Quotes and Comments Concerning Contentment

6 · Establishes the biblical framework for the relationship between speech and heart

You need to remember that we have two views of speech in the heart. In the word of God, we have the one view in which Jesus tells us that out of the abundance of our heart, the mouth speaks. And so in some respects, our words convey the status of our heart. But you need to also remember that that dynamic works in the other direction. This is a two way street. And we have a number of instances in Scripture where we are taught to teach our souls, to teach our hearts with our words, that we can both unveil the status of our hearts with our speech and also correct the status of our hearts with our speech.

7 · Introduces the first of four types of discontented speech: grumbling

And so I want you to think about contentment because it's such a big issue, like, well, we need to get handles on some practicalities. And I want you to think about contentment as contentment as it manifests in your speech, your relationship between your words and your sense or lack of sense of contentment. I came up with a few examples of discontented speech, and the first one would be grumbling. Grumbling is revealing a heart that has yet to learn contentment. And more than that, I think that grumbling is reinforcing discontentment and low faith. We talked about this last night in men's ministry, the story of the Exodus, how folks actually were constantly degrading their faith by grumbling so that when they arrived on the cusp of the promised land and had only to fight a few giants to take occupancy, they had, through their grumbling, through their constant grumbling, been training themselves in the art of unbelief. And so that by time they got to the promised land, and it wasn't that long, but by time they got to the promised land, their constant grumbling leading up to that point had taught them that God was not good.

8 · Direct exhortation to avoid grumbling, framed as one of Scripture's clearest markers of spiritual decline

Friends, I really want to encourage you to make sure that you are not a grumbler. There are very few things in scripture that are shown as clear evidences of a downward trajectory than a grumbling heart, a grumbling mouth.

9 · Illustrates how grumbling becomes a competitive cultural pattern in homes, where family members vie to establish who has suffered most

I think I've talked before about how this sort of thing becomes contagious. And at some homes, at some dinner tables, in some contexts, there is essentially a competition between individuals to see who can say they've had it worse. There's a sort of one upmanship about with grumbling. And so before you know it, the sort of common communication style in a home is, oh, you think you had a bad day, or oh, you think you feel tired, or oh, you think your boss was bad, or, or so on and so forth. And boy friends, this is just a constant degrading of one's faith.

10 · Explains the theological implication of grumbling (impugning God's goodness) and introduces Burroughs's two-part definition of Christian living: pleasing God and being pleased with God

What you're doing every Time you grumble is communicating to yourself and to others that God is not good. One of the best quotes from Jeremiah Burroughs in that book, the rare jewel of Christian contentment, is the following. It is but one side of a Christian to endeavor to do what pleases God. You must also endeavor to be pleased with what God does. So, putting that in simpler speech, one half of the Christian life is to try to do what pleases God, but another half of the Christian life is to be pleased with what God does. To be pleased with what God does and what God does not do.

11 · Warns parents against allowing grumbling to become the incentivized communication pattern in the home, where children learn that self-pity earns attention

And so grumbling is a really key area to keep an eye on. One of the things you really want to be careful of if you have children is to create a culture of grumbling, because it will soon become taught and understood to your children that the squeaky wheel gets the attention. And the one who can exude the most self pity, the most victimization, the most clear and acute instance of them being treated unfairly, that somehow they get a leg up in the culture of your home if they can whine and complain and so on and so forth.

12 · Prescribes gratitude as the correct alternative to grumbling and the normative mode of Christian speech

And really what we want to do is to sort of reinforce that that's not a way that we're going to talk in our home. That's not an approach we're going to take towards self vindication. And so essentially, in many respects, the squeaky wheel in a home needs to get the least attention and it needs to be constantly redirected toward gratitude. And as you're going to see, everything I'm talking about is essentially alternatives to gratitude, which should be the most common form of speech for every Christian who lives. The most common form of speech should be gratitude. There is an endless supply of things for which you can be grateful. And that needs to be the primary tone, the primary form of speech in your life.

