opportunity to come before you in a word of prayer. Lord, we're thanking you for your word. Lord Jesus, that you so freely give unto those who desire to know you, for those who desire to be what you're calling for. In Lord tonight, we stand before you and before your people asking you to bless in a mighty way.
Lord God, to speak to our hearts, conditions. Lord God, words that will inspire us to serve you. Words, Lord, that will encourage us to follow heart after you. Lord, wonderful words that will keep us, Lord Jesus, with our hearts and our minds, stayed upon you.
Lord, we recognize that there's no goodness of our own, that we make it from day to day. Lord, it's only by your mercies and only by your grace. Help us to see, Father, that we are but dust. That is all we are, Lord, that you have breathed the breath of life into, and you've animated us, Lord, and given us a spirit, that we might worship you in these last days, for you seek such to worship you.
So those that would do it, O God, in spirit and in truth. And so now, Lord, we pray that your word would go forward. Lord, that you would bind every opposing spirit that would come to hinder. Lord, every O God's spirit of sleepiness and drowsiness and sluggishness, Lord, that comes to rest upon your people, I rebuke in the name of Jesus Christ.
Lord, God, and I pray that you would fill us up, Lord, from the crown of our heads, down to the base and the soul of our feet with your anointing, hallelujah. O God, burn within us a holy flame, a fire that cannot be quenched, Lord, hallelujah. Give us a hope that is steadfast and sure, and that is you turn on the heavens, and we shall be mindful to praise your holy and matchless name. In the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, we pray, and let every heart say, Amen.
Praise God, thank you and praise God for you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. You can be seated. We praise the Lord for his goodness and for his mercies. We praise the Lord for his goodness and his mercies and for another opportunity to stand before you to give the Lord's name the praise.
I ask this question somewhat rhetorically, but I will ask it nonetheless, because I think it's important for us to always acknowledge why we're here. How many want to hear from Jesus? Amen, that includes me. I want to hear from Jesus too.
Well, that's why we're here. We're here to hear from the Lord. You're not here to hear from me. You're here to hear from Jesus Christ.
And my prayer is that I have consecrated myself enough to where the Lord can do exactly that, speak to you about your heart's conditions and give you what it is that you need. We praise God for life, health, and strength. And I don't know, but you're glad to be alive. I'm glad to be alive.
Amen, I'm just tickle pink as the same way as it goes, just to be alive. I want to invite you tonight as we can do the word of God to the book of Philippians. We give honor to the spirit of Christ, who is the head of our life to our pastor in this absence. And we praise God for him and for his example ship.
And we thank and praise God for all of the holy men on the rostrum. We praise God for our wonderful deacons, our wonderful mothers. I praise the Lord for my wife, sister, Leslie Black. Wherever you from the book of Philippians chapter four, we'll take our passage from verses 11 through 13, in Jesus name, Philippians four, 11 through 13.
Not that I speak in respect of what, for I have learned. And what's the ever state I am, therewith to be content. I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things, I am instructed, both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need.
I can do all things through Christ, which strengthens me. From these few verses of scripture, we like to take the thought content in Christ, content in Christ. Nepal is explaining a great truth here. A truth concerning where the Lord Jesus Christ wants every believer in the house to exist.
He wants us to exist in a state of contentment. Now Paul himself had suffered many highs and lows in his life. Much of this we can recount if we were to just pick a few of the highs that the Apostle Paul experienced, one we might pick would be his conversion on the road to Damascus. How many of us have had the privilege of the Lord audibly speaking to us and cracking the sky and shedding a bright light and calling us by name?
We, many of us haven't had it quite that way, but yet Paul did, that had to have been a high in his life to have that kind of experience with Christ. Through that the Lord even converted him and changed him and made him the apostle to the Gentiles. And so he became a mighty tool in the hand of God to bring deliverance and salvation unto those who were not Jews, although he himself was steeped in a knowledge of Jewish custom and tradition. The Lord chose to take that knowledge and to use it to call those who were not a people unto him.
And that had to be a great high for the Apostle Paul. He did signs and he did wonders. He actually healed souls or social and healed by handkerchiefs that were giving out by Paul. He caused blindness to come up on some.
He healed some that were sick and he himself was bitten by a snake and nothing happened to him. He had these miraculous things that happened to him and it had to be wonderful. And of course he had the joy of serving a risen king, that he knew Jesus Christ in a personal way and therefore served him with great joy, great highs in the life of the Apostle Paul. And yet despite the highs, there were some lows because this is the nature of life.
