-Transcript-
00:37 Amen. Thank you for joining me. Welcome to cafe.
00:43 Today we were talking about contentment, how to be content, who doesn’t want to be content, who doesn’t want to just be fully satisfied, wanting nothing. And the title of the message here is contentment over coveting. This is part three of a three-part message on contentment.
00:54 As I’ve mentioned, I probably could do a hundred parts on contentment because it’s rampant in world today. I can identify with this struggle as with, I think, anyone that’s living in the world today that can understand how hard it is to truly be content in Jesus, living in a world that is just fully materialistic, focused on mammon and all kinds of false gods and idols and all of this.
01:17 And here we are trying to get by, just by the precious blood of Jesus we’re saved, and what can we do but be content in that? 1 Timothy 6:6-8, but godliness with contentment is great gain.
01:33 For we brought nothing into this world, and it iscertain we can carry nothing out. And having food and raiment, let us be there with content. Bible’s telling us godliness, being holy, being set apart, living for Him, understanding who He is, living for Him, and contentment is great gain.
01:51 With contentment, being content. Godliness without contentment is probably really frustrating because you are being pushed and pulled, and you’re wanting more, and you love God,
02:02 but you can’t seem to figure it out. And sometimes that means surrendering to God, living for God, holy and fully, even though you don’t know what to do, because He knows what to do, and you have faith in Him that He will do the right thing.
02:17 If we have a close walk with God, we’re content, because we’re far richer than anyone living for the world, walking in the ways of the flesh. And quickly here, we’re going to go through the origins of discontentment, the origins of contentment, and the secret to being content.
02:31 Lord willing, you’ll hear what I have to say, and you’ll leave this message here today with a new perspective on how to live your life and find peace that only God can provide, that He wants you to have.
02:46 You know, the origins of discontentment are very simple to discover. In a word, natural, living naturally, living for the world. I guess that’s a sentence or a phrase more than a word, but in a phrase, in a sentence, living naturally, living for the world is the origin of discontentment.
03:04 The world tells us from a young age to want things we don’t need, live for things that won’t satisfy us, and die without ever knowing the true God. Trust me, I work in marketing. I work in that field, in tech marketing or whatever you call it.
03:19 And for many years, I’ve worked in that field. God allows me to see the inside working of a creating of a desire without a need. And I like to say I try my very best to only work with clients that, you know, are selling something honest that people would need, but this is just rampant.
03:39 I mean, certain industries, they’re not even hiding this. I mean, if you research the fashion industry, how it works, they literally invent trends every season to make people buy stuff so that they can make more money.
03:51 And so they make, think about this, they are marketing to you to make you desire something that you don’t need, that won’t make you happy, but they’re saying you do need it and it will make you happy.
04:00 The fashion industry, just research it. And again, the Bible says, be content with food and clothing. I have nothing against clothing.
04:06 Amen. We have a ministry that’s involved in clothing and so forth. Nothing against clothing.
04:12 And I love clothing. Amen. But the fashion industry does this.
04:17 They don’t even hide it. Read about how the fashion industry events trends. You’ll be shocked.
04:24 And it’ll also alert you to this idea that the world system is out there to make you covet and desire. The home industry, I mean, homes now are built so huge with all these amenities and all these things. Even think of camping now.
04:37 Campgrounds have really gone overboard or hotel rooms. And now we expect not just a pool when we go to the hotel, but a water park. Or we expect when you buy a home, not just a home, but a high-tech palace.
04:49 And what do we really need? Have you ever asked yourself, hey, let’s strip all this down. What do we need? Okay, we need a refrigerator, a bed, a roof that doesn’t leak, a lock on the door, unfortunately, a lock on the door, backyard for the kids to play. What else? A table to eat at.
05:04 Come on now. We don’t need so much, but the world is geared to make us want and desire. How can we perfectly miss God’s calling? Simply follow the world.
05:14 That is the origin of discontentment. And that is the way that we become discontent. Follow the world, be unsatisfied, just live like the world, and you’ll be discontent.
05:24 And if you’re not saved, you’ll die and go to a devil’s hell. That’s what the whole system is. It’s literally, you can explain it in a sentence.
