The Confidence and Comfort of Contentment

Sermon transcript

Let’s pray. Our Father in heaven we thank you that by your Holy Spirit you inspired this written word so many centuries ago and you preserved that word throughout these centuries so that we might have it translated into our own language today and we ask Holy Spirit that you would be with us that these words would not be dead words but they would be alive to us that we would be alive to them that your spirit would work in the proclamation the preaching of this word that our hearts might hear and receive that we might be given life we ask that you would do this for the glory of Christ and in his name we pray amen may be seated well have you ever heard of the praise the Midas touch it’s often used to speak of someone who’s able to successfully make money at almost any endeavor they turn to it’s also a reference to a story in Greek mythology King Midas he ruled the ancient kingdom of Phrygia which is in modern-day Turkey and he was already a wealthy unfortunate king living in luxury with a beautiful daughter he adored vast treasures and a magnificent palace despite having abundance his heart was consumed by a love of gold and a restless craving for more one day the Greek god Dionysius appeared and offered the king any wish that he desired and Midas blinded by his greed asked for the power to turn anything he touched into gold pure gold Dionysius warned him to reconsider he knew the peril of the wish but Midas insisted and Dionysius granted that wish at first Midas was overjoyed he touched a twig became solid gold he picked up stones they turned into gleaming nuggets he reached for food and drink and they transformed into inedible metal he ran through the Rose Garden turning blossoms into gold his delight knew no bounds he imagined endless riches but the blessing quickly became a curse when he tried to eat bread or drink wine they all turned to gold in his mouth and he could not nourish himself hunger and thirst tormented him worst of all when he ran to embrace his beloved daughter she froze into a lifeless gold statue at his touch and in that moment of horror Midas realized his greed had robbed him of everything truly valuable food water joy even his own child desperate and weeping Midas begged Dionysius to undo the gift and the god taking pity instructed him to wash in the Pactolus River near Sardis he was freed but forever changed having learned that true happiness lies not in material wealth but in love relationships and simple necessities and in our text from Hebrews this morning we’re considering the issue of contentment we’re going to see from this passage that when you know that the Lord will not leave you you can stop worrying about needing more which gives you confidence to repudiate the fear of what others might think say or do to you and we’ll look at the way this works in three headings number one God’s command which is contentment number two is God’s promise which is comfort and number three is our response which is confidence so number one God’s command which is contentment verse five keep your life free from the love of money and be content with what you have we have two phrases in parallel here negatively keep the love of money out of your life and positively be content with what you have and these aren’t two separate things but two sides of the same coin these statements are equivalent verse five starts out with the command this is a command from God’s Word keep your life free from the love of money don’t let the love of money have any foothold in your life he doesn’t say just minimize it keep your love for money and proper balance with everything else going on no the love of money has no place in a Christian’s life and Jesus reiterated this many times in the Gospels Matthew chapter 6 we see this in Jesus’s sermon on the mount Matthew chapter 6 verse 24 no one can serve two masters for either he will hate the one and love the other or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other you cannot serve both God and money love for money and love for God are incompatible one will crowd the other out Jesus says both God and money claim exclusivity this is necessary for him to mention because there’s a tendency within the human heart to think that we can have both we can pay our allegiance to God but also give a corner of our heart to money but that’s as foolish as a married man thinking he can just split his affections between his wife and another woman no wife is truly happy with 75% even 95% of her husband’s affections both money and God have a tendency to require exclusivity and the more you give your affections to the one the more they will require with God this is a good thing because he is worthy of our absolute devotion he’s worthy of being obsessed over with money that is a real problem think of the workaholic spending all his time trying to get more always more he spends all his thoughts all his time all his energy pursuing money and what does he get in return his ceaseless labors only produce dissatisfaction because he never has enough can never enjoy what he has because he’s always looking for more the human heart is designed with a nearly infinite desire for satisfaction for the Christian author CS Lewis this was part of his reason for believing that heaven existed he said if I find within myself a desire which no experience in the world can satisfy the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world but if we’re not drinking deeply of God and finding our satisfaction in him we will seek to satiate our near infinite appetite elsewhere and it almost always requires money to the love of money is not loving actual bills or coins but the things the experiences the opportunities the favors the friends the positions the money can purchase whenever we find ourselves