Cultivating a Contented Heart, Part 1

Series: Cultivating a Contented Heart

Leslie Basham: Are you satisfied with the life God has given you? It's Monday, May 20th; and you're listening to Revive Our Hearts with Nancy DeMoss.

What would it take for you to be content? Would you have to marry Mr. Right or move another rung up the corporate ladder? Or perhaps it's a new home or car that would make your life complete.

All this week, Nancy is going to teach us how to cultivate a contented heart. To do this, she'll open the Old Testament and take us back to the land of Egypt. Here's Nancy now to tell us more.

Nancy DeMoss: Over these next several sessions I want to share with you from my heart and from God's Word what I believe is one of the single, greatest reasons that so many of us as Christians spend our lives wandering around in a spiritual desert, rather than enjoying the abundant life that we know Jesus Christ came to give us.

I meet so many Christians who are frustrated, who are defeated, who--when they get honest--will admit that they're not really experiencing this abundant life that Jesus Christ came to give. There are a number of reasons this can be true, but I want to focus on one particular reason today that I think affects most of us particularly as women.

Turn in your Bibles to 1 Corinthians 10. We're going to look at a number of passages, but this passage gives us a starting place. In the first part of this chapter, Paul gives a little bit of a history lesson; and it's important in this setting because for Paul's Gentile readers--many of them probably were not familiar with some of the Old Testament history of the Children of Israel. Some of us perhaps may not be familiar--if you are newer to the faith, some of this may be new to you as well. That's why Paul repeats some of what we read about in the Old Testament.

At the beginning of this passage, Paul begins by listing a number of the blessings--some of them spiritual and some of them physical blessings--that were experienced by the Jewish nation that God redeemed out of Egypt. He begins in verse 1 of 1 Corinthians 10; and he says, "I do not want you to be ignorant of the fact, brothers, that our forefathers were all under the cloud."

I want you to notice that word all because it appears several times in these verses. The Children of Israel--this is harkening back to the Old Testament days--they were all under the cloud. That is a reference to the cloud of God's Shekinah glory that accompanied the Children of Israel as they went out of Egypt and toward the Promised Land.

"And they all passed through the sea" (1 Corinthians 10:1). What sea is that? The Red Sea--as God delivered them and they walked through on dry ground. Then, you remember how the Egyptians drowned in that same sea that had been a dry pathway for the Children of Israel.

"They were all baptized into Moses in the cloud and in the sea. They all ate the same spiritual food and drank the same spiritual drink; for they drank from the spiritual Rock that accompanied them, and that Rock was Christ" (1 Corinthians 10:2-4). We know that God provided physical water from rocks in the wilderness for the Children of Israel to quench their thirst, and God provided manna (bread from heaven). God provided meat--quail--when they needed that.

There was literal, physical provision; but this physical provision from God was really a picture of deeper needs that God meets--our spiritual needs. The Scripture is saying here that it was Christ Himself who was God's provision. So, here we see that there were spiritual blessings the Children of Israel enjoyed. They all enjoyed these blessings.

We know when we come to the New Testament, that you and I as children of God have been redeemed; and we have been blessed--Paul tells us in Ephesians 1--with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places in Christ. No matter what our life may look like down here on earth today, the fact is--and by faith we embrace it--that we have received every spiritual blessing. All of us who are in Christ have experienced every spiritual blessing that God has to give, and that's because we are in Christ.

When we get to verse 5 of in 1 Corinthians 10, we see a turn in the thinking here. Paul says, "Nevertheless, God was not pleased with most of them; their bodies were scattered over the desert." They all experienced all these great blessings. But with most of them God was displeased, and they ended up coming to ruin and destruction. When it says God was not pleased with most of them, that raises the question in my mind: With how many was God not pleased?

The Scripture tells us in Numbers 1 that approximately 600,000 men above the age of 20 came out of Egypt, when they were redeemed out of Egypt. When you add wives into that number, there were easily one million adults who were delivered out of Egypt. Forty years later another count was taken; you read about it later in the Book of Numbers. At that point we read that only three of those one million adults lived to enter the Promised Land. With all the others, God was not pleased. All the others had been destroyed in the wilderness.

By the way, if you do a little calculation here, that will tell you there was an average of more than 70 funerals every day for 40 years out there in the wilderness. That's a lot of dying. God was not pleased. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 10:11 that these things happened to them as examples. They were written down as warnings for us. That says it's important we understand what it is that happened out there in the wilderness--why nearly one million people perished in the desert. We need to learn from their example and be warned, based on what they learned.