13 · Introduces the second type of discontented speech (graspy talk) and then shifts into pastoral counsel on accountability and correction

Well, in addition to grumbling, I also sketched down what I would call graspy talk. Graspy talk. And that is using your speech to try to bring attention to yourself, using your speech to try to get people to think highly of you, using your speech to sort of pull in affection or esteem or so on and so forth. And this can include fishing for compliments, this can include cutting yourself down in a falsely humble way so that someone else will tell you, oh no, no, no, you're really very pretty, or oh no, no, you're really very strong, and so on and so forth. So graspy talk is another sort of kind of speech that works out of a discontented heart. And like I said, it doesn't just come out of your heart, it goes back in too. And so you're sort of speaking out of discontentment, and you're speaking into greater discontentment. So grumbling, graspy talk, using your speech to one up others, to draw attention to yourself, to seek compliments, and so on and so forth, constantly bringing the conversation back to you, moving out of an area that you don't seem to have much to contribute in, into an area where you feel more confident or able to contribute, so on and so forth. This is something you've really got to watch out for. And it's something that if you have a trusted loved one, like a spouse or a friend, it's the kind of thing you'd want to say. Hey, would you help me to make sure I don't want to be a grumbler and I don't want to be a grasper, and would you just kindly call attention to times in which you think you see either of those things taking place. And friend, if you're one of those who is called to hold someone accountable for these things, be careful. Yes, they've asked you. Yes, they've asked for permission, but make sure you follow. I don't know if I've ever taught on this. Make sure you follow Jesus's pattern in Revelation 1 through 3 for how to exhort, encourage, and even challenge. We typically think this is a bit of a rabbit trail, but it's something I think is very important. We typically think that the sort of compliment sandwich approach is sort of a. A canned, patronizing, corporate approach to communication where you affirm someone and then you offer some criticism and then you affirm someone again. Well, that may be toxic to some degree and superficial to some degree in our workplaces, but friends, that's exactly how Jesus talks to the churches in the Book of Revelation in the first three chapters. And so we can see Jesus say something like this consistently, I know you, I see you, I know your works. Typically, Jesus has some good things to offer. Not always, but most of the time. And then he has some sort of challenge or encouragement or exhortation and then usually follows back around again with some sort of, you know, encouragement of some sort of. And so when you are the person who is helping someone else modify their speech and get their speech in a better state, a better Christian position. Well, just remember how Jesus corrects people. And he does that all, of course, with total confidence. See the end of First Thessalonians. I said total confidence, total patience. And here I'm thinking of Admonish the idle, encourage the faint hearted, help the weak, be patient with them all.

14 · Introduces the third type of discontented speech (grading talk) — speech that diminishes others to make oneself feel superior

Okay, so we've got grumbling and we've got graspy talk. That's another G word, grading talk. What do I mean by grading talk? Well, I mean this tendency to shave other people down a little bit so that you feel taller. Shave people? Shave people down a little bit so that you feel bigger, more important, more morally right to get the moral high ground, and so on and so forth. Using your speech to put others down is for us in our home, growing up with the kids, we were just extremely careful, especially because with the age ranges which y' all have that as well in your homes, you know, you've got one kid who is literally smarter than another kid and he's just older. His brain's more developed or her brain's more developed. And I see this especially among girls, older sisters in particular, this sort of tendency to lord their maturity over the younger.

15 · Explains the underlying mechanism of grading talk (attempting to alter reality through comparative speech) and introduces the fourth type of discontented speech (ingratiating talk) — flattery or withholding necessary truth to win favor

Well, that's grading talk again. What's going on? There is a discontentment. It is not being satisfied with the world as it is. And you're trying to use your speech to sort of conjure up a new reality by emphasizing someone else's failures or weaknesses so as to emphasize by comparison your strengths and victories. And then the final G that I have written down here is, is ingratiating talk. There's nothing wrong with trying to ingratiate yourself to others so long as it's not flattery or so long as it's not really dependent on you withholding. Offensive but true things that are necessary to say, but you're not saying them because you want to ingratiate that person to yourself.

16 · Synthesizes the four types of discontented speech into a unified diagnosis: all are attempts to manipulate reality through words because of dissatisfaction with God's providence

You see how all of these forms of speech are essentially little tactics, like I said, to conjure up a reality that you would prefer to the one that you are actually in. And this is all rooted in a dissatisfaction with what God is doing in a particular moment. And you're sort of trying to jiggle the handles and get a better outcome with these different forms of speech.

17 · Offers a concrete diagnostic tool: the family minivan as a microcosm for evaluating the health of household speech and contentment

Last night in men's ministry, I told the guys to pay attention to the minivan as a microcosm of your family's health. Listen to the speech that is happening in the car. We would have concerns if all of the speech that was happening in the car was grumbly or grating or graspy. We would really want that time in the car to be a feast of gratitude. Thankful to God for all the many things that he is doing. Thankful for all the beautiful things that God is creating, looking at wonder and curiosity as the create at the creation as we drive through it. So I think the minivan is a great microcosm to evaluate the health of your family's speech, which not only reveals the state of their contentment, but also kind of is kind of projecting into the future of their contentment and whether they will or will not be content.

18 · Transitions to a series of Burroughs quotations with commentary

Now, I promised last night at Men's Ministry that I would go through and read some more Jeremiah Burroughs quotes because they're just so useful. And I did grab a few of those. And I'm going to conclude our time today by just reading some of his comments quotes and then maybe expounding on them a little bit. They were written a long time ago, and the language isn't as clear for us as it would have been for the original audience. The first one I have here is, when God has given you your heart's desire, what have you done with your heart's desire? When God has given you your heart's desire, what have you done with your heart's desire? In other words, sometimes we feel a little discontent with God because he's withholding something from us. We have some probably good desire, and we see God withholding it. He's not supplying this or that desire. And Burroughs is pointing out that in the past God has given you your desires, and what did you do with them?

19 · Expounds on Burroughs's provocation by diagnosing the typical pattern: initial gratitude for answered prayer deteriorates into self-credit and pride, which threatens future blessing

And the answer is a lot of times. And friends, let me put myself at the top of the line of guilty on this. A lot of the times when God does give us our heart's desire, what comes as a result of that is independence, pride, self sufficiency, a sense of short term. In the short term, when God gives us our heart's desire, perhaps we are grateful. But over time we begin to take credit for this thing that God has given us. We tend to boast in it. We tend to, if not overtly quietly begin to associate God's blessings with our own faithfulness. And as I think I read Doug Wilson once say, that's the quickest way to turn off the tap to the hard right of God's blessings is to start taking credit for them.

20 · Digresses from Burroughs to establish a crucial theological foundation: God's nature is generosity, so when he withholds good things, he is giving something better — the gift of contentment itself

So Burroughs is saying, well, you know, you have to understand things from God's perspective. Who remembers the last time he gave you everything that you desired or gave you your heart's desire? And he can see that that's not always been the healthiest thing for your soul. Before I get back to the Burroughs quotes, one thing I did want to add that is, I think an Essential part of developing contentment is to understand that God is lavish and generous and a free giver. He is not stingy. He doesn't play a zero sum game. The zero sum game doesn't work in his world. He simply makes more of whatever he wants there to be in him are all things, all treasures, all joys. At his right hand are pleasures forevermore and so forth. So he's not stingy, he's lavish, he's generous. And yet there will be times in your life when God will not give you what you really do desire, and indeed will not give you a good desire. And you need to understand that that is in some ways so against his fatherly nature at one level that you need to understand that what he is giving you, by not giving you what you desire, desire, it must be very important and very good. So in the times when God withdraws, maybe even his own presence to some degree, it is not necessarily because he is disciplining you for something you have done. In fact, if you study the discipline passage in the book of Hebrews, you'll be hard pressed to see what they've done wrong. Exactly. They're undergoing persecution. We typically don't think of persecution as a discipline for something that somewhat the Christians have done wrong. When God withholds his hand, in the case of the Hebrews, he's withholding the hand of safety from them. The cultural antagonism toward Christianity is rising. They're feeling less secure. God's not giving them the comfort that they would like to have. And you have to understand that it's his nature is to give you comfort. His nature is to give you peace. His nature is to fill your life with good things. I was reading in Acts 14, I believe it is, where Paul tells an audience, a pagan audience. God has given you food and filled your belly with good things, and that's who God is. And so if he's withholding something from you, you that is good, you need to understand that what he's doing there is. He's giving you something that is better. And that better thing is, amongst other ways of talking about it, contentment. He's teaching you how to be content. He's teaching you the secret of how to be content with lack, with less. And that gift he's giving to you by his very nature has to be better than the thing you want.

21 · Returns to Burroughs with a provocative claim: affliction always makes godly people better, but prosperity often makes them worse

And so this gets us back to the other quote that I mentioned from Burroughs. One half of the Christian life is to do what God pleases. And the other half of the Christian Life is to be pleased with what God does. All right, next Burroughs quote. You will not find one godly man who came out of an affliction worse than when he went into it. Though for a little while he was shaken, yet at last he was better for an affliction. But a great many godly men have been worse for their prosperity. Does that track? Do you get that? Essentially, Burroughs is saying that we need to understand that hard times, which I think hard times are just, you know, God withholding something. You know, we want safety or we want health, we want financial blessings or so forth. Hard times are just God withholding something. And prosperous times are God not withholding something. To some degree. Burroughs is saying that godly men always come out of affliction better off, but they don't always come out of prosperity better off.

22 · Offers a practical reframe for difficult circumstances: instead of lamenting what's missing, ask what duty God has assigned within the present reality

That's a really good thing to remember as you're assessing difficult circumstances. Burroughs, in another spot, asked this question. This one stuck with Ange, I think, because she really likes it when the practical is just sort of there right in front of you. And Burroughs says this. What is the duty of the circumstance that God has put me into? In other words, instead of looking at your circumstances and noticing what they aren't or what you wish they would be, look at what they are and figure out, how does God want me to behave in this particular set of circumstances?

23 · Introduces Burroughs's subtraction principle: contentment comes not by acquiring more but by reducing desires until Christ alone satisfies

Another Burroughs quote. Contentment is not by addition but by subtraction. Seeking to add a thing will not bring contentment. Instead, subtracting from your desires until they are satisfied. Only with Christ brings contentment. This is the truth. Like, you can't get contentment by adding things. That is a fool's errand. Adding and adding and adding will never make you content. It's actually only by those times when things aren't going well that you learn true contentment.

24 · Presents Burroughs's paradoxical instruction to be content with your contentment itself, and emphasizes the extraordinary rarity and value of a contented heart — a treasure possessed by almost no one

Another quote. So be satisfied and quiet. Be contented with your contentment. Say to yourself, I lack certain things that others have, but blessed be God, I have a contented heart, which others have not. If you can get a contented heart, you will be elite. Just. Just understand that. Seven, eight billion people in the world, how many of them have a contented heart? It is by far one of the greatest treasures you could ever acquire is to have a contented heart. Because then when you get more, more is more. But when you get more and you don't have contentment, more is never enough.

25 · Brief Burroughs maxim asserting that contentment itself is a greater good than any desired object

All right, another quote. There is more good in contentment than there is in the thing you want.

26 · Provides historical context for Burroughs's book: it was written as pastoral teaching for a congregation enduring multiple plague outbreaks, which gives weight to its practical wisdom

There is more good in Contentment than there is in the thing you want. Here's another one. Burroughs was writing his book dealing with Christians who had gone through a lot of. And we're going through a lot of ordeals and difficulties. This is just from my extraordinarily faulty memory, but I believe this book was written to his church, for his church. I think these were sermons or sayings from sermons. And he preached to his church as the church had gone through, I believe, not one, but two waves of plague, like the old school plague. And so he is really teaching them how to be content in some very difficult circumstances.

27 · Uses Burroughs's clock analogy to argue that God's providence is intricately interconnected across time — a present hardship may be necessary for future blessing in ways we cannot perceive

And here's what he writes. In a clock, stop but one wheel, and you stop every wheel. It's kind of crazy that clocks were kind of new back then. It's interesting. Okay, In a clock, stop but one wheel, and you stop every wheel because they are dependent on one another. So when God has ordered a thing for the present to be thus and thus, how do you know how many things depend on this thing? God may have some work to do in 20 years from now. That depends on this passage of Providence that falls out or that happens this day or this week. God has an intricate plan for our lives, and a particular season of difficulty might indeed be a contingent cog in a future outpouring of his blessings 20 years from now.

