The Secret Contentment
Tom Shrader teaches on the biblical concept of contentment from 1 Timothy 6, examining Paul's equation that godliness plus contentment equals great gain. He challenges listeners to examine their hearts regarding material possessions, relationships, and achievements, arguing that true satisfaction comes from Christ alone rather than accumulating more stuff or status.
“The more of Him I get, the less of stuff I want.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: CBCC August 2012
Recorded: 2012 at Cannon Beach Conference Center
Duration: 45 min
Themes: contentment, materialism, greed, satisfaction, possessions, gratitude, trust, surrender, struggling with materialism, feeling discontented, young professional, new believer, wealthy individuals, middle class families, those seeking purpose, parents teaching values
Scripture: 1 Timothy 6:6-8, 1 Timothy 6:10, 1 Timothy 6:17, Hebrews 13:5-6, 2 Timothy 2:4, Philippians 4:11, Ecclesiastes 5:10
Theological Themes: godliness, spiritual maturity, biblical stewardship, sanctification, worldliness, covetousness, christian living, spiritual growth
Full Transcript
We will never fully understand the depth of the cross and the cost. Father, I pray that we might understand the effect of the cross on our life. You've called us to live a life that reflects the light that You've shown into our life. To be salt and light in this world.
I pray for the next 30 or 40 minutes that You would use these words that I know up front are totally inadequate. That You would use them in a way as Your Spirit applies them to our hearts. That would touch our lives. That Your Spirit would energize us, strengthen us, direct us, empower us. And we would become the men, women, students that You'd have us be. Father, we pray that to You. Ask it of You in Christ's name. Amen.
Well, good morning. Good to see you this morning. Got to see some of the guys this morning and an opportunity to really hear Brian speak. Brian can answer any question you have from the Gospel of Matthew. We're thrilled with that. That's a gift. That's a talent.
It's fun for me to watch and listen to Brian teach and teach Scripture that I've looked at and taught. To know from his teaching that he's not just spent time reading about that word, but thinking about it and letting it go through him and his insights. He was awesome this morning and it opened up a Q&A.
I did not sleep well last night for a couple of reasons. It was a little warm in the room. We're trying to figure out that temperature thing. It sounds weird because we come from where it's 111. It was a little warm in the room. And my mind was just spinning on what I wanted to talk about this morning.
The Foundation: Contentment Over Fear
I had a thought in mind. I'm going to read to you from Hebrews 13, verse 5. I was focusing really on the last part of this, verse 6. But it says, "Make sure your character is free from the love of money. Be content with what you have. For He Himself said, 'I'll never leave you nor forsake you.' So we confidently say, 'The Lord is my helper. I will not be afraid. What will man do to me?'"
It feels to me like that fits right in the flow with what we've talked about, especially verse 6. The Lord's my helper. I won't be afraid. What will man do to me? So my thought was to talk about what are those things that we're afraid of. He's giving us the antidote here, which is really the Lord Himself. In verse 5 is that love of money.
There's several of you who either texted or Facebooked or got a hold of me before we came. We're looking forward to see you again. If you've heard me speak, it's rare that in a time where there's five or six messages, I don't end up in 1 Timothy 6. I am in there a lot, especially a little segment in there. So I'm going to give you a story. I'm going to try to tie it into today. Then I'm going to try to hopefully apply it to our week here.
My Journey to Faith and Discovery
When God saved me, I had very little background. Catholic grade school, high school, college. I began to ask God simply to take this Bible because that became the overpowering thing for me. My first step of faith really was to believe the Bible was the word of God. Because at that point, life became an open book test.
I was a student. I wasn't very good. The college I went to, our junior year, we went to the honor system. I said, explain to me exactly what this is. We're going to honor. We're going to give you the test. Then we're going to leave the room and you can take the test. I said, seriously, this is internet peeking? There's repercussions here? The honor system, my grade point average exploded under the honor system. The honor system is the greatest thing that ever happened to me.
So in this whole part of then coming to Christ, for me it was, where can I get answers? I went through and got rid of literally 2,000 or 3,000 books when we moved five or six years ago. I found this whole segment of reading from a point in my life when I was about 25 years old. I wasn't a follower of Christ. There were books about Edgar Cayce. There were books about all of these different things. There was always this thing in my mind that there was something bigger than me. It seems like that just seems right. And what are the answers to this? I was looking at all sorts of places.
