Remaining Healthy In Church Growth - The Secret of Being Content - Daniel Willis

Amen. The secret of contentment. I know the secret of being content, whether well-fed or hungry, living in plenty or in want. I can do all things through Christ, who gives me strength.

This is somewhat, in my opinion, kind of like David. In his Romans 9 series, one of his things he said was, "We got to read the end to see what he's talking about at the beginning." It's not exactly that way, but I do believe all through Philippians, he's giving us the secret of being content. And so I wanted to start with that, the secret of being content. And he goes through looking at others as better than ourselves, thinking of others' interests over our own interest, of not complaining, no matter what, don't complain or argue. And the reason we do that is so that we can be blameless children of God.

So if we're looking at everybody better than ourselves, we're not complaining or arguing. We rejoice always. We don't worry about anything. Instead, when we do worry, we pray about it and thank God and ask for what we need. And it gives us a peace beyond understanding.

And then he tells us to fill our minds with what is true and right and noble and praiseworthy and admirable and to think of such things. And if we do all these things as a congregation all the time, which is a huge task, I mean, this is something that we have to practice every day, every day, not complain. When we feel negative things coming in, we stop them and we think of what the good things are. And this would give us, this would take away any kind of critical spirit and would make us really united pretty quick. And I think it's the secret of being content.

So first, I want to talk about something that seems unrelated, maybe culture shock. I don't know the right word for this, but this is when I studied culture shock, this is what I'm thinking about. This word matches best. There might be a better word. But culture shock has been happening in this congregation since I've been here. And it's going to keep happening, especially because we have such a diverse group of believers.

Culture shock is normal and often accompanied with somewhat of a hyper-emotional state or over-sensitive characteristics. And often Satan will use that to make people critical and cause divisions among people. And so thus far, I think we've done pretty good. I think that Satan's tried to work his way in. And I think that we've done a really good job of flexing for each other, preferring our brother.

Where we differ, we've moved toward one another. So this is a misconception. Often people think of culture shock as things that are the really big differences. It rarely comes from new, so culture shock rarely comes from new experiences with no previous expectations. And the reason I know this is when we went to China, I thought it was going to be these things that I've never experienced in my life that was going to shock me and make me want to go home. And things like a red envelope, Hongbao, it's where they give a red envelope to friends and family for holidays full of money. And then they give the same red envelope for bribes to the government and for dowry during a wedding.

And it was a really big shock to me that people are paying for spouses and bribing people kind of in the open. But it didn't bother me really deeply because I never had that. I didn't know what to expect.

Or burning fake money for the dead. They would do ancestral worship and they'd burn these houses and cars, fake houses and cars and money. And they thought that their ancestors would get 10 times that fake amount in the spiritual realm, but in some kind of real sense.

And if they didn't do it, their spirits would come and haunt them. Yeah, neither of these practices did I agree with or did I think Christians should be involved in, but they didn't bother me. It was just totally foreign. I didn't have these concepts. But the things that did bother me, the very first one I could remember, I was craving American food. And at the time, our city didn't have any kind of American food. And we were walking through this place called Haoyu Duo, and I saw hot dogs. And the sign literally said, "Hot and Dog." And I was so excited. And they're grilling them, and I got my money and paid for it, and I took a bite.

And it was the furthest thing away from a hot dog you can imagine. I was thinking, "Oh, I miss home. This is weird. What if I just put in my mouth?" And then another one was, you get in lines. And the very first time, whoop, the very first time I got in line, who put that there?

I'm standing here with a decent gap, and we found a McDonald's. And I'm looking up at the board, and I'm ready to order. And then people just keep coming in and coming in and coming in and coming in and coming in. And I'm like, "I don't think I'm ever going to be able to order. I'm looking at KC." So then we move forward, and they just keep coming in. You have to get all the way up against the register or they just think that you've got a gap. And so I knew what a line should be like, how you should stand in line. And then that was just so shocking.

There were all these really weird things that weren't shocking, but the things I thought I knew how it should be were the shocking ones, like toilets. You go in to sit on a toilet, instead you hover over a toilet, and I'll just stop there.

So culture shock is often the most severe when you know how something should be, and it's not.

So that's what I just mentioned. And I want to go to our backgrounds. What's our background? We have River Brethren, Jehovah Witness, Catholic, Protestant, Evangelical, Mennonite, Amish, Church of Christ, Methodist, Baptist, Charismatic, Presbyterian, Unchurched, ex-criminals from healthy church backgrounds, from broken church backgrounds, from healthy homes and extremely broken homes, and probably a lot more, like a lot more differences.

