Let's hear from God's word this morning from Philippians chapter 4, once again, verses 10 to 13. Philippians chapter 4. I rejoice greatly in the Lord that at last you have renewed your concern for me. Indeed, you have been concerned, but had no opportunity to show it. I'm not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well-fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through Him who gives me strength. The secret of being content. We long for it. We've been considering it. And yet even after four messages on it and the sins of discontentment, my guess is that many of us are still not convinced that discontentment is really all that bad, are we? Maybe it's a little less than we wish. We would like to be more content. But to think of discontentment as evil is beyond us. Is it really evil to be discontent? to be complaining or grumbling? Or do many of us even notice how much we complain or grumble? Are we aware how discontented we are many times? My wife Kathy, for instance, interrupts me at something I'm doing, trying to get something done around the house, and she asks me to come and help her out with something. And I feel almost an obligation to mutter some complaint before I comply. Something that lets her know that, well, you know, I really didn't want to do this, and you were disturbing me, rather than a cheerful servanthood kind of response. Check that out. She'll verify that. But you laugh. What about you? This past week, was there some time that you were concentrating on something at work or in some situation? and you're busy, you're feeling under pressure, you need to get this done, you're trying to concentrate, and then comes the interruption. You have change for the coffee machine, somebody needs to change the toilet paper, you know, we don't have enough or something, where do you keep it? Some really important matter blows all your concentration. The phone rings for the 27th time, so that you are not able to get anything done. You feel like I gotta go in at six o'clock in the morning just to be able to get something done before the day begins. Or whatever it is, and you find yourself complaining and grumbling and after a while you don't even notice that you're complaining and grumbling. And you get into a pattern of it. But if someone were to ask you, are you a discontented person? Or if someone were to observe I believe that you're guilty of the sin of discontentment. You'd say, who, me? Nah, I'm not basically a discontented person. Or I think of a woman by the name of Helene Ashker, who said in an interview once that she had gotten to a Bill Gothard conference, the first one she got to. She was in her late 30s. And she said that Bill Gothard said in his seminar, I want you to write down two things that you don't like about yourself. And she said one of the two things that she put down was her singleness. And then after that, he said, now, I want you to give thanks to God for those two things. And her immediate response is, you've got to be kidding. Give thanks for that? And yet, if you were to ask her, are you a discontented person? She'd say, meh, I'm about as content as anybody else. We don't notice, do we, oftentimes, underneath the things that are coming out, the grumbling, the complaining. I must confess that I have recently come to realize that I am much more of a complainer than I had ever thought. Little criticisms, petty, picky things that I just say without thinking. And God has begun to convict me of the fact that that's an indication of what's in my heart. There's a basic discontentment which comes out in our grumbling and our complaining, and we all tend to minimize it, don't we? Now, maybe I tend to minimize it more than you tend to minimize it, but I suspect that you and I share in common a tendency, at least, to minimize our discontentment, to minimize how much we express it, and to minimize how evil it is. Well, Since I've come to realize this some in my study of this, I thought that before I go on vacation, which is a very good time to realize your tendency to complain and pick on petty things, I thought I would share with you how God sees our discontentment. And so let's take a look at what God says about it to see the seriousness with which he views it and the solution he offers. First of all, then, I want to look at point 2 as point 1. Now don't complain about that or you'll be guilty of what I just said. Point 2 there should be put down as point 1. Discontentment is a mark of ingratitude. That's the one just above Romans 1. It's a mark of ingratitude. Romans chapter 1 verses 29 and 30 described to us basic description of a culture and a people who refuse to acknowledge Jesus as Lord. And Paul says in Romans 1, 29, they have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed, depravity. They're full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malice. They're gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant, and on and on he goes. Now, you say, well, that sounds like a description of my office. And yet, these people would say that, you know, they're party-loving people, you know, pretty happy gang there. But you say, but I can see among the people that I function with a basic discontentment that comes out by the arrogance and the backbiting and the gossiping and the slandering and on and on and on it goes. Now, what's the root of that? What's the root of that basic discontentment? Paul says it in verse 21, just a few verses before this. He says the root of it is that although they knew God, and by that he's talking about the fact that they understood His eternal power and divine nature, verse 20, that is, they know they're created, they were made, they didn't just happen along. They're not a biological accident in a world of chance. Although they knew God, that there is a God, they neither glorified