MCC Podcasts
Working It Out - Contentment
Let's look at the text to start with, "We're in 1 Timothy, two more sermons in 1 Timothy today and next Sunday." And then we move into our Thanksgiving service and then an Advent season. But we're in 1 Timothy chapter 6. Again, Paul, the Apostle Paul, writes to Timothy, which is his mentee. And he is, Timothy is pastoring a church in Ephesus. And so he's telling them, "Hey, this is how we work this deal out. This is how you lead a church and how the church lives." And so we've been in this for a few months now going, "Yeah, tell us, how do we work it out?" And now we're at this text, 1 Timothy 6, 3 through 11. And here's the word of the Lord. If anyone teaches otherwise and does not agree to the sound instruction of our Lord Jesus Christ and to ungodly teaching, or sorry, and to godly teaching, if they do not agree with that, verse 4, "They are conceited and understand nothing." I just like Paul, like his sensitivity and his tenderness, they're puffed up and ignorant is another way to say that. They have an unhealthy interest, a morbid interest in controversies and quarrels about words that result in envy and strife and malicious talk and evil suspicions. And it results in constant friction between people of corrupt mind who have been robbed of the truth, who think that godliness is a means to financial gain. But godliness with contentment is a great gain. For we brought nothing into the world and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people eager for money have wandered from the faith and have pierced themselves with many griefs. But you, man of God, flee from all this and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness. That's the word of the Lord. We were on our marriage retreat last weekend. Some of you saw us get skyped in and super great weekend all the time. We just love that weekend. Love to have you on that sometime. Couples retreat, we get away. And one of the points of focus, one of the things we talked about on our couple retreat this time around was one of the reasons why marriage is so difficult, so consistently difficult, is that we often take our longing for happiness and that place of emptiness in us and that hunger for everything to be right and for us to be happy and our deepest needs and our biggest questions about life. We take that and we place it on this one person called our spouse. And then that person's like, I can't, it's too heavy. And then they end up not being able to satisfy those things and then we take it out on that person for not being everything that we need them to be. And I was reflecting on that and I go, you know what, and we talked about it too. We do that with our kids. We put all this burden on our kids. We have all this desire to be happier, to be significant or to find value in life or to just have some sense of peace in life. And we put that on our kids. That is so stupid. I'll never forget the famous quote, Ann Atkinson, man, she's so famous for this quote. She said it like 10 years ago and I'll never forget it. We were in Life Builders Sunday School class one time and she was talking about her kids and she said this week, I looked right at my boys and I just said, we brought you into this world for you to bring us joy and you are not fulfilling your end of the bargain. That is my favorite parenting quote ever. That's misplaced expectations, Ann. We put those expectations to make us happy on our spouse, on our kids. We put it on our job. We put it on our government. We put it on our political candidate. We put it on our bank account. We put, we are persistent in putting our expectations about what it is that's going to make us happy and fulfilled and answer our questions and satisfy us and be enough. We are so persistent to take all of those questions and we keep putting them on things in the world that can never fulfill that. And that's what this text is about. The title of my sermon is, What in the World Will Ever Make People Happy. And the answer is, Nothing. I mean, really, this is the gospel that Paul is preaching and I'm actually have enough guts to stand up here and say what we're going to talk about this morning, this text and this sermon is about contentment that we are moving friends toward a place where he is enough. He is all that we need. That's what the gospel is about, that Jesus Christ is all that we need and Paul talks about that in this text. I want to give you an overview and then jump through a few points that he makes and then send you home with all kinds of stuff to think about. Well, then we'll worship together and then send you home with some stuff to think about. But if you go back to this text and you look at it, the quick overview of it in verse three through five, that first paragraph, we don't have time to focus on it. He's talking about false teachers and I just sort of want to point out what's going on here. I mean, he's talked about false teachers before. These are people who don't agree with the right teaching. They don't agree with the message of Jesus. They don't want to follow Jesus. They're conceited and puffed up and they kind of want to do life their own way. This is sort of his feeling about these folks. And look what he says, they have this more bit or this unhealthy interest in controversies and quarrels about words. These are people that are so into theory, but they really don't have any desire to follow Christ. They don't want to follow biblical doctrine. They don't want to follow what Jesus taught. They don't want to follow Jesus. They just have this interest in talking and spinning and being theological and being creative and look how smart I am. And this is the kind of idea that he has about false teachers. He had other places when we hear about these guys who tickle the ears of their hearers. They're not interested in actually following Christ. They're sort of theorists and that sort of theory and they get all excited about how creative they are