The Lord often answers us with grace, and he says, my grace is sufficient for you.
The Lord Jesus is saying says I will go through this life long situation with you.
But you need to endure. You must endure this affliction until perhaps you die or until the Lord comes. But I will be with you through this affliction. And the strength of the Lord is made perfect in our lives. When we go through this these trials and of weakness and danger, we go through them with the Lord.
The Lord Jesus, He offers us his grace.
Because we may need to endure the thorn in the flesh for a very long time.
And the problems that we have might never be taken away here in this lifetime. And the Lord Jesus, he offers us his grace.
Whatever problems or limitations that we may have.
If God tells you to share the gospel.
If he tells you to serve your fellow Christians.
If he tells you to visit the orphans and the widows in their affliction, God will give you the strength. He'll give you the courage. He'll give you whatever resources you need to do that to do His will, whatever he's asked you to do. And in spite of the pain and the disability or the persecution, we just need to begin the work in faith.
Even when the service service may sound physically impossible for us to do and.
We know our present condition. We know the way we think, We know the way we act. We know physically what we're able to do. And the Lord says do this, do that. How can I do that, Lord? He'll give us the grace to do that.
When when the Spirit of God commands us to do something, he will give us the grace and the ability to do what God asks.
Sometimes we think it might be a glorious thing to go travel around the world and preach the gospel and visit the Saints.
Do you think it might be easy to be content in such situations?
And it can be a glorious thing, but only if you're doing it in the will of God. Because it does not matter what calling you have. There will be trials. There will be struggles, there will be disappointments. And there are limitations and frustrations that will test us each and every day as we go through our life of service for the Lord. And these trials, they can easily bring us into discontentment.
And I recall, we recall when we were in Africa, in Malawi, living there, being being tested on contentment numerous times, such as thefts.
Threats.
Bodily invasions of parasites.
Car breakdowns out in the middle of nowhere. The Lord was testing us. Satan was tempting us.
God allows Satan to have a certain effect, amount of effect in our lives, but God is overall. Sometimes we'd like to blame Satan for this or for that, but God, he wants us to be dependent on him. He wants us to be content in whatever situation we are in. And we've had. And some more times we're we're tested on contentment, there was food poisoning, and some men are rising in the assemblies like wolves.
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Dressed in sheep's clothing, pulling different ones after them, fall to follow them to A to another church or to begin a new new gathering. And there are false accusations. There were incessant beggars. There were corrupt police. There were dishonest mechanics.
Speaking of mechanics.
Most of the mechanics there, we call them shade tree mechanics because they don't have a a place of business. They have a couple tools that don't usually work and they have to borrow your tools and they do it out in your driveway or on the side of the road where you broke down or under a tree. And so we call them shade tree mechanics and this shade tree mechanic. He started coming to our our weekly Bible studies. He had been doing work on my car for quite a while.
And at the Bible study, he told everyone how important these teachings were and that everyone should listen to what Rochi was telling them. And then at one Bible study, he asked and he he said, look at these verses. What do these verses mean in Luke chapter 6?
Luke Chapter 6 starting at verse 27.
But I say unto you, which here love your enemies, do good to them which hate you, bless them that curse you, pray for them which despitefully use you. And unto him that smite thee on the cheek, on the 1 Cheek offer also the other and him that taketh away thy cloak. Forbid not to take thy coat also give to every man that asketh thee.
And of him that taketh away thy goods ask them not again. And so this man wanted to know what do these verses mean? And so I gave a wonderful answer, perhaps a pious answer, as if I was so forgiving and full of grace and kindness and godly contentment. And then we found out the reason why he was asking the question. We found out the reason why our truck was keep on breaking down time after time. And he was, and he was more than a shade tree mechanic. He was a shady mechanic.
And he was taking good parts off the car and putting faulty parts back on, selling the good parts. And the result was a damaged engine and eventually the the truck just it wouldn't run anymore and so.
We didn't use that mechanic ever again.
Then the shady treatment, the shady mechanic. He gathered together a group of thugs from his village to attack the man who had informed me about his dishonesty, and they beat him to a bloody pulp and put him into the hospital.
Well, we sold the truck for enough is the name of the money that they have in in Malawi we sold it for enough kwacha to buy another vehicle.
Now I had to learn to be content writing this new bicycle in the blazing hot sun to nearby assemblies within about a 10 mile radius. You know, Satan is so busy trying to cultivate discontentment in our hearts, and he attacks us with one thing. He attacks us with one thing after another. There's a verse in Philippians 4.
