Learning to Be Content

Thank you. That was beautiful.

Removing. Greetings to you from the West Coast.

My wife and I live in California, Northern California, about an hour and a half north of Reno, Nevada, and about three hours northeast of Sacramento, California. So I pastor the Reno and Sacramento churches. And Sacramento is on the warm side. Reno is the cold side, the eastern Sierras. So we've enjoyed it there. As Mr. Welch had mentioned, I was in public education for 32 years in California. And my last job took me up into the Northern California area, where I was the superintendent of a little small school district out there. And it seemed like that was kind of my... I was superintendent of several small school districts in California. And I'll have one story for you later about that. It's somewhat entertaining, but I think it matches with what I'm going to be talking about today.

I'm very happy to be back here, see lots of friends, family, that we're very happy to be here with. So let's go ahead and get started. The topic that I want to talk to you about today is contentment. And I think the byline on the video going out is learning to be content. And let's go to Philippians 4 right now. Let's go ahead and start. Go to Philippians 4.

Paul makes a very important statement about being content. And in Philippians 4, verse 11, he says, Not that I speak in regard to need, for I have learned in whatever state I am to be content. I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. So that's pretty much a close the Bible and sit down comment. Be content. And wherever you are, whatever you're doing. But that's sure an easy thing to say. Because sometimes you find yourselves in places you just simply don't want to be. And it could be a job, it could be a location, it could be a relationship, it could be a number of things where you're like, I don't want to be here. But how do you handle that? How do you handle that type of situation? Now, there are a couple of things I want to bring out in this scripture. It says, not that I speak in regard to need, for I have learned. I have learned. Which means it wasn't automatically in him. He had to learn it. So I wouldn't expect any of us as we are in a type of situation, oh yeah, I'm just totally content. That may not be the case, but you may have to learn how to be content. And he said it twice. In verse 12 he says, I've learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. So we want to talk about that today, about learning to be content. I do have a couple of stories to tell. One is a personal story about one of those superintendent jobs I took. I have another story about one of the most remarkable people I had ever met. And how she had learned to be content in her circumstance. I think you'll find that story to be very inspirational. My story, yeah, it's funny in a way, but it turned out to be a huge blessing for my family and I as we went through this. How do you learn how to be content? Let's go back to Psalm 37. Psalm 37. We're going to take apart a scripture there that addresses this about learning to be content. And some of the things that you can do if you find yourself in a situation that is difficult. How do you cope? How do you get through it? In Psalm 37, there are several verses here that talk about, I'd say, things that we need to learn because they don't come automatically to us. If you look at verse 1 of Psalm 37, it says, Do not fret because of evildoers.

Well, that's a mouthful. Because how many of us fret over any number of things? It could definitely be because of evildoers. It could be because of a number of things you would fret. I look at my wallet and I have no money in there and I don't get paid for another week. How am I going to handle that? Or, if something broke in the house and I don't have any repairs, money to fix it. And I could go up here for a long, long time listing the things that you could fret over. And we do fret. But this says because of evildoers. And I'm saying we can say because of evildoers, but we also list a number of things that could take the place of that.

It also says, Nor be envious of the workers of iniquity, For they shall soon be cut down like the grass, And wither as the green herb. So, number one is don't fret. But that's what we do. We're good at that. At fretting. And in my career, there have been, you know, I deal with boards of education and angry parents and the like. And, you know, yeah, sometimes I would find myself not being able to sleep at night. How do you get through that?

Verse 3 is part of the answer. Trust in the Lord. Trust in the Lord.

And do good.

