Content Ambition

Park Meadows Church

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Turn with me to Philippians chapter 4. And if y 'all were here last week, you will see a little bit of a connection.

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If you weren't, that's okay, because it is a topic in and of itself. But let's go ahead and look at Philippians chapter 4 and read some scripture together, and then we will get into it.

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And the Apostle Paul says, But I rejoiced in the Lord greatly, that now at the last your care of me hath flourished again, wherein you were also careful, but you lacked opportunity.

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Not that I speak in respect of want, for I have learned in whatsoever state I am therewith to be content.

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I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things

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I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need.

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I can do all things through Christ, which strengtheneth me. Heavenly Father, I thank you so much for this wonderful day, this beautiful morning, for bringing us all together into your house and for allowing us this opportunity to abide in your word and discuss your truth together.

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Lord, we ask that everything that is spoken today is of your spirit and that the scriptures that we dive into encourages us and edifies us and prepares us for yet another week going out into the world and representing you in everything that we do, building your kingdom along the way, and we just ask,

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Lord, that you bless this service and the rest of our time together today. Amen. So last week we discussed how necessary it is for the

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Christian to live out his Christian walk to the fullest, to never fall for the myth of being an unimportant player in human history.

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Of course, that can be all too easy for us, because as we see in the battle of worldviews around us, there is a common theme, which is essentially there's the idea of community, but not community in the biblical sense.

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It's interesting because the Bible has a sense, there's a doctrine, if you will, of biblical community that is true, that's beautiful, that's the way that God designed it.

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But within it, you see the individual, and you see the member of the body, if you will, something we kind of alluded to in Sunday School this morning, each having and serving their own

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God -ordained purpose. If you lose sight of the individual for the community or in place of the community, all of a sudden you can begin to feel a sense of unimportance in this vast world in a very sweeping timeline of history.

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All of a sudden you can start asking questions like, do I really play that big of a part in God's plan and things like that?

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So that's what we talked about last week. Of course, each and every one of us plays a very unique and important role in God's plan.

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None of us are unimportant. None of us are an unimportant piece in God's narrative, but rather we understand that each and every one of His kids is a character in His story, and each of us are irreplaceable with that regard.

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That's what we talked about last week. Now this week I'd like to kind of pick up from that idea.

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I want to lower the vantage point just a little bit, though, and rather than considering life more broadly like we did last week,

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I want us to focus in on the Christian walk as it's progressing, as we live it out, and discuss some of the common stumbling blocks that every human has, including believers, including

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Christians. But as we look at these stumbling blocks, I want us to remember that the antidote is there.

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We live with the capacity to live above these stumbling blocks, to avoid the stumbling blocks altogether.

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And if we still stumble, we have the capacity to actually get up again and start like new, start with a clean slate.

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And so keep that in mind as we go through this. But first, let's talk about them a little bit. What are these stumbling blocks? What are these pitfalls?

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Again, every human can fall into them, including believers. But believers have the unique opportunity, excuse me, the unique ability.

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Well, I guess you have an opportunity too, but certainly the unique ability to rise above it and to get past it.

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So these common pitfalls are common, but they're ones that Christians have that unique ability to overcome and then continue pursuing that perpetual joy that Paul said is ours to take.

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And it was in this very epistle that he said that. The first pitfall is the pitfall of discontentment.

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The pitfall of discontentment. Now, discontentment is a particularly devastating weapon of the enemy because he knows the scripture that we just read.

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He knows the passage that we just read. He knows it well. He knows it better than we do, perhaps. And in addition to knowing that scripture, he knows what the neglect of the scripture leads to.

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He knows what happens when we avoid living out the very things that Paul is giving us in this particular context.

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And it's not good. And of course, that's his greatest desire for the people of God, is to be in a place of not being good.

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Discontentment is a great weapon that he has. And the scary thing about it, the scary thing about discontentment in general, is that it's something that follows people around everywhere they go.

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It's not unique or isolated in a single place. It is within the person.

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It can follow them around while you're on the search, perhaps, for whatever the quote -unquote thing that will supposedly be the thing is.

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When you're on the search for that thing that will fulfill it all and will fix everything and will cover all of the patches and Band -Aids and things like that from over the years, on the search for that, the discontentment is still with you.

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It's following you around. And all of a sudden, that feeling of dissatisfaction remains, regardless of what you do, regardless of what the search looks like.

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Generally speaking. Now, as Christians, for the same reason that we don't ever want to be caught in a state of ingratitude to the

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God of heaven, ingratitude for the blessings and the grace and the mercy and the things that he's been giving us, of course, none of us would ever want to be caught not being thankful for the immense blessings that we've been given every day, all of the time.

