What It Means to Be Content
Tom Shrader walks through Philippians 4:10-13, where Paul declares he has learned the secret of contentment in both abundance and hardship, and grounds that contentment entirely in Christ's strength rather than circumstances. Drawing on 1 Timothy 6:6-10 and Ecclesiastes 5:10-15, Shrader argues that the love of money—not money itself—becomes an idol that promises satisfaction it can never deliver. He challenges the congregation to examine where their time and treasure actually go, insisting that godliness and contentment must be held together or neither produces the spiritual gain God intends.
“You'll never be content unless you understand you came with nothing and leave with nothing; if you operate under the illusion that there's any way, shape, or form that you can take any of this with you or that this has any eternal value, you'll never get away from it.”
— Tom Shrader
Series: Philippians
Recorded: 2008 at East Valley Bible Church
Duration: 46 min
Themes: contentment, money, idolatry, suffering, joy, greed, trust, abundance, struggling with finances, feeling dissatisfied, dealing with hardship, young adult, new believer, parent, feeling anxious about money, navigating materialism
Scripture: Philippians 4:4, Philippians 4:10-13, 1 Timothy 6:6-10, 1 Timothy 6:17, Isaiah 40:29-31, 2 Corinthians 12:7-10, Job 1:21, Ecclesiastes 5:10-15, Hebrews 13:5-6, Psalm 23:1, Proverbs 11:28, Proverbs 23:4
Theological Themes: sanctification, becoming holy, biblical stewardship, soteriology, union with christ, spiritual disciplines, godliness, christian living
Full Transcript
Introduction: Paul's Letter from Prison
In Philippians chapter 4, we are looking today at verses 10 through 13. This is, for me, after more than 20 years of teaching, my topic. I love this topic. I am convinced that when we get into the meat of this section, we are looking at what is for many of us the missing ingredient in our lives — the thing that stops us from being the men, women, or students that God could have us be. It is a real challenge, especially in the time, place, and culture that we live in, and I think it will become evident very quickly what we are talking about.
Let me remind you that Paul writes this letter from prison. He has experienced all sorts of hardship, accumulated over time. He has been beaten, stoned, and left for dead. He has been isolated. He has so much of what we would look at as challenge, difficulty, and conflict around him. And yet in the midst of that, he declares that he is rejoicing, and he speaks, I think, with real credibility when he does so.
That is what we looked at last week in verse 4: "Rejoice in the Lord always; again I say rejoice." That is the theme of this book. The theme of Philippians is rejoicing — joy — and Paul comes back to it again and again.
Reading the Text: Verses 10–13
Let us read verses 10 through 13. When Paul begins verse 10 with the word "but," there is a connection to what came before. He has been telling the Philippians to take all the things they saw and learned in him, put them into practice, and they will have the peace of God.
"I rejoice in the Lord greatly that now at last you have revived your concern for me. Indeed, you were concerned before, but you lacked opportunity. Not that I speak from want, for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstance I am in. I know how to get along with humble means. I also know how to live in prosperity. In any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of being filled, of going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need. I can do all things through Him who strengthens me."
Paul has a wonderful relationship with this church, but over a period of about ten years they had lost their connectedness, and now they have been reconnected. He uses the word "revive," which is drawn from horticulture — the image of a plant that is flowering again. That is his picture of this relationship. We will unpack that idea when we get to verse 14 and the rest of the passage in a couple of weeks.
The Word "Learned": Contentment Is Not Automatic
Paul writes to these people from prison. He has encouraged them to rejoice. He is deeply grateful that they have reconnected, and part of that reconnection is that they have come to his aid financially. And Paul says, "I want you to understand something — it is not that I speak from want, for I have learned to be content."
The word translated "content" in verse 11 appears only this one time in the entire New Testament. In extra-biblical Greek literature, it is used to describe a country that is self-sufficient and self-sustaining. Paul is saying: I have learned to be satisfied — not in any human thing. True contentment, he will tell us, comes only from God. It is God who enables us as believers to be satisfied with what we have, and even content with the things we do not have.
