This morning, take your bulletin or another piece of paper, and a pen or pencil and take a couple of moments to respond to these four questions.
(Slide 1)
What is contentment?
Are you a content person?
What would make you content?
What is your source of contentment?
Now, as we watch this clip of interviews about contentment, compare your answers with those interviewed. (Slide 2) sermonspice.com video clip ‘sv_contentment’
How much alike are your answers with those interviewed? How different are your answers with those interviewed?
These four questions form the outline of today’s remarks because I think that how we answer them determines the effect that overload has on us. This effect is due to the pressure that discontentment brings to our hearts and souls and creates the conditions by which overload is an attempt to deal with overload.
This is the second sermon of our fall series, ‘Overload: Saying ‘No’ So We Can Say ‘Yes.’
Contentment is very much a key and implied aspect of our main text for this morning, the parable of the sower that Jesus tells and we read in Matthew 13 beginning at verse 1 through verse 9 and then verses 18 through 23:
Later that same day, Jesus left the house and went down to the shore, 2 where an immense crowd soon gathered. He got into a boat, where he sat and taught as the people listened on the shore. 3He told many stories such as this one:
“A farmer went out to plant some seed. 4As he scattered it across his field, some seeds fell on a footpath, and the birds came and ate them. 5Other seeds fell on shallow soil with underlying rock. The plants sprang up quickly, 6but they soon wilted beneath the hot sun and died because the roots had no nourishment in the shallow soil. 7Other seeds fell among thorns that shot up and choked out the tender blades. 8 But some seeds fell on fertile soil and produced a crop that was thirty, sixty, and even a hundred times as much as had been planted. 9 Anyone who is willing to hear should listen and understand!”
Now on to verse 18: “Now here is the explanation of the story I told about the farmer sowing grain: 19The seed that fell on the hard path represents those who hear the Good News about the Kingdom and don’t understand it. Then the evil one comes and snatches the seed away from their hearts. 20The rocky soil represents those who hear the message and receive it with joy. 21But like young plants in such soil, their roots don’t go very deep. At first they get along fine, but they wilt as soon as they have problems or are persecuted because they believe the word. 22 The thorny ground represents those who hear and accept the Good News, but all too quickly the message is crowded out by the cares of this life and the lure of wealth, so no crop is produced. 23 The good soil represents the hearts of those who truly accept God’s message and produce a huge harvest—thirty, sixty, or even a hundred times as much as had been planted.”
Now, not only is the issue of contentment in this well-known parable but also the need for margin, implied in the receptivity of the good soil, illustrated here. In fact, there is a link between contentment and good soil because the good soil, the hearts ‘of those who truly accept God’s message’ is receptive to that message because those who choose to become content make contentment in God’s provisions and care a priority.
Let’s take some time to examine the questions in light of this text.
(Slide 3) What is contentment to you?
I heard from those interviewed on the video clip the following definitions of contentment: ‘satisfied,’ ‘inner peace,’ ‘happy with who you are,’ ‘alright,’ and ‘being okay with what is going on.’
Now looking at our main text, the opposite of all of this is described in the lives of those who are like hard ground, the rocky soil, and the thorny ground. The worries and the cares and the frustrations are there, in part, because there is a discontentedness within them that keeps them from learning to be content with what God has for them. The discontentedness crowds out the margin necessary for growth.
What does contentment look like? I think for many of us it is a deep satisfaction with ourselves and our situation. But, what happens when our situations and our circumstances change? Are we still contented?
For many of us at this moment in history, there is a great deal of discontentment. We see and hear and feel it politically. We have experienced it financially.
Our hearts grow hard, rocky, and thorny because discontentment with our social status, our financial state, and our own personal needs and wants grow beyond what they need to be. So the cares about having the right things and having enough to have the right things causes us all sorts discomfort. So we fill our homes and our hearts with stuff. The result? Overload.
Question: How do we begin to become contented in and with God’s way?
Now let’s look at the second question, (Slide 4) Are you a contented person? Let me suggest the following working definition for this morning of contentment.
(Slide 4a): Contentment is a choice of being grateful for all that one has because it comes from and is left in the hands of God from whom all things come.
If we are to be content then we must turn not just ourselves but everything we have over to God and let Him do with it as He wishes. Easier said that done, right?
‘God, I know what is best for my child. I know that you care for him but I’ll make the choices for him that I think best.’ ‘Uh, God I know that I am ready for that promotion, I’ve worked hard and I have been loyal to the company.’ ‘Jesus, don’t you worry about my relationship to so and so, I can handle myself just fine, thank you very much.’ Then we get miserable and even heartbroken at times when things do not turn out as planned.
Contentment is an attitudinal choice that we have to make over and over and over and over and over again. It is an inside out choice. We make it in here, in our heart, soul, and mind, and it comes out in our actions and choices. But it begins with an inner choice to be grateful and hold things (and people) lightly because they are all (as we are) in God’s hands.
Paul makes this point very clear in 1 Timothy 6:6 and following when he says, ‘Yet true religion with contentment is great wealth. 7After all, we didn’t bring anything with us when we came into the world, and we certainly cannot carry anything with us when we die. 8 So if we have enough food and clothing, let us be content. 9But people who long to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many foolish and harmful desires that plunge them into ruin and destruction. 10 For the love of money is at the root of all kinds of evil. And some people, craving money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many sorrows.’
Question: How do we begin to become contented in and with God’s way?
