In Touch Ministries

Dr. Charles Stanley: If I'm going to be contented, I must understand who God is. And my friend, a great deal of our problems in life are the result of our ignorance of God. We know His name is Jehovah, Yahweh, Elohim. We know some of these things, but the truth is, do we know Him in personal experience? Do we know Him in His omniscience? That not anything about you does He ever have to inquire about? He knows you perfectly.

Guest (Male): Are you worried about something? The good news you'll hear today on In Touch, the teaching ministry of Dr. Charles Stanley, is that you don't have to let anxiety rule your life. God freely offers us His peace and rest. If you have a hard time finding inner quietness, stay with us today as Dr. Stanley's message reveals the key to contentment.

Dr. Charles Stanley: While sitting in jail, the Apostle Paul gave us the key to contentment. And he wrote it in this fashion when he said in Philippians chapter 4 verses 6 and 7: "Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God which surpasses all comprehension shall guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." Now this is the second part of two messages dealing with the key to contentment.

If someone should ask you, "What do you mean by contentment?" what would you say? And so you may answer it in this fashion, that contentment is the feeling that you're able to cope with your circumstances whatever they may be. It is a sense of sufficiency that comes in our sufficiency in Christ Jesus. It is the capacity to deal with my ever-changing circumstances of life without becoming restless on the inside or full of fear.

For you see, the opposite of contentment is anxiety. And anxiety is this foreboding about the uncertainty of the future. It is the fear that develops as a result of my feeling that I don't have everything under control. It is an uneasiness that creates tension and stress. It is the sense of fear that comes upon us because we're not quite sure how our circumstances are going to turn out.

And we said, if you'll recall, that when you trace the roots of anxiety, you find them in fear, unbelief, and our attempt to play God. Now, in the light of all that, the question comes: how do you and I discover how to live in contentment on an ongoing basis? Now, that doesn't mean that every single moment of your life you're just going to be happy and passive about circumstances because oftentimes Satan will hit us from the blind side and for a moment we may be thrown off balance.

Or for a moment we may become very tense and for a moment we may experience anxiety. But it should only be for a very, very brief moment of time because God has provided for His children a way to live in contentment on an ongoing basis. Well, when you and I look at this passage, we naturally know that according to what Paul said, prayer surely has something to do with our contentment.

Listen to what he said. He said, "But don't be anxious about anything. But in everything by prayer, supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God." So I want you to jot down three things when we come to this verse of scripture that deal with the whole idea of the key to our living a life of contentment. That is an inner sense of restfulness, an inner sense of peace, an inner sense of quietness, an inner sense of confidence that no matter what may be whirling around on the outside in our circumstances, we can remain unmoved, established, stable, and unworried, no matter what.

So what does he mean when he says, "In everything by prayer and supplication, let your request be made known to God"? All right, first of all, if you'll jot this down: the key to our contentment, the first step is praying as an expression of personal worship. Paul says to avoid anxiety, he says you come to God, you come to God first of all in your prayer as an expression of worship. Now what would we do in that case?

We would begin to worship God and begin to talk to Him as in a God-centered prayer, expressing our worship to Him and worshiping Him in His omniscience. "God, You know my circumstances. God, I can't control my circumstances. God, I don't know what to do at this point. But Lord, I'm coming to You and I'm coming to You because I know that You're omniscient. You know my circumstances."

And you see, God knows everything that was, everything that is, and everything that shall be. He knows all the things that might have been and were not, all the things that could be and shall never be. He knows everything effortlessly and infinitely. There is no inquiry on the part of God. The second thing that I'm going to involve in my prayer of worship is this: I'm going to worship Him in His omnipresence.

"God, I want to thank You, not only do You know my circumstances, but I want to thank You that me and my circumstances are in Your presence." That is, that not only do You know about it, but we're in the confines of Your presence. And you see, nothing that ever happens to you will ever happen apart from God. Nowhere that you ever go, nothing you ever say, nothing you ever do, no circumstance you ever face will ever happen apart from God because you see, once you became a child of God, everything that happens to you happens in the presence of Almighty God.

