Sermon Transcript — June 24, 2006
Some of you may be aware, if you are active investors in the financial markets, that the Dow Jones Industrial average is hovering around, has been going up and down, but it is hovering around the 11,000-point mark, which is within shouting distance of its all-time high. Over the course of the last five years, it has done virtually nothing. Starting with 9/11, when it was about the same point, until now, it cratered right after 9/11 and went down two or three thousand points, now, it's just about made its way back, so, if you were a "buy and hold" investor, over the last five years, you would have made precisely nothing. You might have gotten some dividend income out of the deal; but, when you look at the last 15 years, it's grown at an annual compound rate of about ten percent, which is not really that bad by historic standards.
Well, what about you? How are you doing in your investments life, in your investment performance? How's your portfolio doing? I wonder if you had any gains recently in your investments. How about some big gains? How about some huge, great gains? Have you managed to buy when things are cheap and sell when they are dear or expensive? Have you bought low and sold high? If you have great gains in your portfolio, big profits, big ones, it probably would make you happy and very pleased with things. Great gains, big gains, big profits are a real blessing and I would say, all other things being equal, they should make us happy and thankful, if we have them.
Well, in the Bible, God tells us about a way to realize a great gain. So, if you're interested in that, maybe you could turn with me to I Timothy 6. This is God's promise of a great gain in a way that, maybe, is a little different than investing in the Dow Jones, but it's actually better.
I Timothy 6, which immediately follows I Timothy 5, once you find that, I Timothy 6. Look at verse six with me, I Timothy 6:6.
Verse 6 - "Godliness with contentment is a great gain." Not just a gain but a great one. Now, it's the combination of godliness in a person's life and contentment that equates a great spiritual gain. How happy are you with your life? How content are you with your life?
God says if you combine godliness with contentment it will be a great gain, great happiness; in fact, we're going to see today that it's not just the combination of godliness and contentment, but they are really two sides to the same coin. One automatically can be found with the other. One is automatically absent in the absence of the other. They are jointly a product of somebody having a right relationship with God. So, when I put it in those terms, I think you could very quickly agree with me that there is almost nothing more important to consider than whether we have great gains, that is, contentment combined with godliness in our lives.
Well, if you're not real happy and don't have great contentment in your life, I would ask you to ask yourself the question: Why not? If you do have great godliness and contentment in your life, ask the question: Why? And, if the answer is no, I don't... what can be done about it? What can be done to go from a loss position to a great gain position? What can we do about it? The Bible has answers to all of these questions, which I would like to explore with you today.
In His love for us and with His knowledge of how we work, because we are the creation of God and He does know how His creation works, so He loves us very much and He understands how we work, how we don't work, what it takes to make us work properly in the spiritual realm, in His love for us and because He understands perfectly the work of His hands, God reveals to us the key, you could say keys, but I'll put it in the singular, He reveals to us the key to contentment; that is, the source of contentment, and it's importance not only to our happiness, which is not an end in itself by the way, just being "happy" is not an end in itself, it's a fruit of something that underlies it that's more important, but, in His love for us and His understanding of how we work, God reveals to us the key to contentment, the source of contentment and its importance, not only to our happiness but, indeed, to the fulfillment of God's purpose for having created us in the first place and called us to a knowledge of the truth. So, let's look at that in this sermon. We're going to look at what God reveals to us on the important subject of contentment.
I would like to begin in the book of Genesis 48. Kind of lost in the story, or could be lost in the story that we often emphasize when we're going through these verses, but it just shows you how the Bible is, indeed, a gold mine, it's often been...the analogy has often been made of the Bible being a gold mine or a diamond mine, you might be looking for one thing, and digging for one thing and then you just uncover, without expecting to or even thinking you were digging for that, another gem of understanding. In the process of going through the verses in Genesis 48, which primarily deal with prophetic matters and what I think the Church of God uniquely understands about the modern identity of the descendants of ancient Israel , there is a real nugget that we can focus on here for just a minute. This is Genesis 48:15. This is the story of the elderly patriarch, Israel, whose name was changed from Jacob; having called his son, Joseph, and Joseph's two sons, Ephraim and Manasseh, to his side and he was going to bless, that is, prophesy of future blessings upon the lads, Ephraim and Manasseh. And, I think most of us in this room are familiar with that aspect of the story but, in passing, Jacob says something, Israel says something that's very important and relevant to our subject today.
Verse 15 - "He," that is, Israel, or Jacob, " blessed Joseph, and said, 'God, before whom my fathers Abraham and Isaac walked, the God who has fed me all my life long to this day,'" and then he goes on with prophetic matters.
When Jacob is talking about God, the words come to his mind, I would say under inspiration, to describe God as the God " who has fed me all my life long up until this day." God has fed him. This is a picture of a mind that understands how utterly dependent he is on God, on God's providing day-to-day what it takes to sustain life. And, it's sort of a motif or a theme that we are going to look at in the Scriptures today and it directly ties in with the subject of contentment. You don't read him saying, "The God who allowed me to go out and make my own way in life." "God who watched me tough it out, battle against the world and honestly earn everything I ever put in my mouth." No, it is quite simple and it just says, " God who fed me all my life long until this very day."
Now, that's a realization or an insight that I think most of us have, when somebody points it out to...oh, yeah, right, God...we're dependent upon God for everything we have. I agree with that. I, intellectually, agree with that, as we should, but I wonder how deep it goes down into our very soul. This reality, that everyday we eat, it's because God gives us food to eat. Everything we have, God has given us.
Even, as we'll see in a later verse, the power to get wealth, the aptitude, the skill, the energy, the intelligence, the IQ, the health to get wealth -- where did that come from? Is that self-generated within you? No. The theme is " God who has fed me all my life long until this very day, " an utter dependence and acknowledgement of an utter dependence on God's providing day by day, that which is necessary to sustain life. It is God who gives us life and the things necessary to sustain it.
