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There’s a shortage of clergy and I won’t sugar coat it. It’s bad. In our denomination and most others, the number of ministers retiring in a year nearly doubles the number of seminary graduates headed for ministry. In our Presbytery we have 29 churches and seven ministers and four of those are going to retire in the next four years. What are we going to do? Well…and here’s where my sarcasm is going to come oozing forth like a lanced boil…AI. AI can solve all our problems. I don’t subscribe to any of the big AI services like Chat GBT or Open AI. But having seen what they can do, I am without a doubt that an AI service can write a better sermon than me hands down. It might lack creativity, intuition, and spiritual insight but it will be a damned good sermon. Yes, I meant to use that word for spiritual emphasis.
Anyway, I decided this week to hold hands with the devil and use Google Chrome’s AI thing to help me write a sermon on Contentment. You just type in a question and it gives a quick summary of an answer that saves a whole lot of time and for that I am thankful. So here we go and this would be so cool if I could do this workshop style with slides and everything.
I asked Google Chrome “What is Contentment?” it answered: “Contentment is a quiet, steady state of happiness, satisfaction, and inner peace where you feel at ease with your current life situation and what you have.” It then listed characteristics of contentment. First, it involves a Peaceful Mindset – meaning a calm grounded emotion as opposed to an ecstatic, momentary “Woohoo! Yeah!”. Second, there’s acceptance of the present which means accepting your current circumstances, relationships, and resources rather than constantly chasing more. And third, it’s also not complacency. You can still set and achieve goals and strive for self-improvement while still feeling grateful for where you’re at presently.
Well, that sounds good enough for a sermon. All I need to do is throw in some illustrations, personal stories or something and “Voila!”, a decent sermon á la Toastmasters. But I noticed as I typed my question, Google suggested I try “What is Contentment in the Bible?” That would be a better question because bringing God into the equation would be something that the typical mental health professional schooled in the secular sense of psychology would not and likely could not do.
Back to Google, so I asked “What is contentment in the Bible?”. Wiley ole me, I could tell I was dealing with a particular theological persuasion from the answer it gave because it mentioned God’s sovereignty. You’d think that Google would know better because words like sovereignty are offensive to people who got colonized. It appears Google AI ain’t all that woke. Just saying. Google answered: “Contentment is a quiet, steady state of happiness, satisfaction, and inner peace where you feel at ease with your current life situation and what you have.” That wasn’t all that different from the non-biblical definition above. The difference lay in the three characteristics which were now called Core Biblical Meanings. The first one said, contentment is rooted in God, not in things. Contentment is not simply being satisfied with externals. Rather, it comes from knowing, trusting, and being satisfied in God Himself. Second, it’s a learned posture not something we naturally have or achieve through self-sufficiency. Contentment is learned through faith, trials, and dependence on God. Thirdly, the biblical definition also says contentment is not complacency. It comes from doing your best and being faithful in your calling and leaving the outcomes to God.
Well, that’s not bad for a biblical definition of Contentment. Google also points you to helpful websites that are also of a particular persuasion. You see, AI tends only to work with the most popularly viewed content. We have to be careful with that because we may just be getting our ears tickled by stuff that sounds biblical. Regardless, I think we’re safe to say that contentment is found within the context of a life lived in faithful service to Jesus and wanting no more than God has to give in the midst of whatever the trial. So, not bad Google AI.
Now, let me show you what you pay me for. Looking at the passage we read, I am struck with the question: What does Paul the isolated prisoner living in a cold, dark, damp cell eating God only knows what while daily facing the possibility of execution for the fallout of faithfully preaching about Jesus and having just received a care package from the Philippian church via his friend Epaphroditus…what does Paul the prisoner have to say about contentment under such circumstances upon receiving a gift?
He says, “I rejoiced greatly because your concern for me has blossomed again.” Just a few verses early he said, “Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say rejoice.” Rejoicing was how he dealt with prison. Paul has a heart that worships. No matter the circumstances he is able to look around and sing, “Praise God from whom all blessings flow.” And then in the face of this gift from Philippi he says, “Now to our God and Father be glory forever and ever. Amen.”
Worship. Wonder and feeling blessed in the presence of God no matter what the circumstance. There is no true contentment if there’s no worship involved. I have a friend who has lived two years longer than expected with a rare form of aggressive cancer. The only thing she has said to me about the cancer is “It is a blessing.” Our culture is so violent, so “Fight, Fight, Fight” when it comes to cancer. She calls it a blessing and lives with it. All I can say is there is something beautiful going on in her, not the cancer but rather the God thing, still being able to praise God.
Paul says he has learned the secret of being content. He says, “I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” Jesus makes him able to endure all things even when the thing to be endured is having plenty. Some of the most discontented people I’ve ever met are the wealthy. I say to Paul, “Okay, Paul, but what is it to be strengthened by the Lord? You're sounding a bit cliché.” I have been through some difficult stuff in my life and from my own experience I can say that part of the strengthening is just knowing the Lord is with me, sensing his presence, and knowing that I am not forgotten but rather God hears me. Knowing that Jesus, the Holy Spirit, is with us and that our prayers are heard and that things are going to work to the good somehow that bit of “faith” feeds contentment.
But there is something else here that Paul brings up with respect to contentment that gets looked over. It’s that contentment is something we find and participate in together with others. Feeding each other’s contentment is a responsibility that we bear towards one another. Contentment isn’t simply a “me and my” contentment sort of thing. Let me try to explain this. Paul says, “It was kind of you to share in my distress.” The Greek word is synkoinoneo. It means to participate in together. It is to come alongside someone in life’s circumstances and share in their lives. It’s not simply walking a mile in someone else’s shoes. It’s walking beside them holding them up while they endure those uncomfortable shoes and even sharing your own if they fit.
The Philippian disciples were very mindful of Paul in that way. They shared with him by sending care packages, and letting him know he was not alone. The Philippians did this when other churches did not. Paul calls it “the matter of giving and receiving.” Sharing together. It amazes me that in all the definitions of contentment that are out there you never see anything involving sharing togetherness. Sharing from our plenty feeds our own sense of contentment as well as the contentment of those we share with. There is no better way to let a person know they are cared for and not alone, things integral to contentment, than to share in their experience with them. Share time together, quality time. This feeds contentment all around. Sharing in life together is the way the Lord strengthens us in all circumstances. Contentment is something we find together. That’s the secret to contentment if I am to add my two cents worth.
To close, that care package to Paul fed his contentment more than just “I got some stuff from you that made me happy. Thanks.” What fed Paul’s contentment was the fruit (profit to their account) that arises. It fed their contentment too. It fed Paul’s contentment, a prisoner for Christ, to see that one of the churches that he planted got it. His labour was not in vain. The seed he planted blossomed in their care for him and bore the fruit of mutual contentment. Love shown in sharing, whether it be sharing material stuff or going and visiting to share time together, befriending those in their need, what Paul calls “the matter of giving and receiving”, is the tangible reality of the Lord’s strengthening. That is the secret to contentment. Amen.
P.S. I did go back to Google after writing this sermon and asked it to write a sermon on contentment. In less than two seconds it sealed the deal. It was a good sermon, even used this passage. But it was an "all about me and my contentment" sermon and said nothing about sharing or that contentment is something we find together.
