Contentment In All Circumstances

Welcome to the In Touch Podcast with Charles Stanley for Friday, October 20th. Life seems to continue to shift and move, but there is a way for believers to hold on to stability no matter what happens. Today's podcast points to biblical moorings to help you maintain contentment in all circumstances. Once I trusted Jesus Christ as my savior, that was finished once and for all. As far as being assured of it, there may have been times when I needed a little bit more assurance, but as far as learning what it meant to be saved and trusting Jesus Christ as my savior, one time was sufficient. But most of those practical lessons that you and I have to live by, somehow we have to learn them over and over and over again.

And even when we think we have it down just right, something will come along and test our understanding or test our faith or test our ability to live out what we know. And you'll recall that Paul is writing this from prison and that he made three wonderful, very important affirmations in this passage when he said that he had learned to experience contentment in all circumstances. He'd learned to experience a strength for all things, and he had learned to experience a supply for every single need. I remember now that Paul is writing to thank them for their help in supporting in his ministry, and so he begins by saying, but I rejoice them the Lord greatly that now at last you have revived your concern for me.

There was a time when they couldn't support him, but now they can. Indeed, you were concerned before, but you lacked opportunity. Not that I speak from want, for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am. I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in prosperity.

In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need, he says, because I can do all things now through Christ who strengthens me. To some people, contentment would mean having what I need in life. Or to some other people, contentment would mean that my relationships are right, and so I'm emotionally satisfied. Contentment is freedom from worry and frustration about unfulfilled desires in my life. Well, I don't think any of us probably ever reached the place where we are never frustrated about anything or never worried about anything or never concerned. In fact, if you're a committed Christian, you're going to be concerned about some things genuinely because God is going to put concern in your heart. But we're talking about frustration and anxiety that comes as a result of not being genuinely content where we are.

Well, Paul said, listen, he says, I have learned, I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need, he says, what I've learned is this, I've learned the secret of being content in my ever-changing circumstances about which and over which I have no control. You see, as long as we feel like we're in control, then we don't have to worry or be frustrated. It is when things are out of control. It is when we can't change them.

It is when we can't do anything about it. And we don't feel in control that we feel frustrated and worried and concerned and oftentimes angry and all the things that come along with that. So I want you to notice two or three things that Paul said in this passage about contentment that I think are worthy of us thinking about, registering it in our mind, and the next time we get discontent and restless to ask ourselves the question, is this true in my life? And so what he's saying here in essence is this, he says that content, my contentment is not to be governed and cannot be governed. My contentment cannot be governed by my circumstances. If my contentment is governed by my circumstances, then I immediately have a problem because all of us know that we face circumstances on your job, in your home, among your children, situations and circumstances and relationships that you have no control over. You can't change it.

You can't flip a switch and everything be right. So if my contentment is depended upon, governed by anything outside myself, I instantly have a problem. And this is why most people are discontent. They're not contented. They're not happy. They're not full of peace and joy because there's something they need to change.

They want to change something that's out of control. He said, I learned something. I learned that no matter what they were and how much they may change and how disastrous it may look, he said, I learned a wonderful secret. That is that my contentment must not and could not be determined or governed by my outer circumstances. I'm not going to tell you that you can reach any kind of spiritual stage in your life where you will never be discontent again.

There's no such thing because life and circumstances are always changing. And even though we don't find ourselves in a time of great discontent, there are moments when we have to wrestle with what we are confronted with. And in those moments of wrestling, we may sense discontent in those moments or fear or uncertainty.

And so it is not a matter that you never feel it. It is a matter of how do we respond to it so that our sense of contentment is not stolen and we're not cheated of it. Well, Paul said, first of all, here he said, your circumstances can't govern your contentment. But what is it that governs our contentment? The decisions I make.

Not my outside circumstances. The decisions I make determine whether I'm going to be contented or not. Because you see, contentment cannot rest upon relationships. It can't rest upon money, possessions, pride or prominence or prestige, any of that. It has to do on the inside.

Now what that does is it puts every single person on the same level. That is if contentment is based on something that is on the inside of me, a decision that I make, and I have just as much privilege of being content in my difficult circumstances as you have to be in your difficult circumstances and we're all on the same level. It is a matter of the way I think.

And you see, if you look at Paul's circumstances, it could not ever have been based on anything going on on the outside of him. If contentment is the result of a decision that I make, and this is what Paul, it had to be true with Paul or he could never have said what he said. What is the decision?