And so all of us have different expectations. We have different understandings of how things should be but aren't. Especially so to me, when we came into this congregation, we had no idea what to expect. We just knew it was going to be really different. We knew that obedient church life with Anabaptist group is going to be so different that we're just going to accept whatever's there. We're going to come, and we know that they have a high rate of their children remaining Christians. We know that they're trying to follow Jesus on all things. And I came in, and the men are over here, the women are over here. That was a little odd.

Songs for six months. I didn't have a single song that I felt like I can worship God with. I was just like trying to sing the songs but not really understanding. But then we ended up enjoying it. But nothing really bothered us in an extreme manner. But I feel like it's different for Anabaptists, like Mennonites or maybe Amish or whoever, who know what they think another Anabaptist church should be. And they come, and then they have David Bursos and Patrick Matthews and Michaels and Jasons and Richards. And you have people from all different backgrounds, all melting. This is a melting pot, by the way, all melting together. And there's already been this stretching going on.

There's been this allowance, this preferring a brother. And to people coming in, and they say they're in a Mennonite church, and everybody's the same, and everybody dresses the same, and they think the same, and they understand the standards. They had very little diversity, and they maybe left. We'll go through that in a little bit more here. So the culture shock, I have nine stages and five stages.

Let's say for a husband and a wife getting married, stage one, everything is new and interesting and exciting. And they call that the honeymoon stage.

And so you get married, you've been having this romantic relationship, and your future husband comes and hangs out with you at your place on your turf with your friends and your family. You sometimes go to his place, but you think you really know him from years of relationship. But then you get married, and you go on honeymoon, and everything's just perfect. And you get done with your honeymoon, and your husband goes off to work all day, and you're stuck at home and doing the things that you should do. And you had this idea somehow that maybe, I'm just guessing, that you're going to be with this romantic man all day long, all the time. You've just been waiting for it.

And now he comes home from work tired and hungry and whatever yard work needs to be done or whatever needs to go on. And really quickly, the number two comes on. The differences become apparent and irritating, and problems occur, and frustration sets in. And I think this happens in church life and marriage life and all kinds of aspects of our life. So in church life, you come in, everything's really exciting. You don't see anything wrong with it. But then suddenly some things are weird and different. And then you become homesick and depressed and helpless, number three. And this is the low of it. But then number four, stage four, you work your way through culture shock and begin to adapt to the host culture or the church or your new husband.

And you realize, "Hey, this is really good. There are some things that were weird, but this is really good." Then number five, you see the host, your new church as your new home. You see your new husband as your new home or wife.

And then you're excited about it. And then this is reverse culture shock. Then you go home, you feel frustrated and angry and lonely because your friends that you left and your family, they don't understand what you've experienced and how you've changed and how different it was with your new husband or your new church. And then you readjust to life at home, which that doesn't really happen. So we're going to kind of skip these two. But then here's the easier stages, the honeymoon stage, hostility and irritability, gradual adjustment, adaptation, and reentry shock. And so for us, every time we have someone new come in, we have a little bit of flexing and some culture shock ourselves.

But the person coming in, we have to remember they're probably going to be sensitive, hyper-emotional, maybe not right away. And then Satan's going to try to draw wedges in between us. And this is where this comes in, contentiousness and dissensions, the doctrine of the demons and of the devil. So Satan loves to take two things and pin them against each other. He loves to take this group and say, "Well, this verse is true, so that verse can't be true." And then this group says, "Well, this verse is true, so that verse can't be true." And then they wipe out the verses of the Bible. And they focus on one where we would say both are true.

And we have to have both and. And we have to understand them both. And we can't get rid of scripture. And Satan likes to do this with the gifts of the spirit too. He wants dissensions. He wants divisions among us. He'll say, "Well, this guy over here is very compassionate and sensitive and understands relationships and is a little more emotional. And this guy over here is very logical and full of wisdom and a good teacher." And he'll look at this guy and say, "What's wrong with him? He's always so emotional and sensitive about everything.

