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The Way of Contentment

• Greg Boyd

God calls us to live in contentment, which comes in two forms. First, there is basic lifestyle contentment, where we are at peace when our basic needs are met and we are not driven to pursue unnecessary things. Second, there is radical contentment, where we are living without anxiety, when we are facing a situation that could cause it. In this sermon, Greg offers us direction in how we can grow in both kinds of contentment.

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In this second sermon of the series entitled “Walk the Way,” Greg explores what it means to live in contentment, of which there are two types. The first is lifestyle contentment, and the second he calls radical contentment.

Lifestyle contentment refers to being content when our basic needs are being met. This is not about being okay with the status quo of the ways of the world. Instead, this is about being satisfied with what we have, when we have food, shelter, and clothing. It is about being free from the restless, ungodly desire for more. When we live in contentment, we are free from jealousy and envy because we are not trying to have what everyone else has.

The second type of contentment is radical in nature. In Philippians 4:6 we read, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.” With this kind of contentment, we have the potential to live without anxiety no matter the situation. Paul is writing this from a prison cell, likely facing the threat of execution. He tells us that when we offer up petitions with thanksgiving, the peace of God will guard our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

In verses 11-13 of this chapter, Paul says that he learned the secret of being content in any and every situation. He is content because he is living in gratitude even in the midst of a less than favorable circumstance. Paul could do all this because he derived all of his strength from Christ, which is rooted in the fact that Paul got all of his life from Christ. His non-negotiable need for love, acceptance, worth, security, and purpose came from Jesus.

To grow in these two kinds of contentment, Greg offers three practices. First, we must renew our minds through meditation and prayer. Second, there is power in imaginative prayer, that is encountering Jesus in a personal way by the power of the Spirit. Third, practice contentment prayer, where we offer thanksgiving for what we have been given.

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Topics: Disciplines, Identity in Christ, Prayer

Sermon Series: Walk the Way


Downloads & Resources

Audio File
Study guide
Transcript
Group Study Guide
Identity in Christ Handout
The MuseCast: June 24

Focus Scripture:

  • 1 Timothy 6:6-8

    But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that.

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3 thoughts on “The Way of Contentment

  1. Jerry says:

    Yep, Greg, hot as you can get it and Epsom salts very night.

    For me, I consider I might just be treating the systems.

    Greg, an acquaintance of yours, Pastor Mike Smith, wife Sandy still remembers me as an army of one.

    Those days are past. My Spirit gets this however my flesh often forgets thinking it can still eat and drink anything at any time day or night.

    ATTENTION is the beginning of a devotion to what shapes who you become and the amount of love, joy, and peace cultivated in your life.

    Some thoughts from Taleb “Fooled by Randomness” – ANXIETY CONTENTNEMT PAYGRADE

    As the world becomes more and more complicated and our minds are trained for more and more simplification INDUCTIVE REASONING, the process of making predictions about the future based on past observations, believing that past observed PATTERNS will continue to hold true in the future even though there’s no logical guarantee, a scientific fact, risk DETECTION and AVOIDANCE are NOT mediated in the THINKING PART of the brain but largely the EMOTIONAL one: resultantly rational thinking has little to do with risk avoidance but rather fitting some logic to emotions EPIPHENOMENALISM, an illusion of cause and effect, the skewness issue where no matter how frequently something succeeds it DOES NOT MATTER, mathematical truths make little sense when it comes to the examination of possible future random outcomes, IF potential failure LEADS TO BLACK SWAN events too costly to bear.

    Our MINDS are NOT quite DESIGNED to UNDERSTAND how the WORLD WORKS but rather how to get out of trouble rapidly and have progeny.

    SO WHAT DO WE DO?

    1 Peter 5:5-7 God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble. HUMBLE YOURSELVES, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may LIFT you up in DUE TIME. [God leans into the humble!] So Cast ALL your ANXIETY on him because he CARES for you.

    “Bigger than I Thought” so I throw all my cares before you my doubts and fears don’t scare you I stop all my negotiations with the God of all creation so I will rest in the Fathers hands leaving the rest in the Father’s hands

    Wrestling leads to surrender when we ask, seek, knock, breath, wait and follow trusting God for the answers.

    Greg, I Liked this verse!

    2 Corinthians 3:18 and we ALL, who with unveiled faces CONTEMPLATE [ATTENTION] the Lord’s glory, are being TRANSFORMED into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.

  2. Kathleen says:

    Good Morning, For the past three months or so, I’ve been listening to Father Bill W.’s Two Way Prayer. https://www.twowayprayer.org/ Father Bill W. is a recovering alcoholic since 1972, who needed something more from the AA 12-step program. To put it in a nutshell, he went back to how the AA founders developed the AA program and found a revelation – Two Way Prayer, which, to my perception, is very closely related to how Greg is encouraging us to visualize our relationship with God, but through a deeply personal writing experience; God addressing me as I wished my parents would have addressed me – as deeply beloved and wanted daughter of Christ. Two Way Prayer has changed my life and I hope it can heal others, too. Thank you. Kathleen

  3. Cercatore says:

    The recent images made available from the Vera Rubin telescope have really stirred my imagination. They’re so amazingly beautiful, like the glittering obsolescent glow of a thousand gains of sand when zooming in with a microscope – Worlds within Worlds! The sheer scale of those images overwhelms the mind as one might attempt to navigate the dimensionality of time and space required to comprehend them. It’s an existential epiphany of ‘scale’ when one realizes how pathetically minuscule our problems actually are, but yet, how valuable each one of us is individually to The Creator who was willing out of his infinite love to become one of us. This is an incredibly sobering and humbling Truth that we should embrace more fully when consumed by our own trivial and self-destructive miscalculations. Each of us are an integral part of the ultimate bigger picture of his expensive love within the Kingdom, which knows no boundary. God’s eternal wisdom and omnipotent grace really should be considered and thought of in terms of the ‘disproportionality of scale’, rather than microscopic feebleness of our personal hamartia.

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