in Philippians in just a moment. In Philippians chapter number four, appreciate your faithfulness, be in the house of the Lord. I do appreciate that. I appreciate your loyalty to your church. I believe when people join a church, I think it's more than just getting your name on a roll. I think it's more than just saying that's where I belong. I mean, I actually think that it means showing up and supporting your own church with your presence, with your time, talent, and treasure. And I appreciate people who are faithful to their church and loyal to it. God bless you for being here. A Russian woman lived with her husband and two children in a little hut and the husband's father and mother lost their house and so the father and mother moved into that little hut with the son, his wife and two kids and it was getting the best of the lady of the house and she was finding it just unbearable and so She went to the village wise man who had a reputation for having solved a lot of problems. And she went to the village wise man and she said, I just can't take it. I'm so unhappy with the way things are. She said, what should I do? He said, do you have a cow? She said, yes. He said, go home and bring the cow into the hut with you. She said, what? He said, bring the cow into the hut with you. So she went home and did it. and he said, report back to me in a week. Well, at the end of the week she came back and she said, this is absolutely miserable. She said, now I've got a cow in the house with me and it's a mess and I can't put up with this. He said, do you have any chickens? She said, well yeah, we've got a few chickens. He said, bring them into the hut too. She said, you've got to be out of your mind. He said, no, just do what I say, bring the chickens into the hut. She said, I don't understand this. But she left, and she went and put the chickens in the hut along with the cow and the two families, and she reported back to the wise man a week later. He said, how's it going now? She said, this is just absolutely disgusting. Those cows and chickens have made such a mess in the house. It's just terrible. I can't take it. He said, well, go home and take the cow out of the hut. Report back in a week. She did and she came back in a week and she said, well, it's a little bit better, but it's still a stinking mess in there. And he said, we'll go home and take out the chickens and come back in a week. And so she took the chickens out, came back and reported in a week. And he said, how's it going now? She said, well, this is a lot better. He said, OK, your problem is solved. You know, learning how to be content is not in possessions. It's not in circumstances. Being content is right up here in the noggin. It happens here. Surely one of the greatest causes of believers not having joy in their lives in our time is the loss of contentment. You say, hadn't you preached on this text out of Philippians 4 and preached on this subject before? Oodles of times. But I need it. And you say, why do you need it? Aren't you content? I'm content. Then why are you preaching it? This keeps me content. You say, you can read the whole Bible through. You can memorize portions of it. You can hear sermons on it. But we're leaky buckets. We get all filled and joyful and content. Next thing you know, things happen. Don't they? And all that joy and contentment just leaks out. And so we need to fill it up again. And so how many times am I going to preach on contentment? Probably as long as I'm able to preach. Because I need it and you need it. Let's read beginning in verse number 10 of Philippians chapter four. Philippians 4.10, but I rejoiced in the Lord greatly, that now at the last your care of me hath flourished again, wherein you were also careful, but you lacked opportunity. Not that I speak in respect of want, for I have, next word, learned in whatsoever state I am, except for Texas, therewith to be content. I know both how to be abased and I know how to abound. Everywhere in all things I am, next word, instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ, which strengtheneth me. Notwithstanding, you have well done that you did communicate with my affliction. They had given to support this missionary, Paul. And he said, now look, I appreciate your support. Whether you support me or whether you don't, whether I've got money or whether I don't, whether I've got a house to live in or whether I don't, whether I'm beaten or I'm happy and full or hungry, I've learned to be content. And then in this letter to the Philippians, we see some great truths that will help you and me. We're gonna look at three of them tonight. Let's pray together. Father, we pray that you'd bless us. Lord, we're not naturally a content people. And Lord, we do tend to go in cycles where sometimes we're content. Seems like most of the time we're not. We're striving, struggling, desperately reaching out for something to satisfy the craving within. I pray that you would bless us tonight. Show us that you have the answers to meet our needs. In Christ's name we pray. Amen. First he tells us that contentment is a learned state. It's a learned state. Didn't he say that? He said, I have learned to be content. Well, if the great Apostle Paul, who was educated in some of the greatest seminaries, universities of the world that day, if the smart Apostle Paul had to learn something about contentment, how much do you and I need to learn? Contentment is learned. speak in respect of want, for I have learned in whatsoever state I am therewith to be content. Paul's contentment was not instantaneous. It didn't just wham, hit just like that. And like a lightning bolt out of the blue, just suddenly he's content and content forever. No, it came through a series of communications