Mi Historia Favorita, Julio 12, 2026

♪♪ ♪♪ Buenos días. Buenos días. Good morning. That's the extent of what I have in Spanish. Eso es lo que pasa cuando hablamos en otro idioma. But it is a great privilege to get to be here today with you. Es un gran privilegio estar aquí con ustedes. Like Jonas said, my name is Jason Beams. Como lo dijo Jonas, mi nombre es Jason Beams. I'm the campus pastor at our Fellowship Cabot campus. Soy el pastor del campus, the Fellowship, en Cabot. And at our Cabot campus, we don't have an Espanol campus. Allá en Cabot no tenemos un campus de Español. But we do have an ESL class that meets on Tuesdays. Pero los martes tenemos una clase de ESL de inglés como segunda lengua que se enseña allá. That I get the privilege of leading every Tuesday night. Y tengo el privilegio de liderar esa clase los martes en la noche. That class is full of Spanish speakers throughout Central and South America. Y la clase está llena de personas que hablan Español, tanto de Centroamérica como de Sudamérica. So I feel right at home with you guys today. Así que es un gozo estar aquí el día de hoy. Well, today we're going to continue in our summer series called My Favorite Story. Y el día de hoy vamos a continuar en esta serie que hemos titulado Mi Historia Favorita. And the story I'd love for us to dive into today comes from the book of Acts, chapter 16. Y la historia que yo escogí, que me encantaría compartirles el día de hoy, está en el libro de los Hechos, en el capítulo 16. It's the story of Paul and Silas in prison in Philippi.

Es la historia del apóstol Pablo y de Silas en la prisión en Filipos. And this story today shows us the power of Christian contentment. Y esta historia nos habla del poder que existe en el contentamiento en la vida del cristiano. In Acts 16, we see a case study, in a sense, for the power of contentment in our hearts and lives. Y esencialmente en este capítulo 16 podemos ver casi que un estudio de caso del poder del contentamiento en la vida del cristiano. So let me ask you a question today. Entonces, permíteme hacerte una pregunta el día de hoy. How are you in the area of contentment? ¿Cómo te va en el área de estar contento? That's a question I want to come back to a couple of times today. Y esta es una pregunta que yo quisiera hacer un par de veces más el día de hoy. How's your heart in the area of contentment? ¿Cómo está tu corazón en el área del contentamiento? I've got a picture I'm going to put on the screen of something called the Moussaieff Red Diamond. En la pantalla quiero mostrarles algo que se llama el diamante rojo Moussaieff. Let me tell you a little bit of the story of the red diamond. Permíteme contarle un poquito de la historia de este diamante. This stone was formed in the depths of the earth centuries before it was ever found. Esta piedra fue formada en lo profundo de la tierra siglos antes de que fuese encontrada. It started as worthless carbon below the surface of the earth. Comenzó como un pedazo de carbón sin valor alguno debajo de la tierra. But through centuries it was formed and shaped into this hardened masterpiece. Pero a través de los siglos fue forjada y formada hasta convertirse en esta piedra preciosa. And over time this masterpiece was driven to the surface of the earth. Y después de mucho tiempo esta obra, esta pieza preciosa fue desplazándose hasta la superficie de la tierra. And it came to rest on the edge of a river in Brazil called the Abate River. Y llegó el momento en el que salió a la superficie por los movimientos de la tierra, sale a la superficie en un lugar de la tierra llamado Abate. Es un río en Brasil. It looked like an ordinary stone when it came to the surface.