The Answer Book
Once you settle the Bible's the word of God, now I have the answers in front of me. All I have to do is bring the questions to that.
My daughter Haley really worked hard as a student, and I tried to encourage her as much as I could. But I also tried to have our time together. One of the things I love to do with the girls is take walks. We'd take a walk, and I would take a pipe. You don't see pipes much anymore. Or a cigar and a pipe. They would keep you busy. So I'd be busy, and we'd start the conversation. We had these great talks.
I went to Haley one night, and I said, let's go for a walk. She said, Dad, I can't. I'm doing math and I have to get this math done. This is what I remembered from elementary school and then junior high. Aren't all the answers in the back of the book? Just go back there. Give them the answer. But she's going to want to know how I got it. It's like, from the back of the book. I don't know. You put them in there. I don't know.
So I was like, well, now I kind of go, what do I need to do to get to heaven? Well, I realized I don't need to do anything. It's believe. All of a sudden, I have this answer book in front of me.
Confronting the Love of Money
I began to read that book. I began to apply it to my life. I began to look around and see where I was. I was 30 years old. I was at the front end of a business career, commercial real estate. I looked at my life and that word. It kind of laid me bare to this idea of the love of money. Make sure your character is free from the love of money. Being content.
So that's Hebrews chapter 13. If you turn to the left, to 1 Timothy chapter 6, you'll see similar words. The word that started to take on its kind of own little course in my life was that idea of content or contentment.
Paul writes to Timothy in 1 Timothy chapter 6, verse 6: "But godliness is actually a means of great gain when it's accompanied by contentment. If we brought nothing into the world, we can't take anything out of it either. If we have food and clothing with those, we should be content."
As you drop down to verse 10, you'll see that familiar phrase: "For the love of money is the root of all sorts of evil." He goes on and talks about that. He says flee these things, but instruct, verse 17, building on what Brian talked about the other night, that by a world standard, all of us is rich.
The Challenge of Being Rich
I've discovered that word "rich" is a difficult word. "Instruct those who are rich." Here's the tendency when I say rich—for you to think of anybody who has more than you. That's what you do. They have more. They have more. They have more.
He said instruct those who are rich in this present world—to people with stuff. He tells them what not to do. Don't be conceited or fix their hope on the uncertainty of riches, but fix your hope essentially on God. Then be good and rich in good works and share. He said here's what stuff does: don't do this, because that's going to be the natural thing. It's going to make you conceited. And you're going to trust that stuff.
There are a whole bunch of idols in my life. I try to confront those idols, that idol factory that Tim Keller and John Calvin talk about—that idol factory that my heart just creates. We won't leave that vacuum.
My Personal Struggle with Comfort
Comfort is a big deal to me. Peace, quiet, comfort. There was a little dog down on the beach yesterday barking. I so wanted to help that dog see Jesus. If I just had a scope, I could have taken this dog out because it's interrupting my nap. I like comfort.
It's interesting—I don't think I'm motivated by money. But here's how I say it: it costs my friends a lot of money to keep me in poverty. I don't necessarily have that love of money, but I do like the things that go with it. They seem to associate that together. There's that sense of peace and quiet and security.
As I get older—I'm 62, I'll be 63 in November—I look at that end. I've always thought about this, and I'll even go deep with this because I wasn't thinking about that. But I look around and I feel betrayed in the sense that I feel like I played by all the rules, and now the rules are changing. They said save here, do this, play this, Social Security.
The Rules Keep Changing
In the church world, there's a whole bunch of guys my age that opted out of Social Security. The reason that they did is they didn't want to pay it. There was an exemption. The reason I stayed in it, frankly, was Medicare. And now they're going to get health care anyway. That really hacks me off.
Sandy and I were talking last night: why does this bother me so much? It's revealing an idol. When I came to Christ in repentance and faith based on His grace and mercy, one of the things I discovered is that I live in a world that presses me out of contentment.