Paul was given a thorn in his flesh, an affliction in his body that the Lord specifically said he gave him to keep him humble, lest he would be exalted above measure, unless he would begin to think of himself more highly than he ought to think. But I want you to turn with me the second Corinthians, chapter 11 and we want to look at verses 24 through 28. And I just want to read to you some things that happened to Paul. I mean he had these great things that happened to him, but he had some not so great things happen to him.
And so starting around verse number 24, Paul says of the Jews, five times received I had 40 stripes saved one. Five times I was whipped 39 times. And the whippings that you received back then were not just something with a straight leather belt. This was typically with a cationine tells or with some other form of mutilating whip and he went through this five times, 39 stripes.
Thrice was I beaten with rods, three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned. Thrice I suffered shipwreck. Now I remember reading about one account of Paul being shipwrecked in the scriptures, but he said three times I suffered shipwrecked. And the night of the day I have been in the deep in journeys often in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils of my own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren in weariness and painfulness in watchings often in hunger and thirst, in fastings often in cold and nakedness, besides those things that are without that which cometh upon me daily the care of all the churches.
Paul went through something. He went through situations in life that for us would be absolutely terrible. And we would say how is it that God could possibly be with me and I go through those things? But you go through those things for a very important purpose.
The Lord wants to get us to the point where we can learn how to be content. To be content is to learn how to be pleased and satisfied with your life. It's pleased and satisfied with where you are in life. And unfortunately many people today suffer from a lack of contentment.
It's not only to be pleased and satisfied with your life, but it's also getting to the point to where you don't feel a need for other things. You don't need any more stuff. You don't need any more experiences in order to feel like your life is complete. So Paul has said in everything I've gone through, I have learned how to be content.
True Bible contentment is an eternal state of being. And it's not based on what we have or what we don't have. I believe it was a singer Mick Jagger who back in 76, he's wherever the man did his thing, had a song says, I can't get no satisfaction. In other words, I'm not content, no matter what I try, I can't find contentment in life.
And I submit to you many people struggle with finding contentment in life. They feel like something's missing, something's not quite complete. I'm not satisfied with where my life is. But the Lord doesn't want you in that state.
Now I'm not gonna have a chance to go into this, but contentment is not the same thing as complacency. Complacency is to be self-satisfied even when the job's not done. It is to be satisfied with something that is less than it should be. And the Lord never asks us to be complacent.
In fact Paul said, I pressed towards the mark for the prize of the high calling of God, which is in Christ. She said, Saint Paul, I've learned to be content and whether I'm standing in. Said I also press. So contentment is not a matter of being lackadaisical, or not having drive or motivation.
But it is having this internal state of being satisfied with your life, of being well pleased with your life and not feeling like you need something else to complete you. Ultimately, it is our trust and a risen sovereign God and in his will that is the source of our contentment. Now contentment however, is under attack. And it's important for me to share with you at least two things that are attacking your state or ability to be content.
These things are like poison that get into the heart and the soul of a man and a heart and the soul of a woman and choke and kill the germinating seas of contentment. Contentment in Christ, what's to spring forward? But these two things get in there and hinder it. The first is worry.
The second is worldliness. Now worry is concern or anxiety that something undesirable may or will happen to me. That's what worry is. It's to be concerned that something bad is gonna happen to me.
That if I don't deal with this or if I don't try this or if I don't go here, something bad is gonna happen. And when we worry, we actually negate the promises of God. When we worry, we cannot put our trust in that sovereign God who wants to make us content, we find ourselves wrapped up in our own thoughts and lost in our own ways and finding ourselves outside of the will of God because we're just full of worry. Didn't the apostle Paul tell us again in Philippians to be careful for nothing.
Let me just don't worry about anything. But in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, we should make our requests known unto God and then there's a promise and then the peace of God. That passes all understanding, would rest with us, would keep our hearts and our minds through Christ Jesus. Don't worry.
And Matthew, he said, take no thought for your life. What it is that you're gonna eat or what you're gonna drink or what you're gonna put on your body or what things, other things you need because your life is more than me and your body is more than Raymond. Hallelujah for all these things we know, the scriptures as a Gentile seek, but then the Lord he minuses us to seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness and everything else we have need of, we have need of will be added unto us. Christ wants us to be satisfied.