Y parecía una piedra normal al salir de la superficie. But it was precious beyond words. Pero tenía un valor incalculable. In 1990 a Brazilian farmer needed some water for his fields. En 1990 había un señor brasileño que trabajaba en su granja, su casa, y se la encontró en el río. So he took a bucket, stooped down, and scooped up some water. As he scooped up the water, he scooped up this precious stone. And he discovered the largest red diamond in the history of the world. In its rough form, it was 13.9 carats. All diamonds are rare. But red diamonds are the rarest of all diamonds. And this red diamond is estimated today to be worth over $20 million. This red diamond is exceedingly precious. Este diamante rojo es sumamente, sumamente valioso. Now I tell you this story today to set up telling you about something that's even more precious than this. Today we're going to hear about a jewel called the Jewel of Contentment. Y es una piedra preciosa que es la piedra preciosa del contentamiento. And it is a precious treasure that can be found in every life of a follower of Christ. Y es una piedra preciosa que puede ser encontrada en la vida de cualquier seguidor de Cristo. So let's jump into God's Word today. Así que vamos a ir a la palabra de Dios hoy. Let's hear Apostle Paul as he talks about this treasure of contentment that he finds. Y vamos a escuchar al Apóstol Pablo hablándonos acerca de este tesoro que es el contentamiento. Before we go to Acts chapter 16, I'd like for us to turn first to Philippians chapter 4. We're going to turn to Philippians 4 verses 11 through 13. The writer of the book of Philippians is a man by the name of Paul. Paul originally was Saul. He was a great religious leader. He persecuted and imprisoned people who were following after Jesus. And Saul, who later becomes Paul,

encounters Jesus on the road to Damascus. And everything in Paul's life changed at that moment. And Paul goes on to become one of the first and greatest missionaries that the world has known. Paul, in his life, he had been at the highest of highs as a religious leader. And he had been at the lowest of lows, beaten and imprisoned like we'll see today. And in Philippians chapter 4, he's speaking to a church that he helped start. So we look at Philippians chapter 4. We begin in verse 11. This is what it says. I know how to be brought low and I know how to abound. In every circumstance I've learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger. And I know how to live in prosperity. In everything and for everything I've learned the secret of being satiated and of being hungry. Of having abundance and of suffering need. I can do everything in Christ who strengthens me. Paul is saying to this church in Philippi that he helped start. He's saying, I've learned a secret. I've discovered a jewel. And it's the jewel of contentment. And he's declaring this contentment comes through finding the strength of Christ in any circumstance of life. He's saying, I can do all things, meaning I can endure anything. With contentment through Christ who lives and strengthens me. Now with that message of contentment, I want us to now go to Acts chapter 16. And we're going to see in Acts chapter 16 the beginning of this church in Philippi that Paul spoke to. And we're going to see how this overflow of contentment in Paul's life births this church. So we step into Acts chapter 16 and we see Paul and Silas. Paul and Silas have been traveling sharing this good news of Jesus Christ. They've shared it in a city called Troas, they've shared it in a city called Neapolis. And now they come to the city of Philippi. As they enter the city of Philippi they meet a merchant by the name of Lydia. They share the gospel with Lydia and God opens her heart.

And she places faith in Jesus and she's instantly baptized. And then from there Paul and Silas meet a slave girl. This slave girl in scripture says that she's demon possessed. She's employed and enslaved as a fortune teller to bring great gain to her owners. And she begins to follow Paul and Silas around the city. For days she's following after them. And she's crying this message out in Acts chapter 16, 17. She's shouting these men are servants of the most high God who proclaim to you the way of salvation. Even though she's speaking truth it begins to annoy Paul that everywhere he goes she's declaring this. Paul finally commands a spirit to leave her and it does. Her business owners now see that she's in her right mind. That their business and their finances are now disrupted. So they seize Paul and Silas and they drag them into the middle of the city. Had them brought before the rulers of the city. They tore off the clothes of Paul and Silas. They were beaten with rods. They were taken and they were thrown into a dark prison. Awaiting what would come. Could be indefinite imprisonment. Could possibly even be execution, they don't know. So we pick up right there in the story in Acts 16 verse 24. I'm going to let Daniel read through these. I think 10 verses or so in Spanish. I'm going to ask Daniel to read these 10 verses directly in Spanish. Speaking of the jailer, having received that order, he threw them into the inner dungeon and secured their feet in the tomb. At midnight, Paul and Silas prayed and sang hymns to God and the prisoners listened to them.

