January 5, 2025 | Ambitious Contentment

Transcript

What does the word contentment mean to you? Is it a good thing or a bad thing? Can you be ambitious and visionary and be content at the same time? Can you make a new year’s resolution to try to be more content? How’s that work really? Can you be content and not be complacent?

There’s a lot of questions we could have, and people throughout history have, have debated and discussed this idea back and forth.

Thomas Merton, a philosopher and a 20th century monk, said, “When ambition ends, happiness begins.” In other words, don’t be ambitious, just be content. That’s the secret to happiness.

Marcus Aurelius, 2nd century Roman emperor, said, A man’s worth is no greater than his ambitions.

Well, then wait. Which one is it?

And history is full of these things. We’re told in modern terms, make big plans, have big dreams, do hard things. We’re told you can do anything you want to, if you just put your mind to it. And then we’re also told, be content, pay your dues, take your time. Don’t be so idealistic.

Which one?

And unsurprisingly, Christianity doesn’t really follow either of these. This is what God does so often. Human philosophers set up, here’s one way to think and you have to either agree with us or you’re like these people. And these people say, no, you have to say no ambition. Follow your dream no matter what it costs. Don’t have any ambition. That’s the secret to happiness. And, and our world will tell you, you’ve got to have one or the other. And Christianity often finds a situation like that and God says, Well, actually, it’s not really either of those. Christianity will also often say, Here’s another way.

So I want to read you some words from Paul. Philippians chapter 4, verse 10. Paul says, I rejoiced in the Lord greatly, that now at length you have revived your concern for me. You were indeed concerned for me, but you had no opportunity. Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

Let’s take a moment and ask God for His help.

God, You speak and Your words are powerful. You spoke and the world came into existence. Your word has always shaped and created Your people. So I pray for all of us here this morning. For any who don’t know you this morning, would you help them to hear your voice in your word this morning? And would you help them to follow you today? And for those who do know you, renew us according to your image by the power of your unstoppable word. And we’ll thank you for it, in Jesus name. Amen.

So what does it mean to be content? What does it mean to be able to say like Paul, I’ve learned in whatever situation I am to be content?

The root word here is related to fullness. It’s like a kind of inner fullness or inner sufficiency that doesn’t grasp for more and say, I have to have something else in order to have life or meaning or purpose. In some ways, it’s like it’s like balance or equilibrium. If I were to walk along the edge of this stage, I might make some of you nervous. But if I were to walk along the edge of the stage and I start to lean back and forth, well, we have, we have balance. We have a sense of stability that even if I start to lean, I can correct and I can, I can balance. And if someone comes up and hits me hard enough, I’ll fall over.

Well, in some ways, contentment is like the balance or the equilibrium of the soul that when things come and bounce into you, you, you correct and you hold yourself steady. You don’t fall over when bumps and bruises of life come. They don’t topple you.

Contentment is not, it’s not opposed to wanting something. Scripture is full of things it tells you you should want. Contentment doesn’t mean I don’t want things. I mean, would we really say you shouldn’t want to have a better life or a more godly life, or a good family, or a good marriage? Would we say you shouldn’t want to have those things? No, of course not. But, but there’s different kinds of wanting, right?

When you have a toddler and they come to you and they say, I’m hungry, I want food. And you say, great, let’s go see what we have. And they choose something that you actually have. That’s a little bit rare. And then they say, yeah, that’s what I want. None of us sit here and go, you horrible wanting monster. Be content. We don’t do that.

No, but, there’s also the kind of wanting that comes and after being given an entire list of selections of options, the toddler still desperately wants, and doesn’t want any of that.

There’s a kind of wanting and then there’s what scripture calls coveting. Coveting is, is like an inner grasping of your soul that says, if I don’t have that thing, I’m dead. If I don’t have this, my life has no purpose. I have no meaning. I might as well be dead inside. That, that’s coveting. It’s, it can be about wanting it too much, but it doesn’t have to feel like that.

So you think, if you say, I really want health. Great. And you can really want. I think most of us say I’d really like to be healthy. But if you say I’m fairly healthy, but I have to have health to this standard or my soul’s just dead. That might not feel like I want it so much, but it is a different kind of wanting. It’s coveting.