He wants us to be content. The second contaminant of contentment is worldliness, our carnality, and particularly as we heard this morning, covetousness, that is a result of this worldliness. Worldliness is to live one's life with the desire for things this world has to offer. It is to be caught up in the things that this world says you must have in order to be happy, things you must have in order to be satisfied, things you must have in order to be content.
And at the top of the list for almost everybody is more money. That that is the thing that we feel or we think of the world is pushing at us that will make us content because with more money we can buy more stuff, we can consume more things, we can satisfy the covetous nature that is in us by birth. It is living life contrary to the leading of the Spirit of God and of godliness. It is a life view focused on what I can get and on what I can consume.
But the only thing the world has to offer us we know is death. Paul again said for we know that we can't really follow God if we're connly minded. For day after the flesh, the scripture says to mind the things of the flesh, isn't that right? And day after the Spirit the things of the Spirit for to be connly minded is death.
But to be spiritually minded is life and peace, hallelujah. Because that carnal mind is God's enemy, it can't be subject to the will of God. So then those that are in the flesh can't please God. It's worldliness, this covetousness will consume you to the point where you can't trust in God because there's something that you want to consume.
John said it this way, love not the world, need the things that are in the world. For if you may love the world, we know the love of the Father is not in here for all that is in the world, is the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye and the pride of life. These are the things that are in the world, these are not of God. But these things will pass away.
But those that abide in the will of God will exist forever. God's desire is that we would not worry. God's desire is that we would not be caught up in worldliness and covetousness so that we can be content in Christ. Turn your neighbor, say neighbor, God wants you content in Christ.
Now let's turn back to Paul, because we just need to talk about that worry and that contentment, because there are things that trouble us when it comes to reaching where God wants us to reach. Everybody's gonna experience trouble. But Paul said in Philippians chapter four that I've learned something from my troubles. Trouble had a purpose, trouble had a plan, trouble had a role in shaping me into what I need to be.
And it's often that the most valuable things in life, the most intense lessons we learn in life come through trouble. They come through struggle. They come through pressing. They come through pushing.
And Paul says what I have learned, this ability to be in whatever state God wants me to be and still be content came because of my highs and came because of my lows. They have a purpose, they work something in you. We know in the book of Romans it's written. And not only so, but we glory in our tribulations.
How many get happy when they have a trouble? I honestly know hands. I don't get happy either. But you have Paul said we can glory in our tribulations.
Now that's really after the fact. When you look back on what God has brought you through, you can actually glory in that trouble, in that trial, in that test. If you learn something from it, if you learn the right thing. So we glory in tribulation, why do we know this?
What we know that tribulation has a job that's gonna work patience. And patience is gonna work experience and experience hope and hope makes not a shame. Why? Because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost.
Through this process of struggle and trouble, God is actually showing you his power. He's showing you his ability to meet your needs. James actually said knowing this that the trying of our faith worketh patience. But we need to let patience have a perfect work.
There are some perfect things in life and patience is one of those things that can work some perfection in you. Let patience have your perfect work that you may be perfect and entire. Then what does he say? One thing, nothing, be content.
The trying of your faith will actually bring contentment. This is just the opposite of what the devil tells you. Because what the devil wants to say is that you're going through what you're going through because God hates you or because you're not what God wants you to be. But it's actually just the opposite.
You're going through what you're going through because Christ is making you. How many can say, he's still working on me to make me what I ought to be. It took seven days to make the moon and the stars and the earth, triple turn Mars, but how loving and patient he must be. Because why?
He's still working on me. And I'm happy about that. That I'm still a work in progress that God hasn't finished with. Troubles come to root you and anchor you in Jesus Christ.
Now I want to share a little testimony with you. I can have time to share all the depth of it with you. But I was saved on the campus of Cornell University back in 1983. And in that experience, as the turn was there, my wife's sister, black was there, and several other young people.
We had a group of about eight or so, seven or eight people. Young people who were saved. And we were five hours from church, which was here in the state of Connecticut. And so we couldn't come to church every Sunday and be with our fellowship, our believers.
And so we would gather together on our own, in the conference room, and we had the boom box. How many of them were the boom boxes? I'm really dating myself. Boom boxes with cassette tapes.