Well, if you agree with that assertion, then I have a follow-up question. If you agree that it is God, if you agree with Israel, that it is God who has fed you all your life long up until this very day, Sabbath, June 24, 2006 , are you satisfied with what God has given you? If I can get you on to trying to think that, acknowledgement that it is God who has given you everything you have, then I ask the follow-up question, how satisfied are you with what God has given you? How satisfied am I with what God's given me?
Are we satisfied with what God provides? God provides the provision, the providing of God. Another word for that is God's providence; that's what that means, God's providence, God's providing. It sounds like a religious term, but it just means what God provides, what God gives us, day by day, His providence in our lives.
He's given us life in the first place, and then He's given us, by His providence, everything necessary to sustain it and to bring us to this point, Sabbath, June 24, 2006 , Cincinnati, Ohio, in our present state of things, in our present state of being.
God has given everyone of us everything that has led up to this point. This is a very important notion. It's the philosophical underpinning of the entire sermon and I want us to think about it and come back to it in the study of the rest of these scriptures.
Is it something that we, on a daily basis, really believe and understand that it is God who feeds us, who gives us what we have? Or, do we believe that it is more up to us to feed ourselves and get what we have ourselves? Now, again, I know when I put it in stark terms, nobody would say, yeah, I think that, instead of the other, but what do our daily thoughts tend to gravitate toward? It's me against the world! I've gotta' tough it out or, God gives me everything I have had, do have and will have?
Well, I suspect that we tend to be over there most of the time, if we're not consciously thinking about being over here! Being over here is part and parcel with the contentment that goes with godliness, which is what we're looking at today. If we believe that it is God who feeds us and gives us what sustains this life, are we satisfied with His providence? Are we content with Him as our Provider? It makes a very important difference, I think, what question we ask . If we ask the right question, it will lead us down the right path to finding the right answers.
Regarding contentment, do we frame it in our minds as to whether we are content with some "it" out there? Well, life owes me X, Y, and Z, and so it's kind of an interaction between me, and life in general. Or, is it society? Or, is it the culture? Is it my employer? Is it family? Is there some " it " out there, however you would define that "it," that " it" provides me with everything I have. So, if I've got a million dollars in the bank, "it" has given that to me; if I have nothing in the bank and not a million dollars, "it" has shorted me in life. Is there some " it" out there that we're battling with? No? I think that's the way we too often carelessly think about it, but what about " God who has fed me all my life long up until this day?"
Now, as I say, regarding contentment, if I can get you from over here to over here thinking, and it's God who has provided me with food, clothing, shelter, everything in life, "all my life long, up until this day," then I say as a follow-up question, are you content with God's provision because, if you're not, who are you discontented with? It's been removed, now, from that relatively safe realm. I'm discontented with "it" and, now, what am I discontented with or who? Discontented with God and that is scary ground to be standing on, if we see ourselves in this mirror, that "I'm discontented with God." I'm not satisfied with God in His providence for me in my life.
So, as I say, if there's an "it," if it's life, if it's luck, if it's somebody else, if it's some thing else, if it's some system, that's one thing and that will lead to certain conclusions, but those are the wrong questions. Am I content with God's providence? Am I discontented with God's providence? If the answer to the first question is yes, I'm contented with God's providence, there's godliness with contentment. If I'm not, I'm in trouble and I need to take remedial action with the help of God. If He will give me the spiritual insight to see this for what it is, then we can get out of this hole we've dug for ourselves, but we've got to see it first, we've got to see the hole we're in first, before we can get out of it!
Let's go over to Acts 17:26. Now, here's the Apostle Paul talking about God and he says:
Verse 26 - "He," God, "has made from one blood every nation of men to dwell on the face of the earth." Yes, God's the provider of life in the first place. " And has determined their pre-appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation." He what? I thought God was disconnected and unaffiliated with this world that's been cut off from Him since the time of the Garden of Eden. To a degree, that's true, but not 100 percent, because here it says God is involved in human history.
Now, we know God's involved with the history of the firstfruits, the seed, from Abel on down to the Church of God now. God has been very involved in the holy seed, in the firstfruit history. No doubt about that and I think the people in the Church of God understand that uniquely. We tend to think, for the most part, mankind was cut off at the Garden of Eden, could not get back in, there was an angel with a flaming sword and man was cut off and, for the most part, everybody else is going to have to wait their turn in the White Throne Judgment period to have a relationship with God, like the firstfruits have it, and that, generally speaking, is true, but it's not one hundred percent true. God is involved in human history.
He's involved in human geography. It says, God "has appointed, has determined, the pre-appointed times, the rise and fall of empires, " the boundaries," who gets to live in what parts of the earth. God has been involved in that.
Verse 27 - And because of that, there is a certain sense in which all mankind should be aware of the providence of God and think about it and be content with it. Now, I think, again, the firstfruits are uniquely endowed because they have God's Holy Spirit to be able to tap into this understanding, but it is generically true that people should "seek the Lord, in the hope that they might grope for him, and find him." If it's true of the world, in general, in some small sense, it certainly is true of the firstfruits. " Though he is not far from each one of us."
And then, verse 28 is the key.
Verse 28 - "For in him," in God, "we live, and move, and have our being; as also some of your own prophets have said, 'For we are his offspring.'" We what? " We live, we move, and we have our being," where? It's in God. God is very involved. He is the One whose providence dictates everything.
One of the commentaries on this passage has some very interesting insights. The expression "in him," "in him we live" it says. "In him" means "by Him" or "from Him." We receive our very life from God, by His originally forming us and continually sustaining us. No words can better express our constant dependence on God than" in him we live, and move, and have our being." He is the original Fountain of Life and He upholds us every moment of our life.
Sounds like Jacob: The "God who has fed me all my life long until this very day." Now, it says, "we live in Him," it says, " we move in Him." It means we derive our strength to move from God. What if you're very athletic and just have been endowed with great health and vigor and strength? "Where is boasting?" Where did that come from? That came from God.
What have you got mentally, spiritually, emotionally, physically, that God didn't give you? Answer: nothing. As Paul later said, " Where is boasting (before God)?" " It is excluded." " We move in him." It means that we derive the strength to move from God, an expression denoting constant and absolute dependence.
Now, do we think like this on a day-to-day basis? I think we don't often enough and I think to the degree that we do think of these things and about these things, we will be content with God's providence and it will incline toward godliness. There is no idea of dependence more striking than that we owe to Him the ability to perform the slightest motion. I mean it just takes no thought for me to say it. Here's a small clock and I want to reach out and show it to you. So I do it, but the ability to make the thought from my mind to translate to my arm and my hand, and to grasp with these miracles we call opposing thumbs, and to be able to have the coordination to be able to do that, is a gift from God.
Now, there are very few people that maybe we know of, or down through the ages a very few, who have been...had that gift taken away from them. Maybe paralyzed completely. Maybe they had a spinal cord injury from maybe the neck down and cannot move, and they would look at any of us who can move and do these things as so blessed and so endowed with the gift from God. It's all from God. And it says not only do "we live and move," but we "have our being." The Greek can just be translated we are, "we are in God." This denotes that our continued existence is owing to God; that we live at all is His gift; that we have power to move is His gift, and our continued and prolonged existence is His gift.
Thus, in this passage, Paul traces our dependence on Him from the lowest pulsation of life to the highest powers of action and of continued existence. It would be impossible to express in more emphatic language our entire and utter dependence on God.
Let's go over to Matthew 6. It's God's providence. It's what God provides. Are we satisfied? Are you satisfied? Am I satisfied with God's providence for me? Are you satisfied with God's providence for you? Because if you are content with that, that is first cousin to godliness. They're inextricably intertwined. You can't have one without the other and the absence of one means the absence of the other. So, again, it's fundamental to our lives.
Now, in Matthew 6:11, the so-called Model Prayer, Jesus said on a daily basis we should ask God for our bread, our daily bread.
Verse 11 - "Give us this day our daily bread." Why should I ask for daily bread if I've got a pantry or a house or a warehouse full of bread? What if I've been prospered to the point that I've got a hundred days of bread already in the pantry? Who keeps it from spoiling? Every day we should ask God to give us what we need that day and be grateful that He has given us what we need.
Can you, by an act of will, make your heart beat the next beat? Nope. Can you, by an act of will, extend your life another second? Nope. We live in God, that's what that said. "We live, and move, and have our being." So, on a daily basis, we ought to be mindful that it's God who gives us bread. But, we don't think like that a lot of time, do we, because we do have pantries, especially in blessed Joseph, in the United States of America, we've got all kinds of food stored up. And so, it takes an act of will to bring ourselves around to this way of thinking, that we do have an utter dependence on God on a daily basis. On a heartbeat by heartbeat, breath by breath basis.
It is true, but this world masks that and materialism can mask that from our minds and our understanding. Didn't Jesus say sometimes "the cares of this world and the deceitfulness of riches grow up and choke the word"? See, we're looking at the Word and the Word's got us all thinking the same way, that, yeah, we're dependent upon God for every breath, every heartbeat, everything; but sometimes, the riches that we look at as a blessing can deceive us into thinking we're not dependent on Him. And so, it takes an act of conscious will to overcome that deceitful appearance.
Now, later, in Matt 6:25, having said these other things, Jesus said,
Verse 25 - "Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life." Wow! You know, that could be the whole sermon right there. Don't worry about your life. Well, immediately, we have all these, "yeah, but you don't understand." Yeah, but this, yeah, but that. You don't know what I'm facing tomorrow. You don't know what's waiting for me Monday on the job. Don't worry about it!
God's providence extends not only till the next heartbeat, till the next breath, till the next meal, God's providence extends to the ability to deal with whatever the next hour, the next day, the next week confronts us with. So, don't worry about it because God is going to be with you. "Don't worry about life, what you'll eat or what you'll drink;" or how you'll deal with whatever it is that you're worrying about, " nor about your body, what you'll put on. Is not your life more than food, and the body more than clothing?"
Now don't, especially, the firstfruits understand that there's something more important to this life than its continuance in the flesh? Of all people, the people who keep the holy days, the people who understand the plan of God, the people who understand the mind of God like the Church of God has been uniquely given the ability to do, surely we understand there's something bigger than these seventy years of this chemical existence. Right? And, that's the point Jesus is making. There's something more to this creation of God, there's something more, something way more to the creation of God than just the continuation of our physical lives. And, since that is the case, don't worry about it. Just don't worry about it.
Verse 26 - He said, "Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns yet your heavenly Father feeds them." Is God involved with His human creation, especially with His firstfruits creation? Yes. Proved by what? Well, He's involved with birds. What Jesus is saying is He feeds them. So the birds, if they could talk, would honestly be able to echo the words of Jacob." God who has fed me all my life long unto this day."The birds; they're fed by God. He says: " Are you not of more value than they?" So, if He's going to feed them, why do you worry that He's going to feed you?
Verse 27 - "Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature?" I mean, I can want to be six-foot three-inches so badly; it ain't gonna' happen. So, why worry about it?
Verse 28 - "So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin;"
Verse 29 - "and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these." Who are the rich people in this world? Well, you've got Bill Gates, you've got the various princes of the House of Saud sitting on top of all those oceans of oil in the Middle East; they've got a lot of money, they can afford the most incredible mansions, the nicest private yachts and jets and, you know, all the things, all the jewelry. God says that none of them can dress up any nicer than a lily out in the field. Why do you worry about it? "Consider the lilies...how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you that even Solomon" who had more money than all the House of Saud; he wasn't arrayed like even one of these.