What I find extraordinarily encouraging is that word "learned." Contentment, whatever it is — and we will define it in a moment — is not something that simply happens. It is not something that even happens naturally. I am going to suggest to you that it happens supernaturally. Paul says, "I have learned to be content," and then he takes both extremes. He says he has learned to live with humble means — literally, to be hungry and not have much. He is speaking on a physical and earthly plane, about temporal things. And he says he has also learned to live in prosperity. He has lived in both extremes.
Prosperity Is a Test Too
When we were at the hospital yesterday, we were talking with Timmy's parents, and the conversation turned to when we were younger and first married and how difficult things were. Susan and I were talking about how we used to eat bread and gravy at night, and then every third night we would have chipped beef on toast. We would fry up a few hot dogs — that was the kind of thing we lived on. Now we eat far better than that. Paul is saying: I have lived with the bologna. My dad used to fry bologna, cut it up, and we would eat that. We thought we were going to heaven — especially if there was cheese on it. We learned to live that way, and we also learned to live in more prosperous times.
On the surface, if I have a choice, I will take the prosperous times. But I want you to understand, based on what Paul is saying and based on my own experience, that prosperity is a test too. The Scottish author Thomas Carlyle said that for every hundred people who can pass the test of adversity, there is only one who can pass the test of prosperity. So if I told you that God was going to test you today — today at 5:17, some major test — your mind runs wild. You start thinking of CT scans and spots on films and difficult diagnoses.
The Test of Prosperity
When things are tough, it is almost instinctive that we pray. When you go to the doctor and walk out having been told the news is not good, you instinctively begin to pray. But if he says everything is fine, you complain about the copay. If everything is fine, your mind goes to a thousand other things. But in the midst of adversity, you instinctively pray. That test of adversity is one thing — but there is also the test of prosperity.
This becomes especially important for us, because most of us in this room are not just prosperous, we are rich. There is a whole test that comes with that. Paul says, "I've learned this. I've learned to live with a lot, I've learned to live with a little. I've learned this secret."
I Can Do All Things
In verse 13, Paul writes: "I can do all things through him who strengthens me." Paul is not talking here about some sort of Superman who can leap tall buildings in a single bound. The SC quarterback once wore a towel with Philippians 4:13 on it, and I think he lifted it a little out of context to make it work for the football season. What Paul is actually talking about is the ability to live in all these circumstances — to be stronger, to have power, to have resources — in every situation.
Why can Paul do all things? Because He strengthens him. Isaiah 40, beginning in verse 29, says: "He gives strength to the weary. To him who lacks might, He increases power. Though youths grow weary and tired, vigorous young men stumble badly, yet those who wait upon the Lord will gain a new strength. They will mount up with wings like eagles. They'll run, not get tired. They'll walk, not get weary."
In Paul's own life, in 2 Corinthians 12 beginning in verse 7, he talks about a thorn in the flesh, a messenger from Satan that tormented him. He says, "I implored the Lord three times that it might leave me, but God said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.' Most gladly, therefore, I would rather boast about my weakness so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore, I am well content with weakness, and insults, and deceit, and persecution and difficulties for Christ's sake. For when I'm weak, then I'm strong."
That is exactly what Paul is saying in Philippians 4. I can hang in there in the tough times. I can hang in there in the prosperous times, because I understand that it is not about me and my determination — it is about God as He works in my life.
The Secret to Contentment
Paul uses words that are genuinely provocative. Everyone wants the secret. What is the secret? Paul does not charge for it — he gives it freely. The secret is this: if I am in Christ, I rejoice in Christ, and I have learned to be content. Satisfied. Satisfied with very little. Satisfied with a whole lot.