Contentment is not opposed to wanting. Contentment is opposed to coveting.

Coveting means I’ve got to have this and it’s like I’m standing on the edge and I’m leaning as far as I can lean without falling. So guess what happens when life comes and bumps you? You fall. Contentment is like an inner balance that says when life comes at me, I have something that anchors me.

We just sang songs that talk about it. To this I hold. When the sin comes, and I feel it, and I feel the guilt, and I feel my own failures, to this I hold. My sin has been defeated. That song is encouraging you, pushing you to contentment. Those he saves are his delight. Don’t miss that word. Delight. Christ will hold me fast. That’s contentment. That is what gives the balance of your soul so that when you have plenty, want, abundance, need, you still feel life push you back and forth.

Paul didn’t sit here and go, I absolutely love being in jail in Philippi. It’s my favorite experience in life. Great room service. No. He didn’t do that. He still felt it. But, he had contentment. An inner balance.

So let’s see, what does he say about this? Like, how could we get it? Because he makes this really audaciously crazy statement. Like if I came up to you and this wasn’t Bible and I said, I’ve learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need in every circumstance, I’ve learned how to be content.

You’re like, okay, quack doctor, go somewhere else. Like we don’t, we, we often, we go, I know better. I see that book 10 steps to a perfect life. Yeah, right. Okay, whatever. That’s almost what it sounds like he’s saying, right? I’ve learned the secret. Well, okay, Paul, tell us more about that. Okay. He calls it first of all, a secret.

The Key to Contentment is a Secret

So we’re going to look at really four statements about contentment. First contentment, the key to contentment is a secret, a secret, not in the sense that only special elite few can ever achieve it a secret in the sense that it’s not obvious, there’s two main things that we’ll see from a secret.

First it’s, it’s desired. Like if somebody. If you have a bunch of elementary kids and one of them tells a secret to another one and the others find out, what do they all want? To know the secret.

It can be like, this secret has nothing to do with you. You aren’t interested. It doesn’t matter. They want to know the secret. We don’t change a whole lot when we get older.

When he says this is a secret, it’s an implication that this is something that’s desired. It’s after. And our world does it all the time. We don’t call it contentment. We might call it inner peace or zen stability, emotional health, all of these different words. And we go find our huge range of therapies to try to get it.

We all want that kind of stability, the kind of stability of the soul that says, if the worst happens, I’m stable and safe. I’m content. And if the best happens, it won’t ruin me.

We all want that. Our world is full of people with this kind of desire. We want to be able to grieve when we should grieve, and have joy when we should have joy, and not have our life crashed and shipwrecked on the side of the rocks when those things happen. We want that kind of stability. Everybody around you wants it.

The key to contentment is a secret. It’s something that’s desired, but it’s also a secret in that it’s not obvious. The way to get contentment isn’t just, well I have common sense, because at first in life we all think we know what will make us content.

And it may start out, so if you know I have a two year old, most of the time, well maybe not most of the time, some of the time, what she wants is just attention. She could have attention cleaning the floors. She could have attention building puzzles.

Yesterday I sat down with her and she said she wanted to do puzzles, and she dumps out a puzzle. I put two pieces together. No, I want this puzzle. I thought we were putting 'em together. Apparently we were just dumping them out. We did that for about seven puzzles before I quit. But you know what she, she knew. She wanted something that would give her that kind of fullness. And in her mind, that was, Dad is sitting here. The puzzle didn’t matter.

So we have that impulse, and that’s a pretty good one. Might come back to that in a minute. But there’s this other impulse, I will have contentment and satisfaction if I get what I want. We’ve heard some toddlers do that too, right?

And as we grow, we have this overwhelming idea that says, Okay, there’s something out here that I want, and if I can just get it, I’ll have that kind of contentment and stability in my life. So, we’re told, find your dream, live for it in order to be fulfilled and happy. And it’s best if you know your dream really early in life, so that you can prepare for one of the over a hundred different majors that University of Tennessee offers.

