June 16, 2025 • 33 mins
In this special Father's Day episode, guest speaker Jeff Stemple delivers a powerful message at Flipside Church, wrapping up a series on 1 Timothy 6. Reflecting on his own experience as a father, Jeff shares a humorous yet poignant story about being called out by his daughter for his "addiction to productivity," sparking a deeper exploration of contentment. Drawing from Paul’s letter to Timothy, Jeff addresses the dangers of discontentment—how it distorts the past, ruins the present, and robs the future. He challenges listeners to pursue godliness with contentment, offering practical steps like giving thanks and tithing to break cycles of unrest. With passion and relatability, Jeff encourages everyone to guard their faith, embrace gratitude, and live content in the life God has called them to.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:21):
He. Yeah.
(01:34):
I'll go ahead and add my Father's Dayto those happy Father's Day to those
that have already been extended.
Hey, if you're a dad here.
Heather kind of alluded to thisat the top of announcements.
If you're a dad here today,I just want to say good for you.
That is a good, good thing.
If you're a dad that's herewith your family, double good on you.
Leading your family in a spiritual wayis probably the gateway
(01:56):
to leading anybody, especiallyyour family, in so many other ways.
So if you're a dad here todayin church with your family, good for you.
Don't want to call attention to that,
because I think a lot of timesit gets overlooked the impact of that.
So happy Father's Day to you guys.
As I was reflecting on not
just getting ready for today,but actually reflecting on Father's Day,
(02:18):
my attentionor my mind started to drift back
to a time about 7 or 8 years ago.
Life aroundmy house was much different back then.
We were a full house.
We don't have a very big house, and man,we were packed because,
my oldest two daughters still livedunder under my roof.
They have since moved out.
One of them's married now,but at that point, about 7 or 8 years ago,
(02:40):
we were all still packed in therelike sardines.
And I just remember,if you're part of the big.
If you come from a big family,you're currently part of a big family.
You know that trying to get anything donewhen there's that number of people
is next to impossible.
It's just such a challenge
to, to, to to go anywhere,to do anything, to plan anything.
And so, it was one afternoon,maybe it was a morning.
(03:02):
We're trying to get outof the house doing something.
And I was
standing in sort of the kitchenliving room area,
and I was probably tapping my watchor tapping my foot or tapping both,
or just wanting to get the showon the road.
And my oldest daughtercomes down the hallway and she goes, dad,
I figured out what your problem is.
(03:23):
Now, any time that issue or thator that statement comes up,
you're not really eager to engagethat conversation, right?
You're not really. Especiallywhen it's coming from a 17 year old girl.
You're not like, great,tell me what my problem is.
Please.
Because you've got such fount of wisdomin all of your 17 years figured out.
Tell me what?
But I thought,I thought I'll play along. Yeah.
(03:46):
What's my problem?
She says you're addicted to productivity.
So what?
She goes.
You are addicted to productivity.
You cannot relax you.
You can't sit down.
You can't take a break.
You've always got some taskor some job you're working on.
You're just even when you do sit down,
the looking on your face is like you're 3or 4 steps ahead.
(04:09):
And I said, that's ridiculous,but addicted to productivity.
Everybody else in the room was silent.
I, I kind of looked over at my wifeand she looked like this.
And I said, well, you think she goes,I'm not getting involved.
And my middle daughter spoke up.
She goes, well, dad, she's not wrong.
And I said, you guys are.
This isthis is a dumb, ridiculous argument.
(04:31):
You guys are you guys are way off base.
I'm not addicted to productivity,
but I can tell you we've wasted5.5 minutes on this stupid conversation.
So everybody get up.We got to get things going on.
Oh, man.
Hey, if we have not met before,my name is Jeff.
I'm on staff here at flip side.
It's been a whilesince we've gotten to do this.
I can't remember the last time,we got to share a message together.
(04:55):
Pastor Carl is on, a much needed
break in Idaho with family,so he'll be back next week.
Be praying for him for safe travelsin a restful time.
But in the meantime,we get to share a message together.
And I am really, really excited.
And, I'm encouraged and eagerto to kind of
to kind of unpack this with you guys.
(05:17):
Raise your hand if you're currentlyworking on a towards a goal.
You're not not a someday I'm goneor one day I hope to kind of go,
but you've got like dates on calendarsand you're meeting with people.
Raise your handif you've got a goal like that right now.
A lot
of us, my guess is most of us, if I gaveif you if you didn't raise your hand,
if I gave you a few minutes,you probably able
to be able to call something to mindwhere you're like,
(05:39):
oh yeah, that's, that's that's somethingthat I'm really looking forward to.
Our I'm really kind of, you know,I've got some plans in the, in the works,
something that maybeif it didn't pan out at all, or maybe it
didn't pan out the way you wanted itto, you'd be a little upset.
It'd be a throw you a little off kilter.
Most of us have those desiresor those goals or those things
we're working towards.
(06:03):
So that's kind of where I want to gotoday.
How, those pursuits,
those goals, those desires can sometimesbecome a real problem in our lives.
And it happens in a very slow sometimesand definitely subtle sort of way.
And and if we can get a handle on thisnow, it can be a game changer.
If you're a young person in hereand you can get a handle on this
(06:24):
right now, you can save yourselfa lot of time and a lot of heartache.
So we've been in this series.
We're actually wrapping it up today.
We're in chapter six of the firstletter of Paul to Timothy.
Timothy is this young pastor.
He's been called a pastor,a church plant in a place called Ephesus.
And Timothy is really kind of tryingto build the plane while it's in the air.
(06:48):
He's kind of trying to figure this outfor himself as he goes along.
And he's young.
He's got a kind of lot of strikesin his disfavor.
He's kind of
got some things where he's he'sbeen set up to to face some challenges.
And so Paul writes himthis letter to address
some of the things that he's dealing withand encourage him at the same time.
(07:09):
We've been talking a lot
about Paul's angle that he approaches uswith is from is from two.
It's actually two angles.
It's one is to guard sound
doctrine, guard good teaching,
healthy teachingthat goes along with Jesus.
The teachings of Jesus to guard that,
(07:30):
because there's going to be peoplewho come along that want to attack it,
that want to kind of pervert it,
that kind of want to get itto be where it's not really that.
And then the
second angle that Paul is takingis he wants Timothy
to guide people in it,to guide himself in it,
to guide others,and to cut it to be an ongoing thing.
(07:52):
Hey, you're going to spin this up, butyou're going to continue to guide yourself
and guide people into this,into this way of living out life,
following Jesus.
So if you brought your Bibles withyou were in chapter
six of Timothy, first letter to Timothy.
Carl made it to,I think verse two last week.