unable to be happy with the amount of money we currently have we have the root of the love of money growing in our hearts Jeremiah Burroughs a Puritan who lived in the 1600s wrote a book called the rare jewel of Christian contentment they did a book study on that at the smokestack few months back the first thing that he mentions in terms of application is that all the rules in the world will do us little good unless we gain a good state of mind within our hearts contentment never comes from outside of us contentment is entirely a disposition a mindset that we develop internally circumstances possessions and everything else will never satisfy a discontent heart a discontented heart needs an attitude change not a change in circumstances the Apostle Paul said contentment was something that he had learned in Philippians chapter 4 verses 11 and 12 the Apostle Paul says not that I’m speaking of being in need for I have 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 this means that contentment is not something that some people have a knack for and some people just don’t contentment takes effort and doesn’t happen by just getting our balance of stuff right Paul says he’s learned to maintain contentment regardless of circumstances or the number of possessions he has if he has a lot he’s content if he’s barely getting by he’s still content that didn’t mean he refused help or gifts he accepted them with complete thankfulness knowing that he already had God who’s more than enough and didn’t have any doubts that whatever was necessary for him to have he would not lack because God was always there which brings us to the second element in our text number two God’s promise which is comfort verse 5 the second half for he had said I will never leave you nor forsake you negatively we have keep your life free from the love of money the command to be content or positively we’re to have confidence and comfort we don’t often think of contentment as related to confidence but that’s what we have in our passage the writer of Hebrews is diagnosing discontentment as a lack of faith a disbelief disbelief that God is either able or willing or both to help us and to give us everything that we need discontentment the love of money is rooted in being afraid of what might happen what other people might do to us we want money to protect us from harm and from discomfort discontentment is rooted in fear fear of the future fear that we’re on our own fear that we won’t have enough that will be uncomfortable that others might harm us I know I’ve spent a lot of time dwelling in these types of fears throughout my life what do we need instead we need a big God who is always there we need something bigger than money money is pretty powerful if you have enough of it seems like you can buy almost anything money can buy security comfort pleasure and health but only for so long the thing about money is that you can’t take it with you heaven uses a different currency if you’ve ever traveled to a different country you’ll see in the airport a sign that says currency exchange and this is because the money that you’re bringing into that country will not be accepted by the merchants you must convert your money into currency that can be used in that country when we flew to Japan I had lots of US dollars in my pocket but the Japanese grocery stores find those bills to be worthless so if you want to be able to purchase anything you must exchange we had to exchange our US dollars for the local currency Jesus commends something similar for those that are going to heaven Matthew chapter 6 in the Sermon on the Mount verses 19 through 20 Jesus says this he says do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth where moth and rust destroy where thieves break in and steal but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven where moth nor Ross or neither moth nor rust destroys where thieves do not break in and steal Jesus says earthly currency is inherently inferior it depreciates it loses value it’s vulnerable to theft and damage and so when a young man comes up and asks him in Matthew 19 verse 21 Jesus recommends exchanging earthly currency for heavenly currency Matthew 19 verse 21 Jesus said to him if you would be perfect go sell what you possess and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven and come follow me now lest we think that the primary way to gain heavenly wealth is to purchase it or exchange for it with earthly wealth we see how the story ends in the next two verses Matthew 19 verses 22 and 23 when the young man heard this he went away sorrowful free had great possessions and Jesus said to his disciples truly truly I say to you only with difficulty will a person with wealth a rich person enter the kingdom of heaven while Jesus recommends making an exchange of earthly treasure for heavenly treasure it’s not so easy to make that exchange for those that have earthly wealth and this is because wealth treasure tends to grab a hold of our hearts grab a hold of the hearts that those that possess it and so the more earthly treasure you possess the more likely it will be that you are loathed to exchange it and so the far better route is to simply hold the majority of your wealth in heavenly currency not waiting for a last-minute exchange heavenly treasure is far more secure it never depreciates and the more you own the more it captures your heart and puts your heart in the right place so what exactly is heavenly treasure well most simply it is God himself Psalm 73 verse 25 says whom have I in heaven but you there’s nothing on earth that I desire besides you and Psalm 27 verse 4 that we read earlier says one thing I have asked of the Lord and that will I seek after that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple in Genesis chapter 15 verse 1 God tells Abraham God is