05:34 Live naturally in the flesh, live for the world, don’t seek God, drift like you go into the water at the ocean and the tide is drifting, drift with that tide and you’ll end up with the devil in hell. If you never take a stand and say, you know what, I’m going to answer that still small voice that’s been ringing in my heart for so long. I’m going to go ahead and be bold.
05:51 I’m going to walk down that aisle. I’m going to accept Christ as Savior and Lord. I’m going to pick up my Bible.
05:57 I’m going to question a few things about this world and about what everybody’s doing. America has a love affair with riches and loving riches is toxic.
06:04 1 Timothy 6:10, just a few verses later, for the love of money is the root of all evil, which while some coveted, there’s that word coveted, after they have erred from the faith and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.
06:19 I love 1 Timothy 6:10. A lot of focus people will say is for the love of money is the root of all evil. So true. But how about the second part of the verse that they pierce, they err from the faith and they pierce themselves themselves, not someone else, themselves through with many sorrows.
06:33 People say, I am going to be rich and I’ll be happy. And God through his word is saying, you trying to be rich, coveting, desiring to be rich, you won’t be happy. You’ll be pierced through with many sorrows.
06:45 Now, if you are one of the few people that have had success and God is blessed, it doesn’t mean that God doesn’t love you or that you have a problem. Amen. God doesn’t have a problem with riches necessarily.
06:54 God has a problem with those that are coveting or desiring to be rich. That’s what pierces them through with many sorrows. And you can think of all the scams out there, the real estate scams.
07:04 And again, being in marketing, you see them every day, all the different get rich quick schemes and blah, blah, blah. All of it will pierce you through with many sorrows. And there’s Proverbs on this.
07:14 If you’re poor and you just work with, you work hard, you’ll be blessed and you’ll have plenty of food on the table. There’s, uh, we were in Proverbs 13. It is, look it up in Proverbs 13 towards the latter part of that chapter.
07:30 I can’t think of the number of the verse we’re studying with our family of teaching the kids this lesson. If you just work hard, you show up, you work hard. You may never be rich, but you’ll have plenty of food to put on the table.
07:35 And that obviously goes into responsible living. So, you know, I don’t have time to get into all that, but you get my idea. You live for the Lord.
07:41 You live humbly, modestly, you know, as you can in this world and you will not have a problem. Amen. And when it comes to providing, if you love something you don’t have, what does that make you think about this? People say, Oh, I love fill in the blank.
07:58 I love to go to this vacation. I love to have this car. I love to have this piece.
08:03 I love to have this phone. I can imagine someone coveting after a phone. They’re they’ve gone.
08:11 Pricing has gone through the ceiling. Some of the younger kids in our church tell me it’s almost 2000 for a phone. You can get a quick, you can get some of the four wheels and an engine for that.
08:20 Okay. Anyways, for a phone, if you say, I love this. And if I don’t have it, I’m discontent.
08:26 What are you saying to God? If you are busy desiring something you don’t have, where is God in your life? Think about it. The father that sees that from a child, when my children don’t act grateful for what they’ve been given and know how they’ve been blessed. I get very upset.
08:39 How much more so does a Holy God get upset at us when he has provided so much for us and when he has a plan for us. And when we are living like the world being discontent, because we don’t have something that would hurt us and not help us that he does not want us to have. We are not living for God when we do that.
08:57 So just, if you want to be discontent, just live like the world. And if you want to be content, then you have to change. To covet is to desire something we don’t have so much.
09:07 What happens? It makes it an idol. So we commit idolatry when we covet. Idolatry is anything we put before God in our hearts and in our minds.
09:15 And I could give many examples of that. And you can think of some of your own, I’m sure. But the idea is, you know, think of a rare baseball card.
09:24 If someone doesn’t have it, they’re a card collector. They have to have it. They tell themselves they’ll be happy when they get it.
09:29 They obsess over that card. They watch videos about it. They read about it.
09:31 They spend time studying about it. They think about it nonstop. They never get that card.
09:35 They spend their entire life looking for that card. Where is God in that person’s life? What are they communicating about all that he’s blessed them with? The origins of discontentment are firmly rooted in coveting. And coveting is a form of idolatry.