The Equation of Great Gain
What put me in this conversation was the discussion this morning in the Q&A. We talked about Brian's things that he exposed to us in the life of Herod, the life of John. Then we started talking about life and decisions.
So I take you right back to really a familiar passage for me: godliness plus contentment equals great gain. If you put that in the form of an equation, I think it's helpful. If I say 2 plus 3 equals what? 2 plus 3 equals 5. We can say the 3 is more important than the 2 in terms of value and quantity, but the 2 is essential to the 3 if I'm going to get to 5.
So godliness—you can go to about any good church, and you'll hear a message on godliness almost every week. I'm not sure we hear that counterbalance message on contentment. But both are essential if I want to get to whatever it is that Paul identifies as great gain.
Living in a Materialistic Culture
You live in a world, especially in this country—and I'm a big American guy. I have zero interest, and it's probably a weakness. I'm very American-centric. I have no interest in travel. The only coliseum I want to see, I want to see SC play UCLA. That's the coliseum I want to go to. The other one's starting to tilt—I don't know, that's all I hear, that's what I read about.
I'm an American guy, so I love it. I love free market. I love enterprise. I love all of this. Bill O'Reilly in his book called The O'Reilly Factor writes this: "Here's something that surprises me. The more stuff I have, the more stuff I want. And so I look around, and I saw that everyone is the same way. It wasn't until I had a few things that I noticed how this worked. Material stuff is addicting."
So here's that world we live in that pulls in those two directions between this world and its economy, its values, its agenda. Isn't that what Jesus said? No one can serve two masters. You're going to love one, hate the other. There's that tension for me that comes in.
The Addiction to Stuff
Radio Shack ran an ad, I don't know, five or six years ago. The tagline was: "We have thousands of things you never knew you needed."
The word contentment defined by Webster: happy enough with what one has—listen to this second part—or is, not desiring something more or different, satisfied. Now it almost feels un-American. I've talked about this in a variety of ways. I have a title where I just put on a title that said, "Put a lid on your dreams."
The American dream—I go back and forth. What is that American dream? It's always defined in the sense of stuff. So this election is going to have at its core one of those questions: are you better off than you were four years ago? And immediately everybody's thinking stuff and values. Are we better off as a nation? Are we better off as a people? Are we better off in terms of values?
Paul's Secret
Paul says to us in Philippians chapter 4, he writes—he says, "I've kind..."
Learning the Secret
Paul learned a secret here and a secret to life. Chapter 4, verse 11. He said, "Not that I speak from want, but I have learned to be content." And then he defines it this way, "In whatever circumstance I'm in, I've learned the secret."
Now, the fact that he's learned is encouraging to me because it tells me it's something that I can acquire, I can learn. It doesn't come naturally. I have to be taught this. Intuitively, I want more. When I would travel, I would come home, I'd have a gift for one. If I gave Haley something, immediately Sarah would be right there saying, "What about me?"
The Insatiable Nature of Want
What O'Reilly exposes is what Solomon told us back in Ecclesiastes chapter 5: whoever has money never has money enough. Chapter 5, verse 10, whoever has wealth is never satisfied with His income. As goods increase, so do those who consume them. Eugene Peterson in his paraphrase says, "The more loot you have, the more looters show up."
So let's just get it down. What I want to do, because it struck me as I'm listening to myself and to Brian speak, is we're not giving you a lot of lists. I love lists. I love do these 10 things. Check, check, check, check, check. That's why I wish the fruit of the Spirit was go to church twice a week, read your Bible every day. But the fruit of the Spirit is love. How much? What does that look like?
Asking the Right Questions
This same thing here, all I'm trying to do here is just peel this away. It really came out in the discussions today. You have to keep asking yourself, why is that important? Mila was talking about drive that car another year, take that money that's a difference, and do something with it. Well, let's go back and ask, why is it important for me to have a car if I have one that runs?
I have an app on my phone that's a USA Today app, and I'm on it all the time. It has news, it has sports, and it has one called Life. That's where I get stuff that I probably don't need to know. I learned last week that Brad Pitt gave Angelina Jolie a watch that cost $450,000.