(08:15):
So we're going to pick it upat verse three.
And Paul says, if anyone teaches otherwise
and does not agree to the soundinstruction of our Lord Jesus Christ
and to godly teaching, they are conceitedand they understand nothing.
So Paul is calling out and
calling attention to these false teachersthat are in the church.
(08:35):
They're not like the outside,you know, pagan, heathen, whatever.
These are teachers in the church.
And Paul is calling them out,and he's calling attention to the fact
that they're misleading peopleinstead of giving healthy instruction.
That goes along with the teachingin the following of Jesus,
they're picking up at verse four.
They're doing this.
(08:55):
They have an unhealthy interestin controversies and quarrels about words
that result in envy, strife, malicioustalk, evil suspicion, and constant
friction between people of corrupt mindswho have been robbed of the truth
and who think that godlinessis a means to financial gain.
(09:16):
WheneverI read that, that verse or that passage
that my mind goes back toabout five years, maybe six years ago,
there were two years back to backwhere I was the youth pastor.
I was the junior high pastorand the and the high school pastor.
And so on Mondays we would do junior high,and on Wednesdays we do high school.
And I
forget why we were reading this passage,but I read that.
(09:36):
So we had a little,little more background here.
We had,
torn the room apart with one of the gamesthat we were playing on, on nights
when we would do that, you know, there wasjust everything was just everywhere.
And, the students,they kind of congeal in their own
little groups, whereas no real seatingchart or anything on those nights.
And so we had like the freshman boysup here and the senior girls back there,
and right around this area,there was a group of sophomore girls,
(10:01):
and they were a handful the entire year.
They were a handful were a lot of them.
And they were continuallygetting off the rails.
And I read that laundry list envy, strife,malicious
talk, evil suspicion,and constant friction between people.
And when I read that, one of the girlsgoes, oh, it's that.
(10:21):
And I actually stopped and I was like,did you want to say something?
And she didn't look at me.
She looked at her friend.
She goes, that's us, you guys.
That's us.
Constant friction. That's us.
And I thought, oh my gosh,that she hit the nail on the head.
I didn't even have to say it. She said it.
She said whatever.Everybody in the room was thinking.
(10:43):
While welaugh at that because it is so indicative
of what it means to be a sophomore girl,I think we could all agree
that constant friction that kind of bleedsits way into our lives as well.
It's like this friction got this friction.
I went to work and there's friction.
Maybe in my house there's friction,maybe with my family, there's friction.
Paul, though, in this specific situation,in this specific instance,
(11:06):
he's talking
about all these negative connotations andhow they relate to the area of finances.
I think we'd all agreethat that is true as well.
Impure,unhealthy motives in the area of money
do lead to all the thingswe just talked about, no doubt.
But it actually points to somethingthat goes a little bit deeper than that.
It actually points to something that'sa little more overarching than just that.
(11:30):
And that's what I want to kind of tryto get into and address today.
But for the sake of the sake of sticking
with this specific example,I want us to jump down to verse nine,
because Paul really kind of spells outhow bad it can get.
He kind of spells it out in some pretty
some pretty, detailed,some pretty gory details there.
(11:52):
Plus this is one of the most misused,misunderstood, misquoted
verses of Scripture in all the Bible tois right in the middle of this passage.
It says in starting in verse nine,for those
who want to get rich, fallinto into temptation and a trap,
and into many foolish and harmful desiresthat plunge people into ruin
(12:14):
and destruction, for the love of moneyis a root of all kinds of evil.
Some people, eager for money,
have wandered from the faithand pierced themselves with many griefs.
So Paul kind of spells it out.
He lays it all out and tells Timothy,here's what, Tim, you got a problem?
You got a problem.
Here's what's going on.
(12:36):
And he lays it all out.
It would have been really difficultfor me to get this letter
because I'm someone who,if you know, if you've ever,
if you know anythingabout a primal question,
there's a book written
by a guy named Mikefoster called The Seven Primal Questions.
And the premise isthat everybody has a primal question.
Well, my primal questionis, am I good enough?
(12:57):
And so it would have been really difficultfor me to get this letter,
because it would have been Paul
spelling out all the stuff that I probablywas beating myself up about already.
And Paul says, hey, you got a problem?
I'd be like,I know, I know, this constant friction.
I get it.
But Paul actually
(13:17):
turns his attention to Timothyand he says, Timothy, let's talk about it.
Starting in verse 11.
He says, but you, Timothy,you men of God, flee from all of this
and pursue righteousness,godliness, faith,
love, endurance, and gentleness.
Fight the good fight of faith.
(13:37):
Take hold of the eternal lifeto which you were called,
when you made your good confessionin the presence of many witnesses.
So Paul tells Timothy the same thing.
He's told them in a few spotsof some other letters.
What's the word?
What's what is his time to do?
What's the word he uses?
If you remember, top of verse 11.
(13:57):
Flee, flee.
It was funny.
That same youth group that I talked about,we did a lesson where,
Paul tellsTimothy, flee six, flee sexual immorality.
And I ask you something.
What does it mean to flee?
Like, oh, well,you kind of you turn the other way.
You want to run?
I said, here's what it means to flee.
(14:19):
And I knocked over the the music standI had, and I jumped over the whole
first row of tables,and I ran out the door.
Stayed down, stayed, gone for like,five minutes.
I came backand I said, that's what it means to flee.
You get out, you run.
Paul is telling Timothy, Timothy,turn, exit quickly.
Move yourself in a hasty fashionaway from all of those things.
(14:41):
Get out. Don't mess with it.
Don't entertainit. Don't ask for permission.
Go! Get away from it.
And then he does an interesting thing.
He reminds Timothy of when he madehis confession of faith, calls Timothy's
mind back to maybe somethinghe hadn't thought of in quite some time.
This is a really good encouragement toolif you're not using this,
(15:01):
I want to encourage youto do something like this.
Ministry can get tough.
Ministry can get tough in waysthat that that gets weird.
And so one of the things I starteddoing about
eight, nine years agoand a lot of people on
staff here at flipside do it as wellas we keep an encouragement file.
(15:21):
And there's this,the craziest stuff in there that I have
in my encouragement file.
Some of it's like a table napkinwith, hey,
I just want to tell youhow much I appreciate.
And I and I keep these things.
If you're not doing an encouragement file,do an encouragement file.
Because can we all agreethat life sucks sometimes?
Yeah.
And when it doesgo back to that encouragement file
(15:43):
because the winds are there.
A lot of times when life sucks, you don'tsee them, you don't remember them.
Paul goes, Timothy,go back to your encouragement file.
Go back and look.
Go back and celebrate the wins.
Go backand remember the things that brought you
to where you are,that are really positive things,
he says.