Suddenly, a great earthquake occurred so that the foundations of the prison were shaken. All the doors opened and all the chains were released. When the jailer woke up and saw all the prison doors open, he drew his sword and was going to kill himself, believing that the prisoners had escaped. But Paul shouted out loud, saying, We are all here. Then he asked for light and rushed inside and trembling, he prostrated himself before Paul and Silas. And after taking them out, he said, Gentlemen, what should I do to be saved? They replied, Believe in the Lord Jesus and you and your whole house will be saved. And they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were in his house. And he took them at that same hour of the night and washed their wounds. Immediately he and all his people were baptized, taking them to his house. He gave them food and rejoiced greatly for having believed in God with all his people. This family and Lydia,

they're the beginnings of the church at Philippi. Through a faithful witness, they hear of Jesus Christ and they're forever changed. And through their lives, God sends them to the city they already live in to bring a life change to the city. I love this story. Paul and Silas facing injustice after injustice. Imprisoned in a dark prison, beaten. Yet they're content. They're at peace. They're trusting in the strength of Christ even in the middle of this profound suffering. So now that we see this picture of contentment, let me ask you the question again. How's your heart? How's my heart in the area of contentment? Across the last 250 years of our culture, developments in science, medicine, economy have worked to shrink suffering and struggle in our world to shrink suffering that past generations would have struggled with. In a sense, to help us live more content lives. I want us to think for a second about the different technological advances in our world. Let's think about travel, for instance. Por ejemplo, hablemos del transporte. En los últimos 150 años, el transporte en el planeta ha cambiado drásticamente. Pasamos de montarse en un barco y pasar meses en el mar. Or to take a horse and buggy from south to north. And today we can go to an airport

and travel anywhere around the world in 24 hours. With all that ease, I can still go to the airport and struggle. And be discontent. And get on a flight, and if they don't have Diet Dr. Pepper, then I'm frustrated. Or think about other technologies like indoor plumbing. Or electricity in our homes, or AC to regulate temperatures. Or we have refrigerators that keep food longer. Where we can have a constant stream of food whenever we want it. Yet I can open the refrigerator doors and complain, there's no food in the house. Despite all of the advances of our world, our culture today is more discontent and more anxious about life than any culture before us. Including followers of Christ that should be the most hope-filled people in the world. People feel that their lives lack meaning. They can't seem to find a remedy for what plagues the soul. Our culture can live with this consistent discontent. Does that resonate with you like it does me? Even as a follower of Christ with a constant discontent, I can't seem to find a remedy for what plagues the soul. With all that I have in life, I can still kind of go from moment to moment discontent. Now, I think discontentment resonates with our hearts. But let's talk for a moment, not about discontentment, but about what is contentment. What does it mean for us to find the treasure, the jewel of contentment? There was a Puritan pastor in the 1600s

named Jeremiah Burroughs. And he published a series of sermons that were called The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment. And this is his definition of what contentment is. He says that Christian contentment is the sweet, deep, interior work of God through grace that leads us to trust him more and more in all things. I wanna say that again and just let that sink in since there's a lot of words there. Christian contentment is that sweet, deep, interior work of God through his grace that leads us to trust him more and more in all things. I want us to lean into a few of the words of that definition. The first word I want us to lean into is this word sweet. What does it mean for us to have a sweetness of soul contentment? For me, sweetness of soul comes from living in the center of God's truth for my life. When I build my foundation on the truth of God, I live in this sweetness of soul. Truths like you are a child of God, truths like you are loved by God, truths like they spoke about in the water of baptism a few minutes ago, that Christ came to pay the price for our sins. And when I build my life on that foundation of truth, I live with this sweetness of soul. But here's what happens in my own heart, in my own life sometimes. I let these polluted streams of things like bitterness taint the river of truth in my life. Past unforgiveness and past injury that I've never forgiven, looking at life negatively with bitterness, it taints the truth of God. And there's also another stream on this side of my life called sourness, on how I look forward in the future with this sourness of soul. And this sourness about the future and this bitterness from the past, they pollute the truth of God that I build my life on. The sweetness of soul, though, comes from building my life by blocking out the pollutedness

