OCT 1 2017 | Philippians 4:4-13

Sea Change Church · "Philippians 4:4-13" · Adam Stadtmiller · October 1, 2017
Philippians 4:4-13
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

Amen. I'm Carol Taylor. Good morning, family. This scripture this morning goes so perfectly with what we just heard the worship team sing. It's Philippians 4, 4 through 13. Enjoy this. Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again. Rejoice. Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.

And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me or seen in me, put it into practice and the God of peace will be with you.

I rejoice greatly in the Lord that at last you renewed your concern for me. Indeed, you were concerned, but you had no opportunity to show it. I'm not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need. I know what it is to be in need. And I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.

I can do all this through him who gives me strength. Amen. Good to have you back, Carol, reading in the pulpit. So good to see you. I love our team and our family here. It's a real honor to represent you all at the American Baptist Conference up in Idaho. And it was a really good time. We are living, as you know, in an age of discontent. Paul, in this message, says that contentment is a secret.

And I love the image that Jeff Edwards, not our media director, I got this wrong. He is our marketing director and volunteers here at the church to do that. But the one that he created here really shows, I think, what people are experiencing on the, I would say, the front lines of the media and TV and all the things that we are hearing. This screaming, this voice of discontentment.

But at the same time, I think the majority of us would say that what we want to do is to find a place of peace, to live in a place of contentment. And I would say it's impossible to have peace without contentment. This is an age where discontentment has become nouveau religion, I believe. That discontentment and social activism, which has raised its head many times for many great reasons.

You see it in the early 1900s with the church, Salvation Army, some beautiful activism. You see it in India with Gandhi. You see activism that is raised up in different times. But it seems at the moment where this activism sometimes doesn't really have the same roots as you've seen in the past. In the early 1900s, a lot of this activism that was being done before we had social welfare was being done by the church in the name of Jesus.

That social activism has continued on, but they've left Jesus behind. And the reason we often do it now is for the sake of humanity as opposed to caring for the sake of humanity for the sake of God. That's a major difference. And what I said this morning, I came up with this idea. It says we live in an age of discontent where activism has become nouveau religion.

And everyone is required to have an opinion, take a stand, and fight until the discontentment ends. I think it's really interesting. There's this thought that you have a moral obligation now to say something. No matter what side you're on, doesn't matter what side you're on, you have a moral obligation that you have to say something. And if you are not saying something, you are part of the problem.

I recently heard a podcast where I was a pastor talking about how churches need to be activists. And I went into his whole understanding. And what I often have felt is that what I believe is we want to be really active in protesting before the throne of God. If you're going to have a protest, I think we need to go protest before God in prayer using the weapons of our warfare.

And the church should actually be a place where you can come in and harvest God's opinion on things, God's spirit for things, God's power for things. And then you go out to the corner that you live and you put into action what he told you. This is a place where you are going to come and you are going to be inculcated, hopefully, from the chaos of the world.

So I decided that after we did our last, after the thing that happened in Paris with the nightclub, we had a little thing and we prayed. And then there was something the next weekend and the next weekend. And I remember my daughter coming around a corner and saying, Dad, why is the flag at half staff? And you know what I said? I have no idea. I don't know if anybody else has had this issue where I see the flag at half.

I used to know. But it seems like there is so much tragedy in the world that is being highlighted. If you wanted to do a memorial, you could do one every single week. And we could take some time at church and talk about each natural disaster and each thing that is happening. Or perhaps there's enough voice in the world right now for those things.

And you can come here and you can experience God in reality that says, you're my beloved. And I have a calling on your life. And each of you as individuals are called to go to your corner and make a difference. And so one of the things that I want to do is have a place where you can come and harvest the goodness of God. And that is why after the last, I would say, prayer time or memorial, not that we've forgotten about those things.

I'm not turning a deaf ear to them. But I just decided I can't do this every week. Nor do we have the time every week to do that. But what I can do is offer you the raw substance of God himself in relationship. And then you can go and discern in relationship with God how to do that. People would say this day, if you walk in peace and contentment, then you're part of the problem.

I've actually heard that. Like, I actually just did it to test it one time. I put it on Facebook. I put, if I put a picture of a kitten, like 5,000 likes, right? You know what I mean? Like, like, like, like, like, like. So I just put, life is so good. I love life. It's awesome. Dead silence. Shouldn't you like that? Like, shouldn't everyone just be, yes, yes, yes.