Him as God, nor gave thanks to Him. But their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened." And Paul says, the basic problem with these people is that they're ungrateful to God. That's the basic sin of the unbeliever. That although God has made him for himself and God has given life and all the blessings that accompany that, we are ungrateful for it. We don't thank God for it. We don't honor him for it. Our universe sort of centers on ourselves. And with that basic denial of the need to honor and thank God, comes a general spirit of unthankfulness and self-centeredness, which spews forth in all the discontentment. It comes out of a basic refusal to give God thanks and to honor him for our lives and all parts of it. Whenever I think of that kind of an attitude, I'm reminded of the grim fairy tale about the fisherman and his wife. Do you remember that story? It was the fisherman, the poor fisherman who caught a flounder turned out to be an enchanted prince. And so when he let it go, he and his wife lived in a miserable hovel near the shore. And she said, you idiot, if he's an enchanted prince, he could have granted you any wish. Go back and get that flounder and ask him for a decent cottage for us to live in. So the fisherman went back and he called the flounder back up and he said, my wife would like a nice clean cottage if you please. And he said, go back, you have it. So he goes back and there's his wife in this nice clean cottage. And he says, now we can be content. And she is for about a week. Then after about a week, it dawns on her, you know, we could have asked for a castle. You were really dumb. Why didn't you ask for a castle? He could just give you a castle just as easily as a nice little cottage. Get back there and get that flounder. Back he goes to the shore. He calls up the flounder again. He says, well, pardon me, but my wife says the cottage isn't enough. She'd like a castle, if you please. Flounder says, go back. She has it. Goes back now. There's a big castle. All these lands, and they've got farms and fields and game and gardens. Beautiful place. Now we can be content. We'll see, she says. A couple days later now, she says, well, you know, these are a lot of beautiful lands, but I don't rule them. Go back and get that flounder again. Tell him I want to be king of this land. You heard me right. She wants to be the king. Well, you know, that's the way the story goes. So he goes back. He gets the flounder. He says, hey, I'm really sorry. I don't want pestery again, but my wife would like to be king of the whole land. So do you mind? Hey, go back, he says. She's king already. Goes back, there she is, sitting on her throne. People are attending her all over. This only lasts until dinner time. She says, that's not enough. I want to be the emperor of all the kingdoms in this area. He says, why can't you just be king? No, not enough. He goes back to the fish. I'm really, really sorry. Could you make her emperor? Go back, she's emperor. Back there she is. Now she's got long retinues and trains of people. Glory unimaginable. large scepter, diamonds in her crown, everything going for her. That lasts only until the next morning. She says, Emperor is not enough. I must be Pope. Now, she wanted to be the first woman Pope. At that time, the Pope was beyond the Emperor when the story was written, so that's the way it goes. He goes back to the fish. He says, I'm sorry. She must be Pope. Go back. She's Pope. Because back there she is. People are kissing her feet, kissing her rings, they're all tending her. She's ruling everything in all the civilized domains of that world. And then she looks out the window and she says, I will not be happy for one more hour until I can command the sun and the moon. I must be lord of the universe. You think your wife's not satisfied. Back he goes to the fish, and he says, I'm really sorry for this. This really isn't my idea, but my wife insists now on being lord of the universe. He says, go back. She's back into her hovel. She's crossed the line. And the story ends, and there they are to this very day. Discontentment that has its roots in ingratitude with what we have. Paul says, just before he has declared he's learned the secret of contentment, in chapter 4, he says in verse 6, do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and petition, you have a need, is there something you need and long for in your life? Paul says then, in everything by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God, and His peace The peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." And then he goes on, and he says, you can choose what you think about. You can think about what you don't have and be ungrateful, or you can think about what you do have and give thanks to God. And so he says in verse 8, finally brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if there is anything excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things. Think about the things that encourage your heart and cause you to give praise and thanks. Choose what you think about. And then he says in verse 9, whatever you've learned or received or heard from me or seen in me, Put that into practice and the God of peace will be with you. What did we say in you, Paul? What are you talking about? What's your example that we can put into practice? We look back at chapter one. There's one example. Paul's writing this, you remember? From a Roman prison chained to a Roman guard with a death sentence hanging over his head. And in those circumstances, Paul had learned that many people were preaching the gospel. Some people were preaching the gospel out of good and sincere motives. They were emboldened by the fact that Paul was in prison. They said, we'll go out and we'll preach for you. And God will use us. And he says, God's given them a real