That's an interesting statement. And do good. Trust in the Lord and do good. To do good, what does that help you do? When you're in the midst of a trial, when you're in the midst of something that is troubling you, it says to do good. How does that help? Your mind is focused on the problem, isn't it? And a lot of times, to do good means that you take your mind off of where you currently are and what you're doing, and you focus it somewhere else, doing good. And, again, we could enumerate lots of things that we could do to do good. We could make our home better, our home life better. This message really is not just for the adults in the room, it's for our children as well. Because when I'm dealing with children, they have lots of things that they feel like they have no control over. And a lot of times, I would have this type of conversation with them. I wouldn't pull out my Bible and preach to them, but what I would do is say, maybe you should focus on what you can do to help out at home. Maybe helping the situation at your house be better. It could be a way that you cope or you find yourself content on where you are. If you are a part of the solution instead of sometimes a big part of the problem, home life. Have you ever thought about helping mom or dad with the chores? Have you ever thought about sitting down and talking to them about something? Have you ever surprised them all in cleaning your room or taking out the trash? That could be something that you could do to do good to help you get your mind off of your current situation. For husbands and wives, I have plenty of things that could do good that would help out the house. A lot of things without having to be told, like taking out the trash or whatever the case may be. Cleaning up after myself and for you. These are all things you might want to jot down a few things right now you can do to do good. I don't really know that it's more complicated than that, brethren. It says here, trust in the Lord and do good. And do good.

There are things you can do at church that you could do good. I'm sure Mr. Welch, if you were to talk to him, he'd be like, Yeah, I've got lots of things we could do here that would be good for the congregation. And just to compliment you, when I walked in today, there were two young men greeting us at the door. That's doing good. That's making visitors feel welcomed. There are several people who came up to us, go, that don't know you, introduce themselves to us. That's doing good in a congregation. Helping out with song books and helping make sure people have what they need. I grew up in the church, and one of the things that I did when I was a kid, a friend of mine and I, were the two members of our WASP patrol. And our building, for whatever reason, was infested with WASPs. So my friend and I decided that our duty at church was to kill all the WASPs that we could. I think I even brought a swat from home, and we rolled up newspapers. But we figured that was a service. We even talked about it. That's a service for the rest of the people here, because no one wants to get stung by a WASP. We figured we were doing a good thing. But again, congratulations to you and to your congregation here for doing good things at church. Your neighborhood.

Does your neighbor need their driveway shoveled? Can you help, if it's a shut-in, take their mail to them, or whatever you would do to determine what good it would be to help them? And it's, again, something that you have to take stock of. So verse 3 says, Trust in the Lord and do good. Dwell on the land and feed on His faithfulness.

Verse 4, Delight yourself also in the Lord. Delight yourself. Sometimes when we are in the midst of a trial and contentment isn't coming the way we would want it to, we used to have a hymn in one of the old hymnals, and some of the old timers here will remember, The hymn, Count Your Many Blessings. You remember that one? Count them one by one. And sometimes you need to remember that to count your blessings.

I'm grateful to be here to visit with you. And I'm grateful that my wife is with me, and I'm grateful for the McNeelys who've opened their home to us. And I'm grateful for where I am. We live in a beautiful area of Northern California. It is very, very scenic. Like if you've watched old westerns and you've seen those beautiful vistas with snow-capped mountains, that's where I live.

But you know what? Ohio has its beauty, too, and I love it here.

Delighting in the Lord is delighting in His provisions for you. Delighting in the Lord is being thankful and grateful for what He's done for you, what He's doing for you. And sometimes you have to stop and count those blessings because it's easy to forget when you're in the midst of a trial. It's easy to forget.

Verse 5 says, Commit your way to the Lord. And again, here's the statement, Trust also in Him. Commit your way to the Lord.

So when you're in the midst of a trial and you are having trouble being content with your current situation, commit your way to the Lord. It helps you take your mind off of what you need to do.

Let's go to 1 Corinthians 10. 1 Corinthians 10.