Now, let's step back. What's the purpose of a watch? Time, basically. Do I need to spend $450,000 to get a watch to tell me what time it is? No. At some point in there, I want you to do that. I'm doing something more than getting an instrument to tell me what time it is. I'm doing something bigger than that. And then, why do I have to know that? Why do you feel compelled to tell me you did that, Brad?
The Challenge of Contentment
See, that's a hard review. I know it sounds like it. Please don't sense judgment in that. I don't want to do that. One of the things that makes, to me, this whole idea of contentment and message very hard is I can't give you an answer. Here's the right amount of money to spend on a house, a car, school, clothes. But I want you to see that in all those things that we call necessities, Paul says if you have food and covering, if you've got something to eat and a place to live, you should be content.
But He doesn't define what that is. Is it a hot dog? Is it prime rib? Is it a studio? Is it a five-bedroom house? What Solomon tells us is, humanly, stuff's never going to satisfy. If you get some, you're going to want more.
The Moving Pattern
You've all done, haven't we? Brian alluded to it. He would say, "The happiest time in my marriage when we had the little house where Cory couldn't get out of the bed and we didn't have any room." Isn't that interesting?
And then we move. We've done it a thousand times. We move into this house. We have this great moment. We get our friends over. We got some Diet Coke and some pizza. We got everybody moved in. And then somebody says, "We're so thankful. Thank you for joining us. We could live in this house forever." And then two years later, they're calling and saying, "Can you help us move?" And we ain't moving down. We're moving up with the Jeffersons. We're moving on up.
Are we better off than we were four years ago? I don't know. Only you can answer that. We talk about stuff. Godliness plus a sense of satisfaction with what I have and who I am. So I want to just talk about it, unpack it, and ask the Holy Spirit to apply it to your heart. And then you begin to make judgments on that.
Personal Responsibility
Because here's what's going to happen. You're going to want to judge the people next to you, the people at home. And one other thing I want you to see is God is not going to judge you by how they handle their resources. I try to talk about it like in giving to the church where, and I get it, you want to be prudent. But here you go. Give the money to the elders and let the curse be on them how they spend it. My job is to obey and to give. Their job is to be a good steward of that. I'd be a good steward and I understand the nuance of it.
Let me pray and then just go after it and see what happens. God, open our hearts and our eyes. Put the Spirit in our life to put the microscope honestly on our hearts. Let us take Your word and the caution You give us. And let us just deal with who we are and why we're this way. And then to not be filled with despair. God, thank You that we know the secret of having a lot or having a little. Humble means, prosperous. We've learned the secret of being filled and going hungry. What's the secret? I can do all things through You who strengthen me. Father, thank You for that strength. Thank You for that Spirit. Have that Spirit invade our hearts and minds. We ask it of You in Christ's name. Amen.
The Foundation and the Warning
So 1 Timothy 6, godliness plus contentment equals great gain. And then that standard that's evasive that I mentioned in verse 8, if I have food, undefined, clothing, undefined, shelter, undefined, I should be content.
In the very next book of my Bible, 2 Timothy, 2 Timothy 2, verse 4, Paul writes, "No soldier in active duty entangles himself in the affairs of everyday life." A wonderful verse to build a message, a series, a book around, the entangled life.
There was a guy by the name of Jim Elliot. And some of you, it seems to me like a lot of the younger guys are unfamiliar with Jim and Elizabeth
The Secret Contentment
Part 4 of 7
Jim Elliot was this remarkable guy who ends up at Wheaton. He is like every girl's dream. He ends up meeting this girl named Elizabeth and they become friends, engaged, married. Jim is part of a group that maybe you're familiar with the story—they go to South America and on their very first expedition to reach this native tribe, they're killed. He's killed along with several young men. And it's this idea of what this waste might be. And there was this guy who had all this life and what happened.
Elizabeth Elliot picks up this torch and Jim had a diary, and Jim had written notes to her. She put these together in a book that's titled *The Shadow of the Almighty*. When Jim was about 21 years old, he wrote this: "I've been musing lately on the extremely dangerous cumulative effect of earthly things. One may have good reason, for example, to want a wife and he may have one legitimately, but with a wife comes Peter the pumpkin eater's proverbial dilemma—he must find a place to keep her. And most wives won't stay on such terms as Peter proposed."