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For the same reason we don't want to be caught in that particular place of ingratitude, we don't want to ever be caught in a state of discontentment with where we're at in life from that same personal loving

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Father that gave us all of the other blessings and all of the other mercies and all of the grace by which we stand, by which we have positional righteousness before him at this moment.

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We don't want to be in a state of unthankfulness, but we also don't want to be in a state of discontentment either. Because discontentment implies that we're not happy with where he has us in the moment that he has us.

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And so as Christians, we want to come above that, we want to rise above that. Now, at the same time, because there's a couple of stumbling blocks

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I want to look at, discontentment is one of them. But at the same time, we have another potential problem if we're not careful.

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And that is the problem of getting a little bit too comfortable with where we are in a way that could lead to, well, what the

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KJV would say, slothfulness, lagging behind, being a sluggard.

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It doesn't necessarily mean lazy in the sense that we think about it. The way we think about it is somewhat limited.

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The Hebrew term, the thrust of it is more of just falling behind, lagging behind the progress.

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And if you think about it in the context of being a Christian, that's progress you don't want to be lagging behind on. In other words, not being driven, not having ambition, not living up to the potential that God put within us, not pursuing the things that could set the next three generations of your family up for success, lagging behind.

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That's the other stumbling block. That's the other thing that can happen. So we find ourselves yet again, we talked about this in Sunday school, you can find examples of this all throughout

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Scripture. But we find ourselves on a narrow path between two steep ditches with only obedience to God's Word and, of course, yielding to the

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Spirit's guidance in our lives to keep us from falling on either side of that path.

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And when we do that, when we are able to stay on the path, when we yield to God's Word and to His Spirit, this is what it looks like, what

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Paul is talking about in this passage. Let's look at it one more time together. Break it down just a little bit. Summarize it, put it in context, and then go from there.

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Look at verse 10 one more time in Philippians 4. Paul says,

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But I rejoiced in the Lord greatly, that now at the last your care of me hath flourished again, wherein ye were also careful, but you lacked opportunity.

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Now, Paul is taking some time here to acknowledge to these brothers and sisters that he cares deeply for.

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He planted this church. Most of these people are probably his converts, his spiritual children.

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He cares about them deeply. And he's taking some time in this epistle at the end of it to acknowledge that he knows this local church has desired to support him financially all throughout his ministry.

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That's why he's literally talking about money and the financial aid that is needed to be someone like Paul and to have the ministry like he had.

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Though he was a businessman himself, he also relied on the funds of these local churches supporting his mission work and church planting.

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And so he's telling them, I know that you have wanted to do this forever. It has flourished before.

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There was a time when you still cared about it, but you didn't have the opportunity to give. But now it's back again.

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He's pointing all of this out. They had it. Then there was a time when they lacked opportunity to give, and now they're providing him with that financial aid.

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Once again, that's what he's saying in verse 10. And then in verse 11, we start to see some really interesting things that Paul wants to point out in light of this state of kind of being, well, just the ebb and flow of ministry, really.

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Having the financial support here, not having it there. And look at verse 11. He says, Now, what's really interesting about this verse is we have a small glimpse of the humanity that stands right in front of the inspired word that we read.

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Yes, we have the Spirit that moved these holy men to speak. Peter tells us that, 1

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Peter 1 .21. It was the Holy Spirit that moved these holy men of God as they spoke.

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So the Spirit wrote the Bible. We know that. And yet, at the same time, the man that did the speaking spoke as the man that everyone knew.

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So you have Paul here talking as Paul. The Holy Spirit's moving him to write these words. They're inspired. And yet it's still

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Paul talking. And in this case, what do we see? We see Paul bringing up money. He's talking about finances for his ministry.

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But he's quick to let everyone know, Look, I'm not trying to ask for more here. I'm not trying to give these hints that I'm asking for more money.

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And it's almost like he was feeling a little bit awkward about it and making sure that they understood,

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I'm just acknowledging the fact that I'm grateful for y 'all. I'm not trying to hint that I need more. Because you have verse 11 here.

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He brings it up again in verse 17. There are two different times when he brings up the fact that he's not trying to get more out of them, but simply just pointing out the fact that he's thankful for what they've given him.

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So again, you see his humanity there. You see a situation where he's like, I want to make sure there's no kind of awkward feelings going on.

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I want to point out exactly what I'm talking about. So that's kind of an interesting thing that you get out of verse 11.

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But look at verse 12. From that he says, I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound everywhere and in all things.

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I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need.

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So what does he do? He then demonstrates that he is telling the truth. That he's telling the truth by showcasing the supernatural contentment that he has through the sanctification process of living out the

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Christian walk. He's saying, I'm telling the truth that this is how I feel about you, and that this is where my gratitude lies, and that I'm not trying to ask for more, but rather to show my gratefulness to you all.