Teens, as you think about college, you feel a little of that pressure? A hundred different majors, and that’s just at University of Tennessee. You could go to another school, or if you know which major, you say, Well, which school should I go to for that major? Even once you narrow it down. Or maybe the dream you should live for doesn’t come through college classrooms.

Depending on where you look, anywhere from 50 to 75 career paths. Which doesn’t include all the different places you could have that career path. Huge choices. And you could say, okay, I’ve got to find the dream that’s going to give this to me.

Oh, and by the way, along the way, you should probably look out for friends that you’re going to grow with. And maybe you look out for a potential spouse because that’s going to be part of your dream. And we get all of this pressure all built on the premise that says there’s something I can pursue. And if I just get it, I’ll have this kind of contentment.

And despite all of that, eventually most of us get to some point where we think, alright, I know the answer. Some people get it at, you know, 16. Some people are 40. But we get the idea that if I can just get these pieces of my dream lined up, that’s gonna give me the inner contentment and stability, the steady, happy contentment.

But The secret to contentment isn’t found in the obvious stuff. That’s why it’s a secret. We have all these things we long for, or we think we long for the excitement of here’s a new friend and a new relationship and new fun. Great, here’s the comfort of an old friend. We long for those things, the potential of a new job or the pride of I’ve been successful. We all think we long for them, and that’s what’s gonna fill me.

It’s not what’s going to fill you because even when the job or the marriage or the family or the friendship is wonderful It’s not really all that you’re looking for and part of that is because we know it’s temporary.

You say if I can just reach this perfect state of health Then I’ll be satisfied and yet When you stop and think, we all know that in one, two, twenty, thirty, forty years, however many you need to think, you will not be in the same state of health as you were then.

We know it’s temporary, so we enjoy it, but we know it’s gonna pass. It won’t give you the kind of long term stability that you can go through life with inner strength and contentment. These things can’t do it. Actually, these wonderful things that we love are meant to stir up your desire for something else, for something greater.

You say, I want to be loved and we try to get it a million different ways. Underneath our desire for love, it’s really God’s perfect, never ending, steadfast love that we want. We don’t always see that because what seems obvious to us is the person loving me. But actually, that joy in the person loving me is meant to point us, underneath that, to, I want God’s love.

Underneath our desire for approval and praise, it’s really God’s approval that will last forever. That’s what we want. Underneath our desire for work, I want to have a successful career and I want to work. Underneath that, we really want service for God that counts for eternity.

Every wonderful fulfillment. I’m gonna say, I’m gonna say that again and point out. I didn’t say underneath all of the difficult things in life. I didn’t say when your marriage is not what you want it to be, it points you to God. No, no. Every wonderful fulfillment on this earth, at its best, cannot give you contentment. At its best, it can’t do it.

It was only meant to point you to what you actually really want underneath that, which gives you contentment.

That’s why, by the way, Paul goes on, because we say, I have these needs. I need love. I need approval. I need profitable, meaningful work. I need all of these things. Underneath that, it’s all God. That’s why you get to verse 19. Paul says, My God will supply every need of yours according to His riches in glory in Christ Jesus.

He’s not saying, If you just get enough money, you’ll have contentment and God will supply your money. That’s not what he means when he says, My God will supply every need.

He means, in your desire for money, you want something. and Maybe it’s power, maybe it’s control, maybe it’s whatever, but the needs you actually have, God will supply those.

He’s not saying, you think you need love from a spouse, so therefore God is going to supply this amazing, perfect marriage for you. No, what he’s saying is the love that you actually want, the approval you actually want underneath that, that’s what God will supply for you. And that’s where contentment comes.

Contentment is a secret. It’s not obvious. Yet Paul has learned it. He’s learned to, as Philippians 3 says, count everything else as loss for the surpassing value of knowing Christ. That was just the chapter right before this. The reason he can say, I’ve learned the secret is because he’s realized the best things you chase for will not satisfy and give the fullness and stability you want. He’s learned Jesus is so much better than all that, that all these other things are like loss in comparison.