If we are discontented then our next question might stir the pot and reveal to us areas and issues that we need to address as we seek to create margin in our lives. (Slide 5) What would make you content?
Let’s do a very unscientific poll…
With a raise of a hand, please respond, as you feel comfortable in doing:
How many would be more content if they had more money?
How many would be more content if they had less stuff?
How many would be more content if they had a lighter schedule?
How many would be more content if you had a better relationship with someone important to you?
How many would be more content if you had a different job?
How many would be more content if Jim would stop asking these questions?
One of the most substantial reasons that we are discontent is that we have, in my humble opinion, been trained to be discontent. But at what price?
(Slide 6) (video clip from Christianity Today. Com ‘CCN2_hidef’)
That was Dr Richard Swenson, a medical doctor and author of the book ‘The Overload Syndrome: Learning to Live Within Your Limits.’ What did he say about clutter? We use only 20% of what we own and maintain 100% of what we own. Do you agree with his statement?
This is where discontentment comes in. The clutter is all of the things that we think we need because we are told that life is better with ________. So, we are afraid of being left out or left behind by everybody else and we go out and buy whatever the newest and latest gadget is because it will make life so much better and keep us from feeling left out or left behind!’
How often do we walk through our homes and think ‘where did all of this stuff come from?’ How much stuff could we live without?
Question: How do we begin to become contented in and with God’s way? (Are you noticing a pattern here?)
Now for question number four. (Slide 7) What is your source of contentment?
Let’s return to our main text. Notice what Jesus says in verse 22, ‘The thorny ground represents those who hear and accept the Good News, but all too quickly the message is crowded out by the cares of this life and the lure of wealth, so no crop is produced.’
Jesus makes it very clear that, because we are so wrapped up in the cares of this life and all that is a part of it, God is unable to make a difference in us because we are so full of cares. So faith cannot take root deep within us as it needs to. What happens? We walk away from it because we never give it a chance to develop!
There is only one source of contentment and that is in God and His plans and purposes. We can enjoy many things. In fact, we need to enjoy many things. But many of those things that bring us pleasure, cannot bring us contentment. Pleasure is one thing, a short-term experience; contentment is a deep and more profound thing, a long-term experience.
Listen to what Richard Swenson says, ‘Many people have mistaken notions of what contentment is. It isn’t denying one’s feelings about unhappiness, but instead is a freedom from being controlled by those feelings. It isn’t pretending things are right when they are not, but instead is the peace that comes from knowing, God is bigger than any problem and that He works them all out for our good.’
He goes on to say that contentment isn’t ‘the complacency that defeats any attempt to make things better, but instead is the willingness to work tirelessly for improvement, clinging to God rather than results. It isn’t a feeling of well-being contingent on keeping circumstances under control, but instead is a joy that exists in spite of circumstances and looks to the God who never varies. It isn’t the comfortable feeling we get when all our needs and desires are met, but instead is the security in knowing, as A.W. Tozer reminds us, that “the man who has God for his treasure has all things in One.’
(Slide 8) To answer this question, ‘How do we become contented in and with God’s way?’ is to answer as follows: ‘We begin to become contented when we make the decision to do so.’
We have a choice about whether or not we are going to be contented or not. We also then must keep choosing contentment by asking God to help us become contented. Contentment reduces the thorns and thistles; the worries and the cares that come onto the soil of our soul.
Let me repeat this morning what Paul in 1 Timothy 6:6, ‘True religion with contentment is great wealth.’
How do we obtain this great wealth? (Slide 9) I think that the first thing we do, is to deal with our very real fear of being left behind and left out of what is ‘in’ and what is not ‘in.’ If we are honest with ourselves this is what drives much of our spending and even our scheduling. It is an issue about our identity and our source of contentment.
Who are you? Who are we?
If we really believe that we are followers of Jesus then our contentment and our identity must be rooted in Christ and nothing else. But that is hard to do because if we choose to base our identity in Christ, it means that we are, at times, going to be left out and left behind and not be ‘in.’ Are we willing to pay the price for such contentment so that we live in the Lord’s power and way?
Here are a couple of other ways we obtain this great wealth that comes from true faith and contentment.
(Slide 8a) We simplify. I have question, ‘What if we decided to collectively sell the 80% of our clutter we have in our homes what would happen?’
Maybe, and it may be somewhat far out, if we sold our 80% and used it to pay off some of our debts, we might have a better economic picture in the years ahead. Simplicity is an ancient spiritual practice that we need to practice again.
(Slide 8b) Determine how much is enough. How much do I really need to live? Correctly answering that question is one that can help us move toward contentment.
(Slide 8c) Free yourself from the opinions of others.
Dr. Swenson writes, ‘Perhaps the biggest burden we carry is our inordinate concern about the opinion of others. If we could free ourselves from that weighty expectation, we would find ourselves on freedom’s road.’
This brings us back to our main text for this morning. Now I am not sure how each of the soils got the way they did, but I do believe this.
That just as a proper farming includes the tilling and feeding of the soil, so also does the freedom from overload come as we allow the Holy Spirit to till our souls and nurture them with the Fruits of the Spirit so that margin, what Dr Swenson calls ‘ that space between our load and our limits’ is made possible.
What is the Spirit saying to you this morning about all of this? As we conclude this morning, let us again spend sometime in silent prayer and meditation. Amen.
Sources: New Living Translation and Overload: Learning To Live Within Your Limits by Richard A. Swenson, MD. (Nav Press)
