2 Cor 12:9 "My Grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness."
Today I would like to talk about contentment and how we can make the Lords grace sufficient for us.
Genesis 1:26…
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Then God said, "Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth,[2] and over all the creatures that move along the ground."
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So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.
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God blessed them and said to them, "Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground."
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God saw all that he had made, and it was very good. And there was evening, and there was morning--the sixth day.
God made Adam and eve to be in fellowship with him, in the garden of Eden. With all our longings, thirsts and desires perfectly met. But then: Genesis 2:16
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And the LORD God commanded the man, "You are free to eat from any tree in the garden;
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but you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die."
Genesis 3:4 on
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"You will not surely die," the serpent said to the woman.
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"For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil."
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When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it.
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Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.
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Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the LORD God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the LORD God among the trees of the garden.
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But the LORD God called to the man, "Where are you?"
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He answered, "I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid."
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And he said, "Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?"
In Genesis 3:6 … fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom….
Even back in the time of Adam and Eve, we could not stop ourselves from desires. As you can see that what is pleasing to the eye and what is desirable isn’t always the right choice. As after Adam ate the fruit of the tree of knowledge God banished them from the perfect fellowship with Him in the Garden of Eden.
Genesis 3:23
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So the LORD God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken.
What I would like to talk about is how we can have our desires met by finding contentment and peace today in our Lord God, even though we are not in the Garden of Eden.
You see we all have desires.
- To be wanted by someone
- … value to someone
- …accepted by someone
- …accepted by someone for who I am , not for how I perform
- …loved unconditionally
- …belong to someone, enjoy an intimate fellowship, loving companionship, ones of heart and purpose.
So we seek to have this desire, these thirsts and longings filled. So we say to ourselves, I can make myself happy, I can fill these desires by simply doing the things I want to do… that will make me happy and content.
Some of us buy things, for example, I have probably got 20 flashlights. When I purchased my first flashlight I thought that was the one, the one that would make me happy. Then shortly after I purchased it, I found another flashlight that was slightly brighter. So I got that one. And so on and so on. Well, I still have the original flashlight, in fact, that’s the one I use.
Did purchasing the second flashlight make me content? No. the third flashlight? NO.
I’ll give you another example of how we chase our desires to give us contentment.
There was an employee that was working his partner and the employee said “If only I had $1000 dollars extra, then I would be happy, perfectly content.” And just then his boss wa;ked by and heard what his employee had said, so he wrote out a cheque to the employee for $1000. And said “I have never seen anyone perfectly content, here is $1000 I hope that you are perfectly content now” and the boss walked away. When the Boss was out of earshot the employee turned to his partner and said “I should have asked for $2000!!”
So the we go out and try to make ourselves happy and guess what happens?
There was a Study done by researchers in the US. They went into a nursing home that had 108 residents. They surveyed each and everyone and checked their medical records and discovered that 41% of them were currently taking prescribed anti-depressants.
Another Study done by another research firm asked 514 people to participate in a survey. They asked them a series of questions, What they found out was 56% of these people answered YES to taking at least one prescription af anti-depressants during their life. 60% of the 514 have been prescribed tranquilissers. 37% of the 514 currently have prescriptions for anti-depressants. 36% have been prescribed both anti-depressants and tranquilissers. But the what made me sit-up was that 41 of the 514 were prescribed one prescription of antidepressants and two prescriptions of tranquilissers.
60% of our country has been prescribed anti-depressants! Why? Are these people depressed? The doctors call it a chemical imbalance, and I am sure that some of it is. But 60%? That’s all of BC, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, PEI, Newfoundland and some of Quebec. I don’t think so. I think that 80% of the depressed should think of themselves as having a GOD IMBALANCE.
Where does our imbalance begin? Lets look at our misbeleifs:
- I must watch out for number one, because if I don’t know one will.
- I must manipulate my world and do all I can to get other people to recognize and meet my needs.