But yet this guy's really good at mending relationships and helping people forgive others." And then this guy's over here thinking, "That guy has no compassion, and he's just so numb, and something's wrong with him." But these are both gifts from the same God. And we can learn some of both of them. It doesn't mean you're stuck in one or the other. But Satan wants to pin these gifts against each other. And he wants these things to divide us. And we have to see that having the contrast of these two things is a very beautiful thing. And then another example of this is someone who feeds the poor, the hungry, the widows, the orphans, the prisoners, and has a lot of physical on-demand ministries.

And then you have someone else who is, again, a teacher or an organizer. I don't know, just list all the different whatever kind of things. And they pin these ministries against each other. And they think, "Well, everybody should be my way or no, everybody should be my way." And it's both and.

Or practical versus theological sermons, which I think all theological sermons are practical. And I think all practical sermons are theological. So I don't really understand it. But some sermons are very practical right now. We can do those things right now. And some sermons are practical that if it's like an umbrella or a foundation, that if you start off with the wrong foundation and you keep going in life, then you might end up in the world. And so it seems really complicated to weed through stuff like Calvinism and whatever doctrines we're trying to weed through, once saved, always saved, predestination. And it seems like, "Well, why are we even talking about that? We don't agree with it."

But if you don't know those things and then you end up adopting something and adopting one of their teachings and you don't even know about it, then practically it'll live out in your lives. So these are two things that have to go together. They're both and, not either or.

And so there's so many of these kinds of things where there's just this wedge that wants to drive us apart, and we have to focus on not. And this is, and David, I'm sorry that I picked the picture of you, but this is what the videos look like when I get the videos off these cameras. They have no contrast and no saturation and very little color, and it's raw. Patrick would know what a raw picture is, but that's how the video is.

And so if you only have one gift, if say our church only had teaching and nothing else, it would look like this. It wouldn't have any contrast or any color or any beauty. If we only had people who were, let's say, really good with relationships or whatever, it would be the same. We have to have all the members of the body. And this is putting contrast is like the brights need to be like when it starts out flat like that, the brights are pushed down into the middle, and the darks are pushed down to the bottom.

But whenever you stretch out the brights to the top and make the brights brighter and the darks darker, it adds this beauty and contrast, and you add a little color. And so this is before, and this is after. And I believe that this is the church with one gift or not encouraging all gifts, not encouraging all ministries, not having all different types of body parts.

And so this is what we have to strive for. And part of this, I'm going to keep moving on for a little bit. So now the works of the flesh are evident. So works of the flesh, if you go down to the bottom where it says, "Those who practice these things will not inherit the kingdom of God." So the works of the flesh are essentially works of the other kingdom of the devil.

And I listed the ones and read contentiousness, jealousy, selfish ambition, dissensions, and envy. These are more likely in our congregation to happen than fornication and all those kinds of things. And these are the things that Satan wants to divide us with. And I saw this verse, and I thought this was instead of me saying, "I don't think that we have all that," I said, "This is what Paul said. However, is not the way of life you have learned from Christ. You were taught to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires. And you were taught to be made new in the attitude of your minds and to put on the new self created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness."

I don't think that we're like that. I don't think that we have these things. But I think it's got to be a battle, a practice every day to choose to think of our brothers as better than ourselves, to be full of joy when something good happens with our brothers and sisters, and be sorrowful, mournful when something bad happens.

So I'm going to go to the members' verses. There are diversities of gifts, but the same spirit. There are differences of ministries, but the same Lord. And there are diversities of activities, but it is the same God who works all in all.

But the manifestation of the spirit is given to each one for profit of all. For to one is given the word of wisdom through the spirit, to another the word of knowledge through the spirit. But one in the same spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually as he wills.

For as the body is one and has many members, but all the members of that one body, being many, are one body. So also is Christ. For in fact, the body is not one member, but many. If the foot should say, "Because I am not a hand, I am not of the body," is it therefore not of the body? And if the ear would say, "Because I am not an eye, am I not of the body?"

Is it therefore not of the body? If the whole body were an eye, where would be the hearing? If the whole were hearing, where would be the smelling? But now God has set the members, each one of them in the body, just as he pleased.

And if they were all one member, where would the body be? So this is the contrast, the beauty. The body is beautiful when we have all the members, and it's dead without all the members. We can't walk. We can't speak. We can't see. We can't feed ourselves. We can't do whatever. But now indeed, there are many members, yet only one body. And I cannot say to the hand, "I have no need of you," nor again the head to the feet, "I have no need of you." No, much rather, those members of the body, which seem to be weaker, are necessary. And those members of the body, which we think to be less honorable, on these we bestow greater honor, and our unpresentable parts have greater modesty.