(16:03):
Fight the good. Fight.
Take hold of the eternal lifethat you were called to
when you made your good confessionin the presence of many witnesses.
How many of you guys have ever beento a baptism at Carl's house?
That's what a that's what the baptism is.
It's it's the it's the profession.
It's the it's the hey, I'm on the team.
I'm putting the jersey on now.
(16:24):
Paul tells Timothy, I know thingsare rough right now, but take heart.
Remember? Remember what brought you here.
And then it's interesting, Paul,kind of like,
I would imagine, kind of like,
turns his face to the window and he startsreflecting on his own walk with God.
In verse 13.
He says in the sight of Godwho gives life to everything,
and of Christ Jesus, who,while testifying before Pontius Pilate,
(16:47):
made his good confession,the good confession I charge you.
Keep this command
without spot or blame,until the appearing of our Lord
Jesus Christ, which God will bring aboutin his own time.
And then Paul kind of turns offinto kind of like a worship song
says God the blessed and only ruler,the King of kings and Lord of lords,
(17:07):
who alone is immortal and who lives inunapproachable light, whom
no one has ever seen or can see to himbe honor and might forever.
And the church said,
Amen.
Paul isreally using some intense inflection here
to to to speak to Timothy.
(17:28):
I think it's lost
that the urgency is lost a little bitif we let it go.
He's saying, God, Timothy, I command you.
I'm charging you.
Do these things, remember these things,
put it into action.
And then he says, Amen.
(17:49):
And we think we're done.
But then Paul has one of those momentslike, oh, wait, what was that show?
Columbo was a Columbo where he said, waita minute, one more thing, one more thing.
So Paul says, one more thing.
It's almost like he's like,speaking of commands,
I want to come backto this issue of finances.
I want to address the other side.
He says, commandthose who are rich in this present world,
(18:11):
starting in verse17 is where I'm at command.
Those who are rich in this present worldnot to be arrogant,
nor to put their hope and wealthwhich is so uncertain, but to put their
hope in God who richly provides uswith everything for our enjoyment.
Again, the way he started out,verse 17 is the way he starts out.
Verse 18 command them to do good,
(18:32):
to be rich in good deeds,and to be generous and willing to share.
In this way they will lay up treasurefor themselves as a firm foundation
for the coming age, so that they may takehold of the life that is truly life.
So Paul unpacks the problem,
(18:52):
and then he tells Timothyto do these things command you a charge.
You do it in your own life.
Encourage others to do it.
Instead of falling into these trapsand these temptations.
All this infighting and backbiting,acting like these sophomore
girls don't do that.
You do it for yourself and command othersto get this stuff, to get it right
(19:13):
and to get it straight.
Now, I didn't know Timothy.
He didn't know me.
Maybe Timothy was like, fantastic, Paul.
That's just the pep talk I needed.
I've been kind of a been kind of,you know, dragging my feet here.
(19:34):
But man, now that your letter has come,I'm ready to rock and roll.
Let's let's do it.I'm ready to get it done.
Maybe that was Timothy.
Or maybe Timothy at this
point was a little like me,where I'm left with a question.
And I think a lot of us are leftwith the same question
when there's this problem that'sbeen spelled out in all its gory details.
And then there's this charge to action,this command.
(19:57):
Let's get it done.
In the middle of those two things,there rests
a great big old fat questionthat a lot of times I'm left with.
And I'd be willing to betyou're left with two.
That question is this.
How how
great. Paul. Wonderful.
(20:17):
Fight the good fight. Commend myself.
Pull my self up by the bootstraps.
Command others to do it. Great.
This actually gets peoplein a lot of hot water
when they get the problem spelled out,and they get the charge,
or they get the command and they go outand they haven't answered this question.
You get in some really hot water.
How how do you want me to do this?
(20:39):
I'm new at this.
I got people breathing down my neck.
I go into meetings and I'm like, hey,everybody, let's do this.
And I in the back of my mind, I'm like,
I really don't even know how it'sgoing to pan out myself.
Timothy could very well
have been asking this question, Paul,how I acknowledge there's a problem.
It's bad enough for you to have written aletter to me that made it into the Bible.
(21:05):
I want to put this stuff into practicein my own life.
I want to command and charge and encourageothers to do the same.
But how?
Thank God he gives us the answer.
You remember those verses I skipped over?
We started in verse six. Let's go back up.
If you if you.
I don't know how your Bible is structured,
but you might have to go to the leftand back or both.
(21:28):
Verse six Paul gives us
the answer to that question.
But godliness with what
church and godliness with contentmentis great gain,
for we brought nothing into the world,and we can take nothing out of it.
But if we have food and clothing,we will be what
(21:52):
we'll be content with that.
The answer to that question, the bridges.
That gap, is one word content.
Be content.
One of the things about contentment
that is so interestingand that I love about contentment,
(22:15):
is that none of us are born with it.
It's not like, oh, I'm
sorry, you're just not a content person.
Good luck.
You know, wander the earthlike Cain or whatever.
It's an actual learned thing.
And that's good news for us today becausethat means we're it's within our grasp.
We can actually learn to be content.
(22:40):
There, I say contentment can be the answer
to most of the problemsin the challenges that we face in life.
If we can get a handleon this idea of being content.
Man, what an awesome thing.
Contentmentmay be the single most important thing
that we learn,that we learn in our lifetime.
(23:02):
It's one of those things that transcendspace and time.
I, Timothy, was dealingwith a lot of the same types of stuff
we're dealing with now.
I would even venture to saythe challenge to contentment
in 2025 is probably worsethan it's ever been.
In the history of human existence.
There are entire sectionsof marketing industry that are set up
(23:22):
to make me and to make you as discontentas we possibly can, so that we will
buy their stuff.
A whole industry set up with
the aim of making people discontent.
Things like media,
technology, all of that stuff is set up
to encourage discontentment.
(23:44):
The thing about discontentment,
there's there's there'sactually three aspects to discontentment.
Biblically speaking.
This is not like, you know, some Ted talk.
This is biblically speaking,there's three aspects to discontent.
Number one,
discontentment distorts the past.
It plays.
(24:04):
It wreaks havoc with your past.
Because a lot of times we fall intothe trap of the good old days.
Everything's the good old days.
Back when I was single, backbefore I had kids.
Back before I had this stupid job.
Back before when I was still in school.
It distorts the past.
You're fooled into thinking, man,that was fantastic.
Oh, do you remember that?
But you're so discontent here.
(24:25):
That looks real good.
There's a wonderful storyin a book in the book of Exodus,
second book in the Bible,and it chronicles the the people of God,
the Israelites,and their journey out of slavery in Egypt.
They've been freed from slavery.