In my own life, and I will include Susan here, this has been a concept that has been really key to many of the things we have done together. I am absolutely convinced that for many Christians, contentment is a missing ingredient in their life. I encounter many men and women who say there is some sort of dissatisfaction in their Christian life, and when you sit and talk with them, you realize that this is what is missing — they have not been able to separate the temporal from the internal.
When the temporal overpowers the internal, inertia pulls you into all sorts of dissatisfaction. It gets you into a game that is almost impossible to get out of. It is the very reason a man would accumulate one, two, three, or four million dollars and then, rather than clearing his debt and being done with it, go find five, six, seven, or ten million dollars worth of new debt. There should be real tension in the room as we work through this.
1 Timothy 6: Putting It in Context
I want to invite you to turn to 1 Timothy chapter 6. Turn right through 1st and 2nd Thessalonians until you reach 1 Timothy chapter 6, verse 6. This section is worn out in my Bible, and perhaps in some of yours as well. I have taught this passage under different titles over the years. At one point I called it "Put a Lid on Your Dreams," and that generated quite a response. People accused me of saying something almost anti-American.
This is not a call to mediocrity or apathy. It is simply saying that we must take our lives and the things we are engaged in — work, school, whatever they may be — and put them in a proper context.
Godliness and Contentment Together
We have to begin to see things as God sees them. And apart from that, they will become idols. They will suck you in. You will worship them. You will find your identity there. This whole idea of contentment and worldliness — when I am into that worldliness, it is a narcotic. I cannot get enough of it, and it will never satisfy.
The perfect illustration is found in 1 Timothy 6:6-8. He has just been talking about false prophets and false teachers who are in this whole thing looking for a buck. But: "Godliness actually is a means of great gain when it's accompanied by contentment. For we brought nothing into the world, so we cannot take anything out of it either. If we have food and covering, with these we shall be content."
It is important here to put some definition on these terms. Godliness — the definition I am using — is a consistent, genuine, authentic walk with God. It is reverence for God. It is right living with God. It is this idea of being in the Lord. Godliness and contentment are coupled together in that passage, and here is Webster's definition of contentment: a feeling of satisfaction with one's possessions, status, or situation.
In his book *The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment*, Jeremiah Burroughs writes this: "Christian contentment is that sweet, inward, quiet, gracious frame of spirit which freely submits to and delights in God's wisdom and fatherly disposal in every condition." In other words, I am satisfied with what God is doing. You can see how this could be misunderstood very quickly — you could shift this into apathy almost immediately. What Burroughs is saying is not that it is wrong to strive for more, or even to want more. He is saying there ought to be a satisfaction with what I do have.
We are going to stay completely in the material realm today, but there is application far beyond this for your life and mine. As I look at verse 6, I put it in the form of an equation: godliness plus contentment equals great gain — great gain in God's economy. Whatever God says is of value, whatever God says is important and of worth, that is what this equation points to.
The Missing Ingredient
If I want the spiritual equivalent of a significant financial statement, God says I have to have this godliness, I have to have this contentment, and I cannot separate them. That is why I call contentment a missing ingredient — we do not talk about it much. You can go to most churches on most Sundays and hear somebody talk about godliness. You will rarely hear anybody talk about contentment, but they go together. Is godliness important? Absolutely. Is it more important than contentment? It may be of greater value, but I need them both in God's economy to have great gain.
Then in verse 8, Paul says, "If we have food and covering, with those we should be content." What he is talking about here are the basic needs of life. And what is particularly striking is that he puts absolutely no definition on it. He simply says, if you have food — and that can be hot dogs and jiffy muffins and fishy crackers, or it can be filet and baked potatoes and bread, and let's stay on this one for a moment, ice cream, hot brownie with ice cream and caramel and a few chopped-up cashews. He makes no distinction. He says: here is your food. Whether you have a hot dog or a filet, you be satisfied.