with God. It came with a series of experiences in the ministry. It came from dealing with people It came with things. Shut up. Siri is just needing some preaching too. Why does that happen? I have no idea. Did I say her name before she started talking? I think that happened one other time. It's probably haunted. Paul said, through all the things I've gone through, these years I've spent, I've spent years over here going through this country, and years over here speaking with the Jews, and years over here trying to plant churches, and I've been in shipwrecks, and I've been in places where they treated me badly, and I've been hungry, and I've gone for days walking over stony ground without a bite to eat, and I've learned some things from it. We live in a soft generation that hasn't learned things very well. I remember going through times when I was a kid, and yeah, bear with me a little, I'm gonna reminisce. I remember being out in a hay field on days like this, when it was 95 to 100 degrees and sometimes higher, picking up dusty bales of hay and throwing them as high as we could throw them on a hay wagon. I remember riding that hay wagon, lifting those bales of hay till my arms felt like they were gonna fall off. Sweat was running. We'd finally get a little, like a five minute break going from the hay field to the barn. And then when we get to the barn, the hay wagon would pull up and that door to the barn loft was like 20 or 30 feet high. And we got to get up on that stack of hay and then start heaving them up in the barn loft. And the guys on the wagon at least could get a little fresh air, but it wasn't easy throwing those bales up there. And the guys on the inside were up there stacking those bales as high as they could go against that tin roof and the sun beating down that tin roof and the humidity and the dust and the old barn loft. It was like a nasty oven. And you're breathing that stuff in your lungs. We didn't know about masks in those days. And we're breathing that dust. And as Charlie Brooks said one day, he said, man, I don't know if I can take this much longer or not. I've got the thumps. The thumps is when your heart was beating so hard It felt like it was going to come out of your chest. And that was just on those one days. And then there's catching chickens at night, and then there's cutting and hauling firewood. We went through some things, and you can laugh if you want to and say, okay, boomer, you've had your time. Hey, we learned some things, like the Apostle Paul learned some things. We learned what it was like to be diligent, develop character, and not expect something for nothing. And we learned some things. We learned to be content. When we got to the house and Mom had some fried chicken and gravy and mashed potatoes on the table, we didn't say, I'd rather have some nuggets from McDonald's. We didn't know what nuggets was and neither did we know what McDonald's was. We knew what fried potatoes and green beans and pinto beans and sliced tomatoes were. We live in a soft generation. And I know that what I've just said goes right over the top of the heads of those who haven't experienced it. The Apostle Paul experienced a lot of these things. And he said, I've learned to be content even if I've got the thumps. even if I'm getting stoned, even if I'm in a shipwreck, even if I don't have support and I'm still trying to do the ministry, I'm doing these things and I've learned to be content. Paul's saying, I don't need your sympathy. I just want you to learn from me. Let me share the experience with you. Let me teach you so you can learn how to be content. We don't understand in America oftentimes what contentment, really is or where it can be found. We've been taught to understand that contentment comes from the people we know. If I can just hang out with this group over here, are you listening? If I can just hang out with these people over here, I'll be so happy and I'll be so content. But people are just people. Are you listening? People are just people. And people are not perfect and people will disappoint you. We've been taught in this generation to understand contentment having position. If I could just have that job over there, if I could just have this position, if I could just make X number of dollars, I'd be so content. No, if you haven't learned to be content where you are right now, you won't be content over there. Because it's a state of mind, it's not in the circumstances and the people and the things and the possessions. Contentment is reaching the state of mind where we're at peace with who we are and who Christ is. Contentment then is a learned state. Contentment is not that stuff over there or those people over there. Contentment is up here. You can be as happy and content as you choose to be. Now if you feel like a victim and you constantly tell yourself you're a victim, you won't be content and I feel sorry for you. I'm not condemning you, I'm just saying I want you to find joy and peace and contentment like the Apostle Paul had and it only comes when you learn it through experience, either yours or someone else who shares their experiences with you. That's why kids need to listen to mom and dad and not just let it all blow right over like it didn't mean anything. When I was 13 years old, I thought my dad was the dumbest guy in the world. When I was 16, I became convinced he was the dumbest guy in the world. When I was 18, I thought, well, he's just a product of his time. When I got to my 30s, I figured out he wasn't near as dumb as I thought he was. Sometimes kids pick that out and they learn it. Contentment, number two, is not found in possessions or circumstances. Rich Grimes, some of you heard me talk about Richard Grimes that lived in Izzard