And they get into the desertand they get discontent.
(24:46):
And the first thing they do is they go,oh, if we could just go back to Egypt.
Are you kidding me?
You are a slave in Egypt.
But the past is distorted,so man, that looks really good.
The food was good back there.
The bed was soft, fluffy pillows,but that didn't exist.
But man, the past is distorted.
(25:07):
Discontentment distorts the past.
Number two,discontentment ruins the present.
They were walked into aroom and there's something going on there.
Boy, that's sure ruin the mood.
This contentment ruins the here and now.
We're never able to enjoy itbecause it's never good enough.
(25:28):
This contentment ruins the present.
Always looking for the next thing.
The last thing discontentment does is it
robs the future, robsit, steals from the future.
At least the abundant lifethat Jesus talks about just robs
that when we're discontent.
(25:48):
It's the destination that we never get to.
It's a future that we never reachwhen we're discontent.
There's a book in the Bible called,Ecclesiastes,
and it's written by the smartest,most wealthy,
prosperous, successful guyever to walk the face of the earth.
His name was King Solomon.
And if you've ever readthe book of Ecclesiastes, it chronicles
(26:10):
the life of a discontented guyalways looking for the next fix.
That that is the Cliff notesversion of the book of Ecclesiastes,
because Solomon is like, you know what?
Pretty smart now.
But I'm going to I'm goingto just get so much wisdom.
I'm going to be the smartest guy ever.And then he does it.
He's like, yeah, that wasn't allI thought it was going to be.
What about what about, pleasure.
I'm going to have, you know, 8 millionconcubines and twice as many wives.
(26:34):
How about that? That's good.
And then that doesn'tthat doesn't satisfy him.
And so he moves on to success,then to build buildings.
And I'm going to make there all this stuffin that that doesn't satisfy.
And so it's continuallyrobbing his future.
If you've never read theend of the book of Ecclesiastes, do that.
I think there's 11, maybe 12 chapters.
His answer
(26:56):
to this question of discontentmentis great.
If you ever had the opportunityto go back and read that.
So it distorts our past,ruins our present.
It robs our future.
So in light of all this,in light of all this stuff,
what can we do here and now today?
Because after all, it's learned, right?
(27:18):
And I just born with it.
Got to learn it.
What does it look like for us tomorrow
and the office on the ball field,maybe even before you hit your car
in the parking lot,scrolling through social media.
What does it look? What does it look like?
The interesting thing about contentment
is for some people,it's eternity that hangs in the balance.
So the first practical
(27:40):
step towards being content,if you're here this morning
and you have never put your faith in Jesusas your personal Savior,
if you've never bowed your heart and said,Jesus, I admit it, I am a sinner.
I need your forgiveness.
I accept your deathas payment for my sins,
and I ask you to be my Lord and Savior.
If you've never done that, plug your earsfor the rest of the other two
(28:03):
that I'm going to talk about,because that one thing
if you've never donethat, you'll never experience
true biblical contentmentlike we're talking about here today.
That is step one.
If you haven't done that,talk to me after service.
Talk to one of our staffpeople who are here today.
We'd love to talk to you about that.
If you have put your faith in Jesus.
(28:25):
There are two very,
very practical things you can do to startto learn to be content.
Sort of like the labwork of of contentment.
When you walked in, there werethank you cards on the chairs.
If you sat in chair that didn't have athank you card, I believe we have extra
as you walk out the back,they're stamped for you.
We've already paid for the stamp for you.
(28:46):
It's your job to.
If you're really young,you'll probably need to Google
how to fill out thethe envelope and mail it.
And I want you to write a
thank you card to someoneif you still know the person
that is the reason you became a Christian,write them a thank you card today.
The two G's are what I call it giving
(29:07):
and a gratitudeand giving in this first very
practical step is just giving thanks.
Just being thankful.
Thankful for where I am rightnow, thankful for where I what I'm doing.
And I don't want to.
I don't want to make light of some ofthe sucky things that can be happening,
but contentment will shed a hold.
(29:28):
It's called perspective.
It'll shed a whole new lighton those things.
And giving thanks is one of those thingsthat kind of,
it's one of those thingsthat kind of does it.
It's a byproduct.
Contentment is a byproductof being thankful.
It's almost like it'swhat you get as a bonus for doing it.
And then the second thing is giving.
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If you're not
tithing your income, tithing means a 10th.
If you're not giving a 10thto your local church.
I want to really encourage you here today.
Maybe some of you have heardabout what that means or heard about it.
It's a 10th of your income.
Giving is probably the best way I know of
(30:11):
to break a cycle of discontentment.
One of the things my wife and I dida few years back is we,
we we led the classwhile we were taking class,
Financial Peace University.
And that was so interesting to see how
when we started doing that with our money,
(30:32):
contentment kind of came as a like,
whoa, that is interesting.
There's a certain peace, there's a certaincontentment that I'm feeling right now.
When you tell your money what to doinstead of your money
telling you what to do,there's this contentment that comes.
And giving tithing is a is a wonderful,
(30:52):
practical step towards
bringing contentment into your life.
In that way.
I want to close today
because we are at the lastchapter of Paul's
letter to Timothy, and he closeswith some really great words.
Starting in verse 20.
He says, Timothy, guardwhat has been entrusted to your care.
(31:16):
Turn away from godless chatter
and the opposing ideas ofwhat is falsely called knowledge,
which some have professed, and in doingso have wandered from the faith.
Grace be with you.
Flip side talked a lot
about some really practical waysthroughout the series, not just today.
Let's be a church that is full of passion.
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Charged charge into it all,
guns blazing, gung ho,get it done, have goals.
You have desires, have pursuits,and go at it with all your might.
But never forget to give thanks and to becontent with where you are right now.
It can be the difference makerbecause like Paul said, the
when we get off on this, on this pathof discontentment, it's like wandering.
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He used that word twice here.
You wander,you're like you end up somewhere
and you're like,how in the world did I get here?
I've been pissed off for five years.
What's going on?
Well, then, discontent.
Get after it.
Pursue it, command others to do it.
And at the same time,
let's be content
and invite the worship team up right now.
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And I'm goingto I'm going to pray this out.
God, thank you so much
for your word,for how it encourage us, encourages us.
I pray that as we go back into the placesyou've called us to be this week,
when we're facedwith the inevitable situations
that we knowwe're going to face this week, that's
that's just going to be such a challengeto throw us off
(32:43):
kilter and make us discontentand help us to help our minds,
to come back to this placewhere we are right now.
Help us to remember
that you've called us to, to to givethanks to gift, be a people that,
that live outside of ourselves sometimes.
God, it sounds so can it feels and soundsso counterintuitive
(33:04):
that that contentmentcould come from those things.