How many of them were cassette tapes? We would get a big boom box and get some cassette tapes, and we would put them in there, and we would listen to the preaching. And what that taught me how to do, it taught me how to hear the word of God, regardless of the delivery of the preacher. Many of us cannot hear the word of God because we could stuck in the delivery of the man of God as opposed to caught up in what he sang.
But by listening to just the words on the boom box, I could close my eyes and let the word just penetrate me, just come inside me like that word was today, just let the word keep coming inside of me. And I began to love the word of God. And the word of God began to change and to stir me. And so that particular year we were on the campus and I was just a part of the fellowship like everybody else was.
But then the people who were leading that fellowship graduated. And when they graduated, there was only a couple people left and I was one of them. My wife had left Cornell at this time, so I was there, I won't say by myself, there were some other saints there, but it wasn't a whole lot, it was like two out of that original crowd. But God is good because we continue to do what we have been doing.
And the Lord we get to add other people into that Bible study. And I was the one who had to lead it. And I didn't feel capable, I was like you, Minister, I didn't necessarily feel like you know, that was what God would have been to do. But God would put you in positions, the situations where you just got a synchro swim.
You just got to do it. He would test you through situations. And so he put me in a situation and I was doing my best, we would use the Sunday school lessons to provide guidance for the saints. I'm doing my best to give what I could give.
But something happened on that campus. It didn't happen a year before, but this year it happened. All of a sudden, those of us who were gathering together in this Bible study, they started calling Joe Black's cult. And all of a sudden we had this reputation on campus that we were cultists.
Now I don't know where it came from, except for the devil. All we were doing was getting together and listening to the word of God on cassettes. That's all we did and we ate together, we did other fellow-shipping things together. But that was about it, but it was Joe Black's cult.
And all of a sudden I got all this pressure, pressure to change, pressure to conform, pressure not to be so dogmatic about this salvation. And there was one man there, his name was Abafore, he was African, Abafore, and he was the head of the campus crusade for Christ. And Abafore said, Joe, come to me and we're gonna have lunch and I'm gonna set you straight. And say, I'll be honest with you, I accepted the invitation, but my knees were shaking because I didn't know what to expect.
All I knew is that I had Jesus Christ on the inside, but I didn't know what else to expect. But through this challenge, we got together, we broke bread, and for about three hours we debated in the scriptures. Now I don't even say for a year, three hours we debated in the scriptures. But here's what I found, that every time he brought up something I didn't know, I would in my head would go, oh Jesus, I don't know.
And all of a sudden boom, I was dropping in my spirit. And all of a sudden I would begin to speak things I never studied. God began to open my eyes to the wonders of God and I had never studied it. But all of a sudden I began with perfect clarity to articulate to him the gospel truth of the wonders of God to the point where all he could do was just stare.
This is a man who was running campus crusade for Christ and he was speechless. Why am I sharing this? Because troubles and struggles bring our revelation and understanding of what God wants to do through you if you don't draw back in fear. But if you press on through it, if you drive through it, God's got a blessing for you or the other side of your trouble, you will learn how to trust in God.
You will learn a contentment. You will learn a satisfaction that whatever you need, God is able to supply your need. So Paul, as he struggled, we too struggle with situations that sometimes we don't understand Lord, why am I going through this? Why is this coming upon me?
Why isn't everything the way that I would like it to be? Because Christ wants to get you to the point of contentment. Not to the point of resentment. See, that's what happens to some of us.
We don't grow into contentment. We unfortunately slide into resentment. What is resentment? Resentment is anger.
It's to be upset about something or someone, something that we thought was unfair. I'm upset. I'm resentful of what I am. I'm resentful of what I've gone through.
As opposed to finding in those challenges, God's grace and mercy. When I first got saved, again at the campus of Cornell, and I shared a little bit of this before, when I was seeking the Holy Ghost, where people in my ear telling me to say some stuff. And all the way I can say to them is that they would say stuff like say, wub, wub, wub, wub, wub, wub, wub. They were actually trying to teach me how to speak with tongues.
And I ended up having to crawl underneath the bed in my dorm room to escape that. But I felt the power of God, but there was something happen though. It's like that experience marred, that somebody tried to teach me with tongues marred, everything that I was experiencing. And so for months since I was tormented, months I was tormented.