If I come to Him praising Him for His omniscience, that He knows my circumstances, praising Him that what is happening to me is happening in the eyes of Almighty God, He knows what is happening, and what's happening to me is happening in the presence of God and me, so that I am not alone in this circumstance. You see, worry and anxiety do what? They isolate me over here all by myself.

They isolate me when I begin to think about my problems and my heartaches and my burdens and what am I going to do and how am I going to deal with this? I'm isolating myself from God. When these things happen, I'm to come to Him in His omniscience He knows, in His omnipresence these things are happening not only in my presence to me, they're happening in the presence of God to me.

But when I come to Him in worship, I also want to come to Him worshiping Him in His omnipotence. "God, I want to thank You and praise You that what is happening to me is out of my control but it's not out of Your control. Everything that happens to me, all of my circumstances are within the confines and the omnipotence of Almighty God." Nothing can ever happen apart from the power of God.

Nothing can ever happen outside the power of God. Everything that happens always happens within the realm of the omnipotence of Almighty God. So listen, if He knows about it, if it's going on in His presence, if He's powerful enough to take care of it, and if He's promised to take care of it, what in the world are we going to be anxious about?

You see, our anxiety comes when we resist or when we fight against God in His timing and His method of dealing with my circumstance. But I need to understand that my omniscient God not only knows what's going on, He also knows how to handle my circumstance and He knows the best timing to do it. So that the first step in dealing with anxiety is to come to Him in prayer, Paul says, and to come to Him in personal worship.

You see, when we do that, there's not much room left for being anxious. But there's a second thing he says here. Notice what he says. He says now, "Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer" and then he uses the word "supplication", which in the Greek is a word *deesis*, and it means need-centered. I'm coming to Him with a petition.

See, Paul doesn't say the answer to contentment and the answer to anxiety is just to come and worship God. He says, first of all, we come to Him in prayer, in worship of who He is. You see, the key is knowing who God is and believing that God will live out the reality of who He is in your circumstance at that moment. That's the key: knowing who God is and believing that God will live out His life, live out His will in your circumstance for that moment.

That keeps everything in its proper perspective. But he says not only that, but the second step is that you and I pray as an expression of our personal need. He said, making our needs known to Him. "Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your request, let your need be made known." Now, God expects us to make our need known to Him.

So the first prayer is what? It is God-centered. Now, this is not a second prayer. It is just a continuation of the first one. Our prayer begins God-centered. Then it moves into being need-centered. He says, "Make your request known to God." Tell Him how inadequate you are. Now, he says, here's the way you tell Him: you tell Him with words. "Let your request be made known to God."

You tell God what the need is. Now, oftentimes we tell everybody else when they can't help us. We finally turn to God. A believer should always turn first to God. First to God, not to somebody else: "Can you help me? Can she help me? Can they help me?" No. Okay, God. God is never to be a last resort. That is His purpose.

He's always there to meet our need and to show us how to be contented in the most difficult circumstances. I come to Him in a prayer of worship, expressing my worshipful praise to Him. I come to Him expressing my need and expressing it in words because you see, words are an expression of what I'm thinking, what I'm feeling. But there's something else about this expression here when he says, "Let your needs be known."

I'm to come to Him also in a sense of helplessness: "God, I can't handle this." And "I can't handle it" is an expression of our helplessness before Him and petitioning Him and saying, "Lord, here's my need and God, I can't do anything about it. But I want to thank You, I want to praise You that because You're omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, and faithful, I don't have to worry about it because I know that if You can't handle it, it can't be handled, so why should I worry about it?"

So you see, giving up and resting in God. It is knowing who He is and believing that He will live out in your circumstance who He is. Did you get that? So if He's going to live out in my circumstances who He is in His omniscience, omnipresence, in His omnipotence and in His faithfulness, I don't have to handle it. I don't have to worry about it.