The question is, What are we to learn from their example? What was God not pleased with, and why did they never enter the Promised Land--one million adults, with the exception of three? That raises this question: Why are so many Christians today wandering through the wilderness, going around in circles in their Christian life, rather than enjoying the Promised Land, the abundant life that Jesus Christ came to give us?

Paul explains beginning in verse six, why these Israelites perished in the wilderness. He says there were two things that they did, if you summarize these verses. First of all, he says that they lusted for evil things God had forbidden. We read in verse six, "These things occurred as examples to keep us from setting our hearts on evil things as they did. Do not be idolaters, as some of them were; as it is written: 'The people sat down to eat and drink and got up to indulge in pagan revelry.' We should not commit sexual immorality as some of them did--and in one day twenty-three thousand of them died."

Paul says one of their problems was that they craved evil things that God had forbidden. They followed after idols, and they followed after sexual immorality. These are evil things they never should have longed for.

But there's another problem they had; and that is they craved good, legitimate things that God had not given them. Then they grumbled when they didn't get what they wanted. That's going to become the focus of our discussion here.

Verse 9 tells us, "We should not test the Lord as some of them did--and were killed by snakes. And do not grumble as some of them did ..." Some of your translations use the word murmur there. "Do not murmur or grumble as some of them did--and were killed by the destroying angel." We all know that it's not good to lust after evil things. But I wonder how often we remember that it is also a grievous thing in God's sight to demand good things that God has not chosen to give to us, and then to murmur and grumble and whine and complain when we don't get what we want.

The sin that destroyed the Children of Israel and kept them out of the Promised Land really came down to a single root; and it's this sin of discontentment--wanting something God had not given them, that it was not God's time to give them. They insisted on having things they wanted that God had not provided, and the Scripture says God considered this a very serious sin. "Do not grumble as some of them did, and they were destroyed in the wilderness."

Paul says, "These things happened to them as examples. They were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come" (1 Corinthians 10:11). Then Paul says in a very practical way to us as New Testament believers, "So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don't fall. No temptation has seized you except what is common to man"(1 Corinthians 10:12-13).

This is a very common verse. Most of us are familiar with it; but have you ever stopped to realize the context of this verse? It's in the context of talking about this sin of grumbling and murmuring. Paul says, "You're going to be tempted to complain. You're going to be tempted to murmur--everyone is--but God is faithful, and He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, He will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it."

Over these next sessions, we're going to look at the sin of discontentment; then we're going to look at how we can cultivate a contented heart--the opposite of a discontented heart, believing that God is faithful, that every time we face this temptation to murmur, to complain, to whine--God will provide a way that we can escape from that temptation.

Leslie Basham: That's Nancy DeMoss reminding us to be grateful to God for all that He's given. She'll be back in just a minute with a final thought.

Would you like to know more about living a contented life? If so, we'd like to recommend a book by Jeremiah Burroughs called The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment. First published in 1648, this book explores the topic of Christian contentment in depth and answers your tough questions like, What is contentment and how do I attain it? We have it available for a $9 suggested donation when you call us at 1-800-569-5959.

If you've benefited from Nancy's teaching day after day, won't you consider supporting our ministry on a regular basis? Your donations make it possible for us to continue sharing biblical truth with women all across the country. You can send your donation to Revive Our Hearts. When you write us, why don't you tell us how you practice contentment in your own life? We'd love to hear your story.

Have you ever learned a lesson the hard way? Tomorrow, Nancy's going to tell us about some stubborn Israelites who took awhile to learn their lesson and paid dearly for it. I hope you'll join us tomorrow for that. Now, let's listen to Nancy as she closes us in prayer.

Nancy DeMoss: Lord, as we read about the history of the Children of Israel, we realize that we're no different, that so often we do crave things that You have forbidden. Even more often, we find ourselves demanding that You provide things that You have not--in Your wisdom--chosen to provide for us at that moment.

Lord, when we read about the Children of Israel murmuring and complaining, we hear ourselves. I hear myself. We say, "Lord, would You deliver us from the sin of discontentment? Would You teach us how to cultivate a contented heart--a heart that focuses on Your goodness and Your provision. Thank You that You are faithful; and that when we are tempted to complain, You will provide a way of escape. May we be warned, and may we learn from the lessons learned by those who've gone before us. We pray in Jesus' Name. Amen. 

Revive Our Hearts with Nancy DeMoss is a ministry partnership of Life Action Ministries.

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