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Aug 15, 2021

Would you say you are content?

Would you say you are content?

Passage: Psalms

Speaker: Patrick Lafferty

Series: Ascend

Keywords: hope, contentment, weaning

When a comedian once chided “why is everything awesome but nobody’s happy?” he put his finger on one of the most desirable but elusive things we might seek--namely, contentment. Why are we so easily burdened, ungrateful, perturbed, or worse? Is there any other way? The shortest Psalm offers us the clearest picture of what contentment is, the way to it, and the key to it.

Readings & Scriptures

PREPARATION: Philippians 4:11b-13
I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. 12 I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. 13 I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

CONFESSION OF FAITH
Q. 148. What are the sins forbidden in the tenth commandment?
A. The sins forbidden in the tenth commandment are, discontentment with our own estate; envying and grieving at the good of our neighbor, together with all inordinate motions and affections to anything that is his.

BENEDICTION: based on Hebrews 13:1-3, 5, NRSV
Leader: May mutual love continue.
May we not neglect to show hospitality to strangers,
for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.
Remember we those who are in prison,
as though we were in prison with them.
May we all be content with what we have.
And remember that God has promised,
“I will never leave you or forsake you.”
May true contentment and the everpresent love of God be with you all.
All: And also with you.

SCRIPTURES:

2 Chronicles 32:25
Job 42:1-3, 5-6
Psalm 62:1, 5
Proverbs 4:23
Proverbs 30:13
Isaiah 57:15
Jeremiah 45:5
Matthew 6:24-34
Matthew 18:3
Luke 10:43ff
John 4:34
Romans 12:16
Philippians 2:3-8
Philippians 4:11; 1 Timothy 6:6, 8; 2 Corinthians 9:8; Hebrews 13:5
1 Timothy 4:16

Related Media 

DISCUSSION QUESTIONS:

  1. When’s the most serene you’ve ever felt--no matter how fleeting the moment was?
  2. How would you define contentment? 
  3. In the sermon we heard how contentment involves (at least) two things. The first was about how we think about trying to matter. Can you remember a time when you did certain things, acted in a certain way, in order to feel like you mattered? Where do you find yourself still trying to validate yourself?
  4. The second part of contentment has to do with trying to control things. In what parts of life (work, parenting, etc) do you tend to become obsessed with trying to control outcomes? Why those? When has it worked and when hasn’t it?
  5. The Psalmist speaks of learning contentment through the analogy of a weaned child. Why do you think that image is chosen? Ever witnessed a weaning in real time?
  6. A child is weaned by its mother. In this passage who is the one “calming and quieting” the soul?
  7. Paul speaks of learning contentment (Phil 4:11). His circumstances and experiences offered the occasion to learn, but what part do we play in letting those moments teach us contentment? What might “calming and quieting” our souls look like in real-life?
  8. With what then do you need to calm and quiet your soul so that it experiences something more like contentment?

Quotes

  • We live the given life, and not the planned.  Wendell Berry
  • All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.  Blaise Pascal
  • We’re training and conditioning a whole new generation of people that when we are uncomfortable or lonely or uncertain or afraid we have a digital pacifier for ourselves that is kind of atrophying our own ability to deal with that. Tristan Harris, The Social Dilemma
  • Have you realized that most of your unhappiness in life is due to the fact that you are listening to yourself instead of talking to yourself? David Martyn Lloyd-Jones
  • The greatest difficulty in conversion, is, to win the heart to God; and the greatest difficulty after conversion, is, to keep the heart with God. John Flavel, Keeping the Heart
  • . . .the person content with his lot, who does not aspire to grand things, is able to give himself the kind of reassuring calm that a loving mother gives the weaned child whom she comforts. After the rejection of images of reaching beyond--the eyes looking high, the striving for or going about among great things--the speaker evokes a sense of beautiful self-containment, an embracing of one’s self like a child. Robert Alter

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