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The proof of that is that I am content in all things. The proof of that is that the

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Lord himself has given me a supernatural contentment to be content whether I am abased or whether I abound.

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He can be brought low, or he can experience abundance. And he's the same person in both circumstances.

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At all times, Paul has this unadulterated contentment everywhere and in all things.

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That's what he said in verse 12. And then, of course, you get to verse 13. We have that famous phrase,

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I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me. And this famous phrase, of course, often plucked out of context.

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It's not primarily about doing well in business or doing well in sports or finishing the last set at the gym or something like that.

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And so, again, what does this verse actually mean? It's not necessarily applicable to business and to sports and to things like that.

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You see the jerseys for Christian basketball teams. They have the verse on the bottom and things of that sort.

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The all things that Paul is referring to here is the Christian's ability to remain content under all the providences of God, even when those providences are hard, such as was the case for so many of the

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Old Testament saints and the apostles themselves. You think about Job. You think about Jeremiah.

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You think about David. Think about Jonah. Those are hard providences that these guys went through.

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Paul, as we'll see at the end of this message later, went through some hard providences, and yet he was content in all of it, even when we're going through the tough times.

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What does Paul say? I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me, meaning that he had learned how to be content in all these circumstances.

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The same can be true and should be true for us as well. We need Christ's strength to enable us to handle either situation we find ourselves in, whether it be a basement or a bounding.

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We have to find a strength in order to be content in any condition that may befall us at any time.

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So let's talk about a couple of different things at this point. We've talked about the stumbling blocks. We've talked about the pitfalls.

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You've got discontentment, but you also have the threat of becoming a little too comfortable and maybe feeling like you don't play that big a part in God's plan anyway, so I'm just going to kind of sit back and wait for the rapture.

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We talked about this a little bit last week. You don't want to do either one. So let's talk about contentment first.

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I want us to hone in on this kind of contentment. Now, with the backdrop of the Apostle Paul and his teaching in Philippians on contentment in his own life and his own ministry, we can now take from that and apply it ourselves.

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We want to hone in on this kind of contentment that Paul had, and I want to do that for the remainder of our time, or at least for a good portion of it.

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I want you guys to take note of a particular word that was used in verse 11. Look at it one more time. It's a key word for understanding how to emulate ourselves what

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Paul is doing here, the kind of contentment that he had. He says, I have learned in whatever state

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I am to be content. What does that mean? What does that mean that the Apostle Paul, the greatest

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Christian ever, had to learn how to do this? It means that the

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Apostle Paul himself had to learn it because it wasn't a default setting.

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It wasn't this thing that you become saved and then just have. It's not a default setting of the

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Christian faith when he became saved, and, of course, it's not a default setting for us either. It's something that has to be learned.

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Contentment is a habit that we create as we live our lives out. What does contentment mean?

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It means to be satisfied. It means to be quiet. It means to be easy in our minds, not complaining, not demanding more, to be possessed of unfailing strength.

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These are all the things that are wrapped up in the Greek term that Paul is using here from which we get contentment from.

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It's a peace within us that occurs as a result of trusting God in the first place.

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Now, this trust, this satisfaction in all things, it has to be learned.

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In the Old Testament, what we find is not necessarily the English word contentment pop up, but one thing that we see time and time and time again, especially in the writings of David, is the word satisfaction.

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And I want to show you guys just one example of that, though there are many we could look at. Turn to Psalm 36. And I want to show you all this, what

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I will call a synonym of contentment, because I believe in the biblical context they would be synonymous.

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I want to show you what David's satisfaction looked like as a child of God and how we ourselves can have that same satisfaction, that same contentment that Paul had, the same satisfaction that David had.

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Look at just a few verses with me, and this is more just to showcase this idea more than anything. We're not going to spend a lot of time here.

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But in verse 7, he says, How excellent is thy lovingkindness,

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O God! Therefore the children of men put their trust into the shadow of your wings. They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of your house, and thou shalt make them drink of the river of thy pleasures.

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For with thee is the fountain of life, and in thy light shall we see light. O continue thy lovingkindness unto them that know thee, and thy righteousness to the upright in heart.

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Let not the foot of the pride come against me, and let not the hand of the wicked remove me. There are the workers of iniquity fallen, they are cast down, and shall not be able to rise again.

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So we see David's satisfaction in God, and we certainly see his desire for that satisfaction to be found in the lives of all of God's children, not just himself.

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Every believer should have a heart bursting with this satisfaction like David himself had.

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Satisfaction in God, because God's promises to satisfy us with everything we need are there time and time again.

