PIMJ: Notes and Contentment...

For today's Peek Inside My Journal post, I thought I'd share the notes I took on Sunday at the youth service. This was actually the second time I had heard this sermon and it hit me in a totally different way this time.

The sermon was on Philippians 4:10-20 and focused on contentment.

(Just a note, these are not all my words. A lot of this is notes from the sermon, and occasionally a thought that was stemmed from what was being said. One of the reasons I decided to post this is because there were a lot of searching questions that stemmed from this sermon. You can see them and read most of my answers.)

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(Philippians 4:11) = "content" - Not lacking a necessary resource. Other writers have described this word by comparing a person to a city...say a port city. There are things coming into that port to help support and sustain the city and there are exports going out of it. The city is dependent upon the imports to survive. However, Paul is saying that he has learned how to be content with whatever he already has even given in life by God with out needing to rely on all these "imports" into his life.

What imports am I dependent on in my life?

• Time with Travis
• Facebook?
• My phone
• Books
• Food - Good Food
• Car = Freedom = Social Interactions

What was Paul dependent on that made him content without external imports?

• Jesus Christ living inside him

"He who had God and many other things has no more than he who has God and God alone." - C.S. Lewis

- I need to repent of covetousness and seek God as my only sustenance...my only "import".

(Philippians 4:16) = The people of Philipi saw themselves as part of the solution the the "problems" Paul was in. 

Do I see myself as part of the solution to "problems" God has shown to me in life?

What "problems" has God revealed to me in the world or in lives of others around me?

Am I a part of the solution to these problems? Or am I a part of the problem, if only by simply doing nothing?

(Philippians 4:18) = Our worship does not ADD to God's glory in any way. He does not need our worship in order to be glorious. He made us and we are His! However, our worship is pleasing to Him. 

Our worship RECOGNIZES His glory, and that is pleasing to Him.

"Either you worship money or you worship God WITH your money." - Mark Driscoll

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The big challenge for me in this sermon was to place my dependence on GOD completely. There are SO, SO many things in my life fighting for my attention and worship...but when I placed my faith in Jesus, He sent  His Holy Spirit to live inside me and that is ALL I need to be joyful and content.

I know that this will be the battle I fight every day for the rest of my life...yet ironically enough, I will only experience victories when I allow Jesus and His Spirit to do the work in me. Such a paradox and I don't fully understand it...but it is SO beautiful and it is so freeing.

All I have to do is surrender...

Be blessed.

<3