Covering, likewise, refers to clothes and a place to live. I had on the other day a really great pair of shorts and a great shirt, and I thought I looked good — though no one said I looked good, which was a little puzzling. I assumed they did not notice. My shorts cost twelve dollars and my shirt cost nine dollars. And yet I have also been in places where a pair of shorts costs a hundred dollars and a shirt costs a hundred dollars. I am not making any judgments. He is saying, whether you are in a studio apartment or a five or six thousand square foot house, you be content.
The Tension We Feel
You start to feel some tension here, because Paul is going to leave it wide open. We begin to have conflict with one another over questions like how much house, how much car. Do these things matter? Does it matter where you live, what you drive, what you wear? Let me answer that: yes, it does. But I cannot tell you where to draw that line.
It is an election year — you probably have not noticed yet. And in an election year you are going to hear about the American Dream. If you search the American Dream online and go through a dozen or so entries, here is what you find: nobody can tell you what it is. We all use the term, and every presidential candidate will invoke it, but when we start to define it, it is almost always in a material or temporal sense. A chicken in every pot. A car in every garage — though now there is so much other stuff in the garage that we cannot get the car in there. Something material. Every kid has to have an education. That is fine. But MCC is fine — they do not have to go to Harvard to get a good education. You have to set the bar somewhere.
So you begin to feel it. And now I want to share an observation from my own personal experience: I have rarely met anyone who is successful in the world's economy and equally...
The Tension Between Two Economies
It is as though what Jesus said is right — you cannot serve two masters. You have to pick. It is really hard to do well in both, because it takes a lot of time, energy, and effort. In the world's economy, nobody just falls into success. When you see people who have made a lot of money, almost always, they worked really, really hard for it.
I want to hang in here because I do not want to be misunderstood. It is okay to go out there tomorrow and do your best — your best at school, your best at work. That is okay. That honors and glorifies God. But the question is: is that where I am finding my identity? When my head hits the pillow at night, what am I thinking about — balance sheets, accounts payable? This is really tough stuff.
Why Verse 7 Is There
Here is an observation that took me a while to reach: these three verses work a lot better if you take out verse 7. Let me read it without verse 7. "Godliness is actually a means of great gain when it is accompanied by contentment" — so contentment is the theme. Verse 8: "If we have food and covering, with those we should be content." You have to admit, that flows.
If I were editing — if Paul brought me this letter and said, "I want to fire this off to Timothy, do you have any corrections?" — I would say, "Delete verse 7." Now here is the problem: Paul did not even write the book, did he? The Holy Spirit wrote the book. So verse 7 is in there for a reason.
It used to drive me crazy, because I kept reading through it and moving on to verse 8. Then one day — and this is one of those really great moments — I was at Forest Home. There was a platform like this, a big screen like that, and verses 6, 7, and 8 were up there. I was working my way through, about to move past verse 7, and all of a sudden I stopped and said to the people there, "Oh my gosh, I see why verse 7 is there. That's been driving me crazy — I see why verse 7 is there."
You Came with Nothing and Leave with Nothing
You will never be content unless you understand that you came with nothing and you leave with nothing. If you operate under the illusion that there is any way, shape, or form that you can take any of this with you — or that this has any eternal value in itself — you will never get away from it. You have to understand that this stuff, though it may be great and it is certainly here to enjoy, has no eternal value unless you use it for God's glory.
This theme runs all through Scripture. Job 1:21: "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I will return." Ecclesiastes 5:15: "As he came naked from his mother's womb, so he will return. He can take nothing from the fruit of his labor that he can carry in his hand." That verse appears again and again and again.
So here is what God is saying to you and me: there has to be a sense in which you put a lid on your material dreams and say, "That is enough." It is okay to want more, but I am not going to live for more.
The Cycles of Life
Yesterday I was at the hospital, and I went down to get something to drink. There was a lady there, and I could tell she was really eyeing one of those rolls or donuts or muffins — she really wanted one. So I could not leave it alone. I said, "Boy, those look good, don't they?" She said, "They just look too big. I do not think I could eat a whole one." I said, "Well, you could give me half." She said, "I was thinking maybe I would just eat half and take the rest home."