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We see them, we should believe in them, we should be satisfied in them. And of course, it's always important to remember that what we need isn't always the same as what we think we need.

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It's something we need to remember all the time. And of course, the fact that we can know that God knows the difference between what we need and what we think we need is in itself something that can satisfy us, because otherwise it'd be really stressful trying to figure that out, trying to see and decide, what are the things that I kind of desire to happen, but what are the things that I actually legitimately need?

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Trying to figure that out would be really stressful, a really stressful prospect, but thankfully God knows, and he will deliver what we need, and we can find satisfaction in that too.

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The kind of contentment that Paul had, and what we have access to ourselves, is a

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Christian virtue. It's a righteous response to what the Lord tells us in his word. It's the ability to have peace and satisfaction in whatever or wherever God has us right this second, right now in this moment.

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Now, it may go without saying, but the biblical idea of contentment, biblical contentment is not complacency, which would be kind of a self -deciding position to be in.

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I think I'm going to just sit around because everything's just fine, I don't need to do anything, I don't need to pursue anything,

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I'm going to sit around because everything's just fine. Biblical contentment is not that.

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It's certainly not laziness, it's certainly not the slothfulness that Solomon talks about often.

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In Proverbs 26 .14, one of dozens of examples we could look at, Solomon says, As the door turneth upon his hinges, so doth the slothful upon his bed.

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That is not Christian contentment. That's his own thing. That is an evil. That is a thing that we need to avoid.

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That is something that the Christian should never find himself doing, a state that the Christian should never find himself in.

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Paul, in the New Testament, brings this same idea of slothfulness all the way in to the

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New Testament as well, when he tells us not to be slothful or sluggish in our diligence.

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He tells us that in Romans. So, to be content is not to be spiritually or physically lazy.

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To be content is not to be spiritually or physically lazy, but rather to be satisfied with where God has you right now.

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That's the difference between contentment and complacency, or contentment and slothfulness. So, now that we've talked about that a little bit, we've set the groundwork for contentment being something that needs to be foundational in the life of the

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Christian, as we live out and progress our lives to the fullest, like we talked about last week. I want to talk about the other side of the same coin, because remember, there's two ditches we can fall in.

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We don't want to fall into the side of discontentment. We don't want to fall into the other side either, which is the lazy part.

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We need to be ambitious as well. We need to be content and ambitious at the same time.

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Is that an oxymoron? I don't think so. Let's take a look. Laziness is certainly a problem, but another issue is what

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I'm going to call, for the Christian especially, it's what I'm going to call untethered ambition. And the reason

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I say it that way is because ambition can be a godly virtue as well, but it's only a virtue when it is constrained or anchored or tethered to that contentment that we began with.

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The only difference between progression and destruction in the

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Christian life is contentment. But true progress in fulfilling that which the

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Lord put you here, not anyone else, but put you here to do, it does require a form of ambition or drive.

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So, to say that we need to be content is not to say that we need to just sit down, be quiet, rest easy, and just kind of let the

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Lord do the work. That's not what we're saying. Contentment is the bedrock.

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Contentment is the anchor to the ambition that we need to have to pursue that which the

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Lord put us on earth to actually do, to actually fulfill. What is this ambition?

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What is this drive? Joseph had it from the moment that he had his first dream.

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Moses had this ambition throughout the wilderness wanderings as he yearned for the promised land.

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David had it when he faced Goliath and when he desired to build the temple of God.

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That is ambition. Isaiah had ambition when in the presence of unveiled holiness said,

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Here am I, send me. That is godly ambition. We need to have both. To be driven yet content at the same time is to be the disciple of Christ in his or her prime.

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It's to be a disciple in their prime. And unlike other careers or vocations of any kind, age never becomes a factor for being in your prime when you're a disciple.

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Age never becomes a factor when you're living out your prime work as a disciple of Christ.

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And that is very important to remember. Because in a world when ageists come in and push out the older generations because they just can't keep up with the tech for crying out loud, it can be disheartening for the older generations.

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We've been talking about this in our study in Titus and Sunday School. It can be disheartening and it can be hard for them to see what their purpose is anymore.

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And maybe we should just sit around and wait on the rapture now. You see how that can become a problem. But unlike careers, unlike vocations that do depend on your age and your vitality and your tech savviness and all of these things, to be a disciple of Christ isn't dependent on any of those things to be in your prime.

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When you're a disciple of the risen Lord, walking the Christian walk, at any stage you can be living out that sound doctrine which will lead to this content ambition that we're talking about.

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Now as I've said, the contentment which acts as the anchor for our ambition, the contentment has to be the anchor for our ambition.

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That contentment is being fully satisfied with where God has you right now.

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Ambition is the active pursuit of expanding Christ's kingdom. What is that?