Here's the first decision. If you want to be able to be contented, that is free from frustration and worry because of unfulfilled needs or desires, the first thing you have to decide is, God, I am going to accept this situation as coming from you. If you don't do that, you will never learn contentment. Because if you don't, you're going to decide to blame it on somebody else or some situation or some event. God, I am going to accept this as coming from you, that you either programmed it into my life, you allowed it in my life, you executed it in my life, you're the cause behind it.

Whatever it is, I'm going to accept it as from you. Now, sometimes you and I know that what's happening to us is not something that God sends. You say, well, isn't that sort of being hypocritical?

No. Because you see, if God wanted to have stopped it, he could. God can change any and every circumstance that's going on around us anytime he chooses. So if he doesn't choose to change it, then I must say, God, I choose to see this from you.

Now, I want to tell you, that is the most powerful, that is the most powerful aspect of learning contentment. God, I see it from you. And many times when I find myself in those situations, I just have to say, Lord, I just want to thank you in Jesus' name. I am, I trust you. I'm looking to you as the source of this. No matter what I see, what I hear, I'm looking to you and thanking you.

You're the one who's behind this. Now, if I am willing to make a decision, God, I choose to thank you and believe you, I'm receiving this from you, then I know that he is omnipotent, he has the power to change it anytime he chooses. Then I don't feel helpless, then I don't feel hopeless, then I don't feel like I'm a victim of what's going on and I'm not the victim of my circumstance. But I am a living child of God, watched over by God, cared for by God, guided by God through a difficult circumstance that God has seen fit to allow. If I can, if I can make that decision, I choose to see this from God, friend, that's the bottom line of all my contentment. When those circumstances are painful.

So, that is the first thing I have to decide. The second thing I have to decide is this, I have to make a decision to submit to God in the circumstance which I see is coming from him. Now, if I'm not willing to submit to him in it, then what is my alternative?

If it's not submission, what is it? It's rebellion. That is, if I don't submit to him in this, then I have to rebel against it. I don't like it, God. Now, let me just say this, sometimes when you don't like it, just tell him, don't try to fake God out and say, well, now, Lord, I just want to thank you for this and it's all just so sweet Jesus. No, it's not. It's painful.

Just tell him, God, I don't like it. I see it from you, and God, I choose to submit to you. You see, living the Christian life forces me to be practical about the things God teaches. Now, I either believe in Romans 8 28 or I don't believe in it.

Now, if I believe in it, I first of all must accept, make a decision to accept this as coming from God. Secondly, I submit because I know that he has my best interest at heart and he's only going to engineer my circumstances. What he knows is good. Now, I didn't say I had to like it.

I may not like it. I'd like to run a thousand miles, but if I see it coming from him and I submit to him in this, then I've taken the second most important step in learning to live in a difficult circumstances with a sense, not of worry, not of frustration, doesn't mean it'll always be nice and good and acceptable, but I don't have to fret. And in those moments I fret, I just back off and say, God, thank you that you're reminding me that this is coming from you and thank you that you're engineering my circumstances and I submit to you in this and I'm trusting you, which is step number three and all of this is wrapped up in faith. I'm trusting you that you know what's best for me. And so since it's coming from you and I'm submitting to you and I'm trusting you because I know you know what's best for me, then you see, I don't have any real basis for being frustrated.

Now, whenever I take my eyes off of him and I begin to slip at this point, I can get frustrated and think, God, what's going on? And all I have to do and I have to keep reminding, Lord, I know what's going on. You are allowing this. I choose to submit again to you. I choose to trust you that I am your child and you are working in my life. Your plan may not be what I want. I'm trusting you to work in my life. Your plan and therefore I can rest in that.

And the fourth thing is this. Not only must I see it from him and submit to him in it and trust him to take care of me through all of this, but I must learn to draw from him instantly. Now, I believe personally it's one of the most important lessons that I've learned in my own spiritual walk, to learn to draw instantly, quickly. Lord, you know what I'm thinking. You know how I feel.

You know what I'd like to do. Lord, I just draw from you. You said out of my innermost being shall flow rivers of living water. That is life-giving sources.

Whatever I need, God, you promise to be that. And that's why Paul said I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. He learned to draw from within him.

So think about this. If all I have need of is within me because of the presence of Christ and I see everything that's going on in my life as from him and I submit to him knowing that he knows best and trust my life into his hands and draw from him, draw from him out of my innermost being what I need for that moment, then, my friend, I'm going to be able to live contented in the most difficult trying circumstance. Now, the third thing Paul said in this passage is so important. He said, first of all, my contentment can't be governed by my circumstance. And the second thing he said is, look, your contentment is governed by a decision that you make on the side. And the third thing he said about it that I want you to remember is this. He said, contentment is something you learn to experience, not something that's given to you.