Verse 30 - "Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven," that doesn't seem very important, does it, like a day lily, it blooms out one day; one morning it's so beautiful, by the end of the day you've got to deadhead it (I picked this stuff up from my wife; she's the master gardener; I now know about deadheading day lilies.), but God, whoever had a dress or a suit of clothes as beautiful as the whatever-name-it-is day lily. We've got some around here in the front of the grounds here. Go by and look at them when they're in bloom someday. They're beautiful! They're gorgeous! The color pattern, nobody has ever had a dress or suit of clothing that's as beautiful as that and, yet, one day here and gone the next day. God says, "Are you not of more worth than they?" Don't the firstfruits understand that? Why worry about it.
So He concludes:
Verse 30 - "Will He not much more clothe you, Oh you of little faith?"
When we let God's Word just speak to us with unadorned clarity, doesn't it seem stupid, doesn't it seem so unnecessary, doesn't it seem such a waste of mental and emotional energy to worry and get all stirred up about the things that, on a daily basis, we still allow ourselves to worry about and get stirred up about?
All right. Ecclesiastes 3. So, the threshold question is do you believe that it is "God who has fed you every day of your life long until this very day" and, therefore, God's providence is the end-all, be-all of your life and, if you answer yes, then the related question is are you content with God's providence? Because if you're not, you're not content with God and nobody wants to be consciously aware that they are not content with God; that they're finding fault with God.
Verse 12 - Bill Gates never had the access to as much of everything you could want as this man, Solomon, did, or the House of Saud. They didn't have as much as this man did. We'll go down the line. "I know that there is nothing better, said the guy who could have it all, "than to rejoice, and to do good in their lives,"
Verse 13 - "and also that every man should eat and drink," activities common to everybody, from the poorest to the richest, "and to enjoy the good of his labor— it is the gift of God."
Jesus boiled it down to the daily necessities and we should be content with it. The richest man who ever lived boiled it down to the necessities. If you can enjoy your work and if you can enjoy your food and drink and just the simple things of life, if you can be content, then there isn't anything better. There is not anything better. That's the testimony of both Christ and Solomon.
Proverbs 30. Here are the words of Agur, the son of Jakeh. Who? Yeah. Agur, the son of Jakeh, in Prov 30. Not all of the Proverbs were written by Solomon, most were. It's not certain who this Agur was, but he was a man inspired to give us some very wise advice, whoever he was. Here is a man who understood his own nature and that's one of the greatest gifts, to have the spiritual discernment to know your own self, to know your own human nature, to know what can tempt you, and he knew himself well enough to know what to ask when God gave him a blank check and said fill in the amount. Very rarely in history has God ever given anybody a blank check; God signs the check, pay to the order of, puts your name on it, and then gives it to you and you can fill in the amount. He did that for Solomon who...we remember what Solomon asked for, well, Agur is saying, God, if you did that for me, here's how I would fill it out and there's a lot of wisdom and it deals with the subject of contentment, joined at the hip to godliness. So, let's read it.
Beginning in 30:5.
Verse 5 - "Every word of God is pure; He is a shield to those who put their trust in Him." It's just like, "God who has fed me all my life long until this very day," God who has protected me all my life long unto this day. How often do we think about that? There are a million things out there that could kill you. Just driving around these highways. It wouldn't be hard to lose our life any day we're out there, would it? Disease, accident, just any number of things could take our life. Our life is just a vapor, it's just a snap of a finger, so to paraphrase it, God who has sheltered me, protected me, "all my life long unto this day," God's providence. " He is a shield to those who put their trust in Him."
Verse 6 - "Do not add to His words, lest He reprove you, and you be found a liar."
Now, verse 7.
Verse 7 - He says, God, if you were to give me a blank check, here's how I'd fill it out. "Two things I request of You (please do not deprive me of them before I die)," God, if it's all the same, here's what I want.
Verse 8 - First, "Remove falsehood and lies far from me." What does that sound like? "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one." What does that sound like? "Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you." He is saying, God, I know myself well enough, I know there are things that can tempt me.
I know sin is a lie. Every sin is a lie. Sin promises what it can't deliver. It promises pleasure, which it can't deliver because there's always a bitter after taste. It promises status, which it can't deliver because there's going to be guilt associated with it. It always promises but it never delivers. Sin is a lie. Any form of sin is a lie. It's falsehood. So, he's saying, please, "Remove falsehood and lies far from me." Give me a mind that can filter truth from deception. What greater spiritual gift is there, than a mind, a conscience educated by the Word of God to know the difference between right and wrong , to a finely tuned conscience?
So, this sounds like Matthew 6:33. This sounds like other exhortations to put righteousness first, "Seek first the kingdom of God." He says, the first thing I would fill in on that blank check is, God, give me an educated, sensitive conscience and the ability to resist the lies of sin.
Verse 8 - Secondly, almost equally important, which directly relates to our subject today, "Give me neither poverty nor riches—Feed me with the food you prescribe for me." I think the Old King James says, "Convenient for me." With what you think I need, because I am trusting what? I'm trusting God's providence.
Now, you can think of a continuum with two extremes and all of the in-between ground. Way out here at the far end of net worth of physical wealth is abject, grinding poverty. Not only do you not have a hundred days' food in the cupboard, you don't have one day's food, you don't have the next mouthful of food in the cupboard, you've a hungry family; there's nothing, nothing, and maybe you're ill and you don't even have the strength to go out and earn it. Grinding poverty. That's one far end of this continuum; and then, at the other end, you've got Solomonic wealth, snap of a finger and a hundred servants will give you anything you want, nothing is too expensive.
And, this man knew himself well enough to say, God, please don't ever put me at either one of those extreme ends because associated with either of those extreme ends is tremendous temptation to sin, and I don't want that.
He puts them in reverse order. The reason he doesn't want them is in reverse order of what he asked for. He first said, please don't give me extreme poverty, and you've got to go to the end of the next verse, the end of verse nine, to find out why he doesn't want that.
