Finding True Contentment in a Fast-Paced World

1) "The American Institute of Stress reports that 77%, so three-fourths of people experience stress that affects their physical health. That's massive. Three-fourths of people say, yeah, I'm experiencing stress to the point my physical health is struggling because of the stress. And even 33%, so a third of people say that they feel extreme stress. And I'm not gonna ask you to raise your hand and tell me where you're at today, but probably a lot of us are in one of those camps where we feel stress to the point where it even makes us sick. It affects our physical health. Or we just say, yeah, I'm under some extreme stress. You don't know what it's like at work or at home or just being me day to day. I've got so much going on. But I'm here to encourage you today. I'm not here to make you feel stressed out. Maybe I did make you feel stressed out by talking about that stuff. But no, I'm here to make you, or to encourage you that there's a better way. There's a better way. It's the way of Jesus." [42:12] (57 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


2) "Jesus promises to give us rest for our souls, not just momentary rest, a nap here and there, a vacation here and there. No, something much deeper. He promises rest for our souls, something the world around us could never give us and rest for our souls in the message, it calls it unforced rhythms of grace. And I love that. It's these rhythms of life that come from following Jesus. And what do I mean by rhythms, right? What do I mean by rhythm? We all kind of know what the word rhythm means. It's a musical term. We know where that comes from. But rhythm is something you don't notice until what? Until it goes wrong. And then you're like, something's off rhythm. You don't always notice." [44:05] (40 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


3) "If one area of your life or our lives is off by a little bit, how many of you know it throws everything else off? Right? If you're struggling, if your finances are struggling, that might lead, you're struggling in your marriage because you begin to argue about that, which might also affect your parenting at the same time. They're all interconnected. Maybe you're having a tough time at work, which again could affect your finances, which could again affect everything else in your life. It's not like, well, you know, everything's going pretty good, but this one area is out of rhythm. It's when that one area is out of rhythm, it throws everything else off. You know what it's like to live in rhythm. When things are going well, everything is clicking, it seems like. But you also probably know when there's that, maybe one or two areas, that they're just off enough to throw everything else off." [46:36] (43 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


4) "For however many years we're on this planet, we can pursue so many different things, gain so much stuff, whether it is money, possessions, but also titles, status, promotions, different things in our lives, experiences even, that we can gain. But guess what the Bible says? We can't take any of that stuff with us. It says this in 1 Timothy, but godliness with contentment is great gain. It's not just being godly, but godliness with contentment, being content in the Lord. It's great gain. For check this out. We brought nothing into the world. I don't know about you, but I brought nothing into the world. Think about it. I brought nothing into the world and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we'll be content with that. So what it's saying, we can't bring any of it with us. We gain all this stuff, but at the end of the day, it stays here." [50:35] (50 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


5) "Contentment is different than happiness. Oftentimes we chase after happiness, right? That next feeling was something that will make us happy. Um, and we know that happiness is great. But it's momentary, right? It's just for a moment because here's the deal, Paul, who wrote a lot of those scriptures, I just read the guy, uh, that wrote a lot of the new Testament, the apostle Paul, he went through a lot of stuff. He was probably not super excited or super happy to be shipwrecked, to be beaten, to be tortured or thrown in prison. Right. But he went through all those things. And he says, despite all that, I'm still content with the Lord. So his happiness, he probably wasn't happy, but he was content. Did you know you can be unhappy and content at the same time?" [53:14] (41 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


6) "Contentment is not about your stuff. It's about your soul. It's not about how much or how little you have. It's not like if I had more, I'd be content. Or if I had less, some people are like, I wish I had less. We've been accumulating stuff in the garage for 30 years. I wish I had less, you know, no matter where you're at. It's not about the stuff. Stuff can't bring contentment one way or another. It's about the soul. Where are you at within your soul with, with following God, following Jesus. Another one, contentment is a choice like everything else we do in life. We have to decide now I'm going to choose. To have that attitude, to have that mindset, to be content, no matter where I'm at, um, listening to this message. This is fun. This is great, but guess what? Listening to this message is not going to bring you contentment." [55:15] (44 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


7) "Be consent with what you have, be consent with who you are, be consent with. What? Where you are. Number one is be consent with what you have. Now you may or may not feel like a materialistic person. You might, that might not be something you struggle with, but it is something that affects all of us to a degree, especially, you know, again, nowadays we have access to everything. We have constant ads coming in. Now, even if I pause the show, uh, on the streaming service, it is showing me an ad. As soon as I pause it, it's like, boom, you want that? I'm like, I don't even want that, whatever it is, or some new show. I'm like, no, I'm good. I'm too cheap to pay to remove the ads. Right? So I got to keep watching them and they keep telling us all this stuff that it thinks we need." [57:41] (41 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


8) "Be consent with who you are. Now, again, some of you, you might not, you know, the materialistic stuff. You're like, yeah, I get it. I'm not, that's not really my struggle. Maybe it's more internal. Maybe it's more a struggle of you're not content. You're not happy with who you are as a person. Let me just speak to that for a second. We can't be content with who we are because we are all messed up. We're all sinful people, but we can be content with who we are in Christ because of what Jesus has done on the cross. He's redeemed us. He set us free. He's given us a new way of living. We all we have to do is follow him. And in Colossians 1 27, it says Christ in you is the hope of glory. If, is Christ in you, if Christ lives within you, if you're a believer, a follower of him, he's in you. That's the hope of glory, right?" [01:01:17] (47 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


9) "Be consent with where you are. So be consent with what you have, be consent, um, with who you are, and then be consent with where you are. And you're like, yeah, I'm consent here in this, in this church, sitting, no, not like literally. I mean, in life, what season of life are you in? Are you consent with that? Literally what, think about it for a second. What season are you in, in this, in this time? Are you in a season of growth, uh, of season of change, a season of learning? Are you navigating a tragedy or a hardship? Are you about to step into something new? Are you stepping out of something you've been involved with for a while? Are you retiring? Are you a student? Are you single? Are you married? Uh, do you have kids? Are those kids out of the house yet? Or you were just wishing they were out of the house? I don't know." [01:03:29] (47 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


10) "Complaining is I don't want that. Comparing is I'm not like that. And coveting is I wish I had that. It's all focused on something else, on that. Whereas contentment is I don't want that. And it's I'm content because Jesus is enough. And I'm going to start there, right? I know that he's good. I know he has more for me. And I'm content. But there's those three ways we can sabotage it. The first one is complaining. There are no shortage of things to complain about. There's a lot of things throughout my day that really get on my nerves, you know? I get annoyed with different things, you know, that happen throughout the day. And it's easy to complain. I could spend another 30 minutes up here just complaining about random stuff. But there are zero positives to complaining." [01:08:16] (45 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)