Now, look at this. He said, verse 11, not that I speak from want, for I have learned to be content. I've learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am. I know how to get along with humble means. I also know how to live in prosperity and in every circumstance. I have learned the secret. You know how Paul discovered the secret of contentment?

Just like you and I do, being real discontent. That's the way he learned it, by being discontent, upset, frustrated, worried, can't figure it out. He said, I learned it. Now, a learning, when somebody's learning something, that's a process. And how do we learn things, especially spiritual experiences, how do we learn them?

Most of the way we learn them is not by reading a book. Now, you can read books and people can tell you how and you can listen to sermons and get suggestions. But the only way to learn contentment is to get so discontented with your discontent that you make a decision to find out, God, how do I live in this with contentment and joy and peace?

And not be frustrated and been out of shape and bitter and resentful and hostile and angry and want to run. God, how do I live in contentment in all this? He says, I learned it. When did he learn it and how did he learn it? He learned it on the road. He learned it in persecution. He learned it in prison. He says, I have learned to be content.

I have learned to be free from the worry and the hassle of all the things that are natural and normal in a person's life who's going through circumstances they can't, they can't contain and can't control and cannot manipulate. He said, I've learned the lesson. And in order to learn lessons like that, we have to fail. So here's what I want you to remember.

Don't have a pity party over your failure. But rather just say, Lord, I just want to thank you that you understand me and I just want to reaffirm that everything that comes into my life has to come ultimately from you because you're the sovereign God of this universe and you're the one who allows it or refuses to allow it into my life. And so I submit to you in this. I'm trusting you to care for me and I'm going to draw from you what I need. Out of the innermost being, you said, shall flow rivers of living water.

That is life giving sources. Whatever I need for life, he says, it's going to flow because Christ is within us. And the only way Paul could say any of that is this. The Apostle Paul understood what it meant to live in Christ Jesus and for Christ to be in him. That is, he knew what his identity was, that he was a child of God who possessed the life of God and bore the name of Christ in his life. He understood what it meant to be in Christ Jesus.

That is, he lived out of him and he lived off of him and Christ living on the inside of him was his source. And so how did he draw? He drew by faith. That is so simple but so profound.

He drew by faith. Now for tomorrow, for example, let's say you face some situation, circumstance out of your control and somebody is doing it to you, whatever it might be. How do you respond? Lord Jesus, I just want to thank you that because you are my source, I draw from within, I draw from you the capacity to be kind and to be forgiving. I draw from you the love that I need to express. I draw from you the forgiveness I want to express. I draw from you the kindness and the gentleness. I draw from you. And you see, that's what the Bible is all about in a practical fashion in Galatians chapter 5.

The fruit of the who? The Spirit is. Learning to draw from within us that which God has placed in order that you and I can live in any single solitary circumstance.

That's what he said. Any and every circumstance, he says, I've learned to be content. When believers begin to know in a practical, daily, moment by moment lifestyle that all that I need is on the inside, my friend, life takes on a whole new perspective.

You know what that means? You're not dependent on anybody. Now that doesn't mean we're not to be interdependent as a church and as a family and as friends because that's the way God made us. But you're not dependent upon anybody to make you happy. You see, when you're dependent on somebody else to make you happy or somebody else to make you peaceful or somebody else to give you contentment or somebody else to do something, suppose they disappoint you. Suppose they leave you.

Suppose they die. You see, we can't control anything outside. But listen, God gave you the capacity as a believer through the power of the Holy Spirit to control your thinking. And He gave you the faith to simply trust Him. Now here's what I want to say to you. Do I mean that one time in your life, like salvation, you can do that and you'll be free forever?

No. I mean every time you and I hit the winds blowing us off course, we just have to come back to claim and to affirm and to reaffirm and to trust and to draw, which means that throughout our lifetime, what happens? We just have to keep learning to trust Him and keep drawing in order to experience contentment. That's one of those lessons.

You don't learn once, but you and I learn and keep learning and keep learning to practice until finally we sort of have it down. Not that we'll not ever need it. We'll keep on needing it.

But at least we know what to do and how to go about it. And I want to challenge you. The first thing that steals your contentment, I challenge you with those four steps to see what God does. Thank you for listening to Strength for All Times. For more inspirational messages like this, visit us at Charles Stanley Radio 24 7. If you'd like to know more about Charles Stanley or In Touch Ministries, stop by InTouch.org. This podcast is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia.