This past Sunday at Antioch was Part 3 of The Pursuit of God series. We explored the Christian secret of contentment and the roles of divine joy and happiness in the life of the believer.
The Pursuit of God Series Part III – Contentment from The Narrow Gate on Youtube.
Hey Ken!
Thank you for preaching on this – the truths you’ve talked about are the things I’ve been struggling with most recently, especially realizing even more profoundly that contentment flows out of a right attitude and relationship with God. I’ve been challenged and encouraged :)
I had a question about the end of the sermon, when you emphasized that our contentment/happiness/joy is rooted in prayer. I definitely agree that this is a major component, because through prayer we are in communication with God. But should we take that a step further to explain that first and foremost true contentment is grounded and rooted in our relationship with Jesus Christ – acknowledging who He is and what He has done, taking the punishment that we deserved upon Himself and out of His incredible love and grace, has opened the way for us to have a relationship with our Creator because of the forgiveness we receive through Him? From there, and only from that, can we truly have a prayer life that will bring true contentment to carry us through all seasons and trials of life because we are now in right relationship with God?
In order to practice what you’ve talked about, we have to recognize our need for a Savior because we are helpless apart from Him, surrender our lives to Jesus as Savior and Lord, and then follow Him as the Holy Spirit empowers us?
I truly am so thankful for your message and the others that I have heard. I’m a college student deeply praying and thinking about what it truly means to know and follow God through Jesus Christ; to seek justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with Him. I recently started accessing the resources Antioch has, and am being challenged, encouraged, and inspired by the ministry. I have some friends that are serving at Antioch right now, actually. :) And you probably do explain the Gospel explicitly in other messages, and I will definitely be checking out more. I just know that as a Millenial, I have dear friends going to churches where they’re hearing some great Biblical truths about prayer, about serving and pursuing justice, about other very important, Biblical things (and you even said this at one point in this message), but what’s often missing from each message is the Gospel explicitly stated so that they can understand it clearly, so that they can understand their need to be regenerated – and that God can and does do it! And then empowers us with His Holy Spirit to live a life worthy of the Gospel. I know that the Gospel can also be explained when someone approaches a pastor, leader, or person in the church to talk more about what they’re hearing in a specific message. But I heard a pastor saying the other day that even as Christians, we must preach the Gospel to ourselves on a daily basis because we are so prone to wander from it in our thoughts and actions throughout our days (similar to something like Psalm 103, where we are telling our souls to bless the LORD because our flesh doesn’t naturally desire it!). So, as the Body of Christ, shouldn’t we be exhorting one another with the explicit Gospel on a regular basis in combination with the tenets so closely tied with it (such as faith, love, prayer, humility, etc.)? And if we are in a church, we should always assume that there will be visitors that have not heard the Gospel clearly preached to them. Because of that, the Gospel should always be our primary passion, and then preaching a clear, Biblical message as second priority (though incredibly important!). We most definitely demonstrate the Gospel by our lives and reflect its truth by how we spend our time, but we must always point people to Who the Gospel and the Word of God is all about.
Again, I am not trying to criticize, but asking in love as a sister in Christ who so supports the ministry God has given to Antioch. God has gifted you to communicate in a way that is clear, thought-provoking, and points those listening to the Word – thank you for serving Him faithfully! I’m curious what your thoughts are on what I’ve said.
From a grateful and intrigued sister,
Megan
Hi Megan! Thank you for your thoughtful and encouraging comment. Like you, I agree that we can often focus too much on Christian living principles and miss the deeper theology that grounds and gives life to those principles. If Jesus is the vine and we are the branches, then the only real thing that matters for life is that we are connected and driven deeper into the vine and the source of life. In fact, I’m often critiqued for spending too much time focusing on the deeper heart issues and not enough time on practical sermons that give people hooks on how to apply biblical truths. The current series we are in, I have decided to be a little more application based than normal.
Saying that contentment is rooted in prayer is true. We work out our emotions in dialog with God. That doesn’t mean that contentment is exhaustively cashed out through prayer–meaning, prayer is one of the things that grounds contentment, not the only thing that grounds contentment. Obviously a relationship with God that can be conversational and deal with heart issues speaks to the necessity of our having benefitted and received new life in Christ Jesus.
Again, I resonate with the need for teaching deep biblical truths and finding ways to keep the gospel message central in all we do and seek to do this consistently at Antioch.
Thanks for your note!
Ken