Do I really have the Holy Ghost or not? Because of this situation. And I got to the point where I resented having been at that Bible study. Because I had never experienced this kind of mental anguish before, I was like, I wish I'd never gone to that Bible study.
That experience was creating a me-resitment, anger, frustration, because I couldn't figure this thing out. But you know what the great equalizer is, you know what actually brings revelation is prayer. When you continue to seek the Lord Jesus Christ, when you stay on your knees and you don't get up, but you continue to seek the Lord, the Lord then gives you understanding. And through prayer, and through fasting, the Lord began to show me that I wasn't saved.
Because if I was really saved, I wouldn't have this torment. The Bible says fear hath torment, but perfect love casts out fear. And so I began to do that. I began to cast out the fear as I sought the Lord Jesus Christ.
And to the Lord, feel me to the point to where all of that fear was gone. And maybe to another point I would share a little bit more of that. But why am I sharing that? Because we can slide into resentment with respect to the things that God takes us through versus reaching a point of contentment.
Now based on what Paul had said, which is that we should glory into relation. And based on what James has said, which is that we should counter all joy. And when we fall into divers temptations, we see that there is a work that is happening between two things. One of those is patience.
And the other one is hope. Patience and hope. Patience is to endure something with persistency and perseverance with a positive attitude. Every one of us can look at situations in our life and find things wrong with it.
Every one of us can do that. In fact, a lot of people think they're smart because they can see a situation and find all the holes in it. They can find all the problems. But that doesn't take a lot of smarts.
Because that's in our nature. Because that's the devil's nature to criticize. We naturally know how to criticize it. Everybody can criticize something.
Everybody can do that. But what everybody can do is find solutions. That, my friend, takes more energy, more effort, and more creativity. What you focus on will determine your destiny.
And so in this particular context, what we find is that if you focus on a lack of perseverance, if you focus on giving up, that's what's gonna actually happen to you. You'll never get to this point of endurance. Never get to this point of persistency. Where Christ can begin to work in you a positive attitude.
To where you can let the scriptures come to life that will actually illuminate the struggles that you're going through. I want you to think about those things that are weighing on your heart the most, those situations that sometimes you fear the most. Even as Job said, the thing I feared has come upon me. But the Lord has shown me that it's by going through those fears that great deliverance comes.
Job's state was better off, double what he had before. But he had to go through something. You gotta go through it. It's gotta work some patience, some perseverance, and an attitude that Job said, yet though he slay me, I'm gonna hope in him.
I'm gonna trust in him. Your attitude is positive. The second thing is hope. Hope is an expectation of a positive outcome, despite current situations.
It doesn't matter what it looks like in terms of what you're going through. Hope tells you it's gonna be a positive outcome. Hope tells you that God is gonna bring to pass that which I desire, that which I hope for. The Bible says we are saved by hope.
But hope that is seen is not hope. Because if you see it, then you don't hope for it. So there's something about hope. Situations have to be to where you can't see the outcome for real hope to kick in.
It's gotta look, hope less. You gotta hear me. It's gotta look hopeless before you can exercise hope. Your situation has to feel like I can't do it before you can get to the point of being able to say, but I can do all things do Christ.
Life is filled with little oxymorons that God puts in our way to see how much are we gonna push through? And so for you to really get to where God wants you to do, your situation has to look dire. It has to look hopeless. But if we hope for what we don't see, then do we with patience, positive endurance, we wait for it.
Patience and hope become the ground that produce contentment. Because patience and hope lead us to trust. So the preacher was stepping all around this this morning, dealing with a heart condition, but it's that fertile ground of the heart where the deliverance is found and is found in trusting God. It's trusting that the Lord knows what he's doing.
How many of us know that the Lord knows what he's doing? Even when it doesn't look like we can see that he knows what he's doing. We know that God knows what he's doing. Because all power in heaven and earth is given into his hand.
And so in reality, patience and hope lead us to an expression of our trust in God. We believe and know that he's gonna work things out for our good, for all things work together for good, to them that love God, to those who are the called in accordance with his purpose. And when we trust in God, we release God. We release him now to work on our behalf.
He can't work on our behalf the way he wants to work on our behalf when we don't trust him, when we don't hope, when we don't persevere, when there's nothing as positive expectation for a better outcome. And I'll tell you all of us in situations where all the devil wants you to see is what's not gonna happen. But through a hope and patience and contentment and Christ, you see a different outcome. You see the end result.
