But godliness actually is a means of great gain, when accompanied by contentment. 1 Timothy 6:6
All of us are familiar with the scenario. Our neighbor, Don Jones, drives up one day in his new Volvo. We can’t help but notice. That old Ford Tempo he had been driving was a respectable, but modest car. It really made us feel comfortable. But a new Volvo is another story. This upscale car makes us feel uncomfortable. In fact, a new emotion seems to surface. Envy. Discontentment. It is the emotion known as "keeping up with the Joneses." What shall we do? Well, we resolve the problem a few days later by driving up in our driveway in a new Audi. Now we feel better.
Does this scenario seem familiar? If it does, it is because it is being played out everywhere across our nation. Our Western culture is geared to create these emotions in all of us. Notice the ads on the television. In general they are saying, "Look at these people. They are having a great time. Look at what they have! If you had what they have, you would be happy too. Don’t you wish you had what they have? Go out and buy it today! Don’t have the cash? Charge it!"
The executives in charge of the advertising agencies seek to encourage discontentment. It is their job to create a desire in you for their product. To do that, they can get you dissatisfied with what you have. By doing so, they stand a better chance of selling you what they have. Whether you really need it or not, is immaterial. Their job is to get you to want it. That they have been successful is an understatement.
Evidence of the success of this movement is seen in the widespread acceptance of this lifestyle. Elements in our culture even applaud greed. In the movie Wall Street, Michael Douglas, playing the high-rolling Wall Street entrepreneur, Gordon Gecco, makes the bold statement: "Greed is good." Many today subscribe to that very philosophy.
Deep down within all of us, however, we know that this is not quite right. In fact, the Bible teaches that covetousness is a sin. In the Tenth Commandment, the focus is a prohibition against covetousness. This Commandment of God clashes with the philosophy of our present age. It clashes also with the attitudes of our hearts. Listen to what God’s says: "You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or his male servant or his female servant or his ox or his donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor."
The God who made us, who knows how we work, who loves us and wants the best for us, in His wisdom gave us this Commandment. Why? Because He knew the destructiveness of a covetous attitude. Covetousness, being the opposite of contentment, only leaves us feeling unfulfilled. But while we would like to live lives free of covetousness, it is easier said than done.
A teacher in Sunday School told the story of the Rich Man and Lazarus. how The Rich Man, you recall, went to Hell while Lazarus went to Heaven. This Sunday School teacher asked her students which one they would like to be, the Rich Man or Lazarus. One young boy replied, reflecting the attitude of our age, "I’d like to be the Rich Man while I’m alive, and Lazarus when I die."
All Christians must deal with attitudes of envy and covetousness at some time or another. The problem is that dealing with our attitudes is a much more difficult challenge than dealing with our actions. It is easier not to murder than not to hate. It is easier not to commit adultery than not to lust. It is easier not to say an evil word than not to think an evil word. So, it is all the more important that we understand the truth of Paul’s statement in 1 Timothy 6:6: But godliness actually is a means of great gain, when accompanied by contentment.
We do not lose when we choose to forsake covetousness. We gain. Living for Jesus with a contented heart brings us fulfillment and freedom. Let’s look more closely at the choices before us.
A covetous heart is never satisfied. Covetousness, by definition, is a powerful desire to have. The emotion is so powerful that it captivates our minds. We see something and we have to possess it.
The problem is that this drive can consume our lives. In a cemetery in England stands a grave marker with this inscription: She died for want of things. Alongside that marker is another which reads: He died trying to give them to her.
Advertising executives spend a billion dollars a year doing marketing research. A vast network of people, from Madison Avenue to Hollywood, spend their full work week designing novel ways to trigger our desires. Music, slogans, Technicolor sights, digitally produced sounds, and dramatic movement, all collaborate to create a passion to possess. They use fear, nostalgia, pride, sexual arousal, jealousy, and envy to produce the desired effect. Their goal is to temporarily suspend our self-control. They are creating a pattern of thinking, an attitude of discontent which will continue long after their product is forgotten. The result is that they are creating dissatisfaction with life. Proverbs 27:20 says, "Hell and destruction are never full; so the eyes of men are never satisfied." The covetous heart is never satisfied, and dissatisfied people are miserable. Instead of gaining, we lose. We only develop a lifestyle of misery. We find our relationships strained with other people because they have more than we do. We even find ourselves being dissatisfied with God and His provision for our lives. You see, when we covet someone else’s job, spouse, income, house, or car, we are saying, "You’ve not been fair with me God. I deserve a nicer job, or a more lucrative income, or a bigger house, or a nicer wife or husband. You’ve short-changed me. You owe me something better, God!" Now, you may not say those things directly. But a covetous heart is filled with those thoughts.
Do you see the horrible destructive potential of these attitudes? They destroy us, and they destroy those around us. They place us in bondage and rule our lives. But there is an alternative to covetousness - contentment.
The alternative is contentment, which is the key to fulfillment, freedom, and security. Whereas a covetous heart is never satisfied, a contented heart is always secure.
When Epicurus was asked for the secret of happiness, his answer was: "Add not to a man’s possessions but take away from his desires." The Jewish Rabbis had a saying: "Who is rich? He that is contented with his lot."
