The Good Side of Discontent

Are you content with who you are and where you are in life? If your value is dependent on your title, if your value is dependent on your net worth, if your value is dependent on what you wear, if your value is dependent on where you live, I want to tell you right now, take it from me, it will never, never, never bring you contentment. Because if your values are wrapped up in these things, I can assure you, there's always something newer. There's always someone more successful. There's always someone more attractive.

There's always someone. Welcome to Leading the Way with pastor and author of the brand new book, Never Give Up, Dr. Michael Youssef. Are you discontented? Maybe feeling a little shortchanged financially or socially, maybe spiritually as you compare where you are to your family and your friends, or as you reflect on your dreams for life. Well, today, Dr. Youssef begins a brand new series called Divine Discontent, looking at how times of wanting can lead to seasons of growth.

Listen with me as Dr. Michael Youssef begins. Listen to this poem for a minute. It was spring, but it was summer I wanted. The warm days and great outdoors. It was summer, but it was fall I wanted.

The colorful leaves and cool dry air. It was fall, but it was winter I wanted. The beautiful snow, the joy of the holiday season. It was winter, but oh, it was spring I wanted.

The warmth of the blossoming of nature. I was a child, oh, but it was adulthood that I wanted. The freedom and the respect. I was twenty, but it was thirty I wanted to be mature and sophisticated. I was middle aged, oh, but it was twenty I wanted. The youth and the free spirit. I was retired, oh, but it was middle age I wanted.

The presence of mind without limitation. My life is over and I never got what I wanted. Probably every one of us can identify with this poem at some level at some stages of our lives. I think every one of us can identify with this. I think every one of us got hit somehow by this spirit of discontentment. Don't get me wrong, not all discontentment is bad. There is good side to discontentment.

It is discontentment with your prayer life that causes you to do something about it. It is discontentment about the level of your commitment to the Lord Jesus Christ that causes you to reorder your priorities. It is discontentment with the level of your faithfulness with the Lord that compels you to rethink your motives in life. But there is also a dark side to discontentment. The dark side of discontentment is found in the Ten Commandments and particularly the tenth commandment. The tenth commandment.

Exodus chapter twenty. What does God call this dark side of discontentment? God calls this dark side of discontentment, He calls it covetousness. Covetousness. Covetousness is not a word that we often use. It's not part of our everyday language today, but covetousness is simply that craving for what somebody else has.

If I only get what they have, I'll be happy. Covetousness is the craving of somebody else's circumstances. If I were her, if I were him, I would be happy. Covetousness is the craving of what somebody else is.

If I were him, if I were her. Covetousness is that longing that says, if only, if only, if only. Listen to what God said. You shall not covet your neighbor's house.

You shall not covet your neighbor's wife or his manservant or maidservant or his ox or his donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor. Some commentators, bless their hearts, said that the tenth commandment is really superfluous. Everything that needed to be said has already been said in the first nine. This tenth commandment is just an anticlimax. It's really just summarizing what everything else has already been said. They were wrong.

In fact, they missed the whole point. Because I can tell you that the tenth commandment truly stands, it towers above all the other nine. The tenth commandment stands in distinction to the rest of the nine. The tenth commandment is very different from the first nine. The tenth commandment is clearly distinguished, and I'm going to show you how. Because it deals with the matter of the heart.

It deals with the matter of the heart. The other first nine commandments, they openly condemn outward actions. In fact, it's only Jesus who explained to us that there are inward desires that causes that outward breaking of the commandment. It was only Jesus who was telling us to guard against our inward thoughts that trigger the outward action. And that we need to take care of that. But without Jesus' warning, if you lived in the Old Testament and you have just the commandments and you do not have Jesus' explanation, you're going to see that the first nine are all to do with outward action.

Every one of them. Do not make idols. Do not work on the Sabbath. Do not kill innocent people. Do not steal. Do not commit adultery.

Et cetera, et cetera. They all begin from the outside and they work their way on the inside of us. And what distinguishes the tenth commandment from the other nine is this. Listen carefully.

What distinguishes the tenth commandment is that it begins from the inside and works its way out. What do I mean by that? I could be secretly the most covetous person on the face of the earth and nobody will know it.

The dearest and the nearest to me will not know it. It can be. And you know what else? So are you.

Every one of us can be. And that is why the tenth commandment makes explicit what the other nine implied. The tenth commandment spells out what God is really after. You say, what does God want from me? What is God really after here? I can tell you exactly what He's after and that is why He comes in with the tenth commandment. What God is after, not just outward obedience but inward obedience. That's what He's looking for. He's looking for inward obedience. You know that it's out of love and out of compassion and out of grace and out of mercy that God gave us all of the ten commandments but more specifically it's out of love and out of compassion and out of mercy and out of His grace that He gave us the tenth commandment.