and how smart they are. And they love arguing about all these things that really in the end, probably there's not a lot of answers about. And in the end, that creates these crazy kinds of strife and envy and just awful thing. So he's talking about these false teachers and like always, he's just like these guys are a mess. They're not listening to Christ. They're not teaching Christ's truth and they're not following Christ. We got to just don't follow those guys. Don't be about what those guys are about. I'm sorry, Felicity. Can you be quiet? No, I'm teasing Amanda. Baby Katniss is hungry. And so all this stuff happens. And he says, look, this is the awful fruit. Don't be about these guys. And the last phrase is really interesting. And he uses his way to jump into what we're going to talk about and to jump into kind of a bigger point with Timothy. He says in this last phrase, he says, and then these people, they get all friction about each other, those kinds of people that are all messed up and have left the truth. And they actually think that godliness is a means to financial gain. They actually think there's a group of people think that godliness is a means to financial gain. And we have to ask the question, well, why, why would they think that? That would be true. And at least we know that's probably because some of these guys were professional teachers. And if they came up with a new twist on the truth or they had something really creative or something interesting to say, then they could hire themselves out for people to study under them and they would make money this way. And for sure, that was going to be part of it. And there's also a part of it in which they were probably teaching some doctrine, some version of prosperity theology that said, hey, you know what, if I'm godly, then God's going to take care of me and give me the stuff that I think I need. In fact, if I follow God, then I'm going to be rich, some of them. And so this was the thought that he had. And he's basically saying, those guys, they're such a mess. And then he goes to the next paragraph, and this is our focus. It reminded him to say something to Timothy about what is really rich. And he starts with this phrase in verse 6, he says, "But godliness with contentment is great gain." And the sum of the rest of the passages this, you guys, and the sum of what I want to outline and what Paul is saying to Timothy is this, he says, don't be confused. Don't think that this world offers you the happiness that you're looking for. He is all that we need. Because you want to talk about great gain. You want to talk about what great gain is? He goes, it's contentment. It's godliness with contentment. Godliness following Christ with contentment that all you need is him. That is rich. And let's go through the points that I think he's making in this. First is that idea. Following Christ is rich. You want to talk about gain? He goes, you know, some people think that godliness is a means to gain. He goes, I'll tell you what's gain. Following Christ and actually knowing you need nothing else, that's what's rich. This following Christ thing really is rich. It's life at its fullest. Jesus promised it. He said, I came that you might have life and have it to its fullest. It is a rich life. You know, he's kind of getting at this. He's going to kind of start hammering this idea that possessions and money is so misplaced for us when we put our hope there. It's just ridiculous. It's Jesus that we need. In verse 7 he says, "For we were brought into this world with nothing and we can take nothing out of it." It's echoes Job. Job said, "Naked I came into the world and naked I will depart from it." Apparently friends, our possessions and our money and those kinds of things, apparently, they have very little to do with our real identity and our real purpose. I mean, we start with nothing and we end with nothing. The story is told of a gossip who came up to the pastor at the memorial of kind of a well-to-do woman and said, "How much did she leave?" And the pastor said, "All of it." It's just not that important to us is the point that he's trying to make. And Jesus said that, and Jesus in one of his parables said, "A man's life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions." We just know that that has to be true. But friends, we get confused and we think we need more. We think we need more than Christ. When the point is, following Christ is rich, it is gain. It's what it is. This contentment that says, "I have no need but Jesus." Man, how far our souls from that, but how we long to be that free. We think we need more. And we come to God like Paul came to God himself when he tells the story in 2 Corinthians and he came to God and he said, "This deal in my life is storing in my flesh. God, take this away from me. You know, I don't need this. I need this." And it's some version of us going, "God, I need this and I need that and I need that. You got to come through for me, God. Where are you in this?" And God said to him, "My grace is sufficient for you." My grace is going to be sufficient for you. God says, "My strength, my gifts are going to come and be all that you need." And so Paul had to learn, and he says it in Philippians, "I've learned the secret of being content in every situation, no matter what the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need. I know what it is to have plenty. I've learned the secret of being content in every situation while they're well fed or hungry, whether in plenty or in want." And he says, "I can do all things through him who gives me strength." Now, if you start to think lest you think, "You know, what's this message about? This is the message of this gospel of misery." Like, "You know what? God says you get nothing and you'll be happy." Like, that's kind of a gospel. If you think that's the case, we're missing it. This following Christ is rich. This is of incredible gain is his point because God's strength and