-Transcript-
00:37 Amen. Thank you for joining me today. Welcome to the cafe.
00:41 Hope you’re doing well. Hope you’re having a wonderful week. Today we’re talking about something very important.
00:48 Something that I told our congregation I think I could almost write a book on this and I don’t think I’ve ever said that when preaching before. I really believe there’s so much depth to this.
00:57 A preacher could preach a message on this topic for a year or maybe even years because there’s so much of this in society today.
01:03 And today we’re talking about learning to be content and having contentment over coveting or wanting things we don’t have. Learning to be content. Are you truly content today?
01:16 Are you truly satisfied today? Who here can honestly say they are content in life? Who acts content in life each day? If we’re honest, very very very few people could honestly before the Lord say, oh I’m content and I act content every day.
01:39 I know that I struggle with this. I know that people in my family struggle with this and in my church and I see it in the community and in the world today.
01:47 There is an epidemic of discontentment today and there is in the Bible a clear instruction on how to be content and clear guidance on what happens when we let our heart get set on other things.
02:04 God shows us that we’ll have an emptiness that can’t be filled by anything but Him. And that’s really fascinating if you think about it. You know we try to fill that emptiness with what? Material goods, status, being busy, all types of living and it never works.
02:24 Let me give you the end of the message at the beginning. Happiness and contentment can only be found in Jesus and God shows us this in His Word. Our text verse, 1 Timothy 6:6, you know the number of man 66 through 6- 8. Amen.
02:47 1Timothy 6, 6-8, 6-8. But godliness with contentment is great gain for we brought nothing into this world and it is certain we can carry nothing out and having food and raiment or clothing let us be there with content.
03:01 So we see in 1 Timothy 6: 6-8, godliness with contentment is great gain because we didn’t bring anything into the world. We were made of what? We were made of the dirt and it’s certain we can’t carry anything out of the world and so what should we be happy with? The very basics.
03:18 What we need to survive, what we need to get through the day, and then what should fill our hearts?
03:22 You say, well, if I’m happy with just food and clothing, what’s gonna fill my heart? What’s gonna fill my desires? It should be Jesus. It should be God Himself. Amen.
03:31 We try to fill ourselves with everything under the sun and the world, the culture in the world, tells us to over and over again. That’s why I believe this has gotten so out of control is man’s nature to desire and to covet is matched only by the worlds and the devil’s culture’s nature to demand you to covet and desire and to tell you that’s your right and to tell you that’s what will make you happy.
03:55 Yet when we focus on God alone, poor or rich, sick or healthy, we can have true contentment in our lives and live joyful here on earth even today.
04:07 Luke 12:15, and he said unto them, take heed and beware of covetousness for a man’s life,consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth. I think that word life is so interesting here in Luke 12:15.
04:26 And he said unto them, take heed and beware of covetousness, desiring things you don’t have, making them idols in your life.
04:36 For a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth. You know that word life, I mean, think about it. Who gives eternal life? Jesus.
04:44 Who brings life? Jesus. Who makes life new? Jesus. Who renews your life each day? Jesus.
04:54 Who will you see in eternity and praise if you are saved, if your name’s written in the Lamb’s book of life? Jesus. For a man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of things which he possesses. But what does the world tell us, right? Think about this.
05:06 I mean, I watch YouTube. I have that smart TV, and the YouTube will, you know, do its little computer thing and show certain videos each day and so forth. And what are they? Oh, well, here’s these people.
05:16 They’re happy with this new garage or this new toy or this new thing and da-da-da-da. My son, you know, he has a toy for a day, and then he says, Daddy, I want another one. I’m thinking, well, what about all the ones you got? We are baked into our fleshly human nature.
05:31 We desire things to possess. And God is saying, look, through Luke, look, in your life, it’s more about Christ than it is about what you have. Spiritually, I believe we will see the least highly exalted in heaven, you know, that saint of God that suffered so well for the Lord and believed on God and refused to let their poverty or their affliction make them distant from God.
06:01 And, oh, they didn’t have much in this world, and the world would mock them or laugh them or roll their eyes at them. But, oh, they’re highly exalted in heaven, amen. And I would trade that in a heartbeat.
06:12 What’s the world? What’s that, a vapor for a season? Yesterday, I was 21, 22. Today, I’m 42. Look, you blink, and life is over.
06:20 And then you have eternity ahead of you, which you have to be saved. You have to accept Lord Jesus Christ as your personal Lord and Savior. And if you’re saved, amen, then you have an eternity with Him where things that you possess, they won’t matter here what you possess on earth, right? Think of this.
06:39 What can you take to heaven when you die? I asked our church that question. What can you take to heaven when you die? You know, you save somebody as a car collector, and they save their whole life to get their dream car, and they buy it, and they die the next day. Well, they saved their whole life.
06:55 So they were sacrificing for something. They were serving something. But that material thing, it didn’t go with them.
07:02 It didn’t transcend death. And they go off to heaven or hell, whatever it may be. Only God knows.
07:09 And that’s whether they’ve accepted Christ as Savior or not. We can know that we’re saved. We can be certain that we’re saved, amen, if we accept Christ as Savior.
07:21 The reason why I say only God knows is in this example, this person was living a life vainly, improperly. And so what happens to that car? I mean, 50, 100, 200 years, what happens to the car? It rusts, it decays, it breaks, it gets stolen. You see how things are just temporal, how they’re not worth wanting and desiring.
07:38 And yet, where we go is more important. The rich man and the poor man in the graveyard, both of them have an eternal destination waiting on them.
07:47 And let’s say they both went to heaven, who has more in heaven, the rich or the poor man? According to the Scriptures, as I understand it, it’s who did more for God, okay, for that reward out of a true desire to serve God.