Verse 9 - He said, "Lest I be poor and steal, and profane the name of my God." Because what's the temptation going to be if I'm very poor and I'm hungry? Well, to break one of God's Ten Commandments and steal, to take things into my own hands and, at least briefly, to quit trusting in what? God's providence that, He will provide. I don't see how He's going to provide, but if I trust Him, I know He'll provide. But I would be tempted to say, well, God's abandoned me or God doesn't care about me or God isn't able to do it anymore, so I'll go out and I'll steal what my hungry stomach is craving. And then, it says, "Profane the name of my God." In the original what it really means is, having gone out and done that, having stolen to satisfy my hunger and then being accused of doing it by somebody who thinks I did it, I would swear by God's name and say I didn't do it, in the name of God, I tell you I didn't do that, I would take God's name in vain in swearing to my false innocence. Then, you would break another one of God's commandments.
He knew his and mankind's nature well enough to know that that would be a temptation. So, part of "Lead me not into temptation," in his mind, is lead me away from that temptation to steal and then to falsely claim that I didn't do it; that's breaking, directly, two of the Ten Commandments, but more fundamentally, ceasing to trust in God's providence and being satisfied with it and so, therefore, godliness would take second, third, fourth or tenth place.
At the other extreme, he doesn't want to be over here with Solomonic wealth, lest why? Well, the obvious answer.
Verse 9 - "Lest I be full and deny you and say, 'Who is the Lord?'" God, give me my daily bread? I don't need daily bread. I've got ten thousand years of bread stored up in warehouses. I've got all these servants out here working my fields. I mean I've got more than I could ever spend.
"Who is God?" That would be the temptation and, it seems, that down through recorded history or Biblical history, God has not tempted very many of the firstfruits with living at that end of His providence. We see Abraham was very wealthy. We see Job was very wealthy. It seems that Joseph had the Midas touch. Everything Joseph touched turned...of course, that was for the benefit of others primarily.
There are a few others who had wealth. In James it says, "You rich," be careful that you don't abuse those who work for you and you don't deny what is theirs; but, very few of the firstfruits have ever been allowed by God, by the providence of God, to live way down there. Not that many really. Clear at the other end. Some.
Remember Smyrna? Remember those seven eras? There's one whole era where God told them in advance, I'm going to send you through the crucible of poverty, "Do not fear the things that you will suffer," and the poverty and being thrown into jail. There comes a time when, in God's plan, in God's providence, it's time for some of His people, down through the ages, to experience poverty. And, at that time, the prayer is, okay, God, I didn't really want that, I didn't want to live way out there, but in your providence that's what you've given me.
Now, how do you turn that lemon into lemonade? How do you overcome the temptation to do, steal, and take the name of God in vain and falsely deny your innocence? You view it as an opportunity to trust God even more because you can't provide for yourself. There are circumstances where you cannot provide for yourself, if God has let you be Smyrna or if God has let you be Paul, shackled in a prison. You have to trust God.
Everything in life is a test. If you live way out there, it's a test. If you live way out there, it's a test. If you live anywhere in between, it's a test. Everything in life is a test and there is a godly reaction to every test and there is a whole series of un godly reactions to any test. Just think about that as you go through this next week. Anything is a test and there's a godly reaction and God's watching and there are a whole host of un godly reactions and God is watching.
We are being tested. We are being groomed. We are being developed and that's why Jesus said, "Isn't life more than food...and clothing" and all those? Yeah, it's way more. It's the development of a son or a daughter of God, who is going to live forever in the family of God, as a member of the God family; that's way more than those other things. So, He says, don't worry about it and trust me and trust my providence.
Let me read you what one author said about this passage in Proverbs: "The brunt of this first request, to be preserved from sin in general, which is a vain, lying, and deceitful thing promising pleasure, promising profit, promising liberty; it does not give any of them. Agur desires to have vain thoughts removed out of his mind, vain words from his mouth, vain actions from his life and conversation, to have his eyes turned from beholding vanity, his feet from walking in it and his affections taken off from the vain things of the world, the lusts, the pleasures, the profits and the honors of this world. Agur is conscious of his own weakness and he knows that he could be tempted, so he desires that God would not lead him into that temptation."
Now, with regard to the second request, this same writer says: "Give me neither poverty nor riches," not to be extremely poor nor extremely rich but somewhere in the middle and, let's be honest, that's where most of us live, that's God's providence for most of His people, for all time and, certainly now; that's where God has put most of us, somewhere in the middle. So within the middle, there might still be variations. This person might have three, four, five, ten times as much as this, but still pretty tightly grouped compared to the two extremes.
It doesn't do a whole lot of good; in fact, it does a whole lot of bad to focus on those differences, because that is, in itself, a temptation. We are not to "compare ourselves among ourselves," it so easily leads to bitterness and, again, being discontent with the providence of God.
And, incidentally, as I read some of your eyes here and I hear the grinding of the wheels between your ears, I know what some of you are thinking and I hope to have an answer to some "yeah but" questions, so hang on with me, don't lose me, don't let me lose you. I know that this kind of material, up to this point, makes us think, yeah but, what about this? I think I'm going to get to "what about this?" So, just bear with me. I hope to do that.
All right. Let's go on to Hebrews 13. This is of a type of some of these other scriptures that we've seen. They're all expressing the same spiritual reality. But, if one author in the Bible can word it slightly different than another, then maybe this one will cause us to have the "ah ha" moment where that one didn't quite do that, so we get the same thing in several different variations.
Verse 5 - "Let your conduct be without covetousness." (Elsewhere it says "covetousness...is idolatry.") But, "let it be without covetousness; be content." Be content. Now we are in a frame of mind to see that, because it is God's providence, it's God's care for us that we're evaluating and the creation should be content with what the Creator gives it. "Be content with such things as you have. For He Himself," that is, God Himself, "has said, 'I will never leave you nor forsake you.'"
Verse 6 - "So we may boldly say: 'The Lord is my helper; I will not fear. What can man do to me?'"