28 · Applies the providence argument to specific categories of unfulfilled desire (singleness, childlessness)

You can't think that way in terms of you can't do the extraordinarily complicated God math to understand how things connect. But down the road, you will be able, most likely, at least in heaven, if nothing else, to look back and say, oh, my goodness, that period of not having wound up being so essential to a bunch of other good things that God did in my life down the road. You know, I'm particularly mindful of people who are single and don't want to be childless and don't want to be just these kinds of things that are good desires, and they're just not happening for you. Well, friends, trust me. Trust Jeremiah Burroughs. Trust God. This thing is necessary. In God's eyes, it is necessary. If it were not necessary, it would not be so. And so you keep working, you keep doing the things you should do to change your circumstances. Absolutely nothing wrong with that. Only understand that in addition to working to acquire that thing that you desire, nothing wrong with that. You must always say to God, God, I do want this, or I do want that, but I really want you. And so I'm hopeful that I can get that thing with you. I'm hopeful that I can sort of be trusted and mature to the point where I can have these desires of my heart and also have you. But I do know that if that's not possible, I will be happier down the road forever having you.

29 · Presents Burroughs's definition of contentment: an alignment between heart and circumstances

Here's another quote. Here lies the bottom and root of all contentment. When there is an evenness and proportion between our hearts and our circumstances. So this is his effort to define contentment. I would say, essentially a capacity within your heart to be satisfied in circumstances.

30 · Connects Burroughs's definition to Philippians 4 and repeats the soul-size argument from earlier in the sermon

Which is, you know, what we see in Paul's words in Philippians 4. Another one. My brethren, the reason why you do not have contentment in the things of the world is not that you do not have enough of them. I read this one already. The reason is that they are not proportional to the size of that immortal soul of yours.

31 · Shifts from Burroughs to Chris's own claim: discontentment creates cognitive and moral vulnerability

Do I have two more? Yeah, two more. This one I thought was super good. Discontentment. Now, this is me talking, not Burrows. Right now I'm introducing it. Discontentment makes you extraordinarily vulnerable to temptation. Discontentment makes you talk stupid. It makes you act stupid. It makes you plan stupid. Discontentment makes you extraordinarily vulnerable to temptation.

32 · Introduces Burroughs's inverse claim: contentment functions as armor against temptation

And Burroughs is going on the flip side and saying that temptations will no more prevail over a contented man than a dart that is thrown against a brazen wall, a metal wall. So when you're content, you are far more resistant to temptation. When you are discontent, you are far more susceptible to temptation.

33 · Applies the contentment-temptation link to specific addiction struggles

Now, if there's a particular addiction you're trying to deal with in your life right now. And it really could just be anything. It could be sexual nature. It could be financial in nature, spendy, you know, buying things to feel better. It could be food. It could be, you know, drink, whatever. If there's something you're really trying to deal with right now, that is a kind of life besetting sin. Take my word for this. Your contentment isn't going to appear overnight. It would be wonderful if you could just be content tomorrow. But it's not going to happen that way. Contentment takes time. And so you just need to know your heart well enough to know that when you're unsettled, when you're anxious, when you're maybe at a peak moment of discontentment, this is also a peak moment of vulnerability to various temptations.

34 · Applies the grumbling-temptation link to specific scenarios: marital grumbling opens the door to infidelity, financial grumbling opens the door to dishonesty

And this also gets back to grumbling. I want to be careful because we got kids in the car listening to this, and so on and so forth. But, you know, you cannot grumble consistently about your spouse, even in your own heart, and expect to resist Temptations to be unfaithful to your spouse. You are essentially, by grumbling against your spouse consistently over time, creating a gap in your. In your fortress, a gap in your wall. And the right temptation clothed, the right way in the right circumstances, won't even have to try to penetrate your fortifications. It will walk right in through that hole you've created through your own grumbling. And this is also true, for instance, of financial grumbling. If you're grumbling about your lack of financial prosperity and so on and so forth, well, friends, just understand you're creating a hole in your fortress wall. And the opportunity to cheat, to steal, to manipulate, to get more will prove to be irresistible in the right circumstances if you've been weakening your own walls with grumbling.