"So a wife demands a house, a house in turn requires curtains, rugs, washing machines, etc. A house with these things soon must become a home and children the intended outcome." Now listen to this phrase of this 21-year-old young man that God gave a great insight. It's counterintuitive, but it's absolutely true: "The needs multiply as they are met."
"A car demands a garage, a garage land, a land, a garden, a garden tools. Tools need to be sharpened. Woe, woe, woe to the man who would live a disentangled life in my century. 2 Timothy 2:4 is impossible in the United States if one insists on a wife. I've learned this from the wisest of life—that the wisest of life is the simplest one. Live in the fulfillment of only the basic requirements of life: shelter, food, covering, a bed, and even these can become productive of other needs if one does not heed. Be on guard, O my soul, of complicating your environment so that you have neither time nor room for growth."
A Prophetic Word About Youth
As I said, Jim and his friends are killed at a very young age. And in this diary, this next paragraph doesn't fit with whatever came that we just read or what comes after it. It's like God dropped this in. Listen to his words—they're almost eerie:
"I must not think it strange if God takes in youth those that I would have kept on earth until they were older. God is peopling eternity, and I must not restrict Him to old men and old women. Be content. Godliness plus contentment is great gain."
It's the idea of the basic need and then the idea of how do I meet that need. As I said, with a watch, I'm guessing I can go to Seaside and buy a watch at Rite Aid for about $4. So the difference between $450,000 and $4—whatever that spread is, it's a big one. That difference is an investment, really, because it's beyond telling time, isn't it? I'm making those decisions all the time.
So here's what I'm saying to you: Are you content? Content with what you have and content with who you are?
The Challenge of Contentment in Different Life Stages
Now, this gets ugly. Let me press you in a whole bunch of areas. Content.
How many of you in the room are single? Oh, wow, a whole bunch of you. Good for you. Congratulations. Congratulations to us who are married as well. Twelve weeks tomorrow. So keep in score. Yeah, I know. Amen. Yeah. We're happy for you, honey.
Since there's so many who are single, let's go there. I meet—it's stereotypical, but it's actual—I meet a lot of single people who desperately want to be married. It's being satisfied in the status I'm in. When I met Sandy, Sandy became a believer and then for about eight years did not have a date. She realized that in her relationship with Christ, that was going to be more important than a human relationship at this point. Now, she evidently—and you would think after eight years you could do better than this, that was my point to her—but at some point finally said, okay, maybe now it's time.
Contentment in Marriage
Those of you that are married, be content with the spouse God's given you. There's the old axiom that most men marry women hoping they'll never change, but they do. Most women marry men hoping they'll change, but they don't.
Here you go, ladies. Let's deal with you first. 3.5 billion fish in the sea. This is the one you picked, chose. I used to have this thing—I don't do a lot of counseling, but in marriage counseling I used to do this technique where I would early on go, "Tell me how you met." And usually that was always a pleasant experience. I'm with a couple one day and I said, "How did you meet? You just didn't wake up one morning and you were married." And the guy said, "That's exactly what happened. That's exactly what happened. We were in Vegas and we got married." I said, "All right, redo that. Retool that question."
I talk about it and I really wrestle with it. And she starts to push a little bit and say, "What if I changed here? What if I changed there? Would you love me anyway?" And I know the right answer. Yes, I know the right answer. I know how to say it. I can get it out. Be content with the spouse that God's given you.
Contentment with Children
Here's a big one. Be content with the kids God's given you. Oh, we're pregnant. Do you know what it is yet? No. What do you want? We don't care. Ten fingers and ten toes, that's all we want. Ten fingers and ten toes, that's all we care about. And then pretty soon, it's not just ten fingers and ten toes.
My grandsons are playing baseball and now basketball, and so one's six, one's four. So the four-year-old plays with the six. He's very small. And I watch, and it feels to me like it's part of what's wrong with America, that they don't keep score. I'm going to give you a tip if you're involved...
You may not keep score, but these kids are keeping score because they understand. We're just running around bases and not counting. What's the point of this? When you talk about a soft nation, I think part of it is you've lost a little bit of a competitive edge. We're almost equating a participation medal with a championship trophy, with an accolade instead of an achievement.