The logic of this passage is if you have this, which is worth more than anything else could conceivably be, why should it worry you how much or how little of something else you have, which isn't worth a millionth as much? If you have the "pearl of great price," aren't you willing to sell everything else for it? If you have that which is everything, what does the combined...the combination of everything that is nothing, really matter?
Now, what's the "everything"? Well, God says I am with you. "I will never leave you nor forsake you." If that's all you have, what else do you need? If that's all you've got, don't you have enough? Don't you have plenty? If God says, I'm in your life, I'm never going to forsake you, I'm going to do my work in you until the very end and I'll determine when that is, what else matters in comparison?
Here's what one of the commentators said with regard to the way this is worded in the original language. "There are no less than five negatives in this one sentence. The sentence being: "I will never leave you nor forsake you;" therefore, "be content." In the original, that is a much more emphatic and powerful statement than it comes out in the English translation of the Bible. "There are no less than five negatives in this one short sentence. To give a literal translation is scarcely possible in the English language but, if we could do it, this is how it would come out. "No, I will not leave you, no, neither will I not utterly forsake you."
It's just wham, wham, wham! The accumulative effect is you've got everything you could want. If you really value that, nothing else really matters. Those who understand the genius of the Greek language and look at the manner in which these negatives are placed in the sentence will perceive at once how much the meaning is strengthened by them and to what an emphatic and energetic affirmative they amount to." Five negatives equal one giant affirmative! I'm with you. Value that. Don't worry about anything else.
I Timothy 6. This is the verse that, I think, you could say is the title verse of this sermon. I entitled this sermon, God's Investment Plan. Remember, we were talking about the Dow Jones and what your big or little gains are?
Verse 6 - God's investment plan. How to get big, huge, whopping profits, a big gain. "Godliness with contentment is great gain." Why? What's the underlying rationale of why that's true? Well, because we brought nothing into the world and it's certain we'll carry nothing out. What did you arrive in this world with? Nothing! No clothes. Nothing. Helpless. In many cases, somebody had to help you take your first breath. They had to suck the stuff out of your air passage. So, what did you arrive bringing to the table? Nothing. What are you going to leave this world with? When you are a client of the people in the back room at the mortician? What do you got to present then: the same nothing.
Now, that being the case, if we frame our life, we start with a nothing, we end with a nothing, it ought to make us wonder, what does life owe us? Nothing. So, why should we feel bitter or discontent? Well, we shouldn't. That's the logic. Be content.
Verse 7 - "We brought nothing into the world, and certainly we'll carry nothing out."
Verse 8 - "Having food and clothing, with these we should be content."
Sounds like Jacob; sounds like Jesus. It's the same spiritual reality being manifested now, through the letter that Paul wrote to Timothy. Food and raiment. Our daily bread. Just what sustains life? What sustains a poor man's life? What sustains a rich man's life? Having that be content; that's God's providence. He knows what He's doing. If we have the "pearl of great price," we're just willing to sell everything else to acquire it.
The meaning here is that real religion, the truth of God, should be regarded by us as the greatest and most valuable acquisition. God says I will always be with you. Five negatives are an enormous shout of positive. I'm with you! With contentment.
The object of the Apostle seems to be to rebuke those who supposed that property constituted everything that was worth living for. He tells them, therefore, that the true gain, the big profit, the real riches, which we ought to seek, is the truth of God with a contented mind, trusting in God's providence. This does more to promote happiness than wealth can ever do and this is what should be regarded as the great object of life.
Remember one of the Proverbs that says: "Better just a simple meal of vegetables (I'll paraphrase) with contentment, than a great feast with strife and arguing and discontentment." And, that's very true.
Philippians 4. Now, you might be saying, wow, that's pretty good stuff, but you're not describing me. I don't think that way. Well, neither do I. Neither do any of us, naturally. This is something a person grows in. This is the goal. This is part of Christ-like character. This is part of maturity, so we're all trying to get to that point, but it sure helps to know what the target is, if we ever want to hit it, doesn't it? So we have to see the distilled version of this way of thinking, to be content with God's providence, to be happy with what He's given us, and associate that with godliness.
Now in Philippians 4:11, Paul joins us, he says, I didn't start out this way either. This is something you have to learn. This is part of the spiritual growth process.
Verse 11 - "Not that I speak in regard to need," well, Paul had plenty of needs. He spent the last ten years of his life, basically, as a jailbird. He was in one prison after another. He was getting beat up, he was getting whipped, he had to go on trial for his life. He was shipwrecked. I mean, you know, very tough, kind of living at that end of the continuum for a good bit of his life, the end part of his life. He says, "I don't speak in regard to need," because he saw a need for what it was. It was basically part of a wish list, but why worry about it? "I don't speak in regard to need, for I have learned (something) in whatever state I am, to be content." Everything in life is a test. If , for a period of your life or, in fact, for your whole life, in God's providence, He parks you way down there at that end, you can be content. If He parks you way down there, you can be content - and anywhere in between. "In whatever state I am, to be content."
Verse 12 - Because he said, in verse 12, he'd lived at both ends. "I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound." Apparently, Abraham knew how to abound. Apparently, Joseph. Apparently, Job knew how to abound. That may be a harder thing to learn, to live down there with godliness than it is over here. Very few of us have been tempted in that way, so I don't speak from experience, but it seems, with all the warnings in the Bible that that is a big, if not a bigger, trial than this is. But he said, "I know how to do both." I know how to accompany godliness with contentment wherever on the continuum I am. "...Both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need."
Verse 13 - "I can do all things through"...my own act of self-will, no... "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." The ability to be content accompanied with godliness is itself an act of God's work in a person's life.
The writer, Gilbert K. Chesterton, said the following: "True contentment is a thing as active as agriculture. It is the power of getting out of any situation all that there is in it. It is arduous, hard work, and it is rare."
I was mentioning this morning to the congregation, I take an interest in this little plot of ground outside the warehouse door because, while it's true that all of this land on this five acres of this little butte that we bought -- there's another three acres around the perimeter that goes straight down to the highway on all sides, it's almost vertical -- but this little top level of five acres has got some of the sorriest soil in the creation on it.