35 · Introduces Burroughs's final quote: we are often discontent over things God never promised

Last one. I am discontented. This is from Burroughs. I am discontented because I have not these things which God never yet promised me. And therefore I sin much against the gospel and against the grace of faith. In other words, many times we are discontent with God for him not doing something he never promised he would do. And this would really be something that shows up a lot in our desire for things that are above and beyond what God has promised. And I think of this a lot of times in the sense of sort of having a healthy dynamic between husband and wife in a home. You know, it's a hard thing to understand that if you're a wife, what your husband has to do unto God, he's responsible for. And if he doesn't do it, he'll. He'll get church disciplined is he has to provide for you, he has to take care of your needs, has to protect you with his life, so on and so forth. But he's not responsible for making you as wealthy as your next door neighbor. He's not responsible for making your life as good as so and so's life. He's responsible to God to provide for you. And Lord willing, we will. You know, his brothers in the, in the Lord, I'm one of them. And you know others, you know his brothers in the Lord will help him to maximize his productivity and to do better and better. But let's be clear on something. There's a. There's a level of faithfulness that is required by the Lord, and then there's a level of fruitfulness that is wonderful to have, but not something you can hold against someone for not giving you. And there are equivalents to that that men look at their wives with and so on. But the point being, understand what is lawfully required of others toward you, and then get your expectations appropriately in line from that.

36 · Calls anxious listeners to begin journaling as a spiritual discipline for exploring the connection between their anxiety and discontentment

Okay, well, I mean, I think that's a pretty good bit of time. That's 35 minutes worth of talking about contentment. Do me a favor. If you have kind of a noticeable anxiety that's been a part of your life and so on and so forth, do me a favor. I don't have any specifics for you. I just want you to do something for me. Start thinking about contentment. Maybe do a couple of journaling exercises where you take about an hour in a quiet moment within a week. Take say two instances within a week where you sit down with a few pieces of paper and a pen alone and you just start kind of riffing on what is contentment. How does contentment connect with anxiousness? And just start, really what I'm asking you to do is to sit alone with the Lord, but not so like without a pen and a paper. Because I don't want you to just drift. So what I'm asking you to do is sit alone with the Lord and just say, God, what am I discontent about? What are these anxieties? I feel, to what extent are these related to contentment? And what I'm really asking you to do is just have some conversations with the Lord. If you've never journaled before, the way I would do that is I would write out a prayer. But let it be kind of free flowy. Just write it. So that's when you write something down, especially if you hand write it, you're slowing your speed of thought down because you need to. Your speed of thought wants to go faster than your pen, but that's not okay. So journaling can be really helpful. Writing your prayers can be really helpful because it slows your speed of thought down to a level that you're actually able to sort of take thoughts captive for Christ. You're able to pray, God, what am I thinking here? What's going on in this situation, so on and so forth.

37 · Closes with graduated application: book readers should read Burroughs in full, non-readers should find online quote collections

Okay, well that's, that's where I'll leave us today. Have a wonderful rest of your week. And if, if you. I told the guys last night there's two kinds of people in our church related to reading. There are those who will read big books and there are those who won't. If you are one who will read Jeremiah Burroughs book on contentment, read it. But if you know yourself well enough to know that you won't, do me a favor, google Jeremiah Burroughs jewel of Christian contentment quotes and find a page that's got a bunch of the quotes from the book. He writes in a style where you don't necessarily have to read the book to get a lot of the really good content. And so there are plenty of Google returns on that. You will find lots of good content there. And, and what I'd love for you to do is to start seeing contentment elsewhere. Burrow says that in many respects, contentment is sort of the manifestation, manifestation of a bunch of virtues. There's grace and contentment. There's faith and contentment. There's hope and contentment. There's trust and contentment, so on and so forth. So, yeah, I would love to see you spend more time thinking about and seeking the Lord's help and blessing and acquiring contentment.

38 · Closing audio artifact — unclear whether this is part of the sermon proper or post-recording content

Sam. The army blues.