boldness. I thank God for that. But then he says in verse 15 that there were some other people who were preaching Christ out of envy and rivalry. Verse 17, he says, these people preach Christ out of selfish ambition, not sincerely, supposing that they can stir up trouble for me when I am in chains. Apparently these people who were having a spirit of competition and leadership, they wanted to be the apostles. They wanted for everybody to look at them and hang on their words and write down their letters and pass them around the churches. And they're saying, we disagree with this Paul. He's wrong in certain points. And you see, God has set him aside now. He's in prison out of God's punishment. Don't listen to that guy, he's a fraud. Paul says, they're using what I'm suffering to add greater grief to me. Now, how would you respond? If you're suffering for Jesus Christ, and certain other people who would like to have your position, use it against you, in order to tear you down, and to take what's yours. How would you respond? Look how Paul responded in verse 18. He says, what's the matter? Who really cares? The important thing is that in every way, whether from false motives or true, Christ is preached. And because of this, I rejoice. And I will continue to rejoice. Paul's made a decision. He says, I could grumble and complain about all that's going on here, but the important thing is what's happening to Christ in his name and his kingdom. He said, I'm not worried about my reputation and my position. And so I'm a free man. And I'm able to give thanks to God and to rejoice in how he's using even this imprisonment. The first mark of discontentment is ingratitude. The mark of contentment is the willful decision to give thanks to Jesus Christ in your situation. Second mark of discontentment, now we go back to one and make it two, is that the second mark is ungodliness. Discontentment is a mark of ungodliness. Those really affected me when I first noticed this. Turn to Jude, the book of Jude. That's the one just before the book of Revelation, second to the last book of the Bible. I want you to see this because it has so impressed me. I want you to look at this thing to notice Jude is about the sin and the doom of the ungodly. The arrogant who call themselves Christians, it's about professing Christians, but they're people who know nothing of the grace and the power of the Holy Spirit. Describing these people, Jude says of them in verse 14, picking up at verse 14, Enoch the seventh of Adam prophesied about these men. See, the Lord is coming with thousands upon thousands of his holy one to judge everyone and to convict all the ungodly of all the ungodly acts that they have done, and all the ungodly way that they're doing them, and all the harsh and ungodly, excuse me, of all the harsh words ungodly sinners have spoken against him. Now if there's one thing that ought to stand out from this verse is that these people are ungodly, right? Four times he says they're ungodly. They're ungodly people. They act in ungodly ways. Their words are ungodly. They're ungodly. And then he goes on to describe what they do. Now the thing you'd expect of somebody that is so ungodly is that he's going to talk about them being heretics and seducers and immoral and drunkards and on and on and on. That's not what he says. What have they done that is so ungodly? Look at verse 16. These men are grumblers and fault finders. That's the number one characteristic of those that God says who are ungodly. They are grumblers and fault finders. Now these again are professing Christians. So Jude says, one of the key marks of somebody who claims Christ but doesn't know him in reality is that they'll be a grumbler and a fault finder. I think of a cartoon I once saw of two pastors who were sitting together like baseball agents. The one pastor says to the other, I'll trade you one fault finder and gossip for two adulterers and a drunkard. And there's a truth in that. Give me adulterers and drunkards any time over grumblers and fault finders and gossips. Those are the people who destroy churches. I thank God that we are pretty free as a congregation from this. But that's not to say that the seeds of it aren't in our hearts, apart from the spirit of God and the grace of Jesus Christ. And so you and I need to look when we say, hey, Because I don't swear and tell dirty jokes, because I don't cheat on my wife or my husband, and because I don't use God's name in vain and all the rest of the things, I'm a pretty good person. If, in fact, you grumble and find fault and criticize, and that has become the tendency, the tone of your conversation, Jude says that's the mark of ungodliness. Discontentment is the mark of ungodliness. We say that's no big deal. God says it is. Yet Jesus wants to free you from that. He wants to free you from the bondage of complaining, grumbling, and fault-finding. But he will only do that when you and I confess and repent and say, God, this is sin. I am stopping excusing it. I'm stopping minimizing it, excusing it, and saying that it really doesn't matter. Paul said, in Philippians chapter 2, do everything without complaining. Chapter 2, verse 14. Do everything without complaining. That's his command to us. In chapter 4, he said, verse 11, I'm in need, but I thank you for what you've given, not because I needed it to make me content. For I've learned to be content whatever the circumstances. But whether in need or in plenty, I've learned the secret of contentment. How? Through him who gives me strength. Thirdly, discontentment is the mark of rebellion. That's the third one. Discontentment is the mark of rebellion. Do you recall that we looked at Israel a couple of weeks ago? As we looked at Israel, we saw all the different ways that they complained as God brought them through the desert. And you