County where I grew up, way out in the country. I call Richard Grimes the original homeless guy. These homeless people don't have nothing on Rich. Now Rich is dead, he died just a few years ago. He was older than me. didn't have a job. He didn't have a car. He didn't have a house. He didn't want anything. Rich hitchhiked everywhere he went. And he went a lot of places. Well, within his area. He didn't travel out of state. I was driving home late when I was a teenager. I was driving home late one night, and there was a big old cardboard box that looked like it had flown out of the bed of somebody's a pickup truck, like a refrigerator had been packed in or something, about that big. It was laying kind of on the edge of the right-of-way on the road, and I thought, I probably was late at night, not many cars back then, and I thought somebody might have an accident trying to dodge that or something. So I got out to move that box, and out of that box came Richard Grimes. He's laying there asleep. It was cold that night. I said, Rich, what in the world are you doing in that box in the middle of the night? He said, it was cold outside. He had taken up residence in a cardboard box. You know where he lived most of the time? If he wasn't living in a cardboard box, he lived in somebody's outhouse, shed. No barn. He'd pick up a little work fixing fence or helping haul a little wood. He didn't do much. I mean, he was kind of lazy. but he wasn't a burden on society. He didn't ask you for anything, and he didn't expect your tax dollars to pay for his laziness. That's the way he wanted to live. After I got saved, I'd go see him all the time, witness to him, trying to get him saved. I'd go see him at nighttime, and he's still living out in an old shed for a guy he worked for, and I mean just an old wooden smokehouse. I'd go and talk to him, and I asked him one night, Why don't you, you're healthy and young enough, why don't you get you a steady job? I mean, you could have a car and your own house, stuff like that. I just want you to do that. He said, I don't want to. He said, I don't need that stuff. I said, well, one of these days, you're going to get old enough that you're not going to be able to do anything to make any money and you won't have paid any social security. How are you going to live then? He said, I don't want Social Security. I ain't putting my name on nothing the government offers me. He didn't want anything. You know what he learned? Now, I'm not suggesting you live in a cardboard box, all right? I'm not suggesting you live in an outhouse. What I'm saying is that Rich Grimes had learned to be content with what he had, and he didn't want anymore. And if homeless people don't want anymore, as long as they don't ask me to pay their bills, I'm fine with that. They can live wherever they want to as long as it's not on my place. I'm saying we ought to be content without the need of possessions. It's okay to have some stuff, but when that determines your joy and contentment, it's not scriptural. Philippians 4.12 says, I know both how to be abased and to know how to abound. Everywhere and all things I'm instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. Paul's saying, regardless of our circumstances, whether we have money or not, whether we have position or not, whether we're staying up with the neighbors or not, contentment happens right up here in your head, not in the things around us. Paul later tells his son in the ministry in 1 Timothy 6, 6. He says, but godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world and it's certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and raiment, let us therewith be therewith content. You know what Paul's saying? He's saying, we didn't have anything when we came into this world. And that casket's not going to hold any houses or cars or safes. Not even hold your rifles and your golf clubs. That casket's going to be empty. You're going to go out. When you leave, you're even leaving the casket behind. Isn't that true? Naked came I into this world and naked shall I return. We didn't come with anything, and we're not gonna leave with anything, so it doesn't make any difference what we accumulated in the meantime either. Since we can't take it with us, it's not gonna be that important. It's just temporary. We call those temporal things, and they won't last. In eternity, it won't matter. Jesus is not gonna come along and say, Brooks, boy, I'm really proud of you, son. Man, you had a nice bank account. I mean, you died with it still in there, but you had a nice bank account. Brooks, you had a 65 T-bird. That thing is really sharp. So you get a higher place in heaven for that. I don't think it's gonna work that way, do you? I don't think he's gonna be impressed. I mean, he created not only the universe, but the gold that's in it. I mean, they paved the streets with that stuff up yonder. It's not going to mean much to impress him with what we've got because he owns the cattle on a thousand hills and he owns the thousand hills to boot. Nothing we gather together will make us more happy. We start with nothing and we end with nothing. Somebody asked me a year or two ago, my wife and I drive a 2012 Dodge Charger. Somebody said, why do you drive a 2012? Why don't you get a new one? I said, I like this one. And it doesn't have a payment. Some people are paying $700, $800 a month for a vehicle and more. I'd like to ask them, does it make you $800 a month happier? I don't have to worry about paying the car payment at the end of the month. It's done. If that thing keeps running, I'll probably drive it till I die. I had insurance my wife could buy a new one when I leave, but we got so old that ran out. We're just content with what we have. You know what