I am excited by the scripture and message today because I can’t imagine anyone here not wanting this sermon. And I want to start as we think about thermostats and thermometers. You all know that a thermometer measures the temperature. And when our lives start to get into trouble and we feel our blood pressure rising, we are all good at being thermometers. That indeed is the problem. It is no fun being a thermometer. There we are shouting out, this situation is hot, its too warm in here, I’m going to blow up at this guy – all things like that.
Paul writes about being a thermostat. How do you take whatever life throws at you and keep your cool. A thermostat doesn’t report the heat – it turns on cooling to get the temperature back down to normal. And that is what we are looking at today. How can you and I have true satisfaction so that whether we feeling good or stressed in a hot situation – is there anyway to feel good about life at all times?
Paul says that there is. And let’s look forward to God’s word to us for this day on True Satisfaction.
Paul is writing this letter, locked 24 hours a day to an armed guard in Rome. He is under arrest and he will ultimately lose the case and his life. Some of churches have stopped supporting him because he has become too controversial. Now some of you have come here today with problems. You are not ready to hear some platitude that if you pray every day and do your happy dance that life will become a blessing factory. But will you listen to a guy who is charged with capital crimes, is innocent, and is under arrest? Paul’s situation does make him an expert on this particular topic. ‘True Satisfaction.’ He may not be an expert on end times but if he has any ideas on satisfaction, you can be sure that they are worth listening to seriously.
Most Christians deal with miserable situations miserably. Martha felt obliged to keep working when Jesus came to her house and she was bitter. [Luke 10:40] But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, "Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me."
Elijah worked hard, very hard. And life was not kind. And there came a day when [1 Ki 19:10] He answered, "I have been very zealous for the LORD, the God of hosts; for the Israelites have forsaken your covenant, thrown down your altars, and killed your prophets with the sword. I alone am left, and they are seeking my life, to take it away."
Paul gives us several ways to find satisfaction. True satisfaction comes when we learn contentment. Paul says that he learned how to be contented in verse 11. If you are discontented, it will not go away by itself. We all look with envy on the lives of others when we really need to learn contentment with our own. I want to say this carefully – changing your looks will not make you more contented. Getting more money is not the key to your satisfaction. Having a boyfriend or girlfriend is not the secret. Better health is not the key. Legal status, more time off, a clean record, having children – all of these are good things but they are not the key to contentment.
We learn this by experience. I remember searching the Christmas Book at Sears as a child. There were pages and pages of toys and this was my one chance of the year to choose and I chose well, there would be eternal happiness. I compared, I pondered, and I talked with my friends. Finally, I went to my parents and placed my Christmas order for happiness. I remember one year, I asked for an electric racing set. It was so big and beautiful. But the yellow car wasn’t quite right so it always ran slower than the red car. And so I worked on the set for a couple of hours and learned all the tricks. And suddenly realized that a car racing set requires two people and I was an only child.
We learn contentment when we realize that God is actively guiding us and we relax and wait for the Lord. There is no deeper satisfaction in life than to go home tonight and be able to say – I went where God wanted me to go today. I am the junior partner of God’s plan. That is where we feel the peace and satisfaction of verse 9. Paul writes to the Thessalonians, [1 Th 5:23] May the God of peace himself sanctify you entirely. Paul says to the Thessalonians, I want you to get to the point where you are completely filled with peace because you know that your life is in God’s plan. If you learn and accept that all good and bad experiences today are within God’s plan for your life – there is the peace that God will get you through and the satisfaction of knowing that you are valuable to God.
Some of you don’t want to hear this part because you are still full of yourself and you feel that just one break in life and you can succeed on your own. At my last church, I realized that I had a special relationship with military and construction guys. They came to church. One guy was a high iron specialist. His job was to fasten the girders as the frame of the building was lifted into place by a crane. He was one of those guys who walks along the girder to the other end with an 80 foot drop underneath. At first I was intimidated by Chet. Did he know that I secretly get dizzy whenever I climb a stepladder?
Then I realized that he was looking at my life. He had tried to live life fearlessly by himself and even on the top of the high iron – it wasn’t enough. He was listening for a God who could make sense of all the turmoil of daily life and assure him that there was a plan.
You can have true satisfaction if you learn contentment – learn that God has a purpose for each moment of your life, the good and bad. The payoff is this, for the person who is satisfied, life is a series of appointments. For the person who has not learned contentment, life is a series of accidents.
You can have true satisfaction if you learn to have confidence in God. This takes some work too, because we struggle with the big question – if God is good, why are there bad things in my life? Paul is a good person to ask since he is in jail and writing about his own satisfaction. God never sends bad things. If you are lonely, God did not send that loneliness. Think of the worst problem you face. Paul says to the Romans, [Rom 8:28] We know that all things work together for good for those who love God. God wants to take your problem which threatens to destroy you and turn it to some good purpose. That is why Paul can find True Satisfaction. He has confidence in God’s intention and power. He says to the Philippians [Phil 4:13] I can do all things through him who strengthens me. He doesn’t worry that God has caused his problems.
Sadly, there is someone here today who believes that you have a problem because God is punishing you. That idea is nowhere in the Bible and you have to learn confidence in God. There is someone here today who believes you have a problem because God doesn’t deal with your kind of problem. You have to learn confidence in God. And let us face it, some of us enjoy having a problem. Paul was a college student who kept coming to me because he felt that God was punishing him for his sin. Over and over I explained God’s way and Paul didn’t like it. Paul wanted to be punished. Finally, I blew up and told Paul that the only sin I could see in him was that he didn’t want to listen and was inventing his own God.
Find true satisfaction as you learn confidence in God’s good hand in your life. Paul relied fully on Christ’s strength.
How do you start to learn contentment and confidence in God which leads to True Satisfaction? You need a daily commitment to do something small that helps you experience True Satisfaction. This series on stewardship has dealt a lot with possessions. If you feel the pinch of Christmas bills, set aside your tithe and pray to God each day, help me Lord to experience True Satisfaction. If you are feeling loneliness, go to the Bible study today and then pray each day, God lead me to other people who will support me and help me feel True Satisfaction in singleness. If you are facing illness, why not put an announcement in the bulletin for people with similar issues to meet at church once a week for prayer and support? If you are working on recovery, divorce, legal status, gay concerns, parenting, singleness, teens – why not use the church structure which God has given us, find others who want to meet and pray about the same topics, get some guidance from our leaders meetings like the one today and see if God does not bless you with True Satisfaction.
We have all had plenty of experience being thermometers. We know how hot life gets and a lot of us feel that boiling point a lot of the time. Paul tells us to learn to be thermostats – find True Satisfaction. The good news is that is there for us to find. And if you will take just a little time apart each day to learn contentment and confidence in God, you will get to the goal of True Satisfaction.
