Introduction:
I greet you all in the name of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. As per the will of God, we are meditating under the Theme: I will never leave you nor forsake you, ‘Uninterrupted Presence of God' in our lives. Today, we are meditating on the theme 'Be Content'. I am not going to do the expository sermon from the passage read to us, but we will do the exegetical sermon on Hebrews 13:5.
Hebrews 13:5 “Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee” so that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me. (KJV). Hebrews' thirteenth chapter has commenced with an exhortation and moved on to Trust in the Lord. Let brotherly love continue, Entertain Strangers, Remember those who prisoned for Gospel. Remember the leaders who spoke the word of God, and consider the outcome of their way of life.
Watch your conversations
Be Confident in whom you trust
Be Convinced in what promise you have
1. Watch your conversations Hebrews 13:5.a
The Providence of God has expressed in the sentence free from Love of Money. Free from the love of money suggests that there were financial pressures were among original readers of this book. He has mentioned about this issue in Hebrews 10:32–36, 11:25–26. He had encouraged them for a better future while they had gone through economic pressures and social alienation. So watch your conversations, discussions, reflections, plans, and goals.
People look for a decent living with basic amenities and needs are met. 1 Timothy 6:10, the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. That verse notes that an unhealthy desire for wealth has led to the ruin of many lives. God, never guarantees that we will enjoy the lives of material prosperity, with wealth or luxury. Wealth is not an indication of blessedness. Several believers have experienced severe financial hardship, and many have even died from exposure, thirst, hunger, disease, and worse. So our conversations are without covetousness. Duties, work, earnings are good.
Gill comments: Conversations with covetousness leads to evil desire, practice defraud, immerse in over-anxious care for worldly things, express dissatisfaction in dealings. The reason for the mention of covetousness is, mentioned duties could not be performed aright, as brotherly love, hospitality, remembering and relieving persons in bonds, and adversity. Treasures earned and kept for self and hidden from useful to others.
According to Ellicott Conversation refers to the way of thought and life, character, disposition. Benson further explains it as our behavior, or manner of living to be without covetousness.
Jamieson-Fausset vouches with both of them as conversation as a manner of life. The love of filthy lust and the love of filthy lucre follow one another as closely akin, both alienating the heart from the Creator to the creature, detestable and deteriorating things of the earth. Cambridge Bible School Commentary writes the word conversation is not referring to the general talk but the spurning of the mind, turning the direction of the thoughts and ways of life (Ref:biblehub.com), motivation, cunnings, and vilest plans of life.
So Adam Clark says that means the manner of your life, disposition of your hearts about all your secular transactions be with spiritual clarity. The covetous man is ever running out of present realities into futurity with insatiable desires after secular good, and it increases as the subject of life increases in years. He never comes back, never gives up.
These kinds of evil conversations change purpose in life, attitude towards the ministry, and stop giving to Church. Yes, it is true, we have seen how people have changed their minds and attitude towards the Kingdom of God, ministries, and mission support. Because of their unprofitable and irreligious conversations.
That is why the author had started with good qualities of the Christian life. He wrote on in Chapter 13 about continuing on the brotherly love, showing hospitality, care for the abused, but avoid unscrupulous sexual relations.
The love of money creates an attachment to the present order that stands in the way of working toward the transformation of the world. It makes you retrieve yourselves from transforming ourselves into the image of God. Remember Paul’s advice in Romans 12:1-2. If money is the chief reason we take a job, start a company, run for office, join a church, choose our friends, invest our resources, spend our time, or find a mate, then we are not living by faith (Ref:theologyofwork.com). Then faith is not exercised, covetousness drives our lives.
2. Be Content with what you have (Hebrews 13:5.b)
The COVID-19 has made the world economy upside down. Lives of the rich and poor have affected alike. The money inflow and outflow have almost stopped. Money uses to go around in rotation, and it was circulating among the traders, vendors, and customers. Money, currency or dollars are necessary to meet the necessities of human life. So be content with present or such things, present riches or poverty, and present losses or crosses, reproaches and afflictions (ref:bibleref.com) Be satisfied or manage your needs accordingly. Plan properly to handle to live with what you have.