Do you know why? Two reasons is what I call them the CDs. Here's the first CD. Covetousness is deceptive. Covetousness is deceptive. Secondly, contentment is delightful. Contentment is delightful.

Here's the second CD. Because God knew and God knows that covetousness is deceptive that He told us and He gave us the tenth commandment. Listen to what the Lord Jesus Christ said in Luke chapter 12 verse 15. Listen carefully.

Here's what Jesus said. Watch out. Listen, when Jesus says watch out you better watch out. Watch out. Be on your guard against all kinds of greed. A man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.

Now beloved friends I want to tell you something. This is totally contrary to every fiber of our culture. This is a true contradiction to every fiber of our society.

And I want to tell you something else. If believers, if believers really believe the words of Jesus I promise you they would radically change their lifestyle. They would radically reorder their priorities.

They would radically change so many of their choices. Marketers spend billions and billions of dollars and untold hours. Let me tell you something. I know these guys work hard and if you're in the marketing business please forgive me. I don't mean to step on your toes but I want to tell you about the philosophy of it not the working out of it because there's good marketing and there's bad marketing. But most marketers spend untold millions and they spend untold hours working hard for one purpose.

Do you know what it is? They're working hard for one purpose and one purpose only and it is to make you feel unhappy. They really do. That's the purpose for which they work. They want you to feel unhappy. They want to make you unhappy and discontented, unhappy with who you are, unhappy with the way you look, unhappy with what you have, unhappy with what you do.

They really do. And they want you to feel miserable and unhappy until you buy whatever they're selling you. So you buy whatever it is that you think is going to make you happy.

Wait a few weeks, a few months. Has it made you happy? No.

No way. I want to give you a rule of thumb. If your value is the dependent on your title, if your value is dependent on your net worth, if your value is dependent on what you wear, if your value is dependent on where you live, if your value is dependent on what you drive, I want to tell you right now, take it from me, it will never, never, never bring you contentment. Because if your values are wrapped up in these things I can assure you there's always something better. There's always something newer, there's always something nicer, there's always someone better, there's always someone more successful, there's always someone more attractive, there's always someone richer, there's always someone! That is why covetousness is deceptive, it's deceptive. If you play this comparison game, as a lot of people do, it's a sad game, you'll be in a constant misery.

Listen to what Paul said in 2 Corinthians chapter 10 verse 12, I was just reading a couple of days ago in my own personal devotion in the early morning, I was reading this passage jumped at me. This is what Paul said, the day measuring themselves by themselves and comparing themselves among themselves, they are not wise, they are not wise. Walking around with a measuring tape and saying, well, you know, he, she is more successful.

There are plenty of them. If you're going to see how much more successful somebody else, if you're trying to measure and see how more articulate somebody else than you are, if you're going to measure and see how more intellectual somebody else than you are, if somebody more wealthy than you or somebody more beautiful than you or somebody more popular than you, if you go around with that measuring tape, let me assure you, it will make you miserable every time. It will make you unhappy every day. I want to tell you something else that I have learned about the deceptiveness of covetousness. Covetousness has very little to do with what you have.

It has nothing to do, in fact, with what you have. Not many years ago, I was in the presence of a man who's a billionaire in a third world country. And think about this, a billionaire in a third world country, and I'm talking about billions of dollars in U.S. standards in a third world country.

I tell you, I walked out of there, I nearly wanted to weep because he was the most miserable man I've ever met in my life. By the same token, I've met people who barely have enough for anything and yet they are rejoicing in the Lord every day. Covetousness is deceptive.

Here's the second CD. Contentment is delightful. Contentment is delightful. Here are the words of the Apostle Paul in Philippians 4-11. He said, I have learned to be contented whatever circumstances, and I want to read you actually J.B. Phillips' paraphrasing of that verse, okay? Here's what J.B. Phillips paraphrased the verse, he said, I know now how to live when things are difficult and I know how to live when things are prosperous. In general and in particular, I have learned the secret of facing either plenty or poverty. I am ready for anything through the strength of the one who lives within me. I was thinking about how contentment operates, and God somehow has a sense of humor, and He always kind of teach me firsthand.

He knows I'm a little thick and I got to get it, you know, somehow in my head, and I already thought about what I'm going to say, then something happened just last week. I was driving my car in peace, singing, glad none of you are in the car, and singing, and I was joyful, and somebody got in front of me, and I lost my joy. And here's what I think about contentment. Here you are going along life's highway, and you're going and everything seemed to be fine, the sun is shining, the sky is blue, and everything is just fine, and then you hit a roadblock. And whatever your roadblock might be, and everybody's roadblock might be different from the others, somebody thinks well theirs is worse than the others, but look, whatever it is, it's big for you.