of life and building it on the foundation of who Christ is in my life. It reminds me of the truth that we see in Psalm chapter one. It says, blessed is the man who delights in the law of the Lord and the truth of the Lord. He'll be like a tree planted by the streams of water, bears forth fruit in its season, and his leaf doesn't wither. Like the beginning of contentment in my heart is to build my life on this foundation of God's sweetness of truth. Another word I want to lean into from that definition is this word interior. Contentment is the work of God in our lives transforming us from the inside, the interior out. God does a work on the inside, the interior of my heart and life that begins to transform me. And then when it's coming from this interior work, the outside circumstances of life can't tear down the work that God is doing from deep within. And that leads me to a third word of that definition I want to lean to, which is the word grace. Grace is this beautiful gift of God that we receive. We define grace this way at our church. The sovereign love of God through the redeeming actions of Jesus. That because of Jesus, we can't earn relationship with God, but because of Jesus we're given a gift of his love. So Christian contentment is that. It's this sweet work of God that he does through his truth. That builds a foundation under my feet. Begins to do an internal work in me from the inside out. Through his grace. That leads me to trust him in every circumstance of life. And that's the exact treasure that Paul and Silas have discovered. That strengthens them in the middle of suffering and in the prison. Now let's lean into a couple of lessons we can learn. The first lesson I want us to learn about contentment from Paul and Silas is this. Contentment is learned. It's learned through trusting God. Trusting our hands or our lives into the strong hands of God. Listen to those words again from Philippians 4.11.

He says, for I have learned in whatever situation I'm in to be content. He says it again, I've learned the secret of facing plenty in hunger and abundance in need. And because I've learned it, I can do all things, I can endure all things through Christ who strengthens me. Paul's language is incredibly deliberate right here. He's learned the secret. It's different than spiritual gifts that we receive at salvation. It's something as a follower of Christ that we have to learn or discover. And we see Paul and Silas, they've learned it through trusting God in trials of life. Pablo has learned contentment through the school of affliction, not through abundance. We're never going to buy our way to contentment. We're never going to promote our way in life to contentment of soul. We think if I can just get that house or get that job, then life will be great. We always realize on the other side that stuff doesn't satisfy the soul. We live in a society that screams to us, you need more to be happy. You need more to be content. You need a better job. You need a better spouse. You need a better body. But we learn contentment through hardship. Hardship surrendered to God. We see here that Paul found contentment was gained through, not through gain. That contentment was found or learned through trusting God, experiencing God, even in less. That God was enough for his soul. That relationship with Christ was the prize. Contentment is learned through trusting our lives into the hands of God. Another lesson that we can learn is contentment in God produces praise and joy that others just cannot explain. Once we discover that contentment in God's strength produces us praise and joy, it changes everything. So interesting in this story that the jailer couldn't explain what he witnessed.

Two prisoners praising God right after a beating. That was incomprehensible. Prisoners were supposed to despair. Yet Paul and Silas, with joy, praised. Not because their circumstances changed or improved. But because their souls were anchored to something deeper than circumstances. Their souls were anchored to that truth that we talked about. When they found God's strength in the middle of suffering, it overflowed with praise. So why praise? Because the truth is, praise does something in our own hearts. The first thing praise does is it realigns our perspective and reinforces the truth of God. And the truth is, yes, praise realigns our perspective and strengthens our relationship, our walk with God. When we praise God, that strengthens our hearts and strengthens our walk in Christ Jesus. In these sorrowful, hard moments of life, it realigns our perspective of who God is. That's why you hear in Psalm 121, David says, I lift my eyes to the mountains. Where does my help come from? My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth. Praise realigns, it gives them the crosshairs again for the perspective of who God really is in their lives. Another thing that praise does is praise silences the enemies of our soul. We see in Psalm 8, verses 1 and 2. He says this, O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth. He goes on to say, you set your glory above the heavens. He says, out of the mouth of babes and infants, you've established praise, or strength is the word that we see here. This is a word that's translated in the Hebrew, either strength or praise. He's saying that you establish the strength of praise in our lives for a purpose. He goes on to say, because of your foes, to still the enemy and the avenger. He says, because of your foes, to still the enemy and the avenger. God has established praise for us to silence the voice of the enemy in our hearts. What are some of the enemies of our own heart and soul? Obviously, we know Satan is the ultimate enemy.