But God help us to have the faiththat's really what this is all about.
This contentment issues, this reason.
It's so difficult.
It's because it requires faith.
But your word tells us without faithit's impossible to please you.
And we do want to please you. God.
So we ask you to be with us this week
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and the weeks after thoseto put this into practice in our lives.
Jesus, we love you.
Help us to love you more.
In your name we pray. Amen.
He. Yeah.
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I'll go ahead and add my Father's Dayto those happy Father's Day to those
that have already been extended.
Hey, if you're a dad here.
Heather kind of alluded to thisat the top of announcements.
If you're a dad here today,I just want to say good for you.
That is a good, good thing.
If you're a dad that's herewith your family, double good on you.
Leading your family in a spiritual wayis probably the gateway
(01:56):
to leading anybody, especiallyyour family, in so many other ways.
So if you're a dad here todayin church with your family, good for you.
Don't want to call attention to that,
because I think a lot of timesit gets overlooked the impact of that.
So happy Father's Day to you guys.
As I was reflecting on not
just getting ready for today,but actually reflecting on Father's Day,
(02:18):
my attentionor my mind started to drift back
to a time about 7 or 8 years ago.
Life aroundmy house was much different back then.
We were a full house.
We don't have a very big house, and man,we were packed because,
my oldest two daughters still livedunder under my roof.
They have since moved out.
One of them's married now,but at that point, about 7 or 8 years ago,
(02:40):
we were all still packed in therelike sardines.
And I just remember,if you're part of the big.
If you come from a big family,you're currently part of a big family.
You know that trying to get anything donewhen there's that number of people
is next to impossible.
It's just such a challenge
to, to, to to go anywhere,to do anything, to plan anything.
And so, it was one afternoon,maybe it was a morning.
(03:02):
We're trying to get outof the house doing something.
And I was
standing in sort of the kitchenliving room area,
and I was probably tapping my watchor tapping my foot or tapping both,
or just wanting to get the showon the road.
And my oldest daughtercomes down the hallway and she goes, dad,
I figured out what your problem is.
(03:23):
Now, any time that issue or thator that statement comes up,
you're not really eager to engagethat conversation, right?
You're not really. Especiallywhen it's coming from a 17 year old girl.
You're not like, great,tell me what my problem is.
Please.
Because you've got such fount of wisdomin all of your 17 years figured out.
Tell me what?
But I thought,I thought I'll play along. Yeah.
(03:46):
What's my problem?
She says you're addicted to productivity.
So what?
She goes.
You are addicted to productivity.
You cannot relax you.
You can't sit down.
You can't take a break.
You've always got some taskor some job you're working on.
You're just even when you do sit down,
the looking on your face is like you're 3or 4 steps ahead.
(04:09):
And I said, that's ridiculous,but addicted to productivity.
Everybody else in the room was silent.
I, I kind of looked over at my wifeand she looked like this.
And I said, well, you think she goes,I'm not getting involved.
And my middle daughter spoke up.
She goes, well, dad, she's not wrong.
And I said, you guys are.
This isthis is a dumb, ridiculous argument.
(04:31):
You guys are you guys are way off base.
I'm not addicted to productivity,
but I can tell you we've wasted5.5 minutes on this stupid conversation.
So everybody get up.We got to get things going on.
Oh, man.
Hey, if we have not met before,my name is Jeff.
I'm on staff here at flip side.
It's been a whilesince we've gotten to do this.
I can't remember the last time,we got to share a message together.
(04:55):
Pastor Carl is on, a much needed
break in Idaho with family,so he'll be back next week.
Be praying for him for safe travelsin a restful time.
But in the meantime,we get to share a message together.
And I am really, really excited.
And, I'm encouraged and eagerto to kind of
to kind of unpack this with you guys.
(05:17):
Raise your hand if you're currentlyworking on a towards a goal.
You're not not a someday I'm goneor one day I hope to kind of go,
but you've got like dates on calendarsand you're meeting with people.
Raise your handif you've got a goal like that right now.
A lot
of us, my guess is most of us, if I gaveif you if you didn't raise your hand,
if I gave you a few minutes,you probably able
to be able to call something to mindwhere you're like,
(05:39):
oh yeah, that's, that's that's somethingthat I'm really looking forward to.
Our I'm really kind of, you know,I've got some plans in the, in the works,
something that maybeif it didn't pan out at all, or maybe it
didn't pan out the way you wanted itto, you'd be a little upset.
It'd be a throw you a little off kilter.
Most of us have those desiresor those goals or those things
we're working towards.
(06:03):
So that's kind of where I want to gotoday.
How, those pursuits,
those goals, those desires can sometimesbecome a real problem in our lives.
And it happens in a very slow sometimesand definitely subtle sort of way.
And and if we can get a handle on thisnow, it can be a game changer.
If you're a young person in hereand you can get a handle on this
(06:24):
right now, you can save yourselfa lot of time and a lot of heartache.
So we've been in this series.
We're actually wrapping it up today.
We're in chapter six of the firstletter of Paul to Timothy.
Timothy is this young pastor.
He's been called a pastor,a church plant in a place called Ephesus.
And Timothy is really kind of tryingto build the plane while it's in the air.
(06:48):
He's kind of trying to figure this outfor himself as he goes along.
And he's young.
He's got a kind of lot of strikesin his disfavor.
He's kind of
got some things where he's he'sbeen set up to to face some challenges.
And so Paul writes himthis letter to address
some of the things that he's dealing withand encourage him at the same time.
(07:09):
We've been talking a lot
about Paul's angle that he approaches uswith is from is from two.
It's actually two angles.
It's one is to guard sound
doctrine, guard good teaching,
healthy teachingthat goes along with Jesus.
The teachings of Jesus to guard that,
(07:30):
because there's going to be peoplewho come along that want to attack it,
that want to kind of pervert it,
that kind of want to get itto be where it's not really that.
And then the
second angle that Paul is takingis he wants Timothy
to guide people in it,to guide himself in it,
to guide others,and to cut it to be an ongoing thing.
(07:52):
Hey, you're going to spin this up, butyou're going to continue to guide yourself
and guide people into this,into this way of living out life,
following Jesus.
So if you brought your Bibles withyou were in chapter
six of Timothy, first letter to Timothy.
Carl made it to,I think verse two last week.
(08:15):
So we're going to pick it upat verse three.
And Paul says, if anyone teaches otherwise
and does not agree to the soundinstruction of our Lord Jesus Christ
and to godly teaching, they are conceitedand they understand nothing.
So Paul is calling out and
calling attention to these false teachersthat are in the church.
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They're not like the outside,you know, pagan, heathen, whatever.
These are teachers in the church.