That’s why he can write this, by the way, from a jail cell. Having been beaten, left for dead, having gone through things that most of us have never and will never experience, but he says, but I’ve learned underneath all my desires, there’s a greater desire and there’s fulfillment for it. It’s a secret.

Abundance and Need Expose False Contentment

The second thing we’ll notice is that abundance and need. Expose false contentment.

Many of us stay convinced that a certain dream is going to give me satisfaction, and we stay there for a long time. But eventually, we realize it’s not really solving my problem.

We’re kind of like, if you can picture a donkey plowing a field, and you know the mostly cartoon versions where there’s a stick tied to his back and there’s a carrot out in front of him. And he keeps walking and we’re like, Dumb donkey, you’re never gonna reach it. And he keeps right on plowing.

We’re often like that. We think, this is gonna satisfy me. I’m gonna keep going. And we, we live there for a long time.

But eventually one of two things happens. We either get enough of our dream to realize this didn’t solve the inner problem. Most of us would love to try that route. But we don’t. It doesn’t always work that way, or we realize I’m never going to get to my dream.

One of the, one of the other, abundance or need eventually shows us this dream can’t do what I’m asking it to do. You can pin all your hopes on having a perfect marriage relationship. And if it’s absolutely wonderful, you’ll still go, there’s a piece of my soul. This doesn’t solve all of my inner stability issues.

Or maybe, you’ll long for that and think that’s your dream. And as you get older, you think, I don’t think I’m ever going to get married.

One way or the other, abundance and need. It’s like the donkey’s going on and eventually the donkey realizes, I can’t ever reach the carrot. Or the donkey gets the carrot, eats it, and says, you know, I’m still hungry.

That’s where we are. And at this point. What happens? What do you do? When, when God’s grace shows you that the dreams of this earth will not give you this kind of inner stability and contentment, what do you do after that?

Well, you’re going to conclude one of three things. You’ll conclude the things that I’m pursuing are broken.

I just chose the wrong job. I just chose the wrong school. I just chose the wrong spouse. I just chose the wrong, whatever. You’ll conclude those things ultimately are the problem, so you try to find another dream.

And at first it may seem wonderful. Drugs feel pretty good at first too. But it’s just a new high. It’s just a new sense of like, Oh yeah, this dream will do it. And before long the same thing happens, we have the same cycle, and you’ll realize it’s just a different carrot at the end of the stick.

And so essentially what we do is we, we don’t commit to anything. We say, what’s the pleasure I’m going to chase now? This one. But this pleasure might let me down. Maybe I’ll chase this pleasure. Maybe I’ll chase this pleasure. And it becomes hedonism. How can I live for the most pleasure right now?

So you might conclude that things are broken. I just picked the wrong ones.

You might look inside and say, you know, I’m broken. Because you, you look around and you believe the social media propaganda that people put out. And you say, well they seem to have a nice happy family and they look content. They have a nice new car and they look happy. And I bet they have this deep inner stability of the soul that I’m missing.

So what’s wrong with me?

And then you find all kinds of issues because if you look inside deep enough you’ll find all kinds of issues. that need to be worked on and that you can grow in, sure. Often, you end up down on yourself, sad and depressed, and no matter how psychologically healthy you get, the secret, the key to the secret of contentment is that temporal earthly joys will never fully satisfy the hunger of your soul.

So you can keep looking and say, well, this is broken. Maybe I’ll fix it. Maybe that will make me be satisfied. No. It won’t.

And most of us, we bounce back and forth between those kinds of things. Maybe I chased the wrong thing. Maybe I’m broken and need to mess up until we just get tired of getting disappointed.

Then we give up. I’m just going to give up on satisfaction. This is called stoicism. I’m just not going to care enough. to be disappointed or hurt. I’m not going to get too excited, and maybe I won’t be too wounded. We’ll say I’ve looked for satisfaction in all the wrong things, and they’ve all disappointed me, so I’m never reaching out for it again. In order to protect my heart from being broken, I cast it in stone.

It’s where we often land, but God offers you something way better than that. Paul’s not saying that.