1 Corinthians 10.

Let's look at verse 31. 1 Corinthians 10, verse 31. It says, Do all to the glory of God. It kind of goes back to that verse about doing good. It's not for your glory. Now, you may receive some accolades. Hey, thank you for helping me with my driveway, or thank you for getting my mail, or thank you for helping me set my mail box up straight, or whatever the case may be. Whatever you see is a need. And people will probably go, wow, that's really nice of you to do that. But you're not really doing it for that reason, for you to get the accolades. You're doing it, as it says here, for the glory, do all to the glory of God. Because you're doing it because you're really just obeying God. And when you obey God, you are trusting in Him, because you wouldn't be obeying if you didn't trust, as the way I see it. So you're trusting, and you will make your life better, and then those around you. You will make better.

Let's go back into the Old Testament to Jeremiah, chapter 17.

Jeremiah chapter 17. Let's look at verse 7. Jeremiah 17 verse 7. Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord.

Sometimes when we see, I think it's a simple statement, but it's so packed. Blessed is the man who trusts, or woman, or child, teenager, young adult. Blessed are you if you trust in the Lord.

Now what happens to this person who trusts in the Lord? Verse 8. For he or she, or the young person, it says, You shall be like a tree planted by the waters.

A tree planted by the waters is nurtured and fed and produces.

It says, which spreads out its roots by the river, and it will not fear when heat comes, but its leaf will be green, and will not be anxious in the year of drought, nor will cease from yielding fruit. That is the person who trusts in the Lord, who then does the things that they now know to do. Again, trust and performing works are good. They're hand in hand.

You think about that tree, you know, what are the benefits of a nice tree? You probably, I can't imagine you being in Ohio and not having a big tree in your front yard somewhere. They're so beautiful here. They give you shade, and sometimes they produce fruit for you. They're beautiful to look at. What a benefit it is for you to have that tree. You can be that tree. It says here, if you trust the Lord, blessed are you. You can be that type of person for your neighbors, for your family to be content.

Let's go over now to Matthew 6.

Trusting in Him.

These scriptures here are ones you've read before, but I want to go through them.

They say so much. But see, these are against, really, they are against our nature. And when I say be content, the reason why we're told to be content is because it really is opposite of what we naturally do. Because when trials arise, what do we naturally do? We fret, we worry. The God says, hold up. I've said this before in other messages that I've given about the time when you realize you are in a trial. And it could be however you determine that. Oops, I'm in a trial. I'm in a trial, and the time it takes you to realize that God's got you covered. Okay? And that time, over the course of your life, should shrink to where you go from, I'm in a trial, God's got this.

But what do we do? I'm in a trial, week one, week two, week three, week four, losing sleep, losing your appetite, being grouchy with the dog. Whatever the case is, you don't realize, or we don't remember, that God says, don't worry, don't fret. Very hard to do. Now, in my life as a school administrator, I would fret over lots of things. My secretary would come in right before I'm about to go home, which was always a good time to introduce a problem. And she would say, so-and-so parent wants to meet you in the morning at eight o'clock, and they didn't sound happy. What do you do? Well, you naturally go home and worry about that, and you fret about it. And you lay awake at night going, I wonder what they're going to talk about, and I wonder how am I going to handle this? And I learned a few things along the way on how to approach that, but it took me a while to not worry about it. And I don't know that I ever got completely proficient at that, but I got better at it. But you know what? I think the lesson I learned was, don't worry about it. Prepare. You've got to prepare. You've got to do your work. You've got to do good. You've got to delight in the Lord. You've got to commit your way. You've got to trust in Him. But when that parent comes in at eight o'clock, you've got to be kind. You've got to be loving to them. I learned, a lesson I learned was, I would always have a notebook with me and a pen. They would sit down. I'd say, if you don't mind, I'm going to be taking notes during our conversation so I don't miss anything. And I would write notes down as they're explaining to me why they're upset. Then I would take my notes and go, so make sure I got everything down. I would read back to them what I heard. And then I, yeah, that's it. Yeah, you got it. Anger level always dropped. I heard them. They wanted to be listened to. That, for all of us, is doing good, isn't it? Young people, you want to be heard, don't you? Parents, you want to be heard, most definitely. Maybe sometimes we need to stop and just listen to one another. That might help a lot. Verse 25 of chapter 6, Matthew, Because therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?