But now, all of a sudden, your kids are there, and I don't care. We were at a basketball game the other day, and my grandkids are not very good at basketball, but they're on a really good team. And so they're ahead. At the time, I think it was like 22 to nothing. I don't care other than this is going long, and I have naps to take and things to do. All of a sudden, a mom on the other team started yelling. Between the third and fourth quarter, she's over in this referee's face, and I'm saying to myself, what do you care? This isn't going on their resume.
Isn't that weird? Ten fingers, ten toes, but then it has to be the right ten fingers and the right ten toes attached to the right face and the right shape. How many moms and dads are watching little Gabby? Was it Gabby Douglas? Watching her and going, my girl could do that. Carrying off that Gabby Douglas who won the gold. I wonder if the kid who just missed the team by a tenth of a point got the same support and encouragement and love.
Why We Want Our Kids to Succeed
Why is that? Why do I want my kid to succeed? I wrote this. It's dated now. But I wanted my daughter Sarah to be a combination of Margaret Thatcher, Elizabeth Elliott, and Jennifer Aniston. That would be an interesting chick. That would be fun to talk to, be with. You know why?
Now let's get really ugly now. We'll beat me up for a while. You know why? Because I wanted you to meet her and go, her dad must really be something. She must have a great dad. I would even venture that there's people who want their kids to come to Christ a lot so they would know Jesus, but a lot so they wouldn't be a hassle to raise. We are really wicked people, man, to be content.
Dennis Miller had a line. This is now dated. But he said, Tiger Woods is the only man in the world who could make Michael Jordan wish he was someone else.
The Challenge of Contentment and Competition
To be content. Now, I don't know, because this raises all sorts of thoughtful questions. What does that do to competitiveness? What does that do to drive and initiative and incentive and to be the best you can be? I think it comes back to some ideas of ultimate satisfaction and ultimate desires.
I don't want on my team a bunch of soft, content, satisfied guys who don't understand what it means to work. But we work hard, but our identity is not identified with that work. I'm grappling with that right now. I'm at the end of my career. It's a very interesting place to be where my memories far exceed any dreams I have. And I'm trying to say, now, what do I do in the midst of that? Because I still have a little bit of tread left on the tires. Not much. Don't go there. But a little bit of tread. What's my value?
The Secret of Spiritual Envy
Here's the secret. And it can get into a spiritual sense. Every time I go into a bookstore, I go and I look at a Chuck Swindoll book. I open the front page, and on the front page are all these books that Chuck Swindoll has written. And I look at that, and it's so helpful for me to know I don't need to compete with that. I'm a little bit envious of that. I'm envious of that ability to write and to speak and his big smile, and you just gravitate toward him.
We can even be so dark that we're discontent and therefore jealous of the spiritual gifts God's given others. So the minute you meet us, I'm going to say Brian or myself, you're a pastor of a church, the very first question you ask is what? How big is the church? If I say 5,000, you go, whoa. If I say 50, you're going to go, are they out of speakers, or how did they end up with a guy that's got a church of 50? Now, I mean, that's true, though, isn't it? Sure.
The Key to Contentment
Paul says, "Godliness plus contentment is great gain." If you have food and clothing with those, you shouldn't be content. I am one day teaching in a place called Forrest Home, and I had these three verses on the screen. And verse 7 has driven me nuts forever because he's talking about contentment. "Godliness plus contentment equals great gain." Verse 8, if you drop down, "if you have food and clothing with those, you should be content." That flows. Verse 7 kind of screws it up. "We've got nothing in the world. We can't take anything out of it either."
And then I realized it was this moment. I can almost recreate it because the verses were on the screen. I was standing about here, and I'm looking at it. And at this moment, I think this supernatural transaction, the Holy Spirit gives me an insight that probably every other person who's ever read the passage already had. And that is that I'll never be content if I don't get verse 7.
Verse 7 is the key to contentment. As long as I think I can take it with me or it has some sort of permanent value, whatever the stuff is, all of a sudden, here's what's going to happen. I'm going to cling to it. Oh, and I go, listen, this is just stuff. It doesn't really matter. It's not my identity. It doesn't matter however big the pile is. I'm not going to be able to transition it into an eternity. And all of a sudden, I have this godly perspective.