And Paul is calling them out,and he's calling attention to the fact
that they're misleading peopleinstead of giving healthy instruction.
That goes along with the teachingin the following of Jesus,
they're picking up at verse four.
They're doing this.
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They have an unhealthy interestin controversies and quarrels about words
that result in envy, strife, malicioustalk, evil suspicion, and constant
friction between people of corrupt mindswho have been robbed of the truth
and who think that godlinessis a means to financial gain.
(09:16):
WheneverI read that, that verse or that passage
that my mind goes back toabout five years, maybe six years ago,
there were two years back to backwhere I was the youth pastor.
I was the junior high pastorand the and the high school pastor.
And so on Mondays we would do junior high,and on Wednesdays we do high school.
And I
forget why we were reading this passage,but I read that.
(09:36):
So we had a little,little more background here.
We had,
torn the room apart with one of the gamesthat we were playing on, on nights
when we would do that, you know, there wasjust everything was just everywhere.
And, the students,they kind of congeal in their own
little groups, whereas no real seatingchart or anything on those nights.
And so we had like the freshman boysup here and the senior girls back there,
and right around this area,there was a group of sophomore girls,
(10:01):
and they were a handful the entire year.
They were a handful were a lot of them.
And they were continuallygetting off the rails.
And I read that laundry list envy, strife,malicious
talk, evil suspicion,and constant friction between people.
And when I read that, one of the girlsgoes, oh, it's that.
(10:21):
And I actually stopped and I was like,did you want to say something?
And she didn't look at me.
She looked at her friend.
She goes, that's us, you guys.
That's us.
Constant friction. That's us.
And I thought, oh my gosh,that she hit the nail on the head.
I didn't even have to say it. She said it.
She said whatever.Everybody in the room was thinking.
(10:43):
While welaugh at that because it is so indicative
of what it means to be a sophomore girl,I think we could all agree
that constant friction that kind of bleedsits way into our lives as well.
It's like this friction got this friction.
I went to work and there's friction.
Maybe in my house there's friction,maybe with my family, there's friction.
Paul, though, in this specific situation,in this specific instance,
(11:06):
he's talking
about all these negative connotations andhow they relate to the area of finances.
I think we'd all agreethat that is true as well.
Impure,unhealthy motives in the area of money
do lead to all the thingswe just talked about, no doubt.
But it actually points to somethingthat goes a little bit deeper than that.
It actually points to something that'sa little more overarching than just that.
(11:30):
And that's what I want to kind of tryto get into and address today.
But for the sake of the sake of sticking
with this specific example,I want us to jump down to verse nine,
because Paul really kind of spells outhow bad it can get.
He kind of spells it out in some pretty
some pretty, detailed,some pretty gory details there.
(11:52):
Plus this is one of the most misused,misunderstood, misquoted
verses of Scripture in all the Bible tois right in the middle of this passage.
It says in starting in verse nine,for those
who want to get rich, fallinto into temptation and a trap,
and into many foolish and harmful desiresthat plunge people into ruin
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and destruction, for the love of moneyis a root of all kinds of evil.
Some people, eager for money,
have wandered from the faithand pierced themselves with many griefs.
So Paul kind of spells it out.
He lays it all out and tells Timothy,here's what, Tim, you got a problem?
You got a problem.
Here's what's going on.
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And he lays it all out.
It would have been really difficultfor me to get this letter
because I'm someone who,if you know, if you've ever,
if you know anythingabout a primal question,
there's a book written
by a guy named Mikefoster called The Seven Primal Questions.
And the premise isthat everybody has a primal question.
Well, my primal questionis, am I good enough?
(12:57):
And so it would have been really difficultfor me to get this letter,
because it would have been Paul
spelling out all the stuff that I probablywas beating myself up about already.
And Paul says, hey, you got a problem?
I'd be like,I know, I know, this constant friction.
I get it.
But Paul actually
(13:17):
turns his attention to Timothyand he says, Timothy, let's talk about it.
Starting in verse 11.
He says, but you, Timothy,you men of God, flee from all of this
and pursue righteousness,godliness, faith,
love, endurance, and gentleness.
Fight the good fight of faith.
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Take hold of the eternal lifeto which you were called,
when you made your good confessionin the presence of many witnesses.
So Paul tells Timothy the same thing.
He's told them in a few spotsof some other letters.
What's the word?
What's what is his time to do?
What's the word he uses?
If you remember, top of verse 11.
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Flee, flee.
It was funny.
That same youth group that I talked about,we did a lesson where,
Paul tellsTimothy, flee six, flee sexual immorality.
And I ask you something.
What does it mean to flee?
Like, oh, well,you kind of you turn the other way.
You want to run?
I said, here's what it means to flee.
(14:19):
And I knocked over the the music standI had, and I jumped over the whole
first row of tables,and I ran out the door.
Stayed down, stayed, gone for like,five minutes.
I came backand I said, that's what it means to flee.
You get out, you run.
Paul is telling Timothy, Timothy,turn, exit quickly.
Move yourself in a hasty fashionaway from all of those things.
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Get out. Don't mess with it.
Don't entertainit. Don't ask for permission.
Go! Get away from it.
And then he does an interesting thing.
He reminds Timothy of when he madehis confession of faith, calls Timothy's
mind back to maybe somethinghe hadn't thought of in quite some time.
This is a really good encouragement toolif you're not using this,
(15:01):
I want to encourage youto do something like this.
Ministry can get tough.
Ministry can get tough in waysthat that that gets weird.
And so one of the things I starteddoing about
eight, nine years agoand a lot of people on
staff here at flipside do it as wellas we keep an encouragement file.
(15:21):
And there's this,the craziest stuff in there that I have
in my encouragement file.
Some of it's like a table napkinwith, hey,
I just want to tell youhow much I appreciate.
And I and I keep these things.
If you're not doing an encouragement file,do an encouragement file.
Because can we all agreethat life sucks sometimes?
Yeah.
And when it doesgo back to that encouragement file
(15:43):
because the winds are there.
A lot of times when life sucks, you don'tsee them, you don't remember them.
Paul goes, Timothy,go back to your encouragement file.
Go back and look.
Go back and celebrate the wins.
Go backand remember the things that brought you
to where you are,that are really positive things,
he says.
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Fight the good. Fight.
Take hold of the eternal lifethat you were called to
when you made your good confessionin the presence of many witnesses.
How many of you guys have ever beento a baptism at Carl's house?
That's what a that's what the baptism is.
It's it's the it's the profession.
It's the it's the hey, I'm on the team.
I'm putting the jersey on now.
(16:24):
Paul tells Timothy, I know thingsare rough right now, but take heart.
Remember? Remember what brought you here.