You see, when Jesus was giving this sermon on the Mount, He's giving us insight into the Kingdom of God. And He's presenting a way of thinking that was not the way that most man thinks. He's giving you the opposite. Because what does mankind do? What do you mean, don't worry about not what I'm going to eat and drink and what clothes am I going to wear? A lot of times that's all we worry about. You say, don't worry about that. How can we not worry about that? I would go back to Psalm 37. What's it tell us to do there? How do we overcome not worrying? It's immersing yourself in doing good and doing what God wants us to do. Obeying Him, trying to be a hand to people, to help them out. Verse 26, He goes, Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Now to really understand that, I think you've got to, on occasion, it might be too cold now, but when springtime comes, if you drink coffee or if you drink water, go sit on your back porch and take a look at the birds. I love birds and how they're singing and going around. I don't know what they're thinking, but I don't think they're thinking, where's my next worm going to come from? You know, I think they're like, we've got this. We're not worried. Learn from that. We're told to learn from that. Look at them. Consider them. And we're also told to consider the ant. They work hard, don't they, to get what they need for food. But I don't know that they worry about it. They just put their nose to the grind, as they say, and they get busy and they start working.

Which of you, verse 27, by worrying, can add one cubit to his stature?

I don't think it's ever happened yet. It just doesn't happen. What does grow when you worry about things? The ulcer, the stress level, the people who... I mean, it's kind of a documented thing that stress, that type of stress, isn't good for you. I take the word for it. So that's the only thing that can really grow from worrying. Verse 28, so why do you worry? Why do you do that? I'm telling you not to. Why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow. They neither toil nor spin. And I say to you that even Solomon, in all his glory, was not a raid like one of these. So it goes on to talk about not worrying about the things that we typically would worry about. Now, we obviously are more sophisticated than these people are. We've got cars and houses and jobs and complicated relationships. A lot more to worry about, don't we? Can we extend, do you think, our current worries to this list? I believe we can. I believe we can say, when he says, don't worry about the things at your job. Now, I think we've got to define worry a little more. I'm not telling us not to think about it, you know, but try to solve the problem. And I would go then back to Psalm 37 where it says, do good. Try to help them. Listen to people. Be thankful for what you have. Commit your way to doing what God wants us to do. And then ultimately trust in Him. That's what He tells us to do. The first story I want to tell you is the occurrence of getting my first superintendent job in California. And this job, I remember applying for it, it was this community is in the middle of the Mojave Desert. And the day we went to interview, about 115, 117 degrees outside. And one of the things that attracted me to the job was their notion that we will provide the superintendent housing. Wow, that's awesome! So I'll get free housing, I'll have this job, I had to live on campus, which is okay. We had a nice fenced off area. So with that as a backdrop, let's go talk about what happened in this whole endeavor.

The house that they were going to get me was a brand new home, is one of these modular brand new homes. But I took the job in 2008. Now for our folks who are a little older, you remember 2008 being the Great Recession. Okay? I took the job and probably within a few weeks I was being told how the money was, the district was running out of money and we didn't have money to buy anything. So, cut the new house. Okay, well what house are we going to have? Well, we were able to purchase a double wide trailer from the National Park Service that was built in the early 1970s. And unfortunately, on the way to delivering it to the school district, it fell apart.

And we had two pieces of this double wide trailer. And so that was going to be my house.

And I was told by people in the district, don't worry. Don't worry. We're going to put it together for you. We're going to fix it up. It'll be great for you. It'll have air conditioning, all the things that you need. So I'm like, okay, well, we can work with this. And the weeks went by and very little progress was being made on the house. And I was moving my family in on Labor Day weekend. So we were moving from Southern California up to this little community out in the middle of the desert. If you've ever driven from Los Angeles, California to Las Vegas, Nevada, you've been through this community. It's called Baker. Bacon and Baker is how it was. We had the world's tallest thermometer to give you an idea. So anyway, we packed all our belongings up in the U-Haul trailer. My nephew, Justin, was helping us move that weekend. And we pulled into where we were to unload all of our stuff. And the trailer still wasn't put together. All of our stuff. I have five kids and my wife. Our youngest was, I think she was five or six at the time.