I just come to Him praising Him and telling Him, "God, I can't handle it. Here's my need. I don't know what to do with it, Lord. You're going to have to deal with it." Listen, God is pleased when you and I come to Him that way. He says, "Apart from me, you can do nothing." And the truth is... you say, "Well, now what about that verse that Paul says, 'I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me'?"

Through Christ who enables me. It may be through your body, through your lips, through your mind, your eyes, your feet, but who's doing it? If God took His hand off your life for a moment, you'd be worthless. It is the work of God in our life. You see, whatever our anxiety is, He says we're to come to Him in prayer. He says, "In everything by prayer," praise and worship of Him for who He is, and in petition, coming to Him in my sense of helplessness and recognizing that within myself I can't do it. That is the second step.

"Thank You, God, for who You are. Thank You, dear God, that I am helpless at this moment." And you see, I believe that one of the reasons that some people live in continuous anxiety is they absolutely refuse to bow their knee and admit, "I can't handle it." Now, the reason we don't want to admit we can't handle it because it looks like from the world's point of view, and that's the way we look at it sometimes, which is the wrong point of view, it appears that we're weak.

What did Paul say about being weak? When he says, "I am the weakest," what did he say? He says, "Then I experience the greatest surge of omnipotence through me." It is in weakness we gain our strength. It is in weakness that the power of God flows. The power of God is not going to flow through someone who is being strong in themselves. It flows through one whose sense of helplessness and humility before God, praising and worshiping Him for who He is and allowing God to surge through your life, His very life. That is a key.

But there's a third one in this I want you to notice. He says now, "Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving." Why in the world did Paul say in this passage, why did he say with thanksgiving? When we come to Him worshiping Him and praising Him for who He is, my emphasis is on God. Laying my needs, my anxieties before Him, my emphasis at the moment is my helplessness to deal and to cope with my situation.

Why does he say follow that up with thanksgiving? Because in being able to thank God in the midst of my circumstances and my anxieties, what I'm doing is I am acknowledging that God knows what is best for me at that moment and in His omniscience, in His omnipresence, in His omnipotence, and in His faithfulness, He's going to engineer my circumstances at that moment for my good.

Also, when he says you add thanksgiving to that prayer, it is an expression of faith. "God, I thank You for who You are. I thank You that You've heard my helpless condition. I praise You and thank You for that. I'm expressing thanksgiving now, God, that You've heard me." What am I doing? I'm expressing faith in my thanksgiving. "God, I'm resting this in Your hands. I can't handle it. I've brought it to You, the God I know You to be. I've laid my petition before You now, God, I thank You that You're going to deal with my anxiety, with my circumstance at this moment, which You already know is beyond my control. I thank You for it." It is an expression of resting the consequences and resting the circumstance to the hand of Almighty God.

So when these circumstances happen, what shall we do? Paul says it's real simple. What you do is you go to prayer, beginning to worship God for who He is, knowing who He is. Now listen, if I'm going to live contented before God, I must know who my God is. I need to know how God operates in the here and now, in human life and in circumstances on Monday morning when all hell breaks loose, how does my God operate? That's when I learn how to be contented.

So let me ask you this: Are you more interested in the gold of the Bible or the gold of the earth? "Oh," you say, "I'm more interested in the gold of the Bible." Well, let me ask you a question. Which one do you spend the most time thinking about? The God of the book or the gold of the world? You see, can you think for just a moment how simple Paul made this? Something that all of us need and all of us want, and that's contentment.

To be able to lie down in your bed at night and close your eyes and just say, "Hallelujah." For what? Just hallelujah. Perfectly contented. At peace with God. Resting on the inside. Unmoved by the storms and the circumstances of life. Why? Because you know who your God is. And when you go to bed at night, you go to bed under the eyes of Almighty God, in the presence of God. You sleep in the power of God and you sleep by the faithfulness of God.

Listen to this. "And the peace, the contentment of God," that means the contentment that God gives, the contentment that is characteristic of Him, "and the contentment of God will build a wall around you, around your emotions and around your mind, will keep you in perfect peace. And the peace of God will garrison you about." Put a fortress around you. Do you think about that? When you wake up tomorrow morning, you live in the fortress of God all day long.