And then it's interesting, Paul,kind of like,
I would imagine, kind of like,
turns his face to the window and he startsreflecting on his own walk with God.
In verse 13.
He says in the sight of Godwho gives life to everything,
and of Christ Jesus, who,while testifying before Pontius Pilate,
(16:47):
made his good confession,the good confession I charge you.
Keep this command
without spot or blame,until the appearing of our Lord
Jesus Christ, which God will bring aboutin his own time.
And then Paul kind of turns offinto kind of like a worship song
says God the blessed and only ruler,the King of kings and Lord of lords,
(17:07):
who alone is immortal and who lives inunapproachable light, whom
no one has ever seen or can see to himbe honor and might forever.
And the church said,
Amen.
Paul isreally using some intense inflection here
to to to speak to Timothy.
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I think it's lost
that the urgency is lost a little bitif we let it go.
He's saying, God, Timothy, I command you.
I'm charging you.
Do these things, remember these things,
put it into action.
And then he says, Amen.
(17:49):
And we think we're done.
But then Paul has one of those momentslike, oh, wait, what was that show?
Columbo was a Columbo where he said, waita minute, one more thing, one more thing.
So Paul says, one more thing.
It's almost like he's like,speaking of commands,
I want to come backto this issue of finances.
I want to address the other side.
He says, commandthose who are rich in this present world,
(18:11):
starting in verse17 is where I'm at command.
Those who are rich in this present worldnot to be arrogant,
nor to put their hope and wealthwhich is so uncertain, but to put their
hope in God who richly provides uswith everything for our enjoyment.
Again, the way he started out,verse 17 is the way he starts out.
Verse 18 command them to do good,
(18:32):
to be rich in good deeds,and to be generous and willing to share.
In this way they will lay up treasurefor themselves as a firm foundation
for the coming age, so that they may takehold of the life that is truly life.
So Paul unpacks the problem,
(18:52):
and then he tells Timothyto do these things command you a charge.
You do it in your own life.
Encourage others to do it.
Instead of falling into these trapsand these temptations.
All this infighting and backbiting,acting like these sophomore
girls don't do that.
You do it for yourself and command othersto get this stuff, to get it right
(19:13):
and to get it straight.
Now, I didn't know Timothy.
He didn't know me.
Maybe Timothy was like, fantastic, Paul.
That's just the pep talk I needed.
I've been kind of a been kind of,you know, dragging my feet here.
(19:34):
But man, now that your letter has come,I'm ready to rock and roll.
Let's let's do it.I'm ready to get it done.
Maybe that was Timothy.
Or maybe Timothy at this
point was a little like me,where I'm left with a question.
And I think a lot of us are leftwith the same question
when there's this problem that'sbeen spelled out in all its gory details.
And then there's this charge to action,this command.
(19:57):
Let's get it done.
In the middle of those two things,there rests
a great big old fat questionthat a lot of times I'm left with.
And I'd be willing to betyou're left with two.
That question is this.
How how
great. Paul. Wonderful.
(20:17):
Fight the good fight. Commend myself.
Pull my self up by the bootstraps.
Command others to do it. Great.
This actually gets peoplein a lot of hot water
when they get the problem spelled out,and they get the charge,
or they get the command and they go outand they haven't answered this question.
You get in some really hot water.
How how do you want me to do this?
(20:39):
I'm new at this.
I got people breathing down my neck.
I go into meetings and I'm like, hey,everybody, let's do this.
And I in the back of my mind, I'm like,
I really don't even know how it'sgoing to pan out myself.
Timothy could very well
have been asking this question, Paul,how I acknowledge there's a problem.
It's bad enough for you to have written aletter to me that made it into the Bible.
(21:05):
I want to put this stuff into practicein my own life.
I want to command and charge and encourageothers to do the same.
But how?
Thank God he gives us the answer.
You remember those verses I skipped over?
We started in verse six. Let's go back up.
If you if you.
I don't know how your Bible is structured,
but you might have to go to the leftand back or both.
(21:28):
Verse six Paul gives us
the answer to that question.
But godliness with what
church and godliness with contentmentis great gain,
for we brought nothing into the world,and we can take nothing out of it.
But if we have food and clothing,we will be what
(21:52):
we'll be content with that.
The answer to that question, the bridges.
That gap, is one word content.
Be content.
One of the things about contentment
that is so interestingand that I love about contentment,
(22:15):
is that none of us are born with it.
It's not like, oh, I'm
sorry, you're just not a content person.
Good luck.
You know, wander the earthlike Cain or whatever.
It's an actual learned thing.
And that's good news for us today becausethat means we're it's within our grasp.
We can actually learn to be content.
(22:40):
There, I say contentment can be the answer
to most of the problemsin the challenges that we face in life.
If we can get a handleon this idea of being content.
Man, what an awesome thing.
Contentmentmay be the single most important thing
that we learn,that we learn in our lifetime.
(23:02):
It's one of those things that transcendspace and time.
I, Timothy, was dealingwith a lot of the same types of stuff
we're dealing with now.
I would even venture to saythe challenge to contentment
in 2025 is probably worsethan it's ever been.
In the history of human existence.
There are entire sectionsof marketing industry that are set up
(23:22):
to make me and to make you as discontentas we possibly can, so that we will
buy their stuff.
A whole industry set up with
the aim of making people discontent.
Things like media,
technology, all of that stuff is set up
to encourage discontentment.
(23:44):
The thing about discontentment,
there's there's there'sactually three aspects to discontentment.
Biblically speaking.
This is not like, you know, some Ted talk.
This is biblically speaking,there's three aspects to discontent.
Number one,
discontentment distorts the past.
It plays.
(24:04):
It wreaks havoc with your past.
Because a lot of times we fall intothe trap of the good old days.
Everything's the good old days.
Back when I was single, backbefore I had kids.
Back before I had this stupid job.
Back before when I was still in school.
It distorts the past.
You're fooled into thinking, man,that was fantastic.
Oh, do you remember that?
But you're so discontent here.
(24:25):
That looks real good.
There's a wonderful storyin a book in the book of Exodus,
second book in the Bible,and it chronicles the the people of God,
the Israelites,and their journey out of slavery in Egypt.
They've been freed from slavery.
And they get into the desertand they get discontent.
(24:46):
And the first thing they do is they go,oh, if we could just go back to Egypt.
Are you kidding me?
You are a slave in Egypt.
But the past is distorted,so man, that looks really good.
The food was good back there.
The bed was soft, fluffy pillows,but that didn't exist.
But man, the past is distorted.
(25:07):
Discontentment distorts the past.
Number two,discontentment ruins the present.
They were walked into aroom and there's something going on there.