I asked her why she was there. She said, "My brother's dying — he is from Atlanta, and my brother is dying." I said, "Wow, I am so sorry." She asked why I was there, and I said, "My daughter is upstairs and she is going to have a baby in a couple of hours." She said, "It is the cycles of life, isn't it?" And I said, "That is exactly what it is."
I remember one day over at Green Acres, doing a funeral out at the graveside. It is the most somber time of a funeral — there is the hole, there is the casket, and they start to lower the body down. It is a somber moment. And as I watched, I looked to my right, and there was his daughter holding his two-week-old grandchild. I love that.
What Remains at the End
Here is what God says to us in Job, Ecclesiastes, and here in 1 Timothy 6 — He says it over and over again: remember that that is you. You are not going to take anything with you. Because if you think any of this is going to transition with you, all of a sudden the acquisition, the accumulation, and the retention of it becomes an obsession. It is just really hard not to get sucked into this.
You do not need to answer out loud, but you know that is true, do you not? That is the basis of all of this. When it is all done — when you are sitting there like that lady's brother, sitting in a hospital dying — you are not going to care at all about the deal you are working on. It is going to be faith, family, and friends. That is it.
Are there exceptions? Yes, I have had people email me exceptions, and there are some. But by and large, it is faith, family, and friends, is it not?
The Danger of Wanting to Get Rich
Verse 9 is really key: those who want to get rich. Paul is not talking about rich people here. You could be dirt poor and sitting here today, but all you are thinking about is stuff — you want to get rich. Those people fall into a temptation and a snare, like a wild animal caught in a trap. Many foolish and harmful desires plunge men into ruin. That word translated "plunge" is also used in Luke's Gospel to describe a ship sinking to the bottom of the sea. That is what these things do — they pull you into destruction.
Verse 10 is so popular and familiar that it will pop up on Jeopardy every once in a while. "For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil." Notice Paul is not saying money itself is the problem — it is the love of it. So do not go pointing at rich people and saying the problem is theirs. It is anybody who loves money. Many of you may have very little of it, but still love it. One author puts it this way: the love becomes the root from which all sorts of evil develops. It is hard to imagine a sin that has not been committed for the love of money. Such love causes people to indulge themselves, show off, distort justice, take advantage of the poor, lie, cheat, steal, and murder.
How the Love of Money Traps Us
It is that love of money that gets us into these traps, and we find ourselves wondering, "How in the world did I get here?" Almost every year, usually around the holidays, there is a story about some little old lady in Sun City who has been ripped off for her life savings. It is a tragic story, and it always involves a scam artist, and the story is always framed as a warning: watch out for this scam. But here is what I want you to see — the only reason that scam works is because she is greedy. That part never makes it into the story.
Think about it. Someone says, "Give me $3,500, and as soon as I get this account freed up in Zimbabwe, I'll give you three million." Do you really think that is going to happen? Why does it work? Why were people buying things called junk bonds twenty years ago? What did people think was going to happen when someone said, "I'll loan you money to get into this house at 2% — I know the market is at 7 or 8, but I'll get you in at 2, and three years from now we'll bump it up"? What are you thinking when you mortgage your future for an extra bedroom or another garage? We love it, and we find all sorts of ways to rationalize it. All our friends are doing it. We tell ourselves it is hardly anything.
Comparing Ourselves to Others
I know people — and it makes me sad, but I understand it — who will talk about coming to this church and say it is so intimidating because everyone there has it together, driving big cars, wearing great clothes, and it is just a church full of rich people. And every Sunday I think, really? Do you understand that in a parking lot, a leased, six-months-past-due Lexus looks exactly like one you paid cash for? We could go very deep on that one, and we may come back to it in a couple of weeks, because it is just too much to pass over.