Do you go to work thinking, "Oh, what's going to happen to me next?" Listen, you know what Paul says? He says when you and I learn to live in contentment, he says here's what happens. He says, "And the peace of God which surpasses all comprehension shall guard your hearts and minds." How? Because of your personal relationship to Jesus Christ. He says you and I walk in a fortress all day long.

But you see, if I see myself out in the world doing my thing the best I can... Do you go to work to do the best you can? You ought to go to work for God to do through you the best He can. That takes the anxiety away. The peace of God which garrisons you about will keep, protect, quiet, settle, rest your mind and your emotions in Christ Jesus. But it is knowing God, believing God, coming to Him in prayer, knowing who He is and believing what He says. That, my friend, is the key to contentment, and it is yours simply for the asking.

Now, what's the first step? The first step is to receive the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal savior because you see, if you don't do that, if you don't receive the Lord Jesus Christ as your personal savior for the forgiveness of your sins to release you from your guilt and your condemnation, there's no way to enjoy contentment. But having trusted Christ as your savior, you take those three steps and you'll be amazed at what you can stand, what you can suffer, what you can walk through with the most perfect peace and the assurance and confidence that your omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent, faithful God has it all under control. You lay it before Him, thank Him for it and walk off and allow Him to take care of the problem. My friend, He intends for us to live like that every day. That is genuine godly contentment.

Guest (Male): Thanks for listening to In Touch with Dr. Charles Stanley. There will always be opportunities to be anxious, but when stress surfaces, remember that God, who is all-powerful, ever-present, and all-knowing, is in complete control of your circumstances. Well, if you'd like to get to know God better, you'll benefit from spending time on our website, intouch.org, or listen to this message again by following the link to Today on Radio.

For a copy of Dr. Stanley's two-part teaching set, *The Key to Contentment*, open the bookstore page to place your order. And there you can find resources and a lot more at intouch.org, or call or text us at 1-800-INTOUCH. To write to us, address your letter to In Touch, Post Office Box 7900, Atlanta, Georgia 30357.

Dr. Charles Stanley: Let your time and your schedule and everything about you revolve around this: that you and I are to develop and continue to develop this ongoing, intimate, wonderful, exciting, satisfying, indescribable, incomparable relationship with a personal God. Dr. Stanley devoted his entire life to helping us get closer to Jesus, as we all want to do. You can learn how at charlesstanleyinstitute.org.

Guest (Male): You're listening to In Touch. Has something caused you to doubt God? Well, you can take your questions directly to Him. Here is a moment with Charles Stanley.

Dr. Charles Stanley: Well, I think we can ask for understanding, and I think God expects us to. Because if I don't ask for understanding, I'm just going to sort of weasel my way through. And if I ask for understanding, God will answer that prayer because He wants me to understand how He's seeing this, how He's looking at it, that He's still loving us unconditionally. So there's nothing wrong with asking for understanding. Sometimes it comes quickly. Sometimes it doesn't come until we are through that dark valley and then we begin to understand what it's all about.

If we're obedient, that shortens the time. God wants to bring us to the point of surrender. When I say, "Okay, God, have it Your way," all of a sudden time gets short because He wants us not to argue with Him but to trust Him. And so I think we can lengthen the time. For example, suppose I'm unforgiving towards someone and I just keep holding this in my heart against this person no matter what. So I think that's where a lot of people are in life. They won't get right with God and the blessing He withholds.

Guest (Male): The believer who repents of wrongdoing enjoys clear communication with God. Learn more about the Christian life at intouch.org. Did God speak to your heart through today's message? Well, tell us what you plan to do next. Tomorrow on In Touch, we'll learn to recognize and appreciate the blessings of God. So join us Friday for more of In Touch, the teaching ministry of Dr. Charles Stanley. This program is a presentation of In Touch Ministries, Atlanta, Georgia, and remains on this station through the grace of God and your faithful prayers and gifts.