remember that in Numbers 14, God brings them right up to the very edge of the land. He's brought them, shown them again and again His power. He's forgiven them again and again of their complaining spirit, of their grumbling. And now He's about to bring them into the promised land, the pleasure garden of the Lord. He's promised to give it to them as an inheritance. They need to go in to claim it, but he has promised that they will be able to obtain it. It's simply a matter of do they trust him or don't they? Do you remember how the spies came back in Numbers 13 and said, there are giants in the land, we will never take it, far beyond anything we can do, and God says, that's exactly the point, I want you to trust me. But what do they do? They shrink back in unbelief. And so in Numbers chapter 14 in verse 2, we read that all the Israelites grumbled against Moses and Aaron. And the whole assembly said to them, Oh, if only we had died in Egypt or in this desert even. Why is the Lord bringing us to this land only to let us fall by the sword? God says that that grumbling is rebellion. In verse 11, look what he says, How long will these people treat me with contempt? God says, they're not just complaining against you, Moses. They are treating me with contempt because I have promised to take care of them. And they don't trust me. Rebellious discontentment is always a sign of lack of faith. They don't trust me. And so he says again in verse 27, how long will this wicked community grumble against me? I have heard the complaints of these grumbling Israelites. And so God says, I'm going to give them just what they said. They said, oh, wouldn't we then just die in the desert? God said, you want to die in the desert? I'll let you die in the desert. Every one of you are going to die in the desert, except Caleb and Joshua, who trusted me. Sort of like you and me, isn't it? We pray, we don't see something happen right away, and what do we say? God's mean. He doesn't answer my prayers. He doesn't really care about me. It would be better if I just worked this out on my own. I'm just going to scheme my own designs to get me out of this mess. God says, you want to scheme on your own? Get it out of it? Okay, I'll let you. And so what happens? Our prayer is not answered. We get into deeper trouble. We get desperate. We say, God has abandoned me. God said, I didn't abandon you. You wanted, you preferred to scheme on your own to get out of it. When you and I choose to go our own way rather than the Lord's, let's not blame Him that He has left us in the mess. It's our own rebellion that we're suffering from. And it goes from bad to worse with Israel. You remember shortly after this, there's that rebellion of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram. An open rebellion against Moses and his leadership, and God literally causes the earth to swallow them up. And after that, you remember, even then Israel wasn't humbled. But in Numbers 16.41, the whole Israelite community grumbled against Moses and Aaron. They say, you've killed the Lord's people. And God says, that is rebellion. Your grumbling against me is rebellion. In chapter 17.10, He calls them rebels because of their grumbling against Him. Have you ever seen your grumbling against God as rebellion? Have you ever seen it in that light? I mean, have you ever really seen it in that light enough that it changed you? One person in our congregation who has seen it in that light is Maybeth Williams. Now maybe you're shocked that I revealed that Maybeth Williams has seen her discontentment and grumbling as rebellion. You think, boy, you know, better watch what you say to the pastor around this place. I want you to know that I've talked with Maybeth, and she's not only given me permission to say that, but in fact I've asked Maybeth if she'd be willing to share that. And so Maybeth's going to come forward now and share with you, in her own words, as an example of this, how God showed her how discontentment is rebellion, and how He then began to heal. Maybeth? It was the fall of 1987. It's a fall I'll always remember as the fall that was the farthest down I could ever go, but at the same time a fall in which God started putting things in places to start building me back up into a newer, better, more contended person. And I praise God for that. Some of you know bits and pieces of my story over the past few years because I've shared it here and there, and I thank some of you for your support that you've given me with that. God was good, and I got involved in this because I came up to Al a few weeks ago and I said, you know, Al, when you're speaking on discontentment, you've got to talk about rebellion because that's a key to being discontent. It wasn't that I wasn't trying to make changes in my life. I saw some problems. And this was the fall of 87. I had had as my verse for the year from that January, and actually it had started earlier than that, the verse from James 1, because Al had been speaking on James during that time, where it says, everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to be angry. I knew that I was the opposite. I was always quick to speak. And as Alice just talked, we so often are quick with our critical remarks. And this is what I was finding. Anything my husband did, my children did, somehow I reacted to it with a negative always before the positive. And I was unhappy with that, and I was trying to change. And of course, when you're quick to speak and slow to listen, then comes the anger. because the friction is just too much there. And so we were having a lot of angry times within our household. I tried to change, but it was with less success than God was supposed to give a good, hardworking Christian, right? And it wasn't happening. Well, it was October 2nd, 1987. Ken and I had had another argument, and