A lesson on the trifecta of spiritual discipline that will tame the Money Monster.

An alert regarding the power of money in the life of the Christian and how we can mitigate the Monster's threat.

This sermon will identify the monster of money we’ve created. How we attach ourselves to money in a way that empowers money to terrorize us. The spirit of greed as lust.

Contentment and Shalom, these words embody the holistic nature of peace. Christ is the prince of peace, the supply of shalom, the secret is that this Prince of peace, this supply of shalom, lives in us. This should make a difference. Being born again is conceiving Christ in us. Gestating Christ in us, giving birth to Christ from within us into the world. This is the perpetual delivering or bearing Christ in the world. If Christ is the groom and the church is the bride, then the church is a type of “Mary” conceiving and bearing Christ into the world.

Best practices for cultivating the contented life are identified and learned, they just don't happen. Psalm 131, Phil. 4:8-9 are examples of contentment causing passages. Contentment works from the inside out. It’s an inside job before it's an outside reality. Christ cannot be thought, only loved, because Christ is not a principle but a person. We were created to be loving things, not thinking things. The Great Commandment…love. Contentment is cultivated slowly. Much like the principle of compound interest. Slow, steady, small investments over time reach a point of critical mass and simply take off (compounded) accelerating toward Christlikeness where living the way of Jesus is then your default lifestyle.

The Secret of Contentment – Part 4: Contentment, which is Christ in us, is learned according to Paul. Notice the “I have learned…” phrases in Philippians 4:11-13. The word “learned” means acquiring and learning by use and practice. The integration of knowledge and experience is the best method for an apprenticeship to Jesus' lifestyle. Practicing the presence of Christ in us and in every circumstance is the central discipline for an apprentice of Jesus.

If Christ is the secret of contentment, Christ must be enthroned and our will submitted to Christ’s authority. Christ will not compete with your will. Surrendering to Christ is becoming immersed in the slavery of serving Christ. Our will is the first to submit (Mt. 6:33); when this happens, all other things will fall into line in submission to Christ.

If Christ is the secret of our contentment because we can do all things through Christ, then the foundation of the contentment secret is that Christ is in us, Col. 1:27…Gal. 2:20…contentment is the ethos or essence of the ongoing incarnation – Christ in us and us in Christ…

We are awash in self-absorption and anxiety. Our culture inculcates discontentment. Consumerism promotes perpetual discontentment by the illusion that if we can just get what we don’t have, we will be content. Our Christ incarnates contentment. Christ is contentment.

As we begin a new year here in 2022 God really impressed me to exhort you, to encourage you, to hold onto the fact that God is still alive, still powerful, and still active in the business of making all things new because he is still reconciling all things together for your good and His glory. If you’re taking notes, we will be looking at God as doing something new as our Waymaker as it relates to our identity, and two factors that often blind and frustrate us in our ability to see the new things He might be calling us to, and those factors are addiction and apathy. So in the context of God as our Waymaker, doing something new, we will be looking at how that applies to our identity, addiction, and apathy.