It's like Jesus who endured the cross, that suffering and pain, he endured the cross, despised the shame for what the joy that was said before him he had a positive outcome. He was looking at something that was positive in the future that gave him the grace to deal with the present. And that is what God is wants to do with us right now. It's to help us see beyond our situation.
So he can do what he wants to do. He wants to make it look impossible. He wants it to look impossible before he steps in. So I was working at that now, and I wanted to get married to my lovely wife.
But guess what? I didn't feel like I made enough money. And we had a saying then. We don't say it too much now.
For some of you, am I scared you? You ready for the saying? Who thinks they know what the saying is? I just wanna see who thinks no one's gonna go raise your hand.
See, not allow y'all know the saying. Here was the saying, no finance, no romance. No finance, no romance, no money, no honey. Oh, I never heard that one, no money, no honey.
And I wanted to get married, but I knew I wasn't financially there. And I began to slide into resentment, to slide into a spirit of complaining. Because it seemed right at the time when I was hoping that I could financially get to where I need to get to, I had an old diesel pooch show, 504, white. And when I drove down the road in that 504 pooch show, it looked really pretty, but I always left something behind me.
It wasn't smoke, it was actually radiator fluid. It had a brake and a heater core. And I took this car, this pooch show, to get a fix. And at that time, the person told me $200, this is back in 1985, $200 to get that fix.
And I began to complain. I was all upset and mad. And then the lawyer said, Joe, what are you doing? Well, look, I wanna get married and I don't have any money and then I have this car situation happening.
And now more money's going out. And this and that and if I don't listen, if I would push this here and maybe if I didn't go to church as much as I'd go and I worked a little bit hard or spend a little bit more, I'd get paid overtime. But if I work hard and overtime, maybe somebody would recognize me and then they would give me a better raise and I'd know all these things and maybe I could do it and make it work and what are you doing? He said praise me, because I make a way for you.
And so all that resentment, I said, okay Lord, and I began on my way back after paying my $200 to a meeting I was late for, I was with my boss, driving back. I began to just sing praises to God. Knew I was gonna be late, but I was singing praises to God. I got there, got in front of my boss, she said, sit down, I said down, she looked at me and at that time I was a contract worker, I wasn't even full of time in that and I was too stupid to know the difference between contract worker and full time.
I had no benefits, I had nothing. Since I had nothing, oh God, detour, can I talk about myself? Okay, I'm gonna give you some details. Maybe I shouldn't give, but I don't mind, I'll be open book.
My wife, before she married me, she had a clown in her room. And a clown was very bright, and had lots of colors all over it. And she named her clown JoJo. And when they asked her, why do you call that clown JoJo?
She says, because you dress like him. It was true, because I was poor. Can't say the real way, I was poor. I was eclectic in my attire, because I had nothing.
Why am I sure this? Because what you see now is not what I was. I hate nothing, nothing. When I left, when I graduated from Cornell, just put the pause button, I graduated from Cornell, I went back to St.
Louis. Louis said, no, I don't want you to say Louis, I want you to Connecticut. I moved back to Connecticut, didn't tell anybody I was coming. I just showed up on Pastor Getta's father's doorstep.
I mean, I was really stupid. I showed up on his doorstep. He didn't know I was coming. And I didn't know they had a service at night in, where's that place, not long out of their Massachusetts, like on a cape.
And then I get back to really, really late. I ended up having to walk to the police station and sleep at the police station, because I got cold in August. Here, it got so cold, I couldn't stay outside. But when I showed up, saints, I had nothing, no money.
De-conternary and the goodness of his heart took me into his home. I had no job, no job. But I knew this is where the Lord wanted me to be. But I had nothing, saints.
So here, I'm driving to this meeting, stealing my state of nothingness. And this is where the Lord began to show me what I'm trying to convey to you now about contentment. It's not based on what you have. We serve a God who is all-powerful, and there is nothing that is too hard for him.
Nothing, nothing's too hard for him. So I'm driving back to this meeting that I'm late for, the one that I started off with a grochi attitude about, about how I didn't have a lot of money, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Literally, the same day I get in front of my boss. She looks at me and says, we're going to hire you full time.
Just like that. We're going to hire you full time, and we're going to give you a raise. Just like that. And it was the amount of money that I needed to put this on my finger.