How do you be content? Was the question my wife asked me. How do you be content? So we tried to work it through. We unloaded all of our stuff in a barn that they had on campus where we did all of our mechanic work on our buses. And, oh, I didn't tell you that we were in the middle of a biblical proportion infestation of crickets.

And I'm serious. Everywhere, I mean, the ground was moving from the crickets. So we put our stuff in that barn and my wife's like, how are we going to protect our stuff from all these bugs? And I didn't have an answer for that. But quickly, we had to make a choice. My wife's like, I'm ready to move back to LA. You can stay here and do this. But we had a decision to make. We either figure it out. What are we going to do? We've got to make it work. It's where my job is. And I didn't want to split my family up. But we're like, let's make this work. The district put us up in a hotel.

Will's Fargo was the name of the hotel. Not Will's Fargo. Will's Fargo. Will was the owner of the hotel. It was his hotel. But it was clean, comfortable for us. We stayed there two or three weeks until they could get the trailer working. And we were 90 plus miles from Las Vegas, Nevada, which is where we were going to go to church.

It was hot. Very hot. And I have one picture of a palm tree that we had on our campus. And in the shadow of that palm tree, there were eight crows trying to survive the heat. Now, the reason I'm telling you this story, and it's not to toot our own horn, but I think it's just a story of you can make things work. And those, the four years I was superintendent in that district, were probably, as we now look back on our kids and being with us, they're like, that was the best time we ever had.

I was superintendent. I think Mr. Welch mentioned I was a basketball coach because that's what happens when you're in a small district. We don't have a basketball coach this year. I guess I could do that. And I was a basketball coach. It was just a magical time for us. We were together as a family. Our double-wide trailer was adequate. It worked for us well. It was air-conditioned, which was beautiful. But it worked for us. And something that started off, I would think, horribly turned into something that was a blessing. It was just, we still, to this day, we talk about how wonderful those days were. Don't forget, when you're in a situation like that, that it can be good for you. It can be good. Don't lose your bearings. Don't forget who God is. Trust in Him. And continue to do what He tells you to do. Just keep on doing. And He can turn a situation like that into a tremendous blessing for you. Now, the last story I want to tell you is one of the most remarkable people I'd ever met. She was a member of the church in Las Vegas. And we were in the church in Las Vegas for four years while we lived in Baker. And I knew that she lived in a nursing facility, an assisted care facility, and I hadn't had a chance to go meet her. But Mr. Steve Newtsman had asked us, Keith, why don't you go talk to her? And I've heard ministers talk about this a lot, where they're like, you know what? I go into a member, they've got cancer or whatever the case may be, and I always walk out feeling better than I think they feel.

That was when I met Pauline Fuller.

And she was one of those people, I mean, she was in a nursing facility. She'd been there for years, probably ten years. Her husband was in a separate nursing facility, and he died, and she was alone. And I'll tell you about her and what a visit was like with her.

And when I first met her, I was thinking, nursing homes would make me depressed, because my grandparents had been in one. And they're not, they sometimes aren't happy facilities, right? So I go in and meet Pauline, of course, when we first meet her, just a beautiful expression on her face, smiled, so happy to see us. And she started then telling us what she does in this nursing facility. And she was an avid reader. But she developed, she said, if I'm going to be here, I'm going to make the best of this. She read articles from United, from other COG groups, and she would pick the articles that she really, really liked.

Then she would hand-write them. She would write them by hand out. Just curiosity, have any of you ever, were you on Pauline's? You're on her list. So anyway, she would hand-write these articles, and then she would add her little special touch to it. She had, we would buy her stickers, she would put like a little sunny thing on it, or a flower, or something that would kind of make it pop off the page, so you would know that that meant something to Pauline.