If you read Paul, he is full of weeping over things. He should weep over and exuberant joy over things he should have joy over. Paul is not like, I’m not gonna get too high or too low 'cause I’ll be disappointed. No, and that’s good because stoic thinking like this, it may not make you hate others. but it won’t help you love them. Remember when Paul and Silas sat in jail? Stoic thinking may let you sit in jail and wait for God to do something, but it’s never going to let you sing in jail.

And if you are here today and you aren’t a believer in Jesus, I’m going to say from scripture, as you look at humans around you, the best contentment you can hope for is stoic thinking. I’m gonna bite my lip and plug a head.

Or, you can learn the secret of contentment that Paul points to and say, all of those things I would want, cannot and will not ever satisfy the hunger in my soul.

Contentment is Learned

So, number one, the key to contentment is a secret. It’s not obvious. We’ll think it’s this, but it’s actually something underneath. Number two, abundance and need expose false contentment. They let you see where that satisfaction isn’t good enough for you. Number three, notice contentment is learned.

He said, in verse 11, I’m not speaking of being in need, for I have learned, in whatever situation I am, to be content. Or, in verse 12, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need.

So contentment is a secret, but it’s not the kind that you, you discover and have this eureka moment and then you go, Oh, it’s all solved! It’s not a secret you just discover and plug into your life and it’s all good.

He says, I’ve learned this. I’ve practiced this. So how do you do that?

I don’t have time to talk through all of these steps in detail, but I want to give you a couple thoughts. Most of this comes from Tim Keller and the way that he talks about how to develop contentment.

First thing, you have to recognize the idol in your heart. You got to say, whatever it is, I think this temporal joy is going to fill me with amazing satisfaction. What you’re doing is saying, I’m going to put this in the place of God. That makes it an idol. That means I’m worshiping the wrong thing. If you want to learn contentment, you’re going to have to recognize, where am I looking at the wrong things to satisfy my soul?

They might be bad things. That could be the way you spend your time on the internet. That could be drugs. That could be drunkenness. That could be a million different things that are bad.

Or, they can be all kinds of good things that you say. My relationship with my kids is gonna really give me satisfaction in life. That’s gonna give me ultimate fullness and contentment. It’s still in the place that only God occupies.

So first, you recognize the idol. Second thing, you rehearse the gospel to yourself. You remember this truth because underneath my desire for love is a desire for God’s love. And the truth of the gospel says God has demonstrated his love for you in that while you were his enemy, Christ died for you.

You sing songs like we did earlier, those he saves are his delight. That’s part of the truth of the gospel, underneath my desire for love is the fact that he delights in me. So we remind ourselves of that. Underneath my desire for approval is my desire for God’s approval and he guaranteed that. By giving me the righteousness of Jesus Christ by faith. Here’s his righteousness and here’s my sin. And God said, I’ll take your sin and I will give you his righteousness.

We remind ourselves of the truth of the gospel. That my worth is in Jesus. My approval is in Jesus. And it’s not because of my performance.

So you expose the idol. You rehearse the gospel. You enjoy God’s gifts.

Christianity is not stoicism. It’s not against enjoying. It’s not against pleasure. Christianity is against when pleasure rules your life and strangles you because you feel like, I have to get this pleasure. No, enjoy the gift. Enjoy what God gives.

When Tim Keller talks about this, he calls this icing discipline. Hmm. He says, icing on a cake is wonderful. Most of us like it. I realize not everyone would, but icing on a cake is wonderful.

But if you were to go eat lunch and say, I’m going to have a bowl of icing. I mean, maybe you could, and I think some kids in here now want to try, but let’s say you did that for lunch one, you’re probably going to feel bad. And then you get to dinner. I’m going to have another bowl of icing and breakfast. I’m going to have another bowl of icing. It doesn’t take long. I’m no doctor, but I think there’s some doctors could tell you your body is not going to do well. The good gifts we have from God are wonderful and should be enjoyed, but they’re like icing.

When you have plenty, you say, this is wonderful, but it’s icing. It’s not what’s going to fully satisfy my soul. I’ll enjoy it, but this is not what’s going to satisfy me. And when you have little You say, it would be great to have this, but that’s just icing. It’s not what satisfies my soul. It’s not what gives me contentment.