Boy, that's sure ruin the mood.
This contentment ruins the here and now.
We're never able to enjoy itbecause it's never good enough.
(25:28):
This contentment ruins the present.
Always looking for the next thing.
The last thing discontentment does is it
robs the future, robsit, steals from the future.
At least the abundant lifethat Jesus talks about just robs
that when we're discontent.
(25:48):
It's the destination that we never get to.
It's a future that we never reachwhen we're discontent.
There's a book in the Bible called,Ecclesiastes,
and it's written by the smartest,most wealthy,
prosperous, successful guyever to walk the face of the earth.
His name was King Solomon.
And if you've ever readthe book of Ecclesiastes, it chronicles
(26:10):
the life of a discontented guyalways looking for the next fix.
That that is the Cliff notesversion of the book of Ecclesiastes,
because Solomon is like, you know what?
Pretty smart now.
But I'm going to I'm goingto just get so much wisdom.
I'm going to be the smartest guy ever.And then he does it.
He's like, yeah, that wasn't allI thought it was going to be.
What about what about, pleasure.
I'm going to have, you know, 8 millionconcubines and twice as many wives.
(26:34):
How about that? That's good.
And then that doesn'tthat doesn't satisfy him.
And so he moves on to success,then to build buildings.
And I'm going to make there all this stuffin that that doesn't satisfy.
And so it's continuallyrobbing his future.
If you've never read theend of the book of Ecclesiastes, do that.
I think there's 11, maybe 12 chapters.
His answer
(26:56):
to this question of discontentmentis great.
If you ever had the opportunityto go back and read that.
So it distorts our past,ruins our present.
It robs our future.
So in light of all this,in light of all this stuff,
what can we do here and now today?
Because after all, it's learned, right?
(27:18):
And I just born with it.
Got to learn it.
What does it look like for us tomorrow
and the office on the ball field,maybe even before you hit your car
in the parking lot,scrolling through social media.
What does it look? What does it look like?
The interesting thing about contentment
is for some people,it's eternity that hangs in the balance.
So the first practical
(27:40):
step towards being content,if you're here this morning
and you have never put your faith in Jesusas your personal Savior,
if you've never bowed your heart and said,Jesus, I admit it, I am a sinner.
I need your forgiveness.
I accept your deathas payment for my sins,
and I ask you to be my Lord and Savior.
If you've never done that, plug your earsfor the rest of the other two
(28:03):
that I'm going to talk about,because that one thing
if you've never donethat, you'll never experience
true biblical contentmentlike we're talking about here today.
That is step one.
If you haven't done that,talk to me after service.
Talk to one of our staffpeople who are here today.
We'd love to talk to you about that.
If you have put your faith in Jesus.
(28:25):
There are two very,
very practical things you can do to startto learn to be content.
Sort of like the labwork of of contentment.
When you walked in, there werethank you cards on the chairs.
If you sat in chair that didn't have athank you card, I believe we have extra
as you walk out the back,they're stamped for you.
We've already paid for the stamp for you.
(28:46):
It's your job to.
If you're really young,you'll probably need to Google
how to fill out thethe envelope and mail it.
And I want you to write a
thank you card to someoneif you still know the person
that is the reason you became a Christian,write them a thank you card today.
The two G's are what I call it giving
(29:07):
and a gratitudeand giving in this first very
practical step is just giving thanks.
Just being thankful.
Thankful for where I am rightnow, thankful for where I what I'm doing.
And I don't want to.
I don't want to make light of some ofthe sucky things that can be happening,
but contentment will shed a hold.
(29:28):
It's called perspective.
It'll shed a whole new lighton those things.
And giving thanks is one of those thingsthat kind of,
it's one of those thingsthat kind of does it.
It's a byproduct.
Contentment is a byproductof being thankful.
It's almost like it'swhat you get as a bonus for doing it.
And then the second thing is giving.
(29:50):
If you're not
tithing your income, tithing means a 10th.
If you're not giving a 10thto your local church.
I want to really encourage you here today.
Maybe some of you have heardabout what that means or heard about it.
It's a 10th of your income.
Giving is probably the best way I know of
(30:11):
to break a cycle of discontentment.
One of the things my wife and I dida few years back is we,
we we led the classwhile we were taking class,
Financial Peace University.
And that was so interesting to see how
when we started doing that with our money,
(30:32):
contentment kind of came as a like,
whoa, that is interesting.
There's a certain peace, there's a certaincontentment that I'm feeling right now.
When you tell your money what to doinstead of your money
telling you what to do,there's this contentment that comes.
And giving tithing is a is a wonderful,
(30:52):
practical step towards
bringing contentment into your life.
In that way.
I want to close today
because we are at the lastchapter of Paul's
letter to Timothy, and he closeswith some really great words.
Starting in verse 20.
He says, Timothy, guardwhat has been entrusted to your care.
(31:16):
Turn away from godless chatter
and the opposing ideas ofwhat is falsely called knowledge,
which some have professed, and in doingso have wandered from the faith.
Grace be with you.
Flip side talked a lot
about some really practical waysthroughout the series, not just today.
Let's be a church that is full of passion.
(31:39):
Charged charge into it all,
guns blazing, gung ho,get it done, have goals.
You have desires, have pursuits,and go at it with all your might.
But never forget to give thanks and to becontent with where you are right now.
It can be the difference makerbecause like Paul said, the
when we get off on this, on this pathof discontentment, it's like wandering.
(32:01):
He used that word twice here.
You wander,you're like you end up somewhere
and you're like,how in the world did I get here?
I've been pissed off for five years.
What's going on?
Well, then, discontent.
Get after it.
Pursue it, command others to do it.
And at the same time,
let's be content
and invite the worship team up right now.
(32:22):
And I'm goingto I'm going to pray this out.
God, thank you so much
for your word,for how it encourage us, encourages us.
I pray that as we go back into the placesyou've called us to be this week,
when we're facedwith the inevitable situations
that we knowwe're going to face this week, that's
that's just going to be such a challengeto throw us off
(32:43):
kilter and make us discontentand help us to help our minds,
to come back to this placewhere we are right now.
Help us to remember
that you've called us to, to to givethanks to gift, be a people that,
that live outside of ourselves sometimes.
God, it sounds so can it feels and soundsso counterintuitive
(33:04):
that that contentmentcould come from those things.
But God help us to have the faiththat's really what this is all about.
This contentment issues, this reason.
It's so difficult.
It's because it requires faith.
But your word tells us without faithit's impossible to please you.
And we do want to please you. God.
So we ask you to be with us this week
(33:25):
and the weeks after thoseto put this into practice in our lives.
Jesus, we love you.
Help us to love you more.
In your name we pray. Amen.
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