Long before we ever bought this ground, all of the good stuff, the humus, the real soil, the topsoil that grows stuff, you know, has long been scraped off and planted in some of these other building sites. So, we were left with rocks and hardpan, just this granite-like clay.
It is a wonder to me that anything is green around here but, especially, this little piece of ground outside the warehouse door. It's just so awful, that dirt. A couple of days go by in the summertime, when it doesn't rain, and it literally is like concrete and, yet, even though it's not rea l pretty, I mean, it's not Augusta National Golf Course pretty, it's not the Masters in April or May pretty, but there's a little green out there. There is life and the power that Chesterton talked about of agriculture to get out of any situation all that there is in it, I think the little...the root system of that pathetic grass out there is illustrative of the power to get out of the situation everything that there is possible to get out of it. That's as good as they can do, those little blades of grass. So, they're trying.
But, true contentment is a thing as active as agriculture. You've got to consciously say I'm going to get out of this situation all the contentment there is in it. So, if God plants you with Smyrna, or as Paul floating on a piece of driftwood all night long in the cold waters, or He's got you tied up to a stake and for the third or fourth time...was it three times, he received forty stripes, save one? There was contentment to get out of those situations but it took work to get it out of there.
I think the easiest contentment to get out of those situations, the easiest, the most obvious is: God, in this situation, I need to rely on you more than ever before. Because when I've got a pantry full of food, it doesn't seem as natural to rely on you, but way out here, I have to rely on you or I'm not going to live another five minutes. And then, to see God deliver, even in those circumstances, there is contentment that can be gotten out of the very thin soil of life when you're way down there.
Now, let's look at how God works in the lives of His people in just a striking way. Let's go clear back to the book of Deuteronomy. Moses is recounting forty years of history for the nation of Israel, as they are near the end of their wilderness wanderings. The entire previous generation, except for two people, had died, Joshua and Caleb, and he is recounting that story for them. It shows God's providence as He is working directly with a group of people.
If there was ever a group of people where it was God had "hands on" and we can see the workings of God's providence and let God define how He provides for His people, it would be here in this inspired history. We're not talking about God's basic "hands off" approach over the last six thousand years to people who have been cut off from Him, the vast majority who won't know God until the Great White Throne Judgment. We're talking about the people of Israel, that God appeared to, spoke to, constantly did miracles for, this is how God's providence works.
The reason I want to read it with you is because you might find yourself on the receiving end of one dimension of God's providence for some parts of your life that are described here, and on the receiving end of another aspect of God's providence, as described here, in other parts of your life. And, it's all from God.
Verse 2 - "You shall remember that the Lord your God has led you all the way these forty years in the wilderness." All right, God has led them. Now, what are the next words, inspired words, out of Moses' mouth? "To humble you." In the direct administration of God's providence, what's chief among the considerations? What's chief among the fruits that He wants to see? Humility . He wants His people to be humble. He wants them to come to the point, like Jacob did, where they would say, "The God who has fed me all my life long until this very day." And, they will say that God has given them everything. And, it's not me, or what I've done. There will be a satisfaction and contentment with God's providence. "...Humble you and test you."
I didn't make it up when I said all of life is a test. Everything in life is a test and there is a right and a godly, and a series of wrong un godly, responses to everything in life. "To know what was in your heart;" if the right things aren't there, if you're willing to have God build them in your heart and your character, "To know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not."
Verse 3 - "So He humbled you." So one dimension of God's providing leads to humility. "He humbled you, and He allowed you to hunger." So, I guess it doesn't matter who it is, if you are the beneficiary or the recipient of God's providence, at some points, He's going to park you way down there to test you to see how you react to that. And then, the next words out of his mouth, "and fed you." So, God takes you through hunger and then He feeds you. What's the lesson? You're hungry and He feeds you. You're hungry and He feeds you. After awhile, we get the lesson. God feeds me. God takes care of me. I should trust Him. I should realize how dependent I am on Him. He fed you, "He humbled you, he allowed you to hunger, and He fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know."
Now, that's symbolic of being at the far end over here, where you don't have any food in the cupboard, you don't have any way...out there in that desert where are they going to grow food? How are they going to get food? Every day they had to trust God to miraculously give them food. "Give us this day our daily bread." It's a miracle every day that God provides for us.
Verse 3 - "That He might make you to know that man does not live by bread alone." And so, that process of trusting God and then being feed physically should then reinforce that there's something more, because this life isn't going to last forever. So, He takes care of me so I can live, so that the greater purpose of my life can be fulfilled, which is what? Living by every word of God and developing the character of God and being prepared for the first resurrection, being prepared for the family of God.
Verse 11 - But, he warns, just like Agur was aware of, when God has made your cupboards full, now, "Beware that you do not forget the Lord your God by not keeping His commandments, His judgments, and His statutes which I command you today." The temptation is to forget God and cease being consciously aware of your dependence upon Him every day.
Verse 12 - "Lest—when you have eaten and are full, and have built beautiful houses and dwell in them;"
Verse 13 - "and when your herds and your flocks multiply, and your silver and your gold are multiplied, and all that you have is multiplied;" hey, life's pretty good, who needs God?
Verse 14 - "When your heart is lifted up, and you forget the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage;"
Verse 15 - "Who led you through that great and terrible wilderness;" when you are tempted to get fat and independent and sassy, and I don't need God, remember what God has brought you through and remember how grateful you were for all those narrow escapes.
I think each of us in our Christian lives, if we're honest, can remember a time early on when just the magnitude of the understanding of the plan of God... first we had our "ah ha" moment - I never understood that before and I'm a part of that? And, only one out of a hundred thousand on the earth are even tuned into that wavelength and I have the opportunity to be one of those people and how rare this is?