is contentment to me? Going home on a hot day and kicking back in the recliner and having air conditioning. That brings about some contentment for me. Circumstances also was a big thing to me when I was a teen. Before I got saved, circumstances made a lot of difference to me. You know what bothered me as a teenager? It bothered me to be content at home because I knew there were other teenagers. They're over there doing something that's fun, and I know they're having a lot more fun than me. I need to be there, you know? I need to be there because they're having fun. Why wasn't I having fun? Because of the thought processes right up here. I could have been having fun where I was at. I'm not against going somewhere and doing things for having fun, but if you have to do that to have fun, You haven't discovered the secret of contentment yet. In Hebrews 13, 5, the author says, let your conversation be without covetousness and be content with such things as you have. For he hath said, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee. I like that. Contentment then is not found in possessions or circumstances. And number three, contentment comes from learning to appreciate what we have in Jesus Christ. What we have or don't have is not really all that important. If you have Jesus, you have the most important thing and the only thing that really matters. Verse 13, Paul says, I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me. Paul's saying, I can be hungry and I'm gonna depend on him to strengthen me. But he said, there's times when I've been full. Sometimes we get full, sometimes we get proud, sometimes we gather some things, sometimes we have a bank account, sometimes we have a nice car, and sometimes we have a nice house, and sometimes we get lifted up with pride and think, I've done this myself. Paul said, that's times when I need strengthening from Christ too. Not just when I'm empty, but when I'm full. Paul had learned when he's full he better remember he needs the strength of Christ. True contentment comes from living a life understanding that everything else pales to knowing Christ. Paul looked into every circumstance to find the Lord in it and thus he found contentment. Paul looked to the Lord to strengthen him so that he didn't become self-sufficient. Through it all, every circumstance he found, the Lord was sufficient. Isn't he? He's sufficient. Let me close by giving you four practical steps to become a more content person. Would you like to be more content? I'm not asking you to raise your hand or give any kind of signal. I know how you are because I'm made out of the same kind of flesh. And we're not content all the time. Some people are less content than others. And for some people it just takes constant feeding of the flesh to stay content. It's like a drug. You've got to have another injection, either praise from somebody or money or power. That's why Washington, D.C. is full of so many wicked people. They're mostly power hungry. I mean, they get to take their share of the money, but I think the power to them is even more addictive than possessing the power. Four things, four practical steps. First, learn to act better than you feel. Some of you are thinking right now, that's not, that can't be right. Learn to act better than you feel. Wouldn't it be great if you always felt like doing the things that you need to do. There's times that I know something needs to be done and I'm thinking, man, I don't feel like it. I wish I felt like it, but I don't feel like it. But if you'll act like you feel like it, it will affect your psyche You say, but Brother Brooks, isn't that being a hypocrite? If you don't feel like it, why should you do it? Well, let me ask this about a mother who hears the baby cry at 2 o'clock in the morning, needing a diaper changed. Do you really feel like getting up at 2 and going and changing that dirty diaper? I suggest that you probably don't feel like it, but you do it. Why? Because it's the right thing to do. And when you get in there to change it, you're not in there kicking the crib saying, you little rascal, you're driving me crazy. No, you're sweet talking that little baby. You're acting like you're feeling like doing it. But you're not. You liar. Are you being a hypocrite? No, you're doing the right thing. And just like that, in everything that we have to do, all the things that's right and proper and that's our duty to do, if we act like it, it may just get to be where we feel like it. Someone has said it's easier to act your way into a better way of feeling than to feel your way into a better way of acting. Somebody else said if you go through the motion, you will feel the emotion. The motto of the AA is fake it until you can make it. Well, there must be an idea there that sometimes it's just the right thing to do whether you feel like it or not. An alcoholic who is offered a drink, now what does he feel like? He's probably going to feel like, I'd like to have that bottle. But if he says no and pushes it away, that's not what he's really feeling, but he's pushing it away because he knows it's the right thing to do. And if he does that enough, he'll feel better about pushing it away. Everything that we do. Second, we all got practical steps to be more content. Refuse to compare yourself with others. Doesn't the scripture say in 1 Corinthians, comparing yourselves among yourselves, you're not wise. We always have a tendency, naturally, to compare ourselves to somebody else that's doing better than we are, and we say, why? Why can't that be me? They won the lottery. The Joneses down the street, they've got a nice big house, multi-million dollar house. Why couldn't that be me? And our neighbors on the other side got two cars and they're both