No, dude. You're part of the problem. No. If you're, you can't be content. You can't be enjoying yourself. And if you're not out making a ruckus right now for whatever cause it is. And one of the questions I have, where was, where was all this 15 years ago? I mean, we had a lot of issues going on 15 years ago. But now, like Paul says, you know, with thoughts, certain thought become, it's like fashion.

You know, there's fashionable thoughts that go around. And people want to be identified just like with wearing clothes. It's Paul talks about this in the scripture. And these ideas of where this come from. You know, I heard somebody else say recently, moderates are the problem. They are the problem. Moderates are the problem. You know what I was going to do?

I was going to go have a rally of moderates. But I just realized no one would come. All moderates. We're going to be at Balboa Party at 6 o'clock tonight. Are we going to restaurants? No, we're going to protest. Look, there needs to be people speaking out. You look at Mother Teresa. Mother Teresa spoke for the poor. But she also walked in peace and contentment.

She had a voice. Now, I'm not a Hindu. But Gandhi as well spoke against great injustice in this world. Look, you need to have a voice. But I don't think, I don't know if Facebook's the place to do it. Maybe actually engaging in an issue and making a difference and making a change. And so that is why we want to equip you as a church to come here.

And wherever God has called you, whatever issue, and hopefully he has called you to some issue. It could be evangelism. It could be the poor. It could be workers' rights. It could be social injustice. Whatever it is, I don't need to organize that for you. What I want to do, what we want to do as a church is help you organize your life with a beloved Savior who says, I love you.

Now go out and live for me. And so we're going to be talking about this. And I got to, you know, the story of Jesus walking to Emmaus comes up to me today. Because Jesus was obviously part of the problem. The guys, two of his disciples are walking to Emmaus. Perhaps you know the story. One of my favorite stories in the book. And they're walking. And all of a sudden, like, they come across this man.

And it happens to be Jesus. And they don't recognize him in the moment. And they're all abuzz of what's happening in the day. All this stuff is happening. And they're upset. And they're discontent. And they have all these things that they want to do. And the Romans. And is the kingdom coming? Are we going to kick the Romans out? Because it's all a political thing we need to sort out.

Which Jesus spoke very little about. Paul speaks very little about it. And they're walking along. And they come upon Jesus. And they start telling him what's going on. And this is awesome. Luke 24, 18 through 19. It's not in your notes. It's just something I added this morning. It says, are you the only one? When he speaks to them, he tells them what's going on.

And Jesus goes, well, what's happening? They said, well, there's a lot of things going on. And then they said to Jesus, are you the only one visiting Jerusalem who doesn't know about the things that have happened there in these days? You know what Jesus' answer was? What things? What things? Like Jesus is just like, he's out enjoying his father's presence.

He's with, and maybe he was asking them for a reason. It wasn't like he was unaware of what was happening. But he was able to live in a way where the discontent of the world didn't become the discontent of his soul. I got to say, the most powerful change agents in the world are people that are centered and ballast and are not using some emotional trigger to go get done what they're trying to get done.

But walk from a very deep and calm and spiritual place and can still go out and take care of business and change the world through that. You know, I just, I guess this is coming from me realizing after about the last two and a half, three years of the social media thing that's been happening in regard to the news. Because I just felt a real turbulence in my soul.

And I felt like, where is the peace? How can I walk in any peace? How can I be content? But how can I still change the world? This is the final week as we speak about contentment. And I would imagine that the majority of us would like to be in a place where you are content. Where if somebody came up to you and said, hey, I want to, I can give you anything you want.

How many of us would say, I'm good? Like, you know, I'm actually good. Jesus and what I have is enough. And we talked in the first week about wanting to have that shiny thing. Like, if you only have that shiny, what's the shiny thing that you want? If you get that shiny relationship, or if you get that house, or you get that thing, once you have that thing, you'll be content.

But then we looked at a guy named Solomon, who was the most wealthy man to ever walk the face of the earth. And his magnum opus was a book about being discontent. Meaningless, meaningless, meaningless, meaningless, he says. Everything is meaningless. And his end was unless God is inserted in the midst of it. Well, Paul has a secret of contentment.

This is our third person. We looked at Job. We looked at Solomon. A man, Job in suffering, finding contentment. We find Solomon, who was looking for contentment with everything. And now we have Paul, the New Testament answer that talks about walking in contentment. Walking in peace. Paul here is giving, you'll see in your notes, a poultice of a power-filled spiritual weapons that will provide you peace and contentment no matter what this age brings.