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That's His rule through you. You are the instrument. You are a vessel of His rule on earth.

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Ambition is the active pursuit of expanding that, of expanding His kingdom, where you've been placed right now.

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So, yeah, you need to be content, you need to be satisfied with where you're at, but guess what? The battle still rages.

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It's still hot. You can still be pursuing, you can still be ambitious, even with where the

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Lord has you right now. In other words, you're content in all things, like Paul was, but at the same time, while being content with everything that's happening around you, you're paying attention, you're paying close attention for the doors that the

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Lord is opening in your life and being ready to go through them when you see those doors open. And you do it without hesitation.

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And you can only be ready for that. You can only be ready to step through whatever the Lord has for you, which may be very new and may be out of left field, seemingly.

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You can only be ready for that when you're thinking about it, when you are actively thinking about that contentment as your anchor, and the ambition, which is your active pursuit with what the

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Lord has for you in that moment. Otherwise, you're going to be caught off guard. You may be thinking, you may be dawdling, and all of a sudden, from the human viewpoint, doors may shut.

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Now, of course, how do you know the will of God? You step into it. This was the teaching of Rocky. This was the teaching of Otis, the teaching of Dad.

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So, as the will of God is revealed, all of these things become more and more clear, but you've still got to be ready.

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You can't just be sitting around. And so, what are we doing? We are being content with where God has us right now, but at the same time, we're watching.

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We're watching for those doors to open. We're ready to go through them when we see them, without hesitation. And by the way, if it's truly a door by the

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Lord Jesus, if it's truly something that He wants for you, it will always, 100 % of the time, be consistent with Scripture.

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It'll be consistent with His Word. So, how do you know this is actually the Lord opening this door, and it's not a trap by the enemy?

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Well, you have to ask yourself the question, what are the ramifications of going through this door? Are they consistent with God's Word?

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Are they consistent with the way that He lays out the rule of the faith for His disciples?

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I've talked about this concept many times recently, but you read through the New Testament, and yeah, you see some stuff.

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You see some instruction. You see some commands. You see some imperatives. You see all of this stuff laid out.

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And you think for a second, wait a second, I thought it was grace. I thought it was liberty. You know, all this kind of stuff. But the thing is, true grace, true liberty, biblically defined, is not anarchy.

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It's not just total, I'll use the term again, untethered freedom. There's always an anchor. God always anchors us.

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He gives us a foundation to build everything else on. And so we have those instructions. We have these instructions and rules of the faith, if you will, laid out in the

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New Testament, given by God's apostles, so that we have that grace of knowing where to go, of having that navigation, being able to orient ourselves when we're asking the big questions, such as, is this a door

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I'm supposed to go through, or is it a trap? If it's consistent with Scripture, if you have the means to do it, through prayer, and it's consistent with Scripture, then it's the

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Lord giving you a door to go through. And then all of a sudden that ambition progresses. It goes to the next level.

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That's what it means to be content and ambitious at the same time.

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But if this ambition is not anchored, and this is very important, if we let that ambition become the end goal, that hot pursuit of whatever it is we want, whatever the desire is in our lives, whatever it is that we're shooting for, if that ambition is not anchored, and what is it anchored to?

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That contentment. If it's not anchored, when striving for more, then what you have now becomes the end goal, rather than seeking

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God's will as it is revealed, then we fall into one of those sides of the ditch, not the one of lagging behind, not the side of the ditch of laziness or anything like that, but rather the side of the ditch of discontentment.

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Remember, one of the greatest weapons of our enemy. A discontented life, when it becomes a habit, is absolute misery.

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And misery is something that the Christian is never called to. Remember, the discontentment follows you around.

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It's not isolated in a geographic location. If you're a discontented person, it will follow you around.

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It's a terrible thing. And those who are discontented are never satisfied.

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Nothing lives up to the expectations that they've contrived in their minds, and usually those expectations are based on false assumptions that were fed them by the outside world.

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You know, the world, the flesh, and the devil, the world system, that kind of thing. They are fed false assumptions, and it could be through media, it could be through various means in the cultural landscape.

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They're given these false assumptions, and then they build their expectations based off of those, instead of what the

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Bible talks about. And the expectations that Paul sets for us, of course, it's Jesus through Paul.

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And so all of a sudden, everything is dissatisfaction. There's discontentment in just about everything, because the expectations were set on a faulty premise to begin with.

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It could be from the little things to the big things. It could be a meal placed directly in front of a person, or even crossing the finish line on a massive big -picture project or a business endeavor or something like that.

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It doesn't matter if it's the littlest things or the biggest things. Nothing will ever be good enough. It could always be a little bit better.