Another is that the Grass-is Greener on the other side Syndrome:
- Man wants to be his own God and by himself order the things, people, and events that he thinks will bring him satisfaction, fulfillment, joy, and thus fill himself with contentment. He does not trust God’s judgement but sets himself up as a wiser judge of what will satisfy and as the final and real authority of his own life. Though most of us never say the words out loud, our actions say “I will go my own way, because I know best”.
We are on an endless search for “something more” or “something different” which we believe we must have in order to be satisfied, content and at peace.
But these desires are misdirected and will not fill us with contentment. The bible speaks of desires 207 times, you see God does not want us to desire things of this world but to desire him. Abraham and Sarah did not desire the world, in Hebrews 11:16 instead they were longing for a better country – a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared a city for them. You see Abraham and Sarah trusted God to provide them whatever they needed, and their desires were of God, not of the world. And they were content.
We all desire to be loved and cared for and accepted fully.
To be valued, that we matter!
We desire to feel adequate, courageous, confident, hopeful and strong to carry out the daily tasks of life. We desire feel competent. But most importantly we desire love without reservation, completely, totally, and without ceasing.
In 1987 there was a horrible airplane crash a 737 crashed into a busy highway. Everyone was killed instantly on the Airplane, and dozens were killed on the highway. All except one little 3 year old little girl, that was seemingly unhurt and was found standing about 100 yards from the crash site, the arriving paramedics thought that the little girl was from one of the many vehicles that were involved. However, it turned out that the little girl was actually on the airplane when it crashed. In fact she was the only survivor, and she was fine. You see what happened on that plane was that when the plane began to spiral towards the earth, completely out of control, the little girls mother took off her seat-belt and nelt in front of her baby girl and said “Don’t worry Baby, everything will be ok.” And she spread her arms and completely covered that girl with her body and held on with all her strength, as tight as she could possibly could, and said “Baby I will save you, trust me it will be ok.” And the mother sacrificied her life in the hopes that she may save her little 3 year old daughter.
Just think of that Love, how pure it is between a parent and their child.
Our Father in heaven loves us more than that.
Roman 5:8
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But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
I ask you this, would you be willing to sacrifice your child for me? Would you be willing to send your child to the worst place imaginable to be beaten, spat upon, cursed, flogged, then nailed to a cross to die? No, of course you wouldn’t. It’s not that you don’t like me, but you love your child. You see God LOVES us and he sent his Son Jesus Christ to pay for our sins to be beaten, spat upon, cursed, flogged, and nailed to a crucifix and left to die the most horrible death, that the roman empire inflicted. Now that’s Love.
John3:16 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but save the world through Him.
All we need to do is believe that Jesus Christ came to save us from death.
You see what we all need is to be open to Gods love to be complete. To be content.
Lets turn to Philipians 4:11 In this chapter Paul is writing a letter to the church in Philipi, and Paul is in prison and is shackled to a Roman Soldier, and read it.
You see content is a powerful word, in Greek it is Arkeo, which has the exact same meaning as suffiecient. In fact content-ment in Greek is Auto – Arkeo which means Self Sufficient, or to be satisfied, to have enough. You see Paul is saying. “I have learned to be satisfied, I’ve learned to be sufficient in myself, and yet not in myself as myself, but in myself as indwelt by Christ!” He had come to spiritual contentment even when he was in prison and shackled. Paul says” I have learned the secret!… I have learned the secret of being content!” Praise the Lord! We say well Paul what is it! Paul please share this secret with us!
We live in a discontent society. This society is so discontent it is diseased with discontent. We are more discontent than deprived societies. For example, that 60% of population has been prescribed anti-depressants. Television… the whole entire purpose of Television is to breed discontent in us, TV gives us that false desire for things in the commercials, leading us to purchase them in the hopes that they will make us happy.
Instead of contentment and peace, there is discontent and restless frustration, anxiety, guilt and fear with out God.
We are on an endless search for “something more” or “something different” which we believe we must have in order to be satisfied, content, at peace.
Lets stop this and learn the secret of being content as the Apostle Paul did. So that we can break the very powerful cycle of discontent.