Instructions to the Rich
Look at verse 17: "Instruct those who are rich in this present world." Right there we have a problem. What does it mean to be rich? It is a completely subjective term, and most of us define it as anybody who has more money than us. We were playing golf a couple of weeks ago at a really nice club. My friend lives up there and got us on the course. Every house around that club, at the very low end, was probably around $750,000, going up from there. And while talking to some of the guys, standing on one of the tee boxes, they said, "Oh, we're not rich." Then they pointed to the club over the hill: "That's where the rich people are." I have sat with a man who said his net worth was $10 million, and he said, "Oh, I'm not rich — he's rich." Somebody is always richer, and that becomes our excuse before God.
So it is easy to read "instruct those who are rich" and immediately think, well, that is not me. But Paul is going to contrast those who are rich in this present world with those who are rich in the world hereafter. For those who are rich in this present world, he gives two things not to do. First, do not be conceited. Second, do not fix your hope on the uncertainty of riches.
Conceit and the Subtle Pride of Having Stuff
When you have stuff, you tend to think pretty well of yourself. Some people are very subtle about it, but the tendency is there. I have been in a meeting with about fifty salespeople where you could pick out the top ten from the bottom ten immediately. A friend brought me in to speak to his sales staff — about fifty people in the room. I walked in and said, "Good morning, my name's Tom." And right away certain people responded, "Tom! His name's Tom! Good morning, Tom!" There were the bottom ten right there. They were writing down everything, not wanting to miss a thing.
The Uncertainty of Riches
Watch out. Do not be conceited or fix your hope on the uncertainty of riches. Larry used to say it this way: riches are like a greased pig — we get this stuff, we squeeze it, and it's gone. There is that aspect to it. We understand that markets go down, that there are cycles. But I think it is bigger than that.
The uncertainty of riches means we are trusting this stuff to do something it cannot do. We are trusting it to make us happy. We are trusting it to make us content. We have a marriage that is absolutely in the toilet, and we think getting a bigger house will fix it. Susan and I, when we were dating and then married, weren't doing very well — so what did we do? We decided to have a baby. How stupid is that? Just bring another poor soul into this screwed-up mess. Stupid.
So we start to fix our hope on the uncertainty of riches. Haven't you been there? Just admit it to yourself. If I just get that house. Every weekend it seemed like we were moving somebody, and every time it was the same thing. We'd move somebody in, they'd get pizza and Diet Coke, and they'd sit around saying, "We can live here forever." Three years later they're calling: "Hey, man, you want to help us move?" Every single time.
He is not saying there is anything wrong with stuff. He is not saying there is anything wrong with working hard or getting it. He is just asking: how are you going to use it? And first, do not think you are going to find your identity in that.
Proverbs 11:28 says, "He who trusts in his riches will fall." Proverbs 23:4 says, "Do not wear yourself to gain wealth. Cease from your consideration of it. When you set your eyes on it, it is gone."
Contentment Grounded in God
We can summarize all of this with Hebrews 13:5–6, where the author brings it together. He says, "Let your character be free from the love of money. Be content in what you have, for God has said, 'I will never desert you, nor will I forsake you.' So we can say confidently, 'The Lord is my helper. I will not be afraid.'"
When we studied the 23rd Psalm, we put it this way: "The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want." He is going to take care of everything I need. Now, here is the problem — sometimes I want the filet and He meets it with a hot dog. Sometimes I want the house. All we want is a bedroom for each kid — is that asking too much? Sometimes it is.
Do you know that for years, two kids shared one bedroom all across this world? When I was in college I was sleeping in a bed with my brother. It may have screwed him up, but I did fine with it. It did not bother me one bit.
Then we give our kids their own bedroom, put a computer in there, a TV, an iPod, an iPhone — anything with an "i" is in there. And then we complain because the kid never comes out and interacts with us. Why would he? And then you try to punish him by saying, "Go to your room." That is the best thing you could do for him — might as well send him to the mall. And you are busting yourself to pay for all that stuff because you think it is going to make somebody happy, and nobody is going to be happy.