Just the gratitude and the sense of being small in our own eyes and grateful for what God has given us. Now, if we're honest, we'll admit that oftentimes that sense kind of recedes, as we become veterans, as we become grizzled veterans of the wars. That sense of just I'm unworthy, I'm just grateful for everything, I don't ask for much, just truth; it kind of recedes and we start to take things for granted, even in the church and we start to become sort of egocentric and all of our wants and we get perturbed at things that don't completely satisfy everything we want and we get critical and we start murmuring. That's what He was warning them against and I think we're all tempted and we all go through that. The more time goes on, probably, the more we'll have to fight off some of those temptations, but that's what's there and God's watching, God's testing, and God wants us to react in a godly way, in a contented manner.
Let's go over to Luke 7 as we begin to wrap this up a little bit here.
Verse 29 - "And when all the people heard Jesus, even the tax collectors justified God," well, that's good, "having been baptized with the baptism of John." So, there was repentance, there was response to the message and the call for repentance and the change of heart, except for a certain group of people, the Pharisees and the lawyers, and they rejected the counsel of God for themselves. It's one thing to accept the counsel of God for everybody else and to see everybody else's shortcomings and to see how all the other sinners ought to respond to this message from God; but, the Pharisees, I'm sure, did that. But, they just didn't accept it for themselves. I wonder if any of us are tempted to be that way?
Verse 30 - "They rejected the counsel of God for themselves, not having been baptized by him."
Verse 31 - "And the Lord said, 'To what then shall I liken the men of this generation?' Well, I think that's a rhetorical question for the ages. I think that's every bit as applicable in the Year 2006 as it was in 29 or 30 A.D. This is the living Word of God. I think you could equally say in the Year 2006 to what would we liken today's generation and what they're like? They're like children. See if this describes the tenor and the spirit of our times.
Verse 32 - 'Like children sitting in the marketplace and calling to one another saying: "We played the flute for you, but you did not dance; we mourned you, and you did not weep.' You don't do things the way we want you to. You don't respond to us the way we want you to. Just critical of others because "others" don't make us satisfied by their actions or their reactions to our initiatives.
Verse 33 - 'John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine,' Jesus said, 'and they said, "He has a demon." Nobody should be that austere.
Verse 34 - Then Jesus came and eats, and drinks alcoholic beverages, 'and you say, "Look, a glutton, and a winebibber, a friend of tax collectors." How do you satisfy these people? Constantly dissatisfied . Essence of discontentment.
We see the effect, graphically, in that passage of a self-important, self-absorbed, dissatisfied, discontented generation, or a manifestation of human nature. It's habitually, congenitally, dissatisfied; it has a chip on its shoulder, it's ungrateful, it demands satisfaction from others, it's rude, there is no discernable grace or class manifested in that spirit.
Now, especially, among the firstfruits, when discontentment manifests itself and the honest ones among us will, again, admit that we fight this. I do. You do. But, we see, today, through the Scriptures what the goal is. What the Christ-like standard is. But, among the firstfruits, when discontentment does manifest itself, what are we to do?
Well, first of all, let's understand what its source is and we go back and we'll end kind of where we began.
Its source is a failure to believe and appreciate that God is at the center of things; that, in this life, it's His providence that determines things. He judges us and He is preparing us for His kingdom and it's He who has "fed us all our life long until this day." But, His kingdom is the chief thing. We get our minds off of those things and we succumb to discontentment. This life's purpose is not our perpetual pleasure. It's not our physical abundance. Its purpose is to come to love God and to see our utter dependence on Him, preparatory to living with Him for all eternity. It manifests itself in some ways that we just saw. Always finding fault with others when they do not, by their actions or their reactions, fully satisfy us. Well, we piped for you and you didn't dance. "We mourned and you didn't weep."
The self is not satisfied by godliness in these cases so it seeks, vainly and unsuccessfully, to be satisfied and content through others. It's a vain search.
The next step we see is when a person takes that dissatisfaction with others, from the realm of their own mind, from their own personal dissatisfaction with others and, especially, authority figures in our day and age, and they take that beyond the realm of their own mind to the realm of stirring up strife, stirring up similar feelings in their little circle. They become grumblers, they are seditious. They sow discord among others, which is a thing that God hates. It's the opposite of meekness. It is the opposite of patience and of respect for and a willingness to consider that there may be good reasons for the actions of others, especially those in authority that are in the best interests of the larger group and in the long run, even while failing to satisfy the self in the immediate present. Ultimately, it goes to finding fault with God and His providence. That's the thinnest ice a person could walk on.
Now, before I conclude, a word about contentment in the negative sense. What I have been reading out of God's Word to you today and trying to expound on a bit is not an endorsement for sloth, for laziness, for complacency, or for irresponsibility. There are just too many scriptures that clearly show that God wants us to... "whatever your hand finds to do, to do it with your might." He wants us to work hard. He wants us to strive for high quality. There is nothing wrong, in fact, there's everything right with wanting to provide for those who are dependent upon us and there's everything wrong with irresponsibly, lazily, sitting back, saying, God's providence, I'm not going to do anything and I'm not going to provide for my children or my spouse, my family. That is utterly condemned in the Bible. So, I would hope nothing I've said today could be viewed as an endorsement for any of those things: laziness, irresponsibility, or sloth.
It is not at all inappropriate to study to improve ourselves. There is nothing wrong, in fact, there's everything right, motivated properly, to desire to advance in our profession, in our work. The key is to not let the love of money or physical things, or the impatience with God's providence to stain godliness. It's that balance that God's spirit will lead a person to.
As Paul did, we should learn and grow in the ability to be content in whatever state we find ourselves on this continuum; to be content and to do so fully mindful of God's real purpose in our lives. The key is to learn, as did Paul, to be content with God's providence whether it be physically much or little, whether He feeds us or suffers us to hunger; whether it is His will for us to be poor Smyrna or rich Laodicea. There are tests involved in both of those situations and there's a right way to pass, there's a godly way to face those tests. To combine contentment in God's providence with godliness and then to find huge riches, great gain.