Now you may be saying, "You must be kidding! If I live like that I’ll never get anywhere. I don’t want to be like a lazy old cow, lying on her belly and chewing her cud. I have ambition, drive, motivation! I am not going to let the world pass me by."
While you may be thinking these kinds of thoughts, you should know that this is not the picture of contentedness painted by Scripture. To be content is not the absence of ambition. A person can be extremely well motivated, with a great personal drive, and still be contented. Contentment, you see, is a state of mind.
Shakespeare, in the third part of Henry the Sixth, pictures the king wandering in the country. He informs two gamekeepers that he is a king. One of them asks: "But, if thou be a king, where is thy crown?" Listen to the king’s answer:
My crown is in my heart, not on my head;
Not deck’d with diamonds and Indian stones,
Nor to be seen; my crown is call’d content -
A crown it is that seldom king’s enjoy.
The apostle Paul, in Philippians 4:11-12, says, "Not that speak from want; for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am. I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in prosperity; in any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need." How did Paul do this? The secret is found in the next verse, 13: "I can do all things through Him who strengthens me."
The contented person, like Paul, knows that he has everything that he needs, and more than he deserves. In whatever circumstances he finds himself, he learns to praise God for the provision He has given. Christ is his strength. Christ is his provision. The contented person is secure in his Lord.
Just look at what God has already done for you. The Lord has given you life. He gives you the air you breathe, the food you eat, the health you enjoy. He has blessed you with His forgiveness, salvation, and the promise of eternal life. He has given you your family, your friends, and so many other things that we all take for granted. Now look at your life. What have you given Him? Have you always been faithful? Have you always given all? Do you want to shake your fist at God, claiming that He has been unfair with you?
Look around you at others - not at others better off than you, but at others who suffer lack. It’s so easy to look at others who have more. It’s easy to ask why we do not have what they have. But look again at your own heart. Do you deserve even what you do have? Look at those who are less fortunate. Are you any better than they?
Look at Job. The story of Job is an illustration given to us by God of a man who trusted in God, not for what God would give him, but simply because God was God. Listen to what Job says in 1:21, "Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I shall return there. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord."
Now, Satan thought that Job just served God for what God had given Job. He accused Job before God saying, "Does Job fear God for nothing?" He goes on to say in Job 1:10-11, "Hast thou not made a hedge about him and his house and all that he has, on every side? Thou hast blessed the work of his hands, and his possessions have increased in the land. But put forth thy hand now and touch all that he has; he will surely curse thee to thy face." Then God allowed Satan to take away everything that Job had. Job lost it all. Verse 22 says, "Through all this Job did not sin nor did he blame God." The moral of the story is that Job did trust God for nothing. He did not trust God because of what God gave him, he trusted God for who God is.
Like Job, we must learn to trust God. We must learn to find our fulfillment in Jesus. This world, and the things in this world, will never fulfill us. God wants us to find our fulfillment in Him. God wants people who will place themselves in His arms. He wants people who are secure in His provision, trusting in Him to provide what they need according to His wisdom. God does not want grasping people, coveting people, people who are threatened by someone else’s possessions or position. He wants people with open hands, open hearts, open arms. He wants people who will rejoice when others are blessed, not when others suffer loss. He wants safe people. A safe person is a person through whom God can bless others, because He knows that person will not close his hand around what He puts there. A contented person is a safe person for God to use. Are you a safe person?
The great preacher Lacordaire said: " . . . what our age wants most is the sight of a man, who might possess everything, being yet willingly contented with little. For my own part, humanly speaking, I wish for nothing. A great soul in a small house is the idea which has touched me more than any other."
The true path to real satisfaction in life is to live for Jesus with a contented heart. But godliness actually is a means of great gain, when accompanied by contentment. We must come to see that having contentment will make us satisfied with life.
The real key to contentment is focusing on what you have instead of what you do not have. I hear so many people complain about the things they don’t have, when they have been blessed with so many wonderful things which they take for granted. What is there within us that makes us blind to the manifold blessings of God? Perhaps it is the Cain Syndrome — the attitude of not being content with one’s own good fortune, but being envious of another’s. Whatever it is, it is not the attitude that helps us be secure in God.
The word for contentment in our text could also be translated as self-sufficient. It does not mean that we are self-sufficient in our own power, but rather that we are self-sufficient in God’s provision. It implies that God is our source and resource. We need nothing outside of Him. What a state of grace! To be secure in Him alone. To be content in Him alone. To be satisfied in Him alone. To have that attitude is to be impervious to outside pressures and temptations. The allure of the world cannot penetrate the armour of contentment. If you are contented with a thing, you are not tempted to change. If we are content with God, then we will be satisfied and secure.
The LORD is my shepherd; I
shall not want.
He maketh me to lie down in green pastures:
he leadeth me beside the still waters.
He restoreth my soul:
he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name's sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil:
for thou art with me;
thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.
Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies:
thou anointest my head with oil; my cup runneth over.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life:
and I will dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.
Psalm 23:1-6 (KJV)
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