Whether it is health roadblock, whether it is relationship roadblock, whether it's financial roadblock, whatever it might be, it's a roadblock for you. There are two ways to react to that. Let me give you first the reaction of the person who had been enrolled in the school of contentment, of which the apostle Paul said he learned.

I honestly cannot say that. I can say that I am learning, that I'm progressing, that I've come a long way. I don't think I could say, maybe toward the end of my life I could say that, you know, that I've learned. Here's the reaction of a person who's going through the school of contentment. He's going to see this as an opportunity for double blessing. And you say, wow, there's an opportunity here, two blessings. Number one, blessing number one, I'm going to see it as an opportunity to practice trusting God afresh. I'm going to see it as an opportunity to see God use this roadblock for His glory and for my good. Blessing number two, you're going to say, I'm going to see this as an opportunity for God to show me once again that He and He alone can fill the empty void in my life. Listen to what Hebrews 13, 5 said. Be contented with whatever you have, why?

Because He will never leave you nor forsake you. For those who have not begun to enroll in the school of contentment, I can tell you, you don't have to tell me if I'm right or wrong, you figure it out at home. But I can promise you, this is what's going on in your life right now. You say, how do you know that?

That will be a secret between the two of us. Here's what you're doing. You're going around, around, around, around, around, around, around, around, listen.

The children of Israel, when they got out of Egypt, they refused to learn this lesson. The Paul said, I've learned. So what, for 40 years, went around, around, around, around, around, around, looking at the same stinking brushes and rocks and sand and over and over and over and over again. It's like the guy who was complaining for not getting the promotion, he said, I have 25 years experience. And his boss said, no you don't.

You have one year's experience, repeat it 25 times. Listen, I often tell folks when they come and talk to me and I say, look, do not waste your pain. Do not waste your suffering.

Do not waste it. Do not just say, get me out of it, God, so I can get on to the next, no, no, no, no. Say, teach me, Lord.

I want to learn the lesson. I want to say with the Apostle Paul that I've learned. Do you know what those words of Paul tell me? It tells me that the Apostle Paul was not a contented fellow by nature, that he had to learn it. It tells me that Paul was not patient by nature, he had to learn it, and that brings me a lot of comfort. That through the painful and the crushing experiences in his life, he began to learn that contentment is delightful, and that contentment delights itself in trusting God.

In fact, one of some of my favorite verses, the ones immediately before chapter four, in chapter three, verses seven and eight, and I truly can say those words with the Apostle Paul. Here's what he said. He said, so many things I thought were really important, but now I have learned this lesson of contentment. Now that I have my eyes fixed on the prize, they have become rubbish. Some of you are saying, well, Michael, Michael, Michael, do you mean to tell me that success and seeking success is wrong?

Read my lips. I did not say that. I believe with all my heart God wants you to be successful. I believe that with every fiber of my being. God wants you to be successful.

I am not preaching that at all. Listen to me. But I'm going to tell you something else. That if success is your only aim in life, I can tell you with certainty, I can tell you from my firsthand experience that when you get there, you will not be contented. You will not be contented. I can testify to you.

And I know in my own life, the closer I walk with the Lord, the more I'm able to experience contentment in the midst of turmoil. You say, is it easy? No. Is it easier?

Yes. See, once you're enrolled in a school, it gets easier. I tell folks, I worked harder in my first year in seminary than I worked for my entire PhD program. You see, as you grow and you mature, it gets easier.

Never easy, but it gets easier. But the one thing I want to tell you is this. For you and me to experience contentment when there is smooth sailing is one thing. But to experience contentment when the waters are rough, when the going is tough, when the wind is blowing in your face is a whole different experience. And today you can begin to move from covetousness to contentment. And there you can begin enrolling in the school of contentment.

Thank you for joining Dr. Michael Youssef for a new episode of Leading the Way Audio. If you're living a life of discontent, perhaps speaking with someone about a relationship with Christ would help. Call us. Talk to one of Leading the Way's pastoral team members. All you do is just fill out a short contact form at ltw.org slash Jesus. Hey, before our time is gone, I want to quickly mention that we have a nice library of free resources and it's available for you any time and they're easy to find. Start by visiting ltw.org. Then after you check out all of the engaging content there, click on store. That's right there near the top of the page. Then look for free digital resources that will be over on the left side and just follow the link. Now, when the page loads, you'll see items that are already ready to download and many different topics. Here are a few that you might find particularly interesting. A biblical worldview of government.

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