Let me say that again. Imagine being able to see everything that is happening in the world, but having at your core a ballast that is created by a peace with God. That no matter what's happening, no matter the circumstances of your life, that you have an ultimate peace and contentment. Paul says that that's on offer. I mean, I know we give a tip of the cap to it, but imagine how intriguing Christianity would be if Christians actually walked around like this.

One of the things as Christians is we expect this to happen by osmosis. I accepted Christ, where's the peace? I accepted Christ, where's the life change? It's just supposed to, if you just stand there, it's going to happen. I gotta say that contentment, contentment is not a, that I see as one of the spiritual gifts in the Bible. Contentment is something that has to be fought for.

Contentment is something that has to be developed. Paul just doesn't say, you just, you know, say those magic words. I accept Jesus into my heart. And then all of a sudden you are going to have peace and contentment. No, he actually says that you have to actually do some stuff on a regular basis. You know what I found? Even driving back, because I did this sermon this week and I tried to put it in practice.

It takes effort. Like it actually takes, it's much easier to turn on Netflix and get distraction rather than contentment. Do you know that, that, that distraction is a bastardized form of contentment? It'll let you feel like there's no issues at the moment as you watch 36 episodes of Friends. I'm in season 39, man. But there's 100 episodes per season.

I know, it's fabulous. I just love it. This, look, alcohol, sexuality, all, all these things can become distractions. And when we, we just go to these distractions because they will give you a feeling of contentment. But it's not contentment. It's a bastardized form of contentment that lacks the father. And to be content is not something anyone just gets.

It is something that God wants to work at with you. And so as I'm driving through this beautiful countryside, and our country is beautiful. The wheat had not been harvested in Idaho. I didn't even know they grew Idaho, wheat in Idaho. So the wheat had not been harvested. We're coming up to Wyoming, Jackson Hole. It had snowed in the higher elevations.

It snowed in Jackson while we were there. But I had never seen the unharvested wheat. Half of it was harvested, half of it wasn't. It was snow in the mountaintops. It was absolutely gorgeous. And I found my mind continually wandering to the things I want, the things I don't have, and the reasons I'm upset. Does anybody else do that? Look, your mind and your soul need to be trained, by the way.

Our minds are addicted, like, you know, to junk food. They will just go to every, whatever is in front of them, they'll take it. The mind will just take it. You know that. You put it in front of your mind. Your mind will just go, yeah, I'll eat that up. And just chew on it. If you start seeing all the ranches that you want to buy in Wyoming now, because I can't go anywhere without wanting to buy part of it.

I don't know if anybody else is that way. I go there, I've got to own it. I can't just go there, I've got to own the thing. How much can we get a ranch for? Okay, where would we get the down payment? You know, I'm the, ah. Ah. It's like junk food. Whatever you put in your mind. Paul says, you're actually going to have to work for, look, you're going to have to work for contentment.

It's not going to just show up at your door. The Bible, God wants to have a relationship with you and he wants to work it out in the process. Jesus is not a magician. He is not here that you just say the magic words, abracad Jesus. And that's pretty funny. And all of a sudden he's like, poof. If everyone would be a Christian if it worked that way, do you get that?

Everyone would be, I'm peaceful, I'm happy. Woo, unicorns, dancing on rainbows. If you want contentment, you're going to have to work for it. And Paul gives the recipe here. Let's look at the recipe, what he says. Here's the first one. And you're not allowed to do this in this day and age. Because if you do this, you're part of the problem. Right?

Right? Rejoice, rejoice. What does that look like for you? When was the last time you just rejoiced? Right? You know, I mean, really. I've tried that before. I was in charismatic circles for a while. I'm charismatic light. I'm not really charismatic. But I'm a charismatic light, nonetheless. I'm a little bit of everything. I've been Catholic. I've worn so many uniforms.

I just want to put Jesus uniform on these days. But nonetheless, I remember being there. And this pastor said, you need to go into your room and rejoice. And so I went into the youth room. And there was nobody there at church. And I tried to, like, dance like David before the Lord. Have you ever done this? Like, you just feel like an idiot. Oh, yeah!

You know? I'll do it at a football game in front of 50,000 people. But I'm doing it in front of the Lord. And I just feel like an idiot. You know? I tried this. Rejoicing is really hard. It doesn't come naturally. I'm in beautiful country. And I would find myself getting discontent with all of it. Because my mind just will feed. I'm listening to sports radio.

And, you know, I'm just driving, listening to podcasts. And my mind is just eating it all up. And I realize I'm feeling myself being more discontent. So I thought, turn that stuff off. Do what your sermon said once in a while. Because every once in a while I try to actually do it. Not just preach it. And I tried to rejoice. And I thought, this is boring.

Like, ah. And so I worked on it. But I found the more I worked on it. It was really difficult. I began to say, God, I just rejoice. You're so good. Look at this wheat. Look what you've done in this country. Look how many people you've blessed. Look what you, you know, on and on. And just tried my best. It is work. First thing you can do is rejoice, rejoice.

Look, that's a directive. If you want to have contentment and peace in your life, you need to rejoice. Rejoice in God. And I think it's something we have to learn. We have to learn how to rejoice. I don't think, you know, like somebody wins the lottery. They actually rejoice. You see them, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, you know. But can we learn that skill just by rejoicing in the goodness of God?

I want to say that rejoicing begets rejoicing. Because as you begin to slow down and look at how good God actually is, and just because there are bad things in the world doesn't mean God isn't good. It's like, well, we can't really celebrate the good until all the bad is fixed. The bad is never going to all be fixed. But to take a moment and to say, I'm going to rejoice, rejoice.

And so the first directive, because he, look, I'm not into like seven tips to this, but Paul actually does this. He actually lays it out. And here's a directive to you. If you follow this this week and do this, you will find the contentment well up in you. I found it this week. And I didn't even do a very good job of it, nonetheless. Rejoice, rejoice.

I love this one. And, you know, rejoice. And then he says, let your gentleness be evident to all. Oh, how many, you know what I love about Mother Teresa? I'm a fan of Mother Teresa. I love her social work. I remember when she walked into, was it Palestine? And there were, no one was getting food and no one was allowed to go in there. And she said, I'm going to walk in.

Do you remember that? When she took a car, when she went in, I think it was the middle of Palestine. I remember reading about it. I'm sorry, I'm getting the place where it happened. But she just walked in with convoys and trucks of food. She wasn't screaming. She wasn't yelling. And she went in and she delivered food. And she walked out and got her business done.

What I really like about her is that she made this dynamic change. And she never yelled at anybody. And her gentleness was evident to all. Now, I know that that is my number one characteristic, right? I'm just kidding. That spoke to me, trust me. My gentleness is evident to some. I wish she just said that. Let your gentleness be evident to some. Gentleness.

Wow. Does our society need gentleness? Does our marriage need gentleness? Does our relationship with our kids need? What does gentleness even look like? What does it take to be gentle? One of the things I liked about Dick Cotton was that he was gentle. Now, I told him, thank God I wasn't your pastor when you were 40. Because I bet he was tenacious.

I got him at the end when he was a little bit worn out. You know what I mean? I was so happy. Everybody's not afraid to come after me, though. I like it. Be gentle. Try that. Just, you know what? Just be gentle. You know what? You know who you should try being gentle with? Yourself. I remember one time I was speaking, saying stuff to myself. My wife says, why do you speak to yourself that way?

She goes, you wouldn't let anybody speak to you that way. Why do you let yourself speak to you that way? Be gentle. Receive Christ gentleness. Be anxious for nothing. Now, I've had anxiety, okay? I've had anxiety attacks. Sometimes I've had a prolonged season of generalized anxiety. I mean, trust me, I know anxiety. I don't know depression very well, but I know anxiety.

So maybe some of you, you know, I hear they're sisters or partners or whatever. But Paul just telling me not to be anxious doesn't work, okay? Like, I tried not being anxious. And so I was praying over this, and I felt like the Lord said to me, he says be anxious for nothing, but he's not just saying just stop being anxious. It's like you always hear people when they're depressed, and somebody who's not depressed are like a puppy dog.

They walk up and just stop being depressed. The world's great. Stop being depressed. It doesn't work that way, okay? To everyone who doesn't struggle with it. Paul isn't saying that. He's saying be anxious for nothing. Here's some tools in how you deal with it. Here's how you not become anxious. I used to just think it was like concentration. Like, just don't concentrate on your anxiety and you'll win.

It's not that. It's actually an engagement plan with some of the weapons of our warfare. And I would imagine this would work with depression as well. I don't know. I think God's word is eternal enough. So he says be anxious for nothing. And it's basically instead of being anxious, do this. But, and you'll see that transitionary word. It says do not be anxious about anything.

Now, it would just stop there if Paul was telling you, hey, just get over it and stop being anxious. The conjunction there, the word but, means instead of being anxious, do this. So that is actually, anytime you see that word, it's a bridge to what to do instead. So for all you anxiety people out there, myself included, God's giving me victory over that at the moment.

Hopefully it'll continue on for life. That there is an answer. There is a bridge. Don't just get over it, but follow this bridge. He says the first thing you do, pray with thanksgiving. So we started rejoicing. We decided to be more gentle. We decided to stop being anxious by putting a plan into place, which is pray with what? Thanksgiving. Yeah, thanksgiving.

Pray, be thankful. You know, I heard someone say yesterday, you know, I'm always upset about the things I don't have. But imagine if I didn't have the things I do have. You know, we can all, you can always, Victor Frankl in this man's search for meaning, he talks about being in a Holocaust camp. You know, how he was able to find thanksgiving in the midst of that.

Present your requests to God. I love that. Just tell God what you need. He is God, by the way. And then let God be in charge of bringing that supernatural peace. You know, peace, when God brings peace, it isn't something that you make. You do the things to prepare yourself for peace. But peace has to be given to you by God. Because true peace is only found in God.

There is a whole idea in social understanding and in psychiatry that says you can basically, if you do these things, you will, you'll be able to create peace. Peace, I don't believe, is not something that is created. Peace is something, peace is something that is built and prepared for, but it is something that is given as a gift from God. True peace.

A peace that it says transcends what? Understanding. Now, I've said this many times, but we all want peace of our understanding, right? Meaning, oh, the check came in. Oh, I got a date this Friday night. Oh, whatever it is. Once I get the shiny thing, peace will flow in. Yesterday, I was doing my bills and I left out two of the positive numbers that were supposed to go in and I got my bills and I was driving home and I kind of just did them halfway and the numbers were not working.

There was a lot of red. And I was freaking out all the way home. Like, whoa, how did this happen? And then I went, got myself a scone at Brick and Bell. Really good scones at Brick and Bell. I don't know if you've been there. Really, really good. Go get a scone today at Brick and Bell. And coffee. And then I realized, oh, I didn't put that in and then I got a reimbursement and then all of a sudden the numbers changed.

I was like, ah, life's good. Life's good. Peace of my understanding. Do you want it supernatural? Peace that you don't understand. It is red. It is not going to work out. There is a cliff. The giants are coming and I got a peace. Being able to look at the newspaper and not before bed, by the way. Look at the newspaper and to think, God, you're so good. You're going to sort this out.

You've always sorted it. The world always has problems, FYI. I'm watching that thing on NPR about the Vietnam. Anybody see that's 10 parts on Vietnam in HD? It is really good. They had problems in the 60s. I wasn't around, FYI. Problems. And God was in the midst of that. It was so interesting that a revival came in the 70s in the Jesus people. God always seems to have a counterpunch.

Have you noticed that with God? After World War II and all that destruction, Billy Graham. You know, God always has a counterpunch. It is a peace beyond understanding. Can you look at the world? Can you look at the plagues that are hitting Egypt as a Jew back in the day and have peace knowing that God will deliver you across the river? When you see these things, the scripture says, do what?

Look up. Look up. Because your day of redemption is near. No, if you feel that way, you're part of the problem. I'm not saying be silent. Look, the Christians need to be the strongest force in the world. I believe they are currently the strongest force in the world of bringing justice into this world and caring for the poor. If you were to remove Christians from the world right now, I believe that social welfare systems would collapse.

They are making a difference all over the world. They're just not the one that gets on MSNBC or Fox. And it says, and what? So where does the peace come from? And the peace of whom in verse 7? Whose peace? God's peace. God's peace. You don't want your peace. You don't want the peace that you can create through making a nice home, having enough money to have a maid to keep it clean, or a housekeeper, and all those.

You don't want that peace. You want the peace of God that transcends all understanding. There's Paul's little elixir right there. We're going to come in, we're going to circle the tower and come in for a landing now. Now, contentment is greatly determined, as we learned in the first week, by where you pitch your mental and emotional tent, because the root of contentment is contents.

Whatever you put in front of your face, whatever you put in your ears on a regular basis, and maybe you're working, maybe you're working down in the favelas in Brazil, and you are seeing devastation constantly. You can find God in the midst of that. And that perhaps can cause you to become emotionally crumbled, as you realize that you don't have the ability to reach every single person that needs to be cared for, or to give medical needs.

We did that as I took a team of junior hires in high schools to Thailand to bandage wounds, and we did medical services in Thailand, and we walked into these homes with nine people in a house, and we bandaged their wounds and gave them antibiotics, and it was so overwhelming. Sometimes the need can be so overwhelming, you just want to give up. That needs to be filtered through God.

So maybe that's the thing that causes discontent, but I want to say that if we are constantly just letting the news or the TV or whatever anyone's opinion is outside of God's opinion, filtering through that, your mind is going to feast on that. You know that? Your mind's just built for junk food. It is built for junk food, and the mind is attached to the heart, and it'll bring a discontentment in as we see that.

But verse 8 says this, Finally, brothers and sisters, this is what I want you to focus on. Whatever is true. Now think about the things you watch, right? A lot of Christians these days don't know the difference anymore between porn and Game of Thrones. I heard a pastor, and look, if you're a Game of Thrones fan, that's fine. I'm not telling you, I'm not your parent.

I'm not telling you what to do. But I did hear a pastor say, if you were to take all the sex scenes from that and put it into one movie, 10 years ago, it would have been a porn film. No, I haven't seen it. I haven't watched it. I know there's just certain things. I can't watch scary stuff. Scary stuff freaks me out. Can't watch sexual stuff. Freaks me out.

I don't sleep. It's not good for me. God's made me pretty sensitive in regard to those things. But we don't even, you know what? We don't even know the difference anymore as we slowly chip away at knowing the truth of what is what. It says, finally, whatever is true, what are you putting in front of your eyes and your ears that is true? Whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything are excellent or praiseworthy, do what?

Think about these things. That's a mental exercise and it's very difficult to put those things in front of you. What are the things? If you filled yourself, this is a complete recipe, a how-to from Paul. He doesn't as often do this where you can read right through it and he gives you a game plan for contentment. Finishing. Going on, he says, you know, as you'll see in the notes, that contentment is not innate to anyone.

It's learned. It's something that has to be fought for. He says, put it into what? Practice. Are you practicing these things? I have to say, I mean, I have to be honest with you. I thrive on distraction. I love distraction. It is such an easy form of temporary contentment. I love it. I spend way too much time on distraction. Looking at a house I'm never going to buy in Montana.

Okay? Like, really nice. 40 acres, baby. 40 acres. But it's 12 miles off the road and you can only get there three months of the year. I know, but 40 acres. They want $12,000 for this thing or whatever. Distraction. Distraction, distraction, distraction. Instead of finding the word of God, worship, just good conversation with friends about right things. It's so easy with my good friends or my wife to go off into conversations that, you know, you kind of give yourself permission to gossip and have conversations that they're just not right.

They're just not pure. We don't self-edit ourselves. This takes work. In order to have contentment, it's not going to come fall at your feet. It is a plan and God wants to be in relationship with you. I'm just going to figure the final thing here. If you go to the very end of your notes and we're going to end. Philippians 4.13 is a verse that the majority of us know.

I just find it really strange in its placement. Think about it. If you were, you know this verse. We've all used it. I can do all things through what? Yes! So where should that scripture be? It should be after Paul is fighting the Romans or some, you know, there's some massive hurdle in his life or there's some giant or there's some radical thing in the scripture and after he has victory over that thing, it should say, but we won the battle because I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

Yes! Victory! No. It's not where it is. It is after a section where he talks about having a soul that is restful and full of peace and contentment. Maybe Paul understood more about the battle for contentment than we think. Why would he put that there? This, I mean, peace and contentment, yeah, that's a big deal, God. But I mean, come on, fighting the giants in our lives is a lot bigger deal.

You know, or healing poverty or, I mean, something. It just, it doesn't fit here. It's too, it's too monolithic of a verse. To be, it's, it's, it's too massive to, to be in a section that's about our emotional and spiritual wellness. But maybe Paul understands that this is a hard deal. And if you can have contentment over anxiety, over depression, over loneliness, over fear, you fill it in.

Maybe it is going to take everything Christ has to offer. And maybe it's going to take, I can do all things through Christ who gave me strength and who loves me. God promises us contentment, but he doesn't promise to give it to us for free. He causes us to make a difference. And I want to say, when you have that peace and contentment, you will be able to get to a place where you can determine where he's actually calling you to go.

And you might end up in India. You might end up, like William Wilberforce, you know, coming and stopping slavery in England. You might end up in Charlottesville. You might end up in San Diego, you know, in the, in the, you know, working in the, in the inner city. You might end up in Washington. You might end up at Casa de Manana. You might end up anywhere, but you will know that you're supposed to be there and you will be able to whisper in such a powerful voice that the world is changed.

Amen? Amen. Amen.