So you enjoy his gift, but you enjoy it as icing, not as what’s going to nourish you forever.

Fourth thing, you enjoy the, the giver. You spend time with God, enjoying the fact that he wants to spend time with you.

It’s so hard to describe this because it’s, it’s so personal. We experience that in different ways, but do you ever stop and just spend time with God rejoicing that he loves you?

We see couples who just start dating and sometimes we see them, you know, sitting across from each other at dinner and they’re staring lovingly into each other’s eyes.

What are they doing? They’re just enjoying the fact that this person’s here, and we love each other, at least we think, and we can have that whole conversation.

Okay, slightly weird way to say it. But, do you pause and stare lovingly into your God’s eyes?

If you don’t recognize that He loves you, that those He saves are His delight, you’re never gonna have the same satisfaction and contentment. That he wants to give you.

And the last thing is you pursue obedience. Sometimes we say, I really would like this great inner stability and contentment of my soul, but there’s this sin that I really want to just hang on to because I like it. Well, guess what? Conviction happens.

It’s kind of like saying, I’m gonna walk over here, and I’d like this great balance, but I’m gonna hold this 20 pound dumbbell out here.

Well, maybe you can have something that feels like you’re sort of okay, but you always know if I just lean a little bit, there’s no stability here.

So when you realize that your contentment is often looking at the carrot and the stick, and you say, that’s not going to satisfy my soul, what is it that I can do that? You need to go and learn the secret of contentment, that really what will satisfy your soul isn’t this thing up here, it’s God.

And you do that by recognizing the idol, rehearsing the truth of the gospel, enjoying his good gifts, enjoying him, and where he convicts you of sin, you put that aside and you pursue obedience.

Christian Contentment Empowers True Ambition

Now, I started out asking, can you be ambitious and content at the same time? With all of that, I think we can say, not only, yes, you can, but we’d actually say Christian contentment empowers ambition.

If I’m off balance, walking alongside the edge of the stage, I am not ready to jump. We all know that. Gain your balance, then jump. If I’m stumbling and tripping, I’m not ready to start sprinting. There’s a reason that when you see the hundred yard dash, those guys are not in an unstable position to start with. They are stable so that they can run.

Christian contentment drives ambition. If you think the obvious dreams will satisfy you, then you’re always afraid they’re going to let you down because you know they will at some point. If you realize that all of what God gives you, though, and all the satisfaction He offers, and the fact that my God will supply all your needs according to His riches and glory in Christ Jesus, and you say, If I lose everything except God, I have contentment.

Now you have the kind of stability to say, Now, God, where do you want me to go, and what do you want me to do? Because I’m not afraid that I’m going to be knocked off balance if it doesn’t work the way I think it would. Christian contentment drives ambition.

That’s why Paul does this. Notice verse 12. I know how to be brought low, I know how to abound in any and every circumstance. I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through Him who strengthens me. We quote this verse all the time. But How much more of a big picture vision and drive and ambition can you get? I can do all things through Him who strengthens me. I have this deep rooted contentment and stability. That’s why I can do all things.

So what was Paul driven for? Say, Paul, what do you mean all things? Like, okay, I can be ambitious. For what, Paul?

I just wanted to remind you of some of what he said. In 1 Corinthians, he said, I want to preach Christ crucified and nothing else. He’s driven to do that. In Colossians, he says, I labor, struggling, toiling with all of God’s energy working in me to present other believers mature in Jesus. He’s ambitious to say, I want to help them grow and be like Jesus. Galatians, he says, I’m in the pains of childbirth to see Christ formed in others. Romans 15, he says, I make it my ambition, notice that word, to preach the gospel, not where Christ has already been named, lest I build on another’s foundation. Second Corinthians 5, he says, whether we are alive or dead, I make it my ambition to please God. Even in just Philippians, he says, I’m driven to advance the gospel, to promote a life worthy of the gospel, to work out the reality of my salvation in every single part of my life, to shine like a light in this world, to count all things as lost compared to knowing Jesus. Paul says, I am so content because of what God has done for me that I am driven to pursue Him in everything.

