Be Content With What You Have

BE CONTENT WITH WHAT YOU HAVE

Hebrews 13:1-8 - September 21, 2003

HEBREWS 13:1-8

131Keep on loving each other as brothers. 2Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some people have entertained angels without knowing it. 3Remember those in prison as if you were their fellow prisoners, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering.

4Marriage should be honored by all, and the marriage bed kept pure, for God will judge the adulterer and all the sexually immoral. 5Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you."

6So we say with confidence, "The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?"

7Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. 8Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.

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Dearest Fellow-Redeemed and Saints in the Lord:

How content are you? This morning our text talks about contentment. It reminds us that we are to be content with what we have. Yet, as we look around us, we realize that our society is a society that tends to direct people towards discontentment and unhappiness. As we read the paper or watch TV or listen to the radio, they always have offers for a better life. If only we had a better house to live in, a better vehicle to drive. Or if only we felt better and have good health, life would be much better. In a sense the on the feeling of discontentment and being unhappy with our situation in life is all around us. We could very easily become part of it, part of those who grumble and complain that it is either too hot or too cold or too dry. We are very seldom content.

Paul wrote to Timothy in his letter and said: "But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that"(1 TIMOTHY 6:6-8). We are going to learn how true those words are. God says if we have food and clothing, we ought to be content with that; and yet we have much more than that don’t we? So we ought to be more content, more content than any generation that has lived; and yet, the words of our text are very fitting for us when he says, "Be content with what you have." Right in the middle of our text we find that as our theme,

Be Content With What You Have

I. Because our Savior will never change

II. Thankfully, believers can always change

I. Our Savior will never change

If there was someone who could have complained and grumbled against God, these people may have been able to do that. They were faced with a very severe persecution, so much so that all their property had been taken away from them, even their houses. Yet, what did the writer say to them? He says, God has said, ’Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.’ Even though they did not have all of the extra blessings of earthly possessions they had the comforting and encouraging fact that the Lord was still with them. Remember these people were always connected closely to their past, their past in which their ancestors who wandered in the wilderness. These believers realized that in wandering in the wilderness, their forefathers had never been forsaken. When they came to the Promised Land and met many enemies, they had never been forsaken. Now, once again in these New Testament times when these people were ridiculed because of their Christian faith, they would never be forsaken. In fact the writer adds: 6So we say with confidence, "The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?" Man had done a lot to them, and yet God could and would do for more for them than what man could do against them. He encourages them to not be afraid even though they might lose all of their possessions, even though they were driven from their hometowns. God was still with them! That was the encouragement they had.

How did these believers learn all of these things? How did they come to that very comforting knowledge that God would never forsake them and God would always protect them? Our text says: 7Remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you. They had come to worship to hear God’s Word, and they had heard God’s Word, and they believed. God, by His grace, worked faith into their hearts. Remember those leaders. Consider the outcome of their way of life and imitate their faith. If you think of some of the leaders that they knew, they knew or heard about the Apostles. What was the outcome of their life? Hardly any of these Apostles had faced a natural death because of their faith. Just about all of them faced a horrible, untimely death. Yet here he says, remember your leaders, who spoke the word of God to you. That Word of Truth is able to sustain them through life, even when all around them things to make life easier had been taken away. Yet, they still had spiritual life. They had eternal life that could not be taken away from them.