Finding your Joy: Being Content in every Season
By Grantham Wash
“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. Yet it was kind of you to share my trouble.”
Philippians 4:10-14 ESV
“But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,”
2 Timothy 3:1-4 ESV
If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.
* CS Lewis
Paul’s contentment is based on sacrificial communion.
Sacrificial Communion
“To the present hour we hunger and thirst, we are poorly dressed and buffeted and homeless, and we labor, working with our own hands. When reviled, we bless; when persecuted, we endure; when slandered, we entreat. We have become, and are still, like the scum of the world, the refuse of all things.”
1 Corinthians 4:11-13 ESV
“But I do not account my life of any value nor as precious to myself, if only I may finish my course and the ministry that I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God.”
Acts 20:24 ESV
Sacrificial Communion
“Communion with Jesus is something you receive both instantaneously, when you accept Jesus as your Lord and savior, and over the course of your life as you grow in grace and knowledge of Him.
* Jeff Gipe
“But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” And he said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.” He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?”
Genesis 3:9-11 ESV
Application Question:
What vehicles are you trying to use for contentment instead of sacrificial communion with the Lord?
“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.”
Philippians 4:10 ESV
How do you fight discontentment?
1)Fight for covenantally bound friendships
“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.”
Philippians 4:12 ESV
How do you fight discontentment?
1)Fight for covenantally bound friendships
2)Fight against escapism and strive for self awareness
I can do all things through him who strengthens me. Yet it was kind of you to share my trouble.”
Philippians 4:13-14
How do you fight discontentment?
1)Fight for covenantally bound friendships
2)Fight against escapism and strive for self awareness
3)Fight for Thanksgiving