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That's the life of a discontented person. And I want you guys to turn to Proverbs 30 with me for a second, because Solomon speaks to this issue.

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You've got to remember, Solomon understood the good and the bad really well.

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And because of that, and why did he understand it? Because he did both. And just like in the book of Ecclesiastes, possibly my favorite book of the

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Old Testament, where he is showing us what the life of a person looks like, total unfulfillment when it's separated from God, we get hints of that in the

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Proverbs as well. And so if you go to Proverbs 30, we see that Solomon shows us the danger of being a discontented person and what it leads to.

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Look at Proverbs 30.

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It says, There is a generation, oh how lofty are their eyes, and their eyelids are lifted up.

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There is a generation whose teeth are as swords and their jaw teeth as knives to devour the poor from off the earth and the needy from among men.

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The leech hath two daughters. Give, give. There are three things that are never satisfied, yea, four things that say it is not enough, the grave, the barren womb, the earth that is not filled with water, and the fire that saith not it is enough.

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So to be a discontented person, Solomon puts it in very dramatic, poetic terms for us, terms, ideas, imagery that don't easily escape the mind once you think about it for a good while.

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But to be a discontented person is to be an unquenchable fire. And in this context, that's not a compliment.

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You know, sometimes you think of the unquenchable fire like this great example of power or something like that.

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Well, in this context, it is not a compliment. To be a discontented person is to be a leech whose children's names are give and give.

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To be a discontented person is to be the grave waiting for more death or a barren womb longing to give birth or the land that always needs more water or the fire that wants to just keep consuming without any constraint.

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That is what it looks like to be a discontented person. And Solomon knew what that was like from personal experience.

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Now when this is how the life is lived out, what happens? That ambition that should be a good thing, that should be a godly virtue, obviously for the

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Christian, it should be something, should be an ingredient, if you will, in the life of the Christian, all of the sudden it becomes an idol.

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It becomes completely subverted. It becomes an absolute wreck. And this is laid out in a very interesting parable of Jesus.

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I know I'm having you turn quite a bit, but turn to Luke 12 for a second because I want you guys to see this. When ambition is turned on its head and used improperly, it goes from being what could be a righteous

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Christian virtue, the pursuit of godly things, to becoming an idol. Now this is certainly true for unbelievers.

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I believe that it can be true for Christians as well. And this parable will just kind of be kind of a broad example to show you all what

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I'm talking about, what it can look like in the life of a discontented person that is just continually going for more.

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They're not content with what they have, with what God gave them. They have to keep the pursuit, and that's the end goal.

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Remember, pursuing is not the bad thing in and of itself. Pursuing as the end goal of just acquiring more and more and more and more for your own sake because you want it, that can be the issue.

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And let's look at what Jesus has to say about a person that lives like that.

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Look at Luke 12. Look at verse 13. And you have someone ask him a question.

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They say, And one of the company said unto him, Master, speak to my brother that he divide the inheritance with me.

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So this is a real -life situation of a person legitimately walking up to Jesus and saying, Will you please tell my brother to divide up the inheritance equally with me so we can work these things out?

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And how does Jesus answer it? He says, Man, who made me a judge or a divider over you?

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And then he said unto them, Take heed and beware of covetousness, for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth.

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And he spake a parable unto them. So after saying that, that's just the general truth. Those are the facts. He's just given this guy an answer.

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And then he spoke a parable unto them, and he said, The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully. And he thought within himself, saying,

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What shall I do? Because I have no room where to bestow my fruits. And he said, This will I do.

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I will pull down my barns and build greater. And there will I bestow all my fruits and all my goods.

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And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years. Take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.

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But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee.

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Then whose shall those things be which thou hast provided? So is he that layeth up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.

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So what do we see there? We see an untethered ambition. We see a guy that is never satisfied with anything, that needs more, to the point where his real estate is a mess.

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He's pulling down barns, erecting new barns, filling it with more. And just when he thinks he might take it easy for a bit and think,

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I guess I'll enjoy some of these ridiculous riches that I have garnered up just for myself, for no one else but me, then his soul is required of him.

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This is what it looks like when ambition is made an idol, when it's untethered, when it's unanchored, rather than being anchored to contentment and used as a godly virtue.

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Now, of course, what we just read is no life desirous of the Christian, but it's still a ditch that we could fall into because of our human nature.

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But thankfully, it is not necessary. And that's the important part of this message. Yeah, we got to talk about the scary stuff sometimes, too.

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We got to talk about the ditches that are there and there, with the enemies pelting us with fiery darts as we move along at the same time.

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We got to talk about that. But the important aspect of all of it, the end goal, should always be to remember that it's not necessary.