grace comes along to give us all that we need. He says again in 2 Corinthians chapter 9, "God is able to make all grace and grace and gifts are the same word, friends. All of this grace gifts, all of the stuff that God has for you. God is able to make all of that abound to you so that in all things, at all times, having all you need, you will abound at every good work for him." Do you see all the halls in there? Do I fire you up or just the Italians in the crowd? It's just a big gospel. It's a rich gospel. It's God's size. And then he is able to do immeasurably more than we can ask or imagine according to his power that is at work within us. This is a rich life. Godliness with contentment is of great gain. So why, when we get reminded of this, do we get all spun out about our possessions, about our physical comfort, about our bank account, about our money? Why do we get all spun out? Because we're human, I get that. But isn't it worth just stopping and asking that question? Why am I so spun out? I love how the old saints used to say, "My heavenly father owns the cattle on a thousand hills." I'd be like, "Well, that'd be great if I needed some milk, you know, but I need to make rent, you know." But we get all spun out because we're human. But I also think it's this reality, you guys. I think we get spun out because there's something embedded in our, there's a glitch in our software, there's a mutation in our DNA that we are just, we're human. We'd rather see than live by faith. It's just easier. What we see is easier. This is a life of sight, rather than following Christ and saying, "All I need is you and whatever you give." We'd rather see, you know, the old phrase, "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush." Well, that's not true if the bird in your hand is this little dinky scrawny bird and the two in the bush could be these giant plump turkeys, right? But the point, the human phrase is what? Rather have something I can get, rather than what I don't know, what might happen. Friends, living for Christ, this life of faith is about, I don't know, what might happen. And we're sort of compelled to this life of seeing rather than life of faith. I think we see, we get spun out about finances and possessions because we look in our lives, hi, Katniss. We get spun out in our lives and we look and we can see a way out of some discomfort or we can see a little bit of comfort that we can get ourselves. And so we go, "Okay, then I'll take that." Or we look ahead and we see down the line how we might be able to be sustained for a little while. And that makes us feel good. And so we go, "I got enough money in my bank account not to survive the fiscal cliff or the apocalypse." But I can say, you know, if I lose my job, I can last 51 days, you know, nine days short of what the experts say ought to be prepared to do. We can see it. And we're so prone to seeing it, rather than living out this reality of, you know, what contentment is saying he is enough and what he brings is what I need. And that's the second point that he makes in this text in verse 8, "What he provides is sufficient." See, the other way of living, the grabbing the bird in the hand or looking ahead and saying, "I can buy myself some comfort," or at least then I can see how where my next meal is coming from or where the next year, all that I'm going to be okay. The reason that's just human for us. But friends, that reeks of us not trusting Christ. And you know, I'm not talking about the responsible part of, "Hello, get up and go to your job. God gave it to you. Work hard. Get a raise, right? I mean, that's not what I'm talking about. You with me on that?" But this kind of incessant putting our happiness or our contentment or our satisfaction or put the bed all of our fears in those possessions is misplaced. And it reeks of us not trusting Christ, but being in control of our own lives and deciding what it is that we think that we need. We're so sure of what we think we need. But this point that Paul says is, "Well, except you know what, what I provide is going to be sufficient for you." Verse 8 says, "But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that." That's what this minimal language is about. He's saying, "Look, whatever he gives, if it's just food and clothing, whatever he gives, it's going to be enough." This word enough and this word sufficient that I just mentioned, it says that's the same word as content in the Greek. It doesn't just mean, "Well, I guess I'll have to be content with that." Guess I'll have to settle for that. This word content actually means it will be enough. It will be full. It will be sufficient. It will fill it up. It's like if I need this much to do life, it will be that much. God will give us what we need. This is what Jesus was talking about in the Sermon on the Mount where he said, "Listen, don't worry about your life, what you will eat or drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Life is more than food and clothes." And he goes on to talk about that. Look how God takes care of the birds of the air. And looking at how he takes care, it closes the grass of the field. But he goes on to say in this thing, "Listen, people who don't know Jesus run like wild men and women after that stuff, taking care of themselves. This is what I need. I got to get it." He said, "But you seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and these things will be given to you as well." And I left out the phrase he said in the middle of that he said, "Your Father knows what you need. What I give is enough." Not like enough. It's rich and it's sufficient for what you need. And that reeks of the lordship of Jesus in our lives. What he brings is enough, no more and no less. Let me just get through a couple more things that he says in this text. The next thing he says, and it turns the corner, those determined to live otherwise are sunk. This is an awful description, verses 9 and 10, when you start to look