09:46 And in that example, the baseball card becomes the idol. And God is second, third, or way down there on the list. And God will not take second place.
09:54 Amen. He sent his son Jesus to die for you. The least you can do is live for him once you’ve been saved.
09:59 Amen. So think about this. Where are you finding coveting in your life? At work? Desiring a job that someone else has? I have a neighbor that told me a really funny story.
10:09 He had a great job once. Paid well. Great hours.
10:14 Got off early. Loved it. And he now has a job that’s cutting his hours and so forth.
10:19 And he told me, he said, Clark, when I had this job, the good one, he said, I complained about it every day. And that’s the truth of the matter. The grass is always greener.
10:27 Okay. So maybe you desire a job that someone else has that God doesn’t want you to have. Maybe it’s your pay.
10:33 You want more. In Luke 3, Jesus tells us to be happy with our wages as he addresses the soldiers. I believe we’re soldiers for Christ.
10:39 We should be happy with what God gives us. It could be a relationship. You have to ask God to help you there.
10:50 Don’t covet that. Don’t covet someone else, someone’s spouse, wife, husband, so on. Could it be your health? Thank God for the infirmities that he’s given you.
10:55 That he can show his glory. Amen. We must thank him for that.
11:03 There’s many great testimonies of those that are very sick or disabled that God has used mightily to show himself through them and that they wouldn’t want to give up those infirmities knowing that God gets the glory from that.
11:07 Now, what are the origins of contentment? It’s a command to seek God. We must be content seeking the one who made us, period.
11:15 You know, God made us so specifically. Think of a key and the key only works in one door. God made us like that key and he is the door.
11:23 Amen. And we must connect. Amen.
11:28 And as Jesus knocks, we must open. Amen. It’s symbiotic.
11:31 It’s one relationship. Contentment comes from Jesus Christ alone. The other example I gave was like a CNC machine making a very specific part that only went into one area and that part didn’t go anywhere else perfectly.
11:43 That’s how God made us and we are to be with him and we are to be fruitful when we are together and nothing else will satisfy nothing. There is reward in seeking God, Matthew 6:33, but seek ye first thekingdom of God and his righteousness and all these things shall be added unto you. To be content, we must seek God.
12:00 To be content, thank God in all things and all times, praise his name, and contentment will follow and a reward will follow. It’s not that God’s against us having things.
12:11 It’s that he’s against us having things that take the place of him or desiring things that take the place of him in our lives.
12:17 So that’s what we see contentment to be. Contentment is not contingent upon money or things or popularity or status or education or earnings, vacation homes, followers and likes on social media. It’s not contingent upon any of those things.
12:33 The origins of contentment come from a godly walk with gratitude. The secret to contentment is drinking from that infinite river of living water that only Jesus Christ provides.
12:45 Philippians 4:11, Paul writes, not that I speak in respect of want, for I’ve learned in whatsoever state I am therewith to be content.
12:54 Paul had grown up in, I think, a pretty prestigious household. He was trained by the Supreme Court at that time. He was a Jew of the Jews.
13:01 He was of the letter. Amen. He knew the law greatly.
13:04 I believe he was pretty wealthy from what I understand. And then he went and followed the Lord and people wanted to kill him and he was jailed and he was shipwrecked and he was whipped and he was stoned. His life was almost taken from him so many times.
13:18 And here he says, he’s not going to speak in respect of want, for I’ve learned in whatsoever state I am therewith to be content. If it was good enough for Paul, it should be good enough for us to be content with where God put us.
13:28 There’s many seasons, seasons of plenty, seasons of dullness, seasons of affliction and of poverty, of transition.
13:37 Ecclesiastes gets into this in chapter three. There’s many seasons, but we must understand that God called us to be content no matter the season. The origin of contentment, the secret to contentment, seek God, be at peace with God, get close to God by reading his word and praying and you’ll be content and desire nothing other than God.
13:56 Don’t add to God. Just God alone, just Jesus Christ alone should leave you content, not just for today, not just for tomorrow, but for an eternity. There is true contentment in following Christ.
14:07 Thank you so much for listening. Take care. God bless and amen.