Philippians 4 and verse 11.
Is not that I speak in respect of want, for I have learned in whatsoever state I am there with to be content.
The Apostle Paul could say that in even in spite of his difficult circumstances, in whatsoever state I am, I have learned he had to learn to be content. We need to learn to be content. Contentment just doesn't come naturally. It takes energy. It takes determination. It takes a choice to learn to be content.
We each have our own calling by God.
And through that calling, we can serve the Lord. And in this ministry that each of us have been given, we are each going to find that we have our own set of circumstances that we're going to have to deal with in life. And I know that some of you have very difficult circumstances to deal with you. Maybe you have sorrow in your life, maybe challenges with your health. Perhaps some of you struggle with loneliness.
00:20:24
And for some folks, there can be difficulty in accepting the stage of life that you're in.
Marriage, life, the marriage relationship and retirement. Maybe it's not quite what you thought it would be. And it can sometimes be hard to deal with the fact that our children, our grandchildren, are at a very long distance away and and that can bring discontent into our lives. And there can be disappointment when our children choose a different path than what we have expected. You know, life is not easy.
And life comes with sorrows and struggles.
Can we learn to be content in these difficult circumstances?
You know, some of us maybe aren't as personable as others.
We're not as exciting. Maybe we're not as intelligent or athletic. Maybe we think we don't have as good a marriage as we think somebody else does.
And we think that we're less of a person because of these things that bring in discontentment and we become even more discontent.
All of these attacks, they come on our daily life and our soul begins to roar like the line that we read about in our first verse in Psalm 38, verse eight. I am feeble and I'm sore, broken. I have roared by reason of the disquietness in my soul in my heart sometimes.
We just feel like screaming because of the helplessness and the hopelessness of the situation because we're losing control.
Another thing that can make us discontent might be our looks.
Maybe. Maybe you're not happy with your looks and your time might be consumed by trying to improve your looks. And you might be jealous about how good someone else looks, how they can continue to look so good all the time, or how strong they are or how talented they are. But let me tell you that good looks are only skin deep.
If a handsome man or a beautiful woman.
If they're angry.
And they're selfish and they're disagreeable. If they're proud, if they're demanding, if they're unreasonable. Their beauty is like hypocrisy.
You see the good on the outside, but on the inside it's not really very nice.
It is the beauty of the soul that is important and we need to learn to be content with such things as we have.
You might think well.
Yeah, but what does the Apostle Paul? What does he know about my unique situation in this day? I have every right to be discontent. And if Paul was in my assembly, he would understand and he would make an exemption for my case. Because there are no young people in my assembly there. There are some people in my assembly that I cannot forgive. There are people that I cannot love.
I deserve something better.
I cannot be content there.
But with discontent like this, it's easy to leave one group.
And go to another Christian group or congregation where they have perfect, lovable and forgivable Christians with so many 21St century young people. Oh, wouldn't that be nice to go to a place like that? Well, wherever you go, you cannot get rid of yourself.
You may roar again in the bitterness of your heart. You cannot get rid of the bitterness in your soul until you learn to be content in whatsoever condition or situation you are in.
I think of Paul and Silas in one of their worst circumstances, and they had been in Christ. They had been arrested, for Christ's sake, and they were equipped until their backs were raw and bleeding and they were thrown into the deepest, darkest, dankest, dampest dungeon in the in the prison.
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And their feet were fast. And the stalks.
With open wounds on their backs.
How could they lay down? How could they rest, and out of the darkness of this dungeon, the Philippian Jailer?
He heard joy and contentment coming out of the dungeon as as Paul and Silas, they sang praises to the Lord.
We need to remember that being content.
Is necessary for us to be able to do the Lord's work that He's given us to do.
Let's go to first Timothy chapter 6.
First Timothy chapter 6 and another point that we have of contentment is that contentment preserves us from temptation, from sin, and from sorrow.
And we'll find temptation, sin and sorrow in these verses that we read.
First Timothy 6, verse 6 to 10. But godliness with contentment is great gain, for we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and raiment, let us therewith be content, but those who desire to be rich.
Fall into temptation.
There's a temptation. They fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and hurtful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all evil. There's the sin. We've had temptation. We've had sin.
Which, while some coveted us after they have heard from the faith and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.
Here we find that we should be content with whatever possessions the Lord has given to us, and we we should not desire to have more and more and more, but that is hard in this life, whether we're in North America or we're in Africa.