And usually the articles were about the kingdom of God and how wonderful it was going to be. And she says, Keith, you guys see this, and I don't have a pin on me. But she's like, look at how I hold this pin. And her hand would shake like this. She goes, watch what happens when I put it on paper.

The shaking went completely away. Beautiful handwriting. She'd write it out in love. She had several, and she would save them, all of the articles that she had handwritten. And then the people in the facility would help her. They're like, Pauline's got another mailing to go out. So they would photocopy all of her letters, help her stuff the envelopes, help her write the addresses on the envelope. And we would buy her stamps, or they would provide her stamps. And that was her ministry.

She said, she did good in a situation that was really difficult. And I don't know how else to pay tribute to her, but she would, I mean, we were like, like I said, we would walk out like, I can't believe I'm so uplifted by Pauline. I'm so, and she would, like, I can't wait to see you again. We would talk and pray. And she did not let that scene, that scenario, deter her. And she learned how to be content in all areas.

So those are a couple stories I have, and I would really want you to hold on to Pauline's story more than mine. Because Pauline was in a very, very difficult situation, yet she saw how to make the best of it. And she was the living embodiment of Philippians 4, verse 11, that talked about, in all things, I am content. And what a beautiful person she was. She died probably five years ago. She's like, I think, 91 or something like that. But just, that was her ministry. And, you know, I'm not saying that you need to hand-write articles, but what is it that we can do that would be something that could be good for someone that could help them out?

And helping them out, what's it going to do for you? It's going to help you out. Because you're going to be like, I'm not so worried about my situation like I was. I feel better about that. It's going to help you out. Brothers, go back to Philippians, please. So, we read verses 11 and 12. Verse 13, I think Pauline definitely believed, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. And she counted the miracles that occurred in her life. She counted the miracles of her hand being steadied as she was ready to write.

She counted a miracle that the staff at the facility were so supportive of her and helping her conduct her ministry. And many, many, many times she found favor in them where, you know, if a difficult person was moved into her room, they would help her sometimes find a room where she could be with someone who's a little more helpful. Many, many occasions she found ways to attribute to God the miracles that she had been given.

I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me, Paul said. And I think that's a good way for us to think about being content.

You know, God has said in several places, is there anything you think I can't do? Is anything too hard for God? And he asked those questions, and I think it's good for me to ask that question on occasion if I'm facing something that seems overwhelming. Is anything too hard for God? And what's the answer? No, it's not. It's not for any of us. And we're young or old. We're not too young and we're not too old to ask those questions. I loved that question was asked of Abraham and Sarah. When he told Sarah, a 90-year-old woman, she was going to have a baby, and the 100-year-old Abraham, that he was going to be the father. And what did they do? They kind of laughed. How's that going to be possible? And then that's when God asked the question, is anything too hard for God?

Let's go back up to verse 6 of Philippians 4, and we'll finish with that. Verse 6 says, Be anxious for nothing, but in everything, whether you're in Thanksgiving or in a trial or a difficult situation, but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. Well, even if you've made the best of a situation like our situation in Baker, we ended up leaving. We moved to another place. But I don't think we ever matched the beauty and the blessing we received there. A board member came to me after, when I told them I was leaving. One thing she told me I didn't really appreciate, she says, If you don't care where you go, just make sure your wife and kids stay here. Thank you for that. But that was a tribute to them. Because then she said, your children and your family have lifted our standards here. Your family has made it, our district is better because you were here. And yeah, you go do what you gotta do, but make sure your wife and kids stay here.

Verse 7 says, And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus. So, brethren, today we talked about learning to be content. And it's not a magic formula, but it's not easy. Because sometimes we get lost in ourselves, and we get lost in, am I ever going to get out of this? But we've got to remember then to do what God tells us. Obey Him, trust Him, do good, and He can bless you through that, through any circumstance you find yourselves in.