the reasons for it are long gone. I couldn't begin to even try to understand what it was all about. But when it was over, I felt totally at the bottom of the pit. I just, this was just too much. I was down at the bottom of the barrel. And I needed to get my excuse, my reason for why it was okay for me to have been in this argument with Ken. So I called up my sister Ruth out in Indianapolis, and I tried to explain the situation to her. And I needed her to say that I was okay, that that there was some merit to why I had reason to be angry, but she didn't. If she did, I don't even remember that she did. All I can remember is that she said, Maybeth, I think you have a problem with rebellion. Me? Rebellious? I was too good to be rebellious. That's not me. So I couldn't. It couldn't be. But God didn't let it sit at that. And I had to think, was Ruthie seeing something that I was denying? Was it something that needed correcting in my life? This was, oh, probably about 9 or 10 in the morning. I took out my Bible, and I looked up rebellion, rebel, rebellious, in the concordance. And I began jotting down a lot of the verses that were mentioned there. I began to read them then in their context, and I looked at these Israelites, and that seems to be one of the key things, as well as some of the other sections. And what struck me most is perhaps what Al is trying to say, that somehow rebellion stands out against and with every other sin. Where God forgives rebellion and sin and wickedness, somehow what struck me was that sin Everything in the Ten Commandments that you're given could be all lumped over here. This was sin. But rebellion was specific and terrible, and it was really something that needed to be dealt with. Well, if I was rebellious, I needed change. But what was I rebelling against? And so I had to begin to understand, was I really rebellious? What was it against? It was time to walk Mandy to the afternoon kindergarten bus. I was thinking hard all the way and I could begin to feel this anger that was deep inside of me coming up and coming up. And yes, I was angry. After Mandy got on the bus, I got home and I just started to write. And this is what I wrote. I am a bitter, angry, and rebellious person. It is my true insides. I am angry and rebelling against an ugly blue van, an enormous loss of money over a motor home, at still being at home, at not knowing what I would do if I wasn't at home, at having no money because Ken's business is always too broke to pay full salary, at having all desires always unaffordable, and at Ken's headship. And that last one was the hardest to write, did, because somehow I think that was the bottom line. I was rebelling against Ken's headship. I didn't like seeing this, but I had brought it up finally and looked at my rebellious side and what I was rebelling against. I was a sinner fighting God, and I had been trying so hard to be good. I needed to know more than ever that I was in God's love and forgiven. And I looked back over those verses on rebellion, and I could see Exodus 34, 7. God forgives wickedness, rebellion, and sin. And I could write next to that verse, I am forgiven in Jesus Christ. God's work wasn't and isn't finished that October day. There's more to the story, and I could take two more hours to tell it. But I see it as a major turning point in my learning to give God control and to rest in his love, in other words, to no contentment. Thank you, Maybeth. I wanted Maybeth to share that because I thought perhaps in a way more than I could ever say, some of you might say, I see myself. And so now in the close of this, I want you to examine yourself. Paul says, I have learned the secret of being content. Whatever the circumstances, whether I have plenty or whether I'm in want, I can do everything through Him who gives me the strength. The bad news is that perhaps your discontentment is far worse than you've seen to this point. It's not just a little bit of grouching here and there. It's ingratitude. It's ungodliness. It's rebellion. The good news is that Jesus has died for the ungrateful, for the ungodly, and for the rebellious. The question is, do you want him to heal you of that? Do you want to be content this morning, or do you want what you want more than contentment? I invite you to come to Jesus Christ. Let's bow our hearts right now in prayer. Lord our God, we come now in quiet. We come to examine ourselves. We come to consider our attitudes. We come and we want to see that petty grumbling and fault-finding, those statements of complaining that show that we're not grateful, that show that we are ungodly. that show that we rebel against the place that you've placed us, the situation in which you have placed us as our God. Lord, we want to see that discontentment now as you see it. Search us, O God. Lord, make us long for the contentment of Jesus Christ more than we want our own way. And for many of us, that's the big issue. Help us to see, then, the good news of the gospel. That you, Lord Jesus, are here in our midst, and you want to free us from our discontentment. You want to take us, and you want, by your Spirit, to teach us the secret of being content. which is found in our cleaving to you. as our Savior and as our Lord, to know the blessing of forgiveness, of clear conscience, of the hope of heaven, of the security of being your children and knowing that you have never placed us in a situation to abandon us, but to show your power in deliverance. And even within that situation, to give us supernatural contentment of heart, the peace of God, which transcends all understanding. Lord, help us to see now it's not from a method. It's not from a technique. It's from you personally. And we come to you with our need, with our confession, and with our expectation that you hear us and will transform us for Jesus' sake. Amen.