Ray Stedman's Navy Suit
There's an old guy that I read all the time, and I love to listen to him, and his name is Ray Stedman. And Ray Stedman talks about one day going to Boston to speak at this church conference of pastors, and they lose his luggage. And so he's walking down by the hotel, and there's a pawn shop, and he sees a Navy suit in the pawn shop. And he goes in out of curiosity, and he said, hey, I saw that suit in the window, and I'm a 42 long. What is that? It's a 40. And he said, well, do you have a 42 long? He said, come out in the back, and there's
a whole rack of Navy suits. He said, "What do you do with all these suits?" He said, "There was a mortuary in town that went out of business, and out of all these Navy suits for guys like me that die, for whatever reason, we want to wear a suit for all eternity, but we don't want to wear one tomorrow. But we're going to put them in a Navy suit. And he said they went out of business, so I bought them." So he said, "I'm sure I have one. Here's one, and I'll give it to you, and it needs to be altered. There's an alterations place around the corner. You can take it over there."
So he goes. They measure it. It's the next day. Stedman's getting ready to go. He puts his coat on, tie on. He's got everything all decked out. He begins to take his things, and he goes to put them in the pockets, but there's no pockets. See, if you're dying, you don't need pockets.
Why Do We Cling to Things?
Well, I love that illustration, and I love the simplicity of it. When I get that and go, "Why is this so important to me? Why is that house? I want that new house. Why is that new house so important to me? Why is that new car so important? Why is that carpet so important to me?" Boy, and I want to come back because I'm not judging stuff at all.
We got into the discussion about schools today: "Will I go to this school or that school?" Well, what's behind that decision? Whoever loves money never has money enough. Whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with their income. As goods increase, so do those who consume them.
Haven't you discovered that? Remember those days when you were making $30,000 a year, and you said, "Boy, if we make $40,000 a year, I don't know what we'll do with all the money." And then you made $40,000. What did you spend? Forty-four thousand.
The Unsustainable Pursuit
Sandy, unfortunately, has to listen to that stuff a lot from me, but there's this big debate about where the country is right now. We borrow $4 billion a day to survive. It's unsustainable, and we're having this gigantic conversation. If it's unsustainable, I'd love to go deeper and say, "How about this? Let's say you could do it. Is it desirable? Is it a way to live?"
So here's my challenge to you, and it's a challenge for you to go to God to say, "Help me look at this. Father, give me a sense of contentment." It's not apathy. It's not a license to not use the gifts and talents that God's given you, but it's a satisfaction with where He's placed you. It's a satisfaction with who you are and the skill He's given you.
Focus on Your Gifts
It's not a license to not improve yourself. That's not what I'm saying. But I'm saying, let's do this. Why don't you spend time getting better at the things you're already good at rather than trying to work on some things that you're never going to have?
I love watching and listening to Mila and really all of them. Lisa can sit over there. Steve can play back there. EJ, they can all play. And I would love to be able to do that until I look at two things. Number one, I don't have the skill, the gift, and I don't have the commitment to it.
Here's something I learned a long time ago. This is a big deal. There's a big difference between joining a gym and going to a gym.
Where to Place Your Hope
To be content. Godliness plus contentment is great gain. Now, He said, "Here's what I don't want you to do, man. I want you to do this. I want you to flee this. Don't fall in love with money but instruct those who are rich." That's you now.
"Not to be conceited and not put your faith or hope in the uncertainty of riches." Well, I have this hope. I have this worship. It needs to go somewhere. Where does it go? It goes to Him.
"Don't put that hope in the uncertainty of riches but in God who richly supplies us with all things to enjoy. Instruct them to be good, to be rich in good works, to be generous, ready to share." Opportunity all around me.
Going back, that passage in Hebrews, talking about character and love of money, He said, "Be free from that. Know this, that I'll never leave you. I'll never forsake you."
The Tyranny of Things
In one of his books, and I have no idea which one anymore, Randy Alcorn offers this amazing illustration. Nancy and I lived in a house for 23 years. For the first nine years, we had ugly orange carpet. We never cared what happened to it. The day finally came that we installed new carpet, and someone lit a candle and that match fell and burned a hole in the carpet. The day before, we wouldn't have cared. Now we're upset. Were we better off with this new possession?