Just like that. It's through your struggle, and rising above that, and trusting God that God begins to reveal to you. There's nothing too hard for me. Let that sink in.
Let me give you one more. I'm going to affirm Sister Turner's testimony. Let's not get married. We're living in a house owned by the church, paying rent.
It was right next to some projects called Pinnacle Heights. Whom else, Pinnacle Heights. Yeah, yeah, somebody out of no debt, please. Right across the street from it.
It wasn't in the projects, but it was in the projects. So I'm living there with my wife. And at first, everything was so good. It was okay.
But the family that was there moved out, and another family moved in, and they were drug dealers. And all of a sudden, the whole environment changed. And it was drug dealing going on, a lot of craziness going on. And I was traveling at that time quite a bit.
And I said, one time I was traveling, I was away for a couple of days. Leslie and I are newlyweds. We couldn't have been married much longer than a year. Right?
And all of a sudden, the devil says, you know what's going to happen, don't you? So what? Don't talk to the devil. But I did.
What? Somebody's going to break in your house. Hold on. And they're going to rape your wife.
That's what the devil said to me. And all of a sudden, a spirit of fear consumed me. Because I'm not there. I'm not there.
And I began to pray. I said, Lord, I can't change the situation. It is what it is. My job is requiring this of me.
Right now, I can't change that. But I don't believe that I meant to carry this fear around with me. I don't know how you're going to do it, Lord. But do something.
Two days later, this was on like a Sunday, Wednesday. The city shows up. And they evict that family. They take all their furniture.
They throw it out and they board the house up. Two days later, they then renovate the home. Same testimony. And the whole environment, a nice family moved in after that.
And the whole environment changed. My God can do anything. He can do anything, anything. I have learned and whatsoever stand on there to be content.
Contentment comes from trust, trust in your God. The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not watch. Satisfied.
He supplies. You're trying to do it by your own power, but trust in God. Let your situation that seems impossible to you be the fertile ground by contentment will grow. By which contentment will grab a hold of your life, by which contentment will change the course and the direction of where you're going now.
It will change your direction in life. Contentment will do that. Contentment is beautiful. It's beautiful.
It's powerful. And it's worth more than any denomination that can be on your wallet or in your purse. Contemment, godliness, with contentment is great. Contemment.
That tells me you can be godliness and I'll be content. And this is what the Lord wanted me to share with you. Some of us are godly. We're godly people.
But you're not content. You're not satisfied. You're not yearning for something other than Christ. But godliness with contentment is great.
You're looking for something great in your life. Get some contentment. What's the problem with saying all that? Get understanding.
Without understanding, we'll come and understand that I can be content. That I can do something through Christ. Because isn't that where Paul was? It's chapter four.
Not that I speak in respect of what? For I have learned that in whatever state I'm in, they're with to be content. Turn your neighbor's neighbor. I will learn to be content.
In whatever state god puts me in. I know both how to abase. I know how to take myself down. And I know how to abound.
I know how to exalt and magnify the name of Jesus. Sometimes you just gotta lay on your face. And just stay there. Just stay there.
And sometimes you need to give and praise God. And sometimes situations will come your way. All you can do is just suffer some hardship. And other times you can cut the rod because of the grace of God.
I know how to be abased. And I know how to abound everywhere. And in all things, I am instructed. God is telling you.
Didn't he tell us that in all things, we should do what? Give thanks. For this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. Everything for I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry.
I can go the other way. The Lord needs to take me. Both to abound and to suffer need. Here's the kicker.
All of this, we quote the scripture line, but we don't always quote it in its context. Its context is going through stuff. Its context is realizing that I'm gonna deal with the vicissitudes of life. Some highs, some lows, some good, some bad.
All that stuff is gonna happen. But what I have learned is I can do all things through Christ. He gives me the strength to go through it. He gives me the strength to endure it.
Stand with me, Jesus. For it is God that works in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure. It is God who is taking you down the path that he is taking you. And he's taking you down that path so you can learn in whatever state you're in.
They're in to be content. Some of you have been asking for strength. That's how it's gonna come through the trying of your faith. Some of you all want to see greater miracles in this place.
Guess how that's gonna come through the trying of your faith. There is nothing worth having that doesn't come with test and struggle and trial. What you're asking God for, he will fulfill. But you've got to be content in him.
You've got to trust in him. I want to be a follower of Christ.