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We do have the power within us, because of our positional righteousness in the Lord Jesus Christ, to stay on that straight and narrow and avoid both ditches on that path.

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It's not necessary. It doesn't have to be our life at all. What we just read, both in the Proverbs and in Jesus' parable, that does not have to be our life at all.

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And we can be content, just like Paul, in that opening passage in Philippians.

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Discontentment in the present tense, or discontentment right now, is not a necessary prerequisite for our desired outcomes in the future.

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Now, a lot of people make it a prereq. A lot of people convince themselves that being unhappy with how things are is the thing that motivates progress.

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Well, it's not good enough right now, and so I got to be shooting for more. I got to be really amping up the ambition, amping up the pursuit, amping up that which

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I can store in my brand new barn. And so people will convince themselves that this unhappiness in the moment is the thing that will motivate them, that should give them that drive to keep going for more.

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But discontentment is not necessary. It's not a necessary prereq for meeting our desires in the future.

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People make it that, doesn't mean it has to be. It's certainly not for the Christian. We can't be lazy, but we also can't be discontent.

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We can't be that unquenchable fire that is just ravaging everything because we never can have enough.

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We must be righteous in both abasement and abundance, which was Paul's whole message.

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And that's what Proverbs is all about. Proverbs is like an instruction manual for how to be righteous when you're rich and when you're poor.

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Now, what's interesting about it is it's also an instruction manual for how to be unrighteous both when you're rich and you're poor.

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Of course, that's not Solomon's intent, but he puts it all there anyway. He says, you want to learn how to live a miserable life?

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I will show you how to live a miserable life. And so he gives us the instruction of what it looks like to be an unrighteous rich guy and a poor guy.

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Both are true. But then he goes and he shows us how to be a righteous person whether we are rich, whether we are poor, and Paul lives that out in Philippians 4.

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He says, that has been my life. Whether I am abased or whether I abound, I am content nonetheless.

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But to be content doesn't mean that we are not to be ambitious. Again, just to try to thread the needle one more time.

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To be content does not mean that we're not to be ambitious. It means that our ambition must be anchored to our contentment.

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I'm being repetitive on purpose. When Paul says, I also know how to live in prosperity, which is another way you can translate the first part of verse 12, that implies that the pursuit of physical gain, not just spiritual, but physical gain can be a good and necessary thing.

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So there's a very important implication there. So ambition is not wrong because you need to have the ambition.

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You need to have the drive for going after the physical needs that are required of people that are trying to set a legacy for the next generation and many generations after that as well.

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Ambition is not wrong in and of itself, but it does require an anchor.

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And that anchor is faithful contentment in all things abased or abundant.

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Now, as we finish up here, as Christians, as I've said last week, as I have said many times recently,

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I'll probably say it a lot more lately because it just seems to become, it just seems to be the theme of, regardless of where we've been at in our studies, whether it be

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Wednesday, Sunday school or sermons and things like that. But as Christians, we have lives to live.

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And those lives must start with contentment. Though it may sound easy enough, we all find out eventually how difficult it can be to be content when we're struggling to find the contentment in the hardships.

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We might even convince ourselves that contentment is only possible part of the time because we're thinking there's no way a human can be content in these conditions right now.

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So all of a sudden, we don't trust Paul anymore, and we're not content because times are tough.

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But that's why we have Paul. That's why we have him in Philippians 4, telling us it is possible.

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And if you want to turn to one more place with me, and then we'll be done, in 2 Corinthians 11,

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Paul goes on to tell us, Look, this is what

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I've been through, and I can still be content. Look at 2 Corinthians with me for just a second.

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We'll end here. 2 Corinthians 11, see if I can get there myself.

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And look at verse 23. 2 Corinthians 11, verse 23.

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Are they ministers of Christ? I speak as a fool. I am more. In labors, more abundant.

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In stripes, above measure. In prisons, more frequent. In deaths, oft.

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Of the Jews, five times received I forty stripes, save one. Thrice was I beaten with rods.

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Once was I stoned. Thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep.

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In journeyings often. In perils of waters. In perils of robbers. In perils of mine own countrymen.

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In perils of the heathen. In perils of the city. In perils in the wilderness. In perils in the sea.

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In perils among false brethren. In weariness and painfulness. In watchings often. In hunger and in thirst.

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In fastings often. In cold and in nakedness. Beside those things that are without, that which cometh upon me daily, the care of all the churches.

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I want you to think about that for a second. That'll really strike you. Who is weak? And I am not weak.

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Who is offended? And I burn not. If I must needs glory, I will glory of the things which concern my infirmities.

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The God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which is blessed forevermore, knoweth that I lie not.

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All of these things are true. In Damascus, the governor under Aretas, the king kept the city of Damascus with a garrison desirous to apprehend me.