Every item we buy is one more thing to think about, clean, repair, rearrange, fret over, replace when it goes bad. Let's say I'm given a free television. Now what? Well, I hook up an antenna or subscribe to cable. I buy a new DVD player. I rent movies. I get surround sound. I buy a recliner so I can watch my programs in comfort.
It all costs money, but it also takes a huge amount of time and energy and attention. The time I devote to my TV and accessories is less time for communicating with family, reading, et cetera. What's the true cost of my free television?
Redefining Priorities
Acquiring possessions may push me into redefining my priorities. If I buy a boat, I want to justify my purchase by using the boat, which may mean frequent weekends away from family or church or making me unavailable to attend my kids' basketball game or teach Sunday school class or work in ministry.
The problem isn't the boat or the TV. The problem is me. It's a law of life. It's the tyranny of things.
The Simple Life
So much to be said about the simple life, the disentangled life. My prayer is that God would give us a sense of contentment with a little bit of who we are and how He made us, but a great discontent and a desire to know Him and to love Him and to thirst for Him.
The more of Him I get, the less of stuff I want. The more of Him I have, the less of stuff I realize I need. And my ultimate satisfaction is not going to come in a person, place, or thing other than Jesus.
That's, I think, what we've been saying now for whatever it is, like nine messages. I want a list, and He says, "Be content." I want a list, and He says, "Love."
The Heart of True Change
When you talk about changing your life or a desire to begin to see God work, if you can go back and unpack your heart and ask the "what's driving me" question and answer it honestly, you're going to see the answer is Jesus. Jesus said, "If you love me, you'll keep my commandments." How will you know if you love me? You'll keep my commandments. It becomes emotional. It all comes back to heart.
A Real-Life Encounter
I get a call from a guy, and he said, "I want you to meet a friend of mine. He's all messed up." I said, "Who is he?" He gave me the name. I went out to meet him. Didn't know him. Never met this guy in my life.
I walked into his office, big old office, like the stage, stuff all over, pictures of him and every president since Washington, it felt like. They're all in there, and they're all looking at each other. He starts talking, and he said, "You know, I'm Roy. Here I am." That's not his real name. I don't know what that popped in. It was either Roy or Trigger, one of the two. Those were the two names that popped into my mind at that time.
"Roy, and here's what's going on. Here's my situation." And then he unpacked. Financial failure, moral failure. His girlfriend is angry at his wife. His wife's angry at his girlfriend. The kids are arguing with each other. He went on and on. I'm not exaggerating. This is like one long sentence without a period for probably twenty minutes. It felt like it was probably five.
At the very end, he just stopped, and he looked at me. And I said to him, "I don't even know what the question is, but I do know Jesus is the answer." And I don't mean to be flip.
The Pull of Two Worlds
In this world, in this struggle, why is there that struggle? Why is there not that change? Why is there that desire? Because of that pull of these two worlds. And the more Jesus increases, the more I decrease. The more now I begin to make decisions, financial decisions, relational decisions, not driven by my desires, but driven by godly needs in His love.
So here you go. I want Sandy to love Jesus more than she loves me. Because if she loves me more than Jesus, we're going to be in real trouble somewhere along the way. And that becomes the answer to all of those, to me, all those things.
Looking Ahead
I want to go back, I think tomorrow, probably to Hebrews 13, when He says, "Don't be afraid," and then to start to just apply this to all the areas of the world. We'll see. We'll see where we go. So you've got the agenda for today.
Closing Prayer
Let me pray. You guys will come and close our time. Father, thank You for these amazing truths. Learn the secret. We love secrets. You reveal that secret, the secret of going and having a lot or having a little. The secret is, in spite of circumstances or finances, relationship, I need You.
God, thank You for the promise that You'll never leave me or forsake me, that this relationship was started by You and it's sustained by You, that You began the good work and You will continue it. God, let me help You. Help me understand that all I need is You. We sing it. We sing those words so easy. All I need is You. God, sometimes we don't realize that all we need is You until You are all we have. And if that's what it takes, God, then do that work in our life. We ask it of You in Christ's name. Amen.