Whether we were rich or poor, we want more, we want more, we want the best. We want what others have. My wife and I were we stop along the way and to go walking and on our way up to Minnesota, we stopped in Owatonna at at what was the name of that store?
A sporting goods store and you walk in there and you see all these wonderful things and.
It it, it starts eating at your lust. Oh, that would be nice to have that maybe I should think about getting one of those or getting this and and it would be nice to have this or that or both this and that and and there's there may be no constraint and so it is easy to be consumed with the desire for more.
And this desire controls our hearts and our thoughts. There's a verse in Matthew 6.
Matthew 6 and verse 31 and 32.
Take no thought.
Saying What shall we eat, Or what shall we drink, or wherewithal should we be clothed? For after all these things do the Gentiles seek? For your heavenly Father knows that you have need of all these things. And then Matthew in verse 33 he points us back to contentment. He says, Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you. The Lord wants us to be content. Put him first in your life. He says all these things.
Will be added unto you. We can be content with such things as we have. God has promised that He will give us the necessary things if we put Jesus first as Lord of our life. And so we don't need to to worry and strive for earthly riches. Let us let us be content with the food and the shelter and the clothing without envy and jealousy and lust.
And we We don't need to have a mortgage on the most elegant house or for the most luxurious car we can get a loan for.
00:30:00
Just so we can have success and look like we're equal or above the rest of our peers, You know, the love of money to get these things can lead us into temptation, into sin, and into sorrow, like we read in Timothy.
When we achieve those things that we strive for, we find it doesn't bring us happiness.
Then we need a little bit more to entertain us, and there's no end of music or the movies or money. And then there's the drugs and the tattoos and the video games and there's no end of the of the entertainment to attract our hearts and our minds.
We can try, and sometimes we try hard to be content without godliness, but there's no gain in that. There's no gain without godliness. We can be certain that all the money and the possessions and the entertainment that we strive for on this earth, we can't take it with us. We came into this world with nothing. We're going to go out of this world with nothing. We're going to leave it all behind. If the Lord Jesus came right now. Everything that you have, your nice shoes, your nice shirts.
Your your eyeglasses, your wallet. Everything that you have in your wallet with the money in it, your nice phone, it's going to be left here behind your pacemaker, It's going to fall out. Your your eyeglasses are going to be left on the table. Your your hip replacement is going to be on the chair. We're going. We're not taking anything with us. We don't need any spare parts in heaven. We're going to be with the Lord forever.
We're going to leave it all behind. True godliness comes with contentment. True godliness with contentment will will store up for ourselves treasures in heaven. And that's where we want to have our treasure. And so, from the verses that we've considered, we also learned that in order to be truly godly men and women, we must also be contented men and women. And it doesn't matter what our search, our circumstances are.
A Christian really has no right to be. Discontent and godliness with contentment is great gain. Now I can say these things here, and I know that sooner or later I'm going to be tested on these things. I say, yes, we can agree that we must be content, but we're going to be tested at any time, and sometimes we have to deal with discontented people around us and.
In Let's look at First Samuel Chapter 22.
David was surrounded with discontented people.
And I just think about the Lord Jesus. He surrounds himself with all the believers.
Are we discontented? Are we surrounding the Lord Jesus with discontent? First Samuel 22 and verse two. And everyone that was in distress, and everyone that was in debt, and everyone that was discontented, gathered themselves unto him unto David, and he became a captain over them. And there were with him about 400 men.
In their discontent, they gathered themselves.
To David.
When we are discontent, discontent, when we have heavy stress and anxiety and cares in life, come to Jesus. Gather yourself around Jesus. Just like these men who are discontented, they gathered themselves to David and they had a leader. They had a captain to guide them. Well, the Lord Jesus is your leader. He wants to guide you through this life. So we won't be content. We can. We find that we can cast all your cares on him because he cares for you.
Tell your difficult problems to to the Lord Jesus. Tell them your stress and your cares of this life. Come to Jesus and leave them all with Jesus and accept the situation as it is.
And be content. Oh, we try so hard to change your circumstances.
And we get frustrated because we can't change them. But if we can just be content in whatever circumstances we find ourselves in, we'll find that the circumstances don't really matter much. We can be content regardless of the circumstances and so.
We need to give our fears, our failures, our worries, our anxieties, our discontent. Give it to Jesus and rejoice in the Lord.
In Hebrews chapter 13.
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The next point I want to consider.
The contentment gives us the sense of the Lord's presence with us.
And takes away fear and loneliness. In Hebrews chapter 13, verse five and six, Let your conversation be without covetousness, and be content with such things as you have. For he has said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee, so that we may boldly say, the Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me.
Contentment will help us to overcome our fears and the verse says be content. The Lord will never leave you. He will never forsake you. He is your helper, the Lord Jesus. He has made every provision for us to overcome our fears and our loneliness and our discontent.
Do we have any lonely people here tonight?
If we're single.
We might think that if only I could get married, I would no longer be lonely, and then I could be content.
We tend to look to our husband. The women tend to look to their husband for all the love and the support and the fulfillment that they need to function every day.
But we find.
That our husband doesn't measure up to what we expect of him and we expect him to be. And maybe we're disappointed and we feel lonely in the marriage, or we look to our wife to satisfy our every need. And when it doesn't happen, you may feel lost and lonely and disappointed and discontented.
We have fears in relationships.
When we are not satisfied, And sometimes these fears make us do things or say things that we might regret later on. And we cannot live up to the fullness of Christ. Only Christ can fully satisfy. We can't be fullness to other people because we fail. But the Lord Jesus, he can be fullness to each one of us in any capacity. And the Lord Jesus will never disappoint us. We must look to Christ for our fulfillment.
In spite of our weakness and our loneliness and our fears, we can have triumph through Christ. Let's look in Second Corinthians chapter 2.
In verse 14.
2nd Corinthians 2 verse 14 Now thanks be unto God.
Which give, which always causes us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the Savior of His knowledge by us in every place.
Although we are not the fulfillment of our husband or wife.
We can learn to be content in our marriage and in our relationships with Christ by our side. If you expect your husband or wife to to completely fulfill your needs, you won't be content.
And when we look to Christ for our fulfillment, it will help us to function.
In our in our marriages and through Christ, we can have successful marriages and we can overcome our our loneliness and our fears. And in verse 15.
For we are unto God a sweet savour of Christ in them that are saved, and in them that perish.
Are you a sweet savour of Christ to your wife? Are you a sweet savour of Christ to your husband?
We should be.
And in our own strength we're not sufficient for these things, but in Christ he is the all sufficient 1.
And we can learn to be content in all our relationships and in all our circumstances that we might find ourselves in. We can be content our verse says that we had. We said be content with such things as you have. And so I ask Are you content with the wife that you have? Are you content with your husband? Are you content with your children? Are you content being single? Are you content about your job or about your wages or the size of your assembly?
00:40:00
Your abilities, your personality, any one of these things can give us an inferiority complex.
It can make us lonely, can make us afraid. We can be depressed. But can we be content? Can we be content in all these situations? When we have Christ, we have the greatest riches that a person could have.
In Christ we have perfect security and perfect protection and perfect peace.
We need to take time every day to appreciate the Lord, who he is and what He's done for us and how much He loves us and and how he expressed that love to us. And we need to take time to communicate with Jesus, take time to read the Bible, take time to think about it, to pray, and as we meditate on, on, and pray about what we've read.
It will help us to be content in our Christian lives.
Let's go to 2nd Corinthians chapter 12. We have another point here about contentment.
And I I This point is God's contentment in God's grace go hand in hand.
And sufficiency being sufficient is similar to being content and so.
We'll go back to these verses. We read them once already, but verse 9 and 10.
And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee. My strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, and reproaches, and necessities in persecutions, in distresses for Christ's sake. For when I am weak, then am I strong.
When we realize our own weakness and our own nothingness, that is when we will depend more on the power of God.
And we will find that His grace is sufficient for whatever we need. His grace will enable us to be content in even in infirmities, and in reproaches and persecutions, and in distresses and All in all these things we can be content when we look to Christ.
We sometimes have problems having grace with with the brethren, and that will make us discontent. And when we are discontent, we might criticize our brothers and sisters. We criticize their dress and their friends and their hair and their service for the Lord and their motives and and their beliefs. And we expect everyone to live up to the standards that that we set on our own.
And usually we don't have any scripture to support our standards. But if we were content with the sufficiency of Christ in our own lives.
And if we were content to allow the Spirit of God to work in our brethren at their pace, we would not criticize our brethren, and we would not pass on our discontentment to to the others. And when we recognize God's grace to us, and we see His grace working in our lives, and we then we and we extend that same grace to our fellow brothers and believers and sisters, it will help us.
To be more content.