But what are some of those smaller enemies or voices that are in your head? Maybe it's discouragement. Anxiousness. Fear. Bitterness. Sourness, like we talked about. In the moments when those enemies come and still our discontentment, God has established praise for us. Praise to silence the voices of the enemy in our hearts. I love this picture that we see of Paul and Silas in prison. In the middle of suffering and sorrow, they choose praise. Ellos alaban a Dios. And it changes the environment of their own hearts and the environment of even the prison in which they stand. So what does it look like for you and for me in the moments of discouragement of life to turn to praise? Maybe it's just as simple as memorizing a little phrase like this, God I praise you for and then fill in the blank. And when that discouragement of soul comes, turn to praise, God I praise you for. You're a God who is my strength. I praise you for being a God of grace. I praise you for my children, for your provision. Praise can overflow out of our lives and it can transform our hearts and our minds. Christian contentment that we found in this treasure we found in Christ overflows in praise to God. One more lesson I want us to lean into, contentment in God also fuels faith-filled prayers that impact the lives of others. We see that in Acts chapter 16 verse 25. At midnight Paul and Silas were praying. This heart of contentment overflowed into their hearts of prayer.

Contentment can change our prayers. It can move us from asking questions like God where are you? Which are prayers that we see even in the Bible. That God can change the where are you to God there you are. And use this in my life. Use this in the life of others. Prayer is this beautiful disruptive force that opens the doors of the heavens. Imagine Paul and Silas and what they were praying maybe in this moment. I can imagine them praying prayers in this moment like God use our suffering somehow. God would you set us free? But even more than us would you set the city of Philippi free? In the middle of their prayers, in the middle of their praise, God breaks through. Through this contentment in Christ it overflows in trust in God. That trust in God then overflows in praise and prayer that changes the atmosphere of that prison. and it ultimately changed the city of Philippi. So here's my question again. How are you in the area of contentment? ¿Cómo te va en el área del contentamiento? What could God do through a people that are content in all that we have in Christ? ¿Qué no haría Dios a través de gente que vive en el contentamiento de Dios en Cristo? What could God do in our cities? ¿Qué no pudiera hacer Dios en nuestra ciudad? Through people that trust Him in all things. ¿Qué no haría Dios a través de gente que confía en Él para todo? Let's pray together. Vamos a orar juntos.

Father God, I just want to invite you now to help us trust you more and more. Dios Padre, yo quiero invitarte y pedirte, Señor, que tú nos ayudes a confiar más en ti. God, I realize in this room right now, there are people that are walking through some hard things. Yo reconocemos que en este momento, en este lugar, hay personas que están pasando por cosas bien difíciles. And I pray today that you would quiet the discouragement and the discontent of heart. Yo quisiera pedirte, Señor, que por favor, tú acalles el descontento, Señor, y el desánimo en sus vidas. And God, help us see you, to trust you more. Y que les ayudes a verte y a confiar más en ti. Help us discover, Lord, that you are with us in every circumstance of life. Señor, ayúdanos a descubrir que tú estás con nosotros en cada situación de nuestra vida. And God, we want to invite you to take our stories, even our suffering. Señor, queremos pedirte que tú tomes nuestra vida e incluso nuestro sufrimiento. And use us, God, for your glory. Y que nos uses, Señor, para tu gloria. God, thank you for your word. Señor, gracias por tu palabra. We pray these things in your name, amen.