But our presentable parts have no need. But God, this is who composed them, God composed the body, having given greater honor to the part which lacks it.

That there should be no schism, so schism, a split or division between strongly opposed sections or parties caused by differences in opinion or belief. That there be no schisms in the body, but that the members should have the same care for one another. And if one member suffers, all members suffer with it. Or if one member is honored, all members rejoice with it.

Now you are the body of Christ and members individually. We're back to being content. And I am going to continue. So I have learned in whatever situation I'm to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

Before we continue through Philippians, we are one body with many members, with many gifts. And every one of the gifts and all the different preaching styles, even the singing, there's higher level singing, and then there's just regular singing or whatever you want to call the other singing. I think they're both good. I don't think that you have to know four-part harmony.

And so I think that, and I think we've done a pretty good job with all these things stretching. And where we can make allowances, we make allowances. And that's why we have a diverse group. And that's why we can get along. And I'm sure it's completely shocking to people from other Mennonite churches if they don't have such a diverse group.

But these are the secrets. Only let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ. Standing firm, pay attention. This is how he starts the letter, and he continues with this idea all the way through. Standing firm in one spirit with one mind, striving side by side for the faith of the gospel.

So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the spirit, any affection and sympathy, if you're a Christian, complete my joy by being of the same mind. Chapter two, he's back on the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord. And because I'm not used to this version, I looked up full accord of a concept or fact to be completely harmonious or consistent with. So we are to be completely harmonious and consistent with one another and of one mind. Do nothing out of selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others as more significant than yourself.

Let each of you look not only to his own interest, but also the interest of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus. What mind? Who, though he was in the form of God, so Jesus, the creator of the universe, in the form of God becomes man, did not count equality with God to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking on the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in a human form, he humbled himself by being obedient to the point of death, even death on the cross. The King of Kings can humble himself to be a man and not hold on to the divinity that he has and not make it his thing where everybody has to follow him because he's divine, the Son of God.

We can make allowances for each other. We see everybody. It shouldn't be that hard, although it is something we have to practice, is seeing people more important than us. And then this is the other secret that we've already talked about. We're going to keep talking about it. Do all things without grumbling or disputing.

Why? That you may be blameless and innocent children of God. So in this grumbling and disputing, if you look at it in Greek, it could be complaining and arguing. That's what I normally use. But this is a hard one. It's so hard to go a week. I don't know if I've ever gone a week without complaining. I've tried and tried and tried. But this is something we're not supposed to do. We've got to stop. We can't complain. And we can't argue. And it's not only in public. It's like God calls us to do this at our homes and then in our hearts. Right now, someone might be complaining about me in their head.

Somehow we have to not do that. We have to not complain, not only openly, but inwardly and think of the good things about each other. That you may be blameless. This is important. This is that we may be blameless and innocent children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation among whom you shine as lights in the world.

Then the next chapter, well, actually we skipped one, but I implore Eudea and I implore Synthache to be of the same mind in the Lord. He continues. Obviously, there is some kind of division, some kind of problem maybe with just these two people, but maybe a lot of other people that they needed to fix because he's like, "We have to think the same. We have to be on the same page."

And it kind of tells him how. Rejoice always. I say again, rejoice. Let your reasonableness, your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand.

Do not be anxious about anything. Don't worry about anything. But in everything, by prayer and supplication, by thanksgiving, let your request be known to God. So every time that he tells us not to do, not every time, but most times when he tells us not to do something, he tells us what we're supposed to do instead.

And yesterday, during our discipleship group, I realized that Jesus, the one, he might have been anxious or worried a few times that we can see, but the one that's pointed out to me most is in the garden. And he's sweating blood or whatever you want to, however that was. And he's anxious. And what does he do all night? He does exactly what Paul says. He prays, and he prays, and he prays, and he kicks his disciples. And he says, "Why aren't y'all praying?" And he goes and prays, and he prays. So he gives us the perfect example. When we are too anxious about stuff, we just need to pray and pray and ask God for what we need and thank him for everything.

And this is a guy who is in prison, and he's writing this letter, and he maybe thinks he might die. He says earlier in the letter that, "For me to live is Christ and die is gain." And he's able to say, "Rejoice in the Lord always. Don't worry about anything." He's able to say all these things, and he's practicing it. We can see that he wasn't just saying these things.