Paul often started his letters or or or closed his letters, either one to assemblies with a call for grace and peace.
In First Corinthians.
Is an example First Corinthians one verse 3?
First Corinthians one verse 3. Grace be unto you, and peace from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
You may be content in one or two areas of life, and perhaps deficient in another area of life, for the grace of the Lord Jesus is sufficient for us to help us be content in in all circumstances.
So our next point, Let's go to 2nd Corinthians Chapter 9.
And our next point is that contentment is promised for a generous and cheerful giver.
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You know, we always want to get.
We always want to be blessed, but in reality the blessing is not not in getting for ourselves, The blessing is in giving to others. We've read that verse. We read that verse is more blessed to give than to receive, and that's where contentment comes from. And in 2nd Corinthians 9, verse 678, he which soweth sparingly shall reap also sparingly, and he which soweth bountifully shall reap also bountifully every man according as he purposes in his heart.
So let him give not grudgingly or of necessity. For God loves a cheerful giver, and God is able to make all grace abound toward you, That ye always having all sufficiency in all things, may abound to every good work, till we can have all sufficiency. That's contentment. We can have all contentment in all things, and abound to every good work.
I think these verses are about generosity and contentment. And if a person is generous, God will give you the opportunity to be generous. God is able to supply us with resources so that we will not only have a sufficiency or a contentment for ourselves, but also that we'll be able to share with others what we have. Generosity. It's not only about money.
Because we have other resources.
That we can share with others. It can be our time. Time spent with someone is very important. We can give that to others and it will help us to be content. It will help our friends to be content if we can give our time. Maybe a listening ear. People need to unload their thoughts and their fears and their troubles and their discontent. Can you lend to them Be content to listen to what they have to say and be a help to them?
Maybe you have a service that you can do for someone. It's giving is not only money, it's time and energy also spent for the Lord.
Generosity is giving of yourself and there's a good verse in Romans chapter 12 about about this.
Romans chapter 12, verse one.
I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.
How much?
Of yourself? Are you willing to give to God as a sacrifice? How much can I sacrifice for God? Well, how much did He sacrifice for you? For me, He sacrificed everything he had. He sold all that he had to buy that Pearl of great price. He gave everything for you. What am I willing? What of my life? What of myself am I willing to give?
To God.
I think we can can conclude from our lesson that when we have a generous attitude.
It will increase our own contentment, which is our sufficiency and and it will help the others that we're helping also in their contentment. And I believe contentment is is one of the keys to help us to walk a happy and a productive Christian life.
Contentment in our life is a practical way in which we can glorify God. And in the little review I'll go over some of these points.
Being content gives me strength to do whatever job God gives me to do The next point, Contentment preserves us from temptation, sin, and sorrow.
Next point, contentment gives me gives us the sense of the Lord's presence with us and takes away fear and loneliness.
Next point, contentment and God's grace go hand in hand. Next point, contentment is promised for a generous, cheerful giver. So by learning to be content, we show God that we truly believe that Jesus is the Lord of our life. And contentment shows that we trust God completely.
Just another thought.
That if we are a God unto ourselves, we begin to try to control everything and everybody that is around us. And if we do that, we're going to become dissatisfied when we start to lose control of everybody and everything in my life and and we won't be content. So contentment comes from trusting God in every situation and to give him control in our life.
00:50:21
Trust the Lord for everything.
And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God even when we don't understand God's plan. There's a verse I want to close with in Psalm 17, Psalm 17, verse 15.
As for me, I'll behold thy face in righteousness. I shall be satisfied when I await with thy likeness. I shall be satisfied. I shall be contented when I awake with thy likeness. There's coming a day.
When all of our difficulties and struggles, and perhaps our discontentment will all be gone, when we see the Lord Jesus face to face in our and we will be content forevermore will be satisfied, maybe we can sing number.
282.
Master, we would no longer be at home in that which hated thee, but patient. Can we be patient? Can we be content and go in the footsteps of the Lord Jesus? Patience. In thy footsteps go thy sorrow as thy joy to know we wouldn't know. Confirm the power with meekness. Meet the darkest hour. Let's sing #282.
Master, we would no longer be at home in the dredging, but patience. In thy footsteps go thy sorrows thy joy to know.
Who you are.
Confirm the power.
I've ever tried.
For the western light.
My shame content.
Every joy for now. What's going on?
We can rest content on heaven's eternal shore, but we can be content even now. It's a choice we need to make. We can learn to be content.