Lexuses. Why couldn't that be me? And you ever notice that when we compare ourselves to people in that context, people that are doing better than us, we tend to always pick out people who are doing better than us. to compare ourselves to. I mean, we don't look around the neighborhood or around the town and find people that's doing worse than us and say, I wish that could be me. No. We always pick out people that's doing better and say, I'd like to be like them. What's my point? My point is there are a whole lot of people that's doing worse than you are so quit comparing yourself to those that's doing better and be content with what you have. Oh, by the way, that mother that got up at two o'clock in the morning and changed the diaper, she would talk sweet to the baby, and when she got back in bed, she elbowed her husband real hard because he pretended he didn't hear the baby crying. I just thought I'd throw that in. We need to stop the comparison game. Third, accept people the way they are and not what you I wish they were. You know, I've been in the ministry over 40 years and I've learned something. You can't fix people. You can't fix people. They've got to want to be different. They've got to want to change. They've got to want to help themselves. You can't fix people. If you only love people who satisfy and please you all the time, you ain't going to like nobody. Accept people the way they are. I'm not talking about people who are living in deep sin and donning the sin. I'm just saying people are going to have habits. Everybody's going to have stinky breath sometime. You can't fix people. Just learn to love people anyway. Fourth, accept things as they are. if you want to be content, not like you wish they were. If you wait till everything's okay, you're going to die and never be content. If you expect things to improve to your liking before you accept them, you won't ever accept them because everything's going to be a little bit lower standard than what you wish it was. This is true of churches too. We've had people come to our church over the years and people drift in and drift out. Some people come in and say, man, this is the greatest church I've ever been in. You're the greatest preacher I've ever heard. I know right then they're lying. The greatest preacher, the music is great, the facility is pretty, we love this church. And they go out the door and never see them again. Why? Because they found out somebody in the church didn't please them and everything wasn't perfect so they moved on. If you look for perfection in your kids, you won't ever love them. If you look for perfection in your mate, you won't ever be happy. I'm not saying that they might not need to change. They might need to change. I'm just saying you're probably not going to fix them. And if you wait until they're fixed, it ain't never going to be done and you ain't never going to be happy. Accept things as they are, not like you would like them to be. The secret of contentment is understanding that contentment is learned. So when you go to bed tonight, remind yourself, I'm going to be content tomorrow. I might not have the best job in the world, I might not have the best job I'll have in the future, but I'm going to be content before I go to work tomorrow. I'm going to get up in the morning and I'm going to be happy and content and joyful about my wife or my husband. Not my husband, your husband. I ain't got one. I'm not Pete Buttigieg. I'm saying if you wake up in the morning already having decided that you're going to love your spouse and be content, things will go better and you can be content. I had a book in my library for years and I've loaned it out and can't find out where I loaned it to and somebody's got it. Somebody's a thief in here. It was written by a Christian psychologist back years ago before most of them went crazy. And the title of the book was Happiness is a Choice. Happiness is a Choice. And the whole book was based on that premise. That you're going to be as happy as you decide to be. If you want to call yourself a victim and convince yourself that you're a victim and lick your wounds, then you'll be a victim tomorrow. But if you say, I'm going to be content tomorrow, things around you might not be one whit different, but your noggin will be, and your contentment will be there. But you've got to decide. When you get up in the morning, you pray and ask God, Lord, I want to be content. I don't want to be unhappy. I don't want to be critical. I don't want to be mean-spirited or arrogant. I just want to be content. I don't want to be jealous and envious. I want to be content with whatever I've got. Lord, if you give me something better, I'll appreciate it. Until that happens, I'm going to be content with what I've got. Right smack dab where I'm at. I don't have to have anything else. I've got Jesus. I don't have to have anything else to give me contentment. Right where I am. Contentment is learned. Contentment is not found in possessions or circumstances, and contentment is found in learning to appreciate what we have in Jesus Christ. Benjamin Franklin said, contentment makes poor men rich. Discontent makes rich men poor. I think he's right. Let's pray. Father, thank you for giving us all that's needed for our contentment in the Lord Jesus Christ. Thank you that we've been saved from hell. Thank you that we don't get what we deserve in hell. Thank you that we have a future in heaven. Thank you that we have everything we need in the Lord Jesus Christ. Thank you for your love for us, your unconditional love. Even when we don't do right, Lord, you still love us. Thank you that you always are willing to forgive us. Lord, forgive us of being discontent. Lord, make us content people, I pray in Jesus' name.