his reward after these things the word of the Lord came to Abraham in a vision fear not Abraham I am your shield your reward shall be very great you might remember that the Levites did not inherit an area of Canaan as the other tribes did because God was their inheritance and now if you’re thinking of heaven in terms entirely binary as whether just simply you’re in or you’re out it might not make as much sense to speak of stockpiling heavenly treasure once we’re saved we’re in we got it checked off if salvation is only a get-out-of-hell free card to you then this talk might not make sense but what if a husband treated his wife treated knowing his wife this way what if the husband after one day of marriage said that now he knows all he needs to know about his wife so we can check off getting to know his wife she no longer requires further attention if the husband treated his wife as something that is one and done we might say among other things he doesn’t understand marriage similarly if we think of salvation our restoration into relationship with God in purely binary terms we will not understand what it means to store up treasure in heaven because while there is a binary in terms of eternal destinations one will either when one dies be in heaven with God or in hell experiencing his judgment within those binaries our degrees hell itself is merely the minimum sentence for a sinful thought word or action because within hell exists levels of punishment perfectly matched to the crimes that are committed and conversely heaven is not a one-size-fits-all simple reality where all distinctions are erased and our lives on earth bear no consequence when we realize that salvation coming into relationship with God is more like a relationship of marriage than a get out of hell free card then we can begin to understand what it would mean to store up or to increase our treasure in heaven consider the expression investing in your marriage this means spending focused intentional time with your spouse getting to know them better doing things together spending resources to enrich your relationship you’re exchanging your earthly money for enriching that relationship not in a crude buying off your spouse but in the sense that you’re exchanging gifts for exchanging money for gifts for experiences for provisions for the one that you love and this can perhaps help us understand what it means to exchange our earthly money for heavenly treasure you’re not buying God’s favor or purchasing your own righteousness with your money you’re using your money as a tool to get what you want more than anything God and the more you invest in your relationship with God now the sweeter the fellowship you will have with him in heaven for some people who will arrive in heaven God will be a casual acquaintance when they’ve just barely know someone they ignored all of their life before being saved just before death perhaps or maybe they grew up in a church and found salvation young but barely ever read their Bible or prayed leaving them with a faith hanging on by the thread and every difficult circumstance in their life making them question God’s reality or especially his goodness they might reach heaven hardly knowing God either but for others it will not be that way at all there are others who will reach heaven on intimate terms with the one who saved them by persistent wrestling in prayer perpetual study of his word and perseverance in faith it will not find a God that they hardly know but one they have gotten to know well while still feeling like there is an infinite amount to learn heaven for them will be less like a honeymoon where you barely know each other and more like a deep rich anniversary after decades of joyful connection the Lord says he will never leave you or forsake you how well do you know him God is so kind he gives us every possible incentive to encourage us on the path of faith rather than fear and he gives us the comforting promise of his presence and this in turn is intended to give us confidence number three our response of confidence look at verse 6 so we can confidently say the Lord is my helper I will not fear what can man do to me what would it take for you to be able to say this you feel like you can say this now what our passage this morning models is the process that we follow in the Christian life God gives us a command we cannot obey this command on our own not in our own strength so he gives us a promise something for us to believe in something for us to hang on to something for us to trust in then we believe God’s promise we count on it we place our money on it being true and then we receive what we need the ability to obey God’s command we receive faith we find peace confidence contentment etc. faith comes by hearing faith comes from hearing God’s promise and then believing it is true and this is the way in which a person finds faith for the first time in the way a person finds faith for the millionth time the writer of Hebrews doesn’t just leave his audience with a bare command he provides the promise that is perfectly suited to provide the faith needed to obey God’s command for every difficulty and challenge in our lives there is a promise of God tailored to address that root of that problem and grant us faith faith does not come from introspection comes from hearing what God says and believing it’s true but don’t settle for the most general statements from scripture this is one of the reasons we must be students of the scripture you’ll never build your faith if you never read your Bible faith comes from hearing hearing the word of God and the promises of God are given for you for your faith because your relationship with God is not merely a matter of time consider the fact that in a marriage people could be married sometimes 20 or 30 years and still feel so distant