Introduction: I remember watching a Mayberry episode in which a fancy New York preacher came to town. He preached a sermon about slowing down. He said, "All we do is rush, rush, rush. Slow down, enjoy life." After the service the people of Mayberry decided to build the band stand in the park, drag out the old band uniforms, and assemble the band again. They were so busy trying to relax that they drove themselves crazy. I want to talk to you this morning about contentment, or peace of mind. Not this kind of contentment however. Not the kind that comes from inactivity and peaceful circumstances, but a contentment that will travel, a contentment that will be with us through any and all circumstances that life has to offer. David, in the psalm we are looking at expresses three keys to the contented life.
Psalm 131 is psalm of ascent. It was a psalm written to be sung as the Jewish pilgrims made their way up to Jerusalem to observe the feasts of the Lord. In this psalm the singers were claiming that they had found the contented life by renouncing pride. This is the kind of song you better mean when you sing it to God. I know a man who said he refused to sing "wherever He leads I’ll go." For years he said he just hummed these words because he really didn’t mean them. I heard of another man who instead of singing, "take my life and let it be", sang "take my wife and let me be." Lets look at this psalm of contentment. In it I see three keys to peace of mind. Three things that will bring us what thousands of dollars on doctors, and
pills, and vacations can never bring us.
The first Key to contentment is:
I. HUMILITY
David said, "Lord, my heart is not haughty, nor mine eyes lofty". When he says "my heart is not haughty" he is saying, my heart or my mind is not exalted. In other words, "I am not high minded". I don’t have an inflated sense of self importance. I don’t have to be pampered. I don’t have to be right. I don’t have to be served. In other words, David was saying that he was a humble man.
Now this statement would’nt mean as much if it was coming from the shoe shine boy in the palace. But it wasn’t. It was coming from the King. And not just any King, the King of Israel, David who’s throne would stand forever. Yet he was not haughty.
Do you know why I think David was such a humble man? Because even though he was a king, he never stopped being that shepherd boy that Samuel annointed. He never let his success or the place God had given him change him. He remained a servant.
Do you know anyone like that? I think Billy Graham is a lot like that. When he is interviewed he is so humble and real. He never stopped being a farm boy from North Carolina at heart even though God made him one of the greatest evangelists of our day.
The key to humility is humble servanthood. You see, If we always have to be right, and pampered, and treated with kid gloves, then we are going to be miserable people. If we are always selfishly sensitive, then we are always going to have our feelings hurt. One key to contentment is to die to self importance, and to take upon ourselves the attitude of a servant. Jesus, who alone deserved all praise and honor, girded himself with a towel and washed the disciples feet. He came not to be served by to serve. Pray that the Lord will produce a servants heart in you.
The second key to contentment is:
II. SIMPLICITY
David says, "neither do I exercise myself in great matters, or in things too high for me." Literally David says, "I don’t walk intensley in things that surpass me, in great things." I believe here David is saying, "I don’t have to figure everything out." He is saying, "There are some things in this life that I don’t understand because they are beyond me, but I don’t bother myself with them."
Now there are some people that don’t have to have all the answers. They just naturally go through life blissfully igonrant. On the other hand however, there are those who want to be able to understand everything, and they are anythying but content because there are too many things in this life that we simply cannot and will not understand.
If we are going to find contentment we must stop trying to figure out God. God has gone through great pains to make himself known to us through His Word, His Son, and the presence of His Spirit in our lives. However, there is much about God that is still concealed in mystery. Things we will never understand. Why he allows certain things to happen in our lives, etc....
One theologian said that Christianity is not a blind faith proposition. He said the cup is 3/4 of the way full with revelation about God and his working. The other 1/4 is where our faith must take over.
David when considering the knowledge of God, how God knew when he sat and when he rose, who knew his words before they were on his tongue, who saw him in his mother’s womb when he formed him, who knew all the days he had ordained for him before they came into being, the God whom he said he couldn’t escape, David said of this God, "such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain" (Psalm 139)
There are many things about the person of God, and about the the way God works that we must simply stop trying to figure out and understand. We must graple with what he has revealed and rest in his goodness for those things that come into our lives that we do not understand.
William Cowper, the great hymn writer who suffered tremendously in this life concluded, "God works in mysterious ways his wonders to perform, he plants his feet upon the waves and rides upon the storm."
Not only should we stop trying to figure God out, we shoud stop trying to figure people out. God is mystery, but so are people. Paul said, "what man knoweth the things of man, save the spirit of man that is in him." Jeremiah the prophet said, "the heart of man is decietful above all else and desperately wicked" then he said, "who can know it".
Did you know that we really can’t fully understand ourselves. Paul told the Corinthians that as far as he knew he hadn’t done anything wrong, but he concluded that he nor they were qualified to be his judge, this he left up to God. How can I figure you out when I’m really not qualified to figure myself out?
Many people drive themselves crazy trying to figure people out. The reason we want to figure them out is because somehow we think we may be able to change them.
What are we to do then if we are not to try to figure people out in order to change them? We must do what Jesus did. He accepted people and loved them. A woman was brought to him caught in the very act of adultry. The pharisees were quick to point out that the Law demanded death. Jesus said, "Let him who has no sin among you cast the first stone". After all the accusers left Jesus said to the woman, "Neither do I condemn thee, go and sin no more." We are not to accept sin, but we are always to accept and love people, and pray for them. God can change them. God understands them.
Simplicity of mind will bring contentment.
The third key to contentment is:
III. SELF CONTROL
David paints a vivid picture of his life. He says, "Behold I have behaved and quited myself, as a child that is weaned of his mother, my soul is even as a weaned child." He paints a picture of his soul no longer crying and demanding that his passions be satisfied. Instead it is not like an infant, but like a weaned child peacefully at rest in his mothers arms.
He is no longer controlled by his selfish passions, now he is in control of his passions. This is maturity. This is contentment. It involves a painful process.
When Linda and I were young parents we used to get up in the middle of the night and feed the kids when they cried for a bottle. As time wore on, there came a time that the only way they would be able to sleep through the night is if we let them scream. Oh how painful that was. You want to go in and fulfill their demands, but you know that the only way to get them past this stage is to let them scream. Eventually the screams became less frequent, and before too long they were able to make it peacefully through the night. But not without that painful process.
This is what David went through in order to find contentment of soul. He had to deny his passions, to let his need to be pampered, to have his way, to react in anger, whatever the case may have been, he had to let those cries from his flesh go unanswered. One day he mastered his passions rather than being mastered by them.
We must go through this same process. Paul calls it, "by the Spirit putting to death the deeds of the flesh". We must by the Spirit of God allow our sinful selfish passions go unanswered until one day by the Spirit we master them and find this peace. The more we attend to our sinful desires, the stronger they will cry out, and the more we will be controlled by them.
Lord, fill us with your Spirit of Self control that we may find this contentment that David found, that Paul found.
So how do we find contentment in life? We find it through a humble servants attitude, through simplicity of mind, and through self control. It sounds easy, but it is not. It is a process. Paul called it a process of learning. He said, "I have learned, in whatsoever state I am in therewith to be content." It was a process of learning. Are you willing to let God begin this process in you?