He has a greater drive really than every self starting businessman on the planet. But it’s built on the fact that he knows my every need is met in Jesus.

Is Jesus Your Contentment-Fueled Ambition?

So I want to ask you, 2025 we’re getting ready. Some of you are big resolution people and some of you aren’t. That’s okay. We won’t talk about that. I think you could do it either way. But here’s what I do want you to say. I am so full in Jesus that I want to pursue him with every fiber of my being. I’m so full in Jesus, I can be content if 2025 seems like good circumstances or bad circumstances. I can still say no matter what happens, my drive, my ambition, my vision is to please him and to love him.

There was a man named Jeremiah Burroughs, who wrote a really great book. You can pick it up on Amazon if you want to. It’s called Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment. It’s really fascinating, and if you know his background, it’s even more fascinating. He went from being a, a fairly influential pastor in London, to being a more rural pastor, because he got ran out of town. I don’t have time to tell that story.

He then left his rural church in England, because At the time, Puritans were being persecuted, so he left and was a pastor, then a refugee. And then, eventually, he came back from exile, and at one point in London, he was preaching to more people on Sunday morning than anyone else in London.

Now, it’s easy to say, well, of course, with a happy ending, of course you can be contentment. Except, he wrote Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment while he was a refugee. Before he knew he’d ever come back. And he said this, I want to read a longer quote, because I think it captures what we talked about this morning.

He said, “You never learned the mystery of contentment, unless it may be said of you that just as you are the most contented man, so you are also the most unsatisfied man in the world. You say, wait, how’s that? A man who has learned the art of contentment is the most contented with any low condition he has in the world. And yet, he cannot be satisfied with the enjoyment of all the world. He is contented if he has but a crust, but bread and water. That is, if God disposes of him for the things of the world to have but bread and water, he can be satisfied with God’s disposal in that. Yet, if God should give unto him kingdoms and empires, all the world to rule, if God gave it to him for his portion, he would not be satisfied with that. Here is the mystery of it though his heart is so enlarged that the enjoyment of all the world and 10, 000 worlds cannot satisfy him yet He has a heart quieted under God’s disposal if God gives him but bread and water. To join these two together must needs be a great art and mystery.”

You can have deep inner contentment, but if God gave you all of the temporal things you would not be satisfied

So when you make your plans for your life, what is your ambition? This year, 2025, what do you want to be? And if you say, I don’t have any ambitions, I just want to survive. That’s a, that’s a goal too.

Christians don’t have to just live at, I want to survive. We live at, I want to know my God better. I want to love my God better.

When you read your Bible, what is your ambition? We don’t think that way sometimes. What are you trying to do? What do you want to happen? Are you content to merely fill your head with information, or are you thirsty for Jesus?

When you pray, what is your ambition? Do you hope to get whatever it is you want, or do you want to taste fellowship with the infinite God? Which one?

When you have a chance to speak with unbelievers, do you just want to get through it without looking foolish, or do you hope that they will radically be transformed by the power of the gospel?

When you counsel Christian friends, do you hope to help them avoid some discomfort? Or do you say, I am so driven that you be more like Jesus and that you love him more. That’s why we’re doing this.

When you come to church week after week, it’s like, well, I checked off my box. Or do you have an ambition to really know and treasure God more?

When you serve him. Do you say, "did it." Or do you say, I have such satisfaction of my soul that I want to pour myself out so Jesus is formed in me and others. I want to drive for that. And I want to see how can I serve better and where should I serve? How can I do these things?

We’re not meant to be passive. I’m content. So I’m stoic and nothing bothers me. We’re meant to be so satisfied and full that we can be driven for what is good.

That’s what Paul was. And if you have this kind of contentment and this kind of ambition, you will learn how to have little or much. You’ll learn that all of those things can’t satisfy because Jesus is the only one who can satisfy. You’ll be able to say with Paul, I can do all things through Christ, which strengthens me.

Would you take a moment, would you just bow your heads and respond to God from the truths that we’ve heard?