at this. Those who want to get rich in the word, there's those who are determined to think that this is the answer to life's problems, is having possessions, having money, or in the case of my earlier illustration, having a wife who's going to fulfill that for me, having kids who are going to be successful to do that or having a job that's all the same thing. Those who want or are determined to find their happiness in the world, they fall into temptation and a trap, by the way, trap. Think about a trap. Traps don't just get set by themselves. Traps are set by someone. Friends, we have an enemy of our souls who wants to trap us into living like it's up to us to figure out what we need and how to do life and get what we need to make us ourselves happy. We have an enemy of our souls. If you don't believe that you're in a spiritual battle, you think you're going to miss the boat. He sets a trap, and we fall into those traps, and then look what happens, and it leads us into many foolish and harmful desires. That means senseless. Like, what am I thinking and harmful or injurious desires that plunge people into ruin and darkness? I couldn't preach this without you being mad at me if it wasn't right in here in God's Word. He's like, listen, if we trust Christ for what He brings in life and that stuff that we're going to be content with that, that's rich. But if we are determined to solve our lives and make us happy with what we think we get, we will stumble and fall. We'll be in the enemy's clutches. We'll be basically part of the enemy's, the devil's schemes, and we will sink like a shipwreck. That's what the words mean. We'll plunge into the murky depths into destruction. I don't want my life to look like that. It's dangerous stuff because it's all rooted in the lordship of Jesus Christ because here's the deal. He says in verse 10, the love of money. When we love money, because what do we split the first and greatest commandment? Love, Lord, your God. But when we love money, it just gets us into all kinds of evil. That's what the text says. The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Not money is not the root of all evil. Not the love of money is the root of all. The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Here's what happens. We get destroyed because eventually we become people that we never dreamed we would become. We become people that we never wanted to become when we gave our hearts to Christ because it says some people eager for money have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many graves. They said, "I want to trust Christ for my life. I want to live for Christ. I want him to be the Lord. I want to receive his life. I want to be content with what he brings." But determined to solve our own problems and make our own happiness, we wander off the path as the image into the thorn bushes and are pierced. And we go, "What happened in my life?" Some of you know what that looks like in your lives to have wandered away from the truth, that contentment, godliness with contentment is great gain. And the rest is grief when we're not Christ's followers because friends, if we decide we don't want his way and we don't want him bringing to us what it is we need, then we can go live that way. And we'll end up being who we don't want to be away from the faith, away from the followers of Christ. Those who are determined to live this way are sunk. And then the last thing I'll just finish with this, Paul says, "This way of living, it's not for you. So you run. You run. This way of living, not for you. You run away from it. Look at verse 11. He says, "But you, man of God, you flee this stuff and you pursue the things of God." Some people are going to live like this. This is how some people are living. This is how the whole world feels like it's living. They're scrambling to get enough stuff to make them happy, to get on top, to have their kids go to the best, better college, above the other kids so they can get the better jobs. I mean, we're all scrambling all of us to try to make something out of our lives and make ourselves happy. We're trying to get our answers to life from stuff other than the contentment that Jesus Christ is enough. This is what he goes, "Some people are living like that." But in verse 11, he goes, "But not you." And the Greek is you is first and it's never first in the Greek. It's a vehicle for emphasis. He goes, "Some people are living like this. You know." That's Paul's words. That's the strength of it. Not you. Do you hear that? Do you hear that intensity? That's not how we live, flee from that stuff. You're a man of God. He tells Timothy, you just hear the passion in it. You do it differently than everybody else. I don't care if that's how everybody lives. I don't care if that means you're going to get behind and keeping up with the Joneses. I don't care. Not you, man. You're a man of God. You flee that stuff and I'll call at the end of this sermon. He says, "You flee from that stuff and you pursue the opposite of finding our life in the answers of the stuff of this world. You pursue the opposite." And that's what these words are. They're all opposite words in verse 11. And that's going to be your homework. You go study those opposite words. You pursue righteousness and godliness and love and faith and endurance and gentleness. All things that we have to put in our lives is we're living for Christ. We're believing that he's going to come through. We're not going to manipulate people. We're going to be kind. We're going to trust that Jesus is enough. Flee the way everybody else lives. Christ is enough. Pursue the things of God. If I had another sermon in me, it would be how do we cultivate that? How do we cultivate that? God make it real in my life that you satisfy everything. You are sufficient and you are all that I want. May God make that true in our lives as we continue to worship and study the word and gather and inspire and lean closer and closer to Jesus.