CLICK HERE FOR THE LIFE GROUP DISCUSSION GUIDE CONTAINING DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

Peace of Mind- No matter what…

Review:

1. Joyful perspective, patience with people, expectancy of Christ coming back, prayer, and thankful prayers give us the peace of mind found in Christ and disarms anxiety.
   
   
2. Minding and guarding our thought life by filling it with whatever is true, noble, right, pure, lovely admirable, excellent, or praiseworthy. P-48.

Paul now says thank you in a way that instructs them back.

Read Philippians 4:10-13

He was grateful for their gift and the timing of it met needs.  (10)

He was content before the gift and after. WHY state this?

He wanted them to find contentment regardless of the season they might find themselves in.

Paul’s story:

Damascus road- starting over God provides Annanias

Antioch- first assignment, but paired up with a veteran, existing church.

Frontier- paired up, but no church.  Resources become limited.

Beyond Frontier- new pairings, no church, no synagogue, no common heritage…then came Lydia.

Prison- enemies to start, advocates happen, supplies arrive.

My parents:

Early years- new faith, harvest.

Middle years- new mission, huge cost, lean resources, needs always met.  Prayer for sure, but faith was the practice.

Later years- steps of faith, met with challenge, resources come in waves.  Always provided for.

What I learned is that fruitfulness is not tied to provision.

My household:

                  Early years- Very difficult.  Isolation, lean.  Yet fruitful.

                  Middle years- Blessing and then steps of faith.  Lose to gain.

                  Later years- Growing with the church.

Common Pattern Fruitful Learning: I have learned.  I know. I am instructed. I can. John Wesley

In other words,…You learn, you know, you seek guidance, you keep going!

Pattern of Fruitful Learning.  Philippians 3:10-13

1. Learn contentment in the journey of seasons. (11)
   
   
2. Knowing personally what it feels like. (12a)
   
   
3. Gaining instruction as you go through it. (12b)
   
   
4. Going forward in confidence of the strength Christ provides. (13)

Verse 13 Paul likely would have chosen a different verse as most likely to be memorized: 1:9-10; 1:21; 2:5; 3:8; 3:14? 

“this” forces the connection and takes the verse off the walls and fridges.

Contentment- (def) sufficient or adequate, have what I need—a resolve that you have what is needed to do all that God would ask of you today. 

• What it is: confidence that God’s got this (His strength), thus there is enough to keep going. You have what you need to do today all that God desires.
  
  
• What it is not: resignation that causes you to stop—maturing, advancing the gospel, living, growing in skills. It is not defeatism, not resting on your laurels, not resting on personal achievement. 

Learning Contentment

• Living in want without falling into the trap of constant complaint.
  • Discovering God’s provision at just the right time and throughout these seasons.

• Living in plenty without falling into the trap of self-adulation.
  • Grateful for God’s blessing and provision.
  • Grateful for the season.

• Learning to be faithful regardless of plenty and want.

Knowing challenge and blessing

• With experience you know it personally versus knowing about it through observation.
  • The emotional side.
  • The physical side.
  • The spiritual side
  • The relational side. YOU KNOW!

• Knowledge becomes a great tool for future leading and living.

Receiving guidance

• The knowledge and learning is enhanced by instruction and guidance from God and others.
  
  
• Plans fail for lack of counsel.
  
  
• Strength is found in being yoked with another.

I can

• Through His strength, find contentment and a resolve that God’s got this regardless of the resources I might have.
  
  
• Making possible all things God would have us do regardless of having plenty or being in want.
  
  
• This is not God backing your play, but you running the play God has called.
  
  
• His strength is leveraged when we have the mind of Christ in all that we do.

You are content and confident regardless of your current state, because God’s strength is in you to accomplish all that He wills for your life.

Questions that guide:

1. Are you in a season of want or blessing?
   
   
2. What have you learned and what do you now know?
   
   
3. Whose counsel do you need to seek?
   
   
4. Whose strength are you leveraging to live out today?
   
   
5. For whose mission is that strength being leveraged?