from each other that divorce feels like a viable option time alone does not breed closeness or cultivate a relationship and it’s similar with our relationship with God it is not enough to simply hang out with people that know God you must pursue him personally yourself and this is more than simply attending church services even cramming theological facts in your brain or being able to rattle off some prayer requests sometimes knowing God means truly seeking him in prayer reading his word in such a way as to know his heart and obeying him by faith as we mentioned earlier treasure in heaven is knowing God the better you know God the more treasure you have in heaven instead of letting money crowd out and rival our relationship with God we must leverage it in our quest after God by the way one tool to help us guard our hearts is tithing a hundred percent of our money is God’s money in relation to God we don’t own anything we’re taking care of God’s stuff in order to remind us that 100% of our money is God’s he tells us give 10% back to him a tithe well there’s many reasons that for Christians to give to the church I often think of giving the tithe to God as mainly about getting it out of my hands it’s meant to help me remember that my money none of it is my own and you will either use God in the service of money or money in the service of God if money is your master you’ll try to manipulate God and use God to get more money and this is how there can be such perverse pictures as pastors who are brazenly pursuing opulence while professing to serve God but how many times do you and I end up doing something similar in more subtle ways how many of our prayers for God’s blessing or obedience to God’s commands come with an expectation of compensation a monetary upgrade in our circumstances on the other hand if God is your master then money will be something you use to build God’s kingdom God’s will in his kingdom takes priority and our money becomes a servant to aid us in this end this is the only way to live in true contentment the only way to be free from fear free from the love of money because we have no assurances from God that our net worth that our earthly net worth will perpetually increase but we do have a promise from God that his kingdom will be built and will increase if God in his kingdom are where your hope are you’ll never have to worry about appearance setbacks its ultimate success is assured your own monetary kingdom on the other hand is not so if you want to live without anxiety making God your master rather than money is definitely the way to go and that’s what allows you to live in fearless contentment to be able to say the Lord is my helper I will not fear what can man do to me the love of money promises protection and pleasure but it only delivers fear and dissatisfaction the writer of Hebrews offers us the antidote not more money but a deeper knowledge of the God who is more than enough God’s command is clear keep your life free from the love of money and be content with what you have but he doesn’t leave us staring at an impossible standard he gives us the promise that fuels obedience I will never leave you or forsake you this is no vague platitude it’s the bedrock bedrock reality of the gospel in Christ God has drawn near in the flesh died for our sins risen in victory and now dwells with us by his spirit he’s not a distant benefactor who might abandon us when the bank account runs low he’s our ever-present father our unchanging companion our eternal reward and when we truly believe this promise when we let it sink deep into our hearts something remarkable happens fear loses its grip discontentment withers we no longer scramble to build earthly kingdoms that moths destroy and thieves break in and steal instead we invest in the treasure that lasts intimate growing fellowship with God himself and the better we know him through prayer scripture obedience and surrender the richer our heavenly inheritance becomes not because we earn it but because we enjoy him more fully now and forever so we can confidently say what the psalmist quoted here the Lord is my helper I will not fear what can man do to me no economic downturn no job loss no criticism no threat can ultimately harm the one whose security is anchored in God’s unchanging presence people’s opinions may sting their actions may wound but they cannot separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord so the question for each of us this morning is simple yet profound will you let money master you or will you master money in service to God will you hoard earthly currency that fades or will you store up treasure in heaven by pursuing him above all the path to contentment is not found in having more it’s found in knowing more deeply the one who has promised never to leave or forsake you let us pray that God would uproot every root of greed within our hearts flood us with the comfort of his presence fill us with the confidence that comes from trusting his word and may we leave this place today saying not just with our lips but with our lives the Lord is my helper I will not fear go in the confidence and comfort of true contentment secured not by what you have but by who has you men let’s pray our father in heaven we thank you that you have promised to never leave us never forsake us thank you that you have promised to be everything that we need that our God will supply every need according to his riches in glory Lord we ask that you would help us believe this you would help us to trust you in this you would help us to not worry but we would have confidence knowing you have us and are always with us we pray this in Jesus name amen one response let’s turn and sing him number 517 let’s stand as we sing him 517 I know whom I have believed

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