The Joy of Learning the Secret of Contentment Part 2 Philippians 4:10-20 How Can I rejoice in troubling time? How Can I Not Be Anxious about the Future or Persecution? How Can I Have Peace when I do not like my circumstances? Or did not choose my circumstances? How Can I be Content in an Entitled, Selfish, “Gimme” More World? Contentment is finding satisfaction in God and whatever God gives to us. We are tested in the school of prosperity and poverty. We are tested by greed and envy. The truth of the matter is - We worry about finances We stress about our circumstances We struggle with selfishness and greed and envy. We waste our lives and our living on things that don’t matter for eternity How Do We Live Differently as believers and a church? 1. Gratitude (4:10). 2. Contentment (4:11-13). 1. Celebrate God’s Provision 2. Find Contentment in Your Relationship with Jesus 3. Depend upon the Strength of the Lord “Christian contentment is that sweet, inward, quiet, gracious frame of spirit, which freely submits to and delights in God’s wise and fatherly disposal in every condition” (The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment) 3. Partnership (4:14-16). 4. Fruitfulness (4:17). 5. Worship (4:18) 6. Faith (4:19-20). 5 words of Contentment faith, humility, submission, dependence, and unselfishness. Review 1. Celebrate God’s Provision “Gratitude” Three-Fold Bond Them The Gift The Lord 2. Find Contentment in Your Relationship with Jesus 2 Corinthians 9:8 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: 1 Timothy 6:6 But godliness with contentment is great gain. 3. Depend upon the Strength of the Lord I Rejoiced I Have Learned I Know I Can Do Spiritual/emotional well-being and peace comes through a personal relationship with Christ and the strength he provides in every life situation. - Sprankle Application What God gives through others makes us grateful (4:10). What God gives in all circumstances teaches us satisfaction (4:11–12). The Strength God gives in all things fuels our contentment (4:13)