08:04 And that’s the idea of the wood, hay, and stubble burning up at the judgment or the bema seat. I think of it as the Olympics where you’re rewarded medals, right?
08:15 You’re not being judged by your sin because you’ve pleaded the blood of Christ. You’ve accepted Christ as Savior.
08:24 So you’re there for a reward. Now, the rich man, maybe he didn’t do much for God, but his heart was convicted, the Lord saved him, and he’s in heaven. And let’s say the poor person did a lot for God, and they didn’t have much on earth, but they served the Lord with what they did have, amen, they lived poor so they could bless others, and they would always give Jesus the glory.
08:38 Now, who’s going to be higher up on that podium, the rich man or the poor man? Well, more than likely the poor man, but they’re both in heaven, and that’s a great thing, amen. But the idea here is we cannot take our possessions to heaven when we die. If we win souls, in a way we can take them, amen.
08:51 If we win, you know, my kids, I’m very concerned about them, my community, I’m very concerned about them. The greater area, you know, we’re in Kings Mountain, and Lincolnton, and Gastonia, Shelby, that’s kind of our area of ministry.
09:02 But you know, I’ve been to Charlotte more than a few times, and my heart breaks for Charlotte when you look and see.
09:09 I know there’s many churches in Charlotte, and there’s many believers in Charlotte, but there are many people. I look at some of the young people out there, and my heart grieves for them, amen, and I need to do better at praying for them. I ask you to pray for them too.
09:23 But what is it all they’re pursuing, all these things that they’re pursuing, whether it be a mate, whether it be a destination, whether it be a job status, whether it be a material thing or material things, what will they do for you in heaven?
09:36 They won’t do anything. Will they even bring you joy? We are too caught up with luxury and not godliness. Luxury won’t bring you happiness.
09:49 And someone listening to this say, oh, well, how do you know that preacher? What do you know about luxury bringing happiness?
09:53 Well, I’ll tell you something. By God’s design and his providence, I was born to a family. My grandmother was a professor, and my grandfather was a professor, college professors.
10:04 And they years and, you know, almost 100 years ago, I suppose, but 70, 80, 90 years ago, bought a house in a town. And at the time, the town was a nice town, but wasn’t anything that special.
10:16 And that town was outside of a major city, one of the biggest, and that town became more and more nice.
10:23 And so my mom being sick, we stayed with our grandma when we were little growing up all the way till my junior year in high school. And I got to see two things. One, the struggle of having a broken family and dealing with financial issues and all kinds of problems.
10:37 But I also got to see great wealth. Now this town is in the top 10 most wealthy towns in in America, according to Bloomberg, I looked it up, amen. And I can tell you these people did not have happiness, there was not great joy there.
10:53 When you get very, very rich, you aren’t happy, you aren’t some in some elite crowd, and everything is great. You know, the world may portray it as that or celebrities may portray it as that. But they just trade poor person’s problems for rich person’s problems.
11:06 They just trade, you figure out how am I going to pay the power bill? How am I going to pay my car note? How am I going to get food on the table? They just trade that for?
11:15 How am I going to get away with stealing this? How am I going to get away with having an affair with so and so? How am I going to get away with feeling empty inside or whatever it is?
11:22 There’s so many problems, complex problems, very sad problems. I went to a very small school and I know, I won’t say many, but a good bit of classmates that died from drugs and alcohol. And again, I’m 42, not that old, amen, pretty scary.
11:40 So we don’t alleviate our problems when we have material wealth in this world. That’s why the Bible says, it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter heaven.
11:49 It’s not that they can’t because the next verse or the verse thereafter says that all things are possible with God, amen.
11:54 It’s not that they can’t. And there’s examples of rich people in the Bible, like Moses was under Pharaoh wealthy, and of course, King David, very wealthy, Solomon, his son, amen, and many others.
12:05 But there’s, that’s kind of, I shouldn’t say many others, that’s kind of the minority theme in the Bible.
12:17 Many were just everyday people and very poor, amen. Jesus himself asked, said, you know, had to ask Peter for a penny because he didn’t have one, amen. He didn’t have a house to lay his head and that’s God himself.
12:24 So that kind of shows you what God thinks of those that are impoverished. I believe those are truly, have a special place in the Lord’s heart. And so what do we see here? It’s very challenging to be content when your eyes are on riches.
12:37 And it’s not that you can’t go to heaven if you are rich. It’s that when you are rich, you depend on money to solve your problems and you make money your God. And when you’re poor, you don’t have that.
12:48 And so you may be more likely to turn to God himself and see his miraculous workings and see and depend on God and be close to God and have fellowship with God because those riches haven’t corrupted you, amen. And that’s what we see. We’re too caught up in luxury and godliness and it won’t bring happiness.
13:05 It’ll only leave emptiness. It’ll leave you feeling empty no matter what’s in the bank account, no matter how full the bank account is. Coveting can spring forth when we set our eyes on things of earth, you know, and God hates the sin of coveting.
13:16 And so what we need to do is be content with what God gave us. And in the second part of this message, I’m going to get into how to be content because it is a wonderful thing to have godly contentment, even if we don’t have a lot, even if we are in poor health or in times of trials, he is near, amen.
13:35 God is near the broken hearted and he wants to show you that through his word.
13:38 He wants to show you that you can have godly contentment no matter what you go through. And so please get into the word, get into 1 Timothy 6 and tune in next time so we can go over the secret to godly contentment and the dangers of coveting.
13:54 And as we become more aware of it, we can have that peace in our heart because we turn to Jesus instead of the world.
14:00 I really appreciate you listening. Thank you so much for taking the time to listen to the program. Again, tune in next time to hear the second part.
14:09 And in Jesus name, amen.