Sermon Tone Analysis

*Cultivating Contentment*

2~/18~/07 CC~/AM

1 Corinthians 7:17-24

 

Introduction: Are you familiar with the game show Jeopardy?

It has been in syndication since 1984 and has contracts to air till the 2012 season.

If you have watched it you know that the answers are given and what the contestant needs to do is come up with the right questions.

To understand 1 Corinthians you have to act like a contestant on Jeopardy!

Last week we noted that in Chapter 7 Paul begins to answer the questions that those in Corinth had for him.

We are not given the questions that they asked Paul so we must decipher them from his answers.

From what Paul writes we know that they had several questions on the topic of marriage and divorce.

We dealt with some of those questions last week.

Another question that must have been asked, given Paul’s remarks in our text today, was “how radical should we get about changing the way we live after becoming a believer in Jesus”?

At appears that some were using the excuse of becoming a new creature as a vehicle to express their discontentment in life and sought to change everything about themselves and to do so with a “spiritual” excuse.

Some were even leaving their spouse.

In our text, Paul makes it clear that contentment should be a priority for these believers.

It is also something that current believers need to cultivate.

Text~/Prayer

 

*1.

**The devastation of discontentment*

a.    Its roots – Would you say that people today are mostly content or mostly discontent?

If we’re young, we want to be older.

If we’re old, we wish we were younger.

\\ If it’s old, we want something new.

If it’s new, we want something newer.

\\ If it’s small, we want something bigger.

If it’s big, we want something really big.

\\ If we have a hundred dollars, we want two hundred.

If we have two hundred, we want five hundred.

\\ If we have an apartment, we want a condo.

If we have a condo, we want a house.

If we have a house, we want a bigger house.

Or a new house.

Or a nicer house.

Or maybe we want to scale down and live in an apartment again.

\\ If we have a job, we dream of a better job, a bigger job, a closer job, with a bigger office, a better boss, better benefits, more challenge, bigger opportunity, nicer people to work for, and more vacation time.

\\ If we’re single, we dream of being married.

If we’re married, … (we are perfectly content)?

Where does this discontentment stop?

Where did it come from?

The first instance of recorded discontentment in the Bible came from where?

It came from Lucifer.

God made him an awesome being gave him a great job, and gave him great influence and what happened?

He was not content, he wanted more, he wanted to be exalted above God Himself.

That is the foundation of discontentment.

Shortly after God made Adam and Eve, we see a similar trend that emerges that was even facilitated by the now fallen Lucifer.

Satan quickly learned that discontentment could be a powerful tool and he used it effectively when he caused the first couple to doubt God’s goodness and to become discontent even within the paradise that existed in the Garden of Eden.

Down through the ages Satan has continued to hone his craft of causing people to always want more.

Actually the economic success of our own country is largely dependant upon us buying into the “I must have more” mentality.

b.

Its route

 

How does a person get to be discontent?

Answer, we were born that way and have been raised in a culture that knows no other way of life.

Six signs that discontentment is dragging us down spiritually: \\ \\ 1) Envy.

The inability to rejoice at the success of others.

\\ 2) Uncontrolled Ambition.

The desire to win at all costs, no matter what it takes or who gets trampled in the process.

\\ 3) Critical Spirit.

The tendency to make negative, hurtful, cutting remarks about others.

\\ 4) Complaining Spirit.

The disposition to make excuses and to blame others or bad circumstances for our problems.

A refusal to take personal responsibility.

Inability to be thankful for what we already have.

\\ 5) Outbursts of Anger.

Angry words spoken because our expectations were not met.

6) Illogical consumerism.

We buy what we cannot afford and don’t really need.

c.

Its results

 

The discontented person looks around and says, “I deserve something better than this.”

Because he is never happy and never satisfied, he drags others into the swamp with him.

No wonder Benjamin Franklin declared, “Contentment makes a poor man rich, discontent makes a rich man poor.”

Discontentment is the cancer of the soul.

It eats away our joy, corrodes our happiness, destroys our outlook on life, and produces a terminal jaundice of the soul so that everything looks negative to us.

We cannot be happy because we will not be happy.

We cannot be satisfied because we will not be satisfied.

Let me ask you this.

Do you struggle with discontentment?

In what areas can you identify a lack of contentment?

Do you see it as a problem?

Transition: Paul gives us some help when we are struggling with being discontent in life.

*2.

**The steps to contentment*

* *

a.    Recognize your calling

 

I was joking with a few of you the other day and I said that “I was unsure why anyone stayed in this state when it is so cold here in the winter”?

I told them that I was called here by God but I was unsure why anyone else stayed to endure the winters.

Actually are of us are called to be here right now.

Do you realize that you have a calling from God or is that just for special Christians?

He is talking on a wider scope than just those who were called to be married or single.

The foundational step to contentment is accomplished when we come to the realization that we have been specifically called by God, just like we are.

One of Satan’s best lies is to get us to believe that we are not really usable to God, not actually called.

Paul says that the message that he is giving in all the churches is that people come to the realization that God has called them.

God has called you to a place that no one else can fill.

Repeat after me, God has called me.

Seriously, say it!

We must understand and be committed to the fact that we are called or we will have trouble making the next step.

b.

Resist the temptation to become sidetracked

 

Have you ever noticed that when God’s call is heard that often we are quick to come up with objections?

Moses said he couldn’t talk good enough, Adam said, I was naked so I hid, Jonah hid in the bottom of a ship headed the opposite direction of where God instructed him to go.

What are your favorite objections?

Sometimes our objections are based around our current situation in life.

Lord, I will be a better disciple when I get past a certain issue that I am dealing with right now.