What to Do With What You Have
Here is the positive side. Do not fix your hope on the uncertainty of riches — fix it on God. He supplies all you need. The instruction is to be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share, storing up for yourselves a good foundation for the future.
Now, when we finish this study of Philippians, we are going to study the book of Ecclesiastes. We are going to drive this theme home until we get it — and we need to, because we are living in a time when we had better figure it out. I was driving down Rio Salado the other day by the Tempe Marketplace, and diesel fuel was $4.19 a gallon. It is not going down. You feel that tension. And that is okay.
Let me read five verses from Ecclesiastes 5:10: "Whoever loves money never has money enough. Whoever loves wealth is never satisfied with his income. As goods increase, so do those who consume them. And what benefit are they to the owner except to feast his eyes on them? The sleep of a laborer is sweet, whether he eats little—"
Treasure, Time, and the Heart
"The abundance of a rich man permits him no sleep. I have seen a grievous evil under the sun, wealth hoarded to the harm of the owner, or wealth lost through misfortune. Naked a man comes from his mother's womb, and as he comes, he must depart. He takes nothing from his labor that he can carry in his hand." What is he saying? Store up treasure not in this world, but in God's kingdom. Where your treasure is — how great is that? — that is where your heart is.
We can flip it around: where your heart is, that is where your treasure is going to be. If I follow you around, or if I take a look at my own life, and I lay a schedule alongside a checkbook, I am going to learn a great deal about what is really important, because where you put your time and where you put your money tells me where your heart is. We fight that. I do not think it ever goes away — it certainly has not in my life. We have to listen to those words of Jesus over and over again: "What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul?"
That is a winner — that is a man who got it all — and Jesus is asking, what is the point? You are knocking yourself out, and there is salvation at stake, or perhaps something even bigger. You are in the kingdom. You are a child of the King. You know Christ. But your time, your energy, your effort, your resources, your thoughts, and your creativity are all building your kingdom and not His. You are never going to move out of that until you come to grips with the fact that you came with nothing and you are leaving with nothing.
You Can't Take It With You
And you know what happens to all of it after you go? Your kids are going to fight over it. You accumulated all this, and they are going to fight over it. That is why, if you are smart — and here is how you know whether an older person has thought this through — you go into their house and there is masking tape on things with people's names on it. They have settled it. Bob gets the piano. Just done. That is contentment.
I made a summary list of what money does. It tempts me to be greedy. It can become an obsession. It becomes a source of false security. It becomes an idol. It becomes my identity. It is seductive and it is consumptive. Now, stuff itself is not the problem. What Paul is clearly saying is that there is an appropriate way to approach my possessions — what I do with them and how I handle them.
The Deal Junkie
This is autobiographical for me, because if you do not figure this out, you are just wandering around. You are a deal junkie, going from thing to thing to thing, and you are never going to have enough. There is always somebody with more, and they become the excuse. You think I have a lot? Have you seen them? You think this is a nice car? Have you seen theirs?
Now, when you run into someone and they ask what I talked about today, do not say I was putting down anyone who drives a nice car or has a nice house or boat or clothes. I am not doing that. That is between you and God. You have to figure that out. You can be driving a beat-up old car and be proud of how humble you are and be just as spiritually off-course as the wealthy man consumed by his riches.
What I am saying is that this is serious, and it is between you and God, and you need to get it settled. The consistent, authentic godly life is never going to come forth in you until you have this issue resolved.
A Battle Worth Fighting
We will pick up here and unpack this further, because contentment also means being content with the spouse God has given you, and with the children God has given you. We need to stay in this a while.
Father, thank You for this truth. Allow us to see You and know You, and then to fight this battle — fight it and fight it and fight it — and never send up the white flag of surrender. We will battle to keep it fresh in our minds that we came with nothing and we will leave with nothing. God, let us be content, for Your honor and Your glory. We pray in Christ's name, amen.