I can't say these things like Paul says. I'm saying them, but it's not the same. I haven't practiced these the way he has. And the peace of God, which surpasses understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Jesus Christ. Finally, brothers, so this is the a lot of controversy sometimes comes from this, but I do believe we're supposed to be optimistic. But we can only be optimistic because we see the hope in Jesus, and we see what he's doing in the hope of eternity.

I don't think optimism in itself saves anyone, but I think that with this, the church will always be united and never divide if we can focus on all these principles. Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is anything excellent, if there is anything worthy of praise, think of such things. And I can tell you from experience that if you're having a hard time sleeping and it has to do with any kind of worry or anxiety, if you just do this, it's hard. It's sometimes not that easy, but if you just start thinking of everything that's possibly good and right and true and noble, when I'm capable of doing it, I just fall asleep like a baby in praying.

So he's talking about unity the whole time, but for what I've learned in whatever situation, I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance, and need. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

So I believe this is the secret, and I think that we can add verses throughout all the New Testament to this. But I feel like this is almost enough that if we can just keep this in our forethoughts, that we just never let ourselves think negative about anybody in here. And when there is time to admonish or to rebuke, that we do it the right way, gently and one-on-one, and that we just lift each other up. And here's an animation that I did a long time ago, but the eyes represent the picture of what goes in your brain. So out of the overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks.

And whatever you're putting in your eyes is going to fill up your heart till it overflows: Hollywood, lust, greed, violence, YouTube shorts, and the bitterness and pride and selfishness and whatever. And you start to die, and you start to look bad, and you have anger because you're filling your heart with it, and it's overflowing in your mouth. And your mouth is like a rudder or a bit in the horse's mouth, and it guides you wherever you go. So if these are the things coming out of your mouth, you're going to go that way. And if you put in all these excellent and praiseworthy, admirable things, love is going to come out, patience and humility and kindness and joy, and it's going to guide you in the right path.

It's going to lead you to where you need to go. And this little kid's song, "Input, Output, What Goes In Must Come Out," when my children kept singing it, I realized every time that I want something to be different in me, I just have to find certain videos or music or whatever and just put that input in, put it in, put it in, put it in, and it starts coming out. And so whatever the problem may be in our hearts, if we can fill our hearts with the opposite until it overflows, it'll change us. And these are the last two verses that I'll end with. Do not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benefit those who listen.

Therefore, encourage one another and build each other up just as, in fact, you are doing. And when I read this, I think this about our church, that we are building each other up, that we are encouraging one another. But as we grow and as we've been growing, just here and there, I feel these little tensions or this possible division. And I do think that a lot of it has to do with us going through culture shock of someone new coming in, and we have to be flexible and listen to their needs and their sensitive parts and their emotional things and vice versa, that they're going through much more culture shock than we are. They're joining a very diverse group and that they have to really that when you come into this place, that we have to realize we're all different from different backgrounds.

We have different expectations about everything, and we just need to encourage one another always. Never let any negativity come into our brain about each other. That's purely from the devil so that no jealousy or contentiousness or pride or any of these things come about and that we can see that one of these, this guy I talk about a lot who died, David Pawson, mentioned this lady who came up to him and said, "Well, I don't have this gift of the Spirit, and I don't have this gift of the Spirit, and I don't have this gift of the Spirit, and I can't teach and whatever." And he's like, "What do you mean?" "Yeah, you do." And she's like, "Well, what do you mean?"

And he said, "Well, doesn't Brian Otto know how to teach and doesn't so-and-so know how to do this? And aren't you part of the body?" And he's like, "Well, then you have that gift because we're all one body.

You have gifts and you have gifts, and all of you have gifts I don't have, but I have them because I'm a part of you. And whatever gifts I have that you have because you're a part of me. And so anyway, let's work together and let's pray.

I guess stand and pray.

Dear Heavenly Father, we're weak vessels and we're basically dead vessels without each other, and we need to be able to function and walk and use our hands and eyes and ears and mouth the way you've given us these gifts. It's not something we've chosen on our own. And help us never to pin us ourselves against each other. It's like a mad person slapping himself in the face or whatever. And just help us to be able to work through differences and flex for one another and prefer one another so that we can be an example to the rest of the kingdom of God of what your kingdom on earth should look like. And we pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.