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And through a window in a basket was I let down by the wall and escaped his hands.

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So the Apostle Paul went through a lot. He went through a lot. And this is the man that we learn how to be content from.

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Now, you might think, yes, but this is the Apostle Paul we're talking about. And that is true.

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But we're also talking about Paul, the chief of sinners. He wasn't superhuman.

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He had a very high calling, yes, to be sure. But he was just as human as we are.

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And he learned contentment. It wasn't a default setting. He learned contentment in all things, including that laundry list of suffering that he gave us right there in 2

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Corinthians. As Christians, we want to be ambitious. We want to be content.

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But one without the other may very well lead to something that actually isn't either at all.

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Now, we've really been trying to thread a needle today. You've got the prosperity gospel over here.

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Name it and claim it. Send me a prayer cloth while you're at it. Or I'll send you one, I guess. I don't know how it works. You've got poverty theology over here, which is the people that convince themselves that the poorer you are and the more stricken you are, the more holy you are.

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That somehow suffering equals piety or something like that. Both of these are completely unbiblical.

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You have discontentment over here. And you have laziness and slothfulness over here.

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Again, how do you thread this needle? Well, every sermon has to come back to the sufficiency of Scripture.

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Because how we thread the needle is by abiding in God's Word and seeing how the people of God did this thing, how they ran this race.

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All of the instructions, like I said earlier, we have all of the instructions. We have the thing that can orient us back to that straightened arrow.

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It can give us the instruction we need to know if we're kind of stumbling off the edge of one side of the ditch or not.

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And it also gives us what we need to know if we can see our brothers and sisters doing the same thing. And then it gives us the grace to approach them and to show our care and to say,

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I'm worried about you being in this ditch because I don't want you in the muck over here. So it really all comes back to the sufficiency of Scripture in the end because it's the only way you can thread that needle.

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It's the only way you can stay on that straightened arrow because discontentment is really easy. Laziness is even easier.

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And so how do you do this? Well, you stay in the

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Scriptures, you stay content, and you let that contentment anchor your ambition.

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And we have to remember that the only way to keep on that path, that running the race well, is to stay firm in the faith and to hold fast the faithful word that Paul tells us to do in Titus 1.

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And that is when all of a sudden we can begin to live out this content ambition.

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It's not an oxymoron. They're both there, they're both true, they're both needed. And when they're put together, you have a

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Christian, you have a disciple that can really do some amazing things far greater than they ever imagined they could do in this earth.

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There's no unimportant player. There's not a single human, certainly none of the household of God, that plays an insignificant role in God's grand redemptive history.

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He puts you here for a reason. You don't have to wait around and wait for the rapture or whatever it may be.

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Wait for heaven. You've got stuff you can do. Remember, your prime as a disciple is not dependent on your age because the

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Lord has things that you can be doing all the way up until you take that last breath. And we all know examples of people that were literally ministering to us up until the moment of their last breath.

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And so we can't limit ourselves based on the world's metrics.

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We can't limit ourselves to their metrics. We have to stick with God's Word and know how it should play out and what it looks like when it does, and it's a beautiful thing.

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What does it look like? It looks like the Apostle Paul in Philippians 4, verses 10 -13.

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And that wasn't unique to him because he was an apostle. Every Christian has the capacity to live the way that he did.

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Full contentment, full satisfaction in God, whether you are abased or whether you are abounding, while at the same time pursuing that which the

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Lord has put you here to fulfill. It's really an amazing thing. Heavenly Father, thank you so much for this wonderful day.

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Thank you for bringing us together once again and allowing us to discuss these things, to dive into the

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Scriptures, and to find clarity in a world where murkiness and just muddiness and the difficulty of orienting ourselves and knowing where truth lies and how truth is to be applied and all of these things.

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We face all these enemies that want to make it as murky and unclear as possible. We thank you for the opportunity to come together, come into the

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Scriptures, and for them to bring that clarity back, even for those of us that are faithful to you, even for those of us that do strive to be great examples of the

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Christian walk each and every day. When we find ourselves in this fallen world with so many enemies around us, it can still be hard to see that clarity sometimes, and we know that it's your

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Word that brings it back. So thank you for giving us the opportunity for us to do that together. Lord, I ask that you help us remember these things, not just today, not just this week, but to carry them out and live out our lives in a way that is satisfying to us, but also to you, that we may be pleasing vessels of your ministry, that we may be pleasing vessels in your kingdom, showcasing your rule here on earth.

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Help us be those types of people, Lord. Let us be pleasing instruments in your hand.

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We ask you to be with us for the remainder of today, to bless our fellowship time together in just a minute, bless the food we're about to have, and we ask all these things in your name.