The Apostle Paul chose to believe that God himself and what he chose to provide for him at that moment was all he needed. Paul was content because he had come to the point where he was looking to God alone to satisfy the deepest longings of his being.
We need to turn to God and realize that God is Sovereign and in complete control of our lives and circumstances according to his will.
Ephesian 1:11
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In him we were also chosen,[5] having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will,
We need to choose to believe that God is in Full control and he is sovereign. This is a daily choice, do we pick up our cross and follow him, or do we fall prey to the false desires of the world?
Mathew 16:24-
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Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.
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For whoever wants to save his life[8] will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it.
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What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?
Verse 24: If anyone would come after me he must deny himself an take up his cross and follow me…. What does that mean? Simply put God is in control, deny your own worldly desires and follow Him.
Verse 25: If you want to save your life by following your own desires and those not of God you will not find life. But If you give your life to God, then you will live.
You see Paul secret to contentment is being revealed in Phillipians Chapter 10-12
He says “you have been concerned, but you had no opportunity to show it” Paul new that God was Soverign, he new that God had a plan, and if that plan was for the Philipians to send a gift, then God would give them that opportunity. You see Paul is a very content man, he can see that in all his writings, yet his life did not come even close to possessing what the world thinks is necessary for a man to be content. He didn’t have a house or any money, in fact his life was completely horrible, yet he was content with the fact that God was Soveriegn.
Paul had absolutely the worst life I have ever read about. 2 corinthians 11:23-28,
23 I have worked much harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again. 24 Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. 25 Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, 26 I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my own countrymen, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false brothers. 27 I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked. 28 Besides everything else, I face daily the pressure of my concern for all the churches.
Have confidence in God’s plan for me, that is Paul’s secret that he had learned. That God is Soverign. Which means that God is in full control of the circumstances in your life, god gives us all that we have, and if we are faithful, God will provide us with all that we NEED, which will make us sufficient. Sufficient means to have enough, to be satisfied, to be content.
2corinthians3:5
5 Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God;
Remember this! Sufficiency or contentment can only be accomplished through faith in the Lord. The world will always try to tempt us by dangling so called “needs” in front of our face, we need to stand back and know that God is Control, and we should be satisfied with what we have, such as Grace, Salvation through Jesus Christ.
Let us cultivate an attitude of contentment!
Give thanks for what you have instead of dwelling on what you don’t have.
- no matter how little you have, it is more than you deserve. God owes us nothing; every good thing we possess is a gft of his grace. Our contentment, or lack of it, is directly related to our idea of what we deserve.
- No matter your circumstances, there is abundant reason to give thanks to God ex life, air, breathe,family, clothing, shelter, food, etc.
- No matter how little you have, there are others who have far less. Are they less deserving than you? No. but God has blessed you more than they.
- Rejoice that everything you have is an expression of God’s love for you.
1thessalonians 5:16-18 16 Be joyful always; 17 pray continually; 18 give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.
In conclusion: How do we become content in our lives? Trust God that he is Sovereign. Trust god that he is in full control. Because when we try to control our lives we just frustrate ourselves by the things that we can never control. Be satisfied with less and lets set our desires on God and his Son Jesus Christ.
We need to make a declaration of Faith:
I Choose
To believe
That God Himself
And what He chooses to provide
At this moment
Is all I need.
I am complete in Christ
For those of you here that are not at peace, and do not know Jesus Christ as your Savoiur, I would like to ask to come just as you are right now, receive Him and live forever, life everlasting, and strength for today, taste the living water, and you will never thirst again. Come just as you are. You may never get another chance, Come and receive Jesus Christ into your life as your Lord and savour.
For those that are shy and do not want to come up but do want to accept the Lord Jesus Christ into their lives please believe this prayer while you say it to yourself and God.
Lord Jesus,
I need you.
Thank you for dying for on the cross for my sins. I open the door of my life and receive You as my saviour and Lord. Thank You for forgiving my sins and giving me eternal life. Take control of the throne of my life. Make me the kind of person you want me to be.