Contentment always works against envy and greed. Contentment plays as a significant key to life values and character. Character comes from the suffering of a man, as apostle James indicates in his epistle( James 1:2-4). Contentment resulted in conquering the lusts of the eyes, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life. Be satisfied with your circumstances (Darby Translation) or manner of living without conversations (21st C KJV). Have faith and move on (ASV). So let your character, your moral essence, your inner nature be free from the love of Money and shun greed and be financially ethical in life (Amplified Bible).
Contentment emerged as a product of peace that calms a troubled, striving soul. It lays a path to purity, and the one that rests in Christ is truly content. When money is the servant of man it can produce many good things whereas it becomes Head it becomes the root of all kinds of evil, it can spawn a covetous heart with a restless and discontented soul (ref: dailyverse.knowingjesus.com).
Mathew Henry comments: The discontentment is the result of an over-eager desire for the wealth of this world and envy on those who have more than ourselves. He further says that even some would not be content though God raised their condition.
God placed Adam and Eve in paradise, yet they had discontentment, Lucifer and his aides were in heaven with discontent, but apostle Paul was in an abased and empty state but lived with content.
Biblical Illustrator writes: The contentment and covetousness could not live together in the heart. When covetousness enters in, the content flees away from the heart. Being contentment is happiness.
Discontentment takes the three bitter roots and then grows in mind as pride, selfishness, and envy. If Providence can offer us the means of attaining a happier state, we could have embraced them. If not, why we are after those things in life.
Let us be content with present things, and make a more careful improvement of the blessings of Providence by the grace of God. Also, rejoice with them who over blessed over and above us. It is true benevolence. It is true wisdom.
The word things this life, such as, food, raiment, habitation, health, comfort, all those things which are necessary for our existence, for our convenience, and our comfort, according to our relative positions in society, and especially to the answering the end of our being, namely, doing good and glorifying God our heavenly Father (Ref:studylight.org).
Contentment is a gracious disposition of mind, whereby the Christian rests satisfied with that portion of the good things of this life which the wisdom of God assigns him, without complaining about self or envying on others.
3. Have Confidence in God (Hebrews 13:5.c)
‘I will never leave thee nor forsake thee’. The phrasing here might be a reference to God's promise to Joshua (Deuteronomy 31:6; Joshua 1:5). God will not leave his people nor withhold any good thing from them needful for them but will supply them with the necessities of lives. In fact, this was the promise given to Joshua for wars and battlefields. Now it is quoted for covetousness and daily cares.
Peter Pett: “In no way will I fail you, nor not at all will I in any way forsake you.” The word for fail reveals that he will never to let go off, nor to lose the grips on. God will never lose His grip on us (John 10:29). The word for forsake indicates, to abandon, to the desert. He will never abandon or desert us. Note the strong emphasis on the negatives. For God to fail or forsake us is an impossible task.
Though this promise is not a pledge given to the universe as a whole. It has spoken to the individual heart according to its various circumstances. This promise is the golden walls of protection and security for all who put their trust in God. I am sure if we are in Him, seek Him, he does not overlook us or neglect our needs. Because even if feeding mother forgets her child, he will not go unheard the cries of his saints.
John Trapp observes that the Greek here hath five negatives, and may thus be rendered, "I will not leave thee; neither will I not forsake thee." God may desert his people, but not disinherit them; forsake them concerning vision, not of union; change his dispensation, not his disposition. Only we must put this and other promises in the suit, by praying them over. God loves to be bound by his own words, to be sued by his bond. MacLaren comments to this verse: A voice and an echo - God’s voice of promises, and man’s voice of answer in confidence.
I want further emphasis here three voices we face in our faith life. We always struggle with the voice of God, promises of God, and with the voice of Satan as Adam and Eve had experienced, and as Christ narrated in the Good Samaritan discourse, added to that we have a third voice, the voice of unbelief. Yielding to one of the above voice modulates our character.
Bengal observes that this promise tantamount of the word given to Jacob (Genesis 28:15), to Moses and the nation of Israel (Deuteronomy 31:8), to King Solomon (1 Chronicle 28:20). So, this divine adage extended to all of us. He will neither withdraw His presence (“never leave thee”) nor His help (“nor forsake thee”). Until I complete the task through you until you complete the project until I bring you to heaven. Vincent’s words studies: the sense here is, I will in no wise give thee up, or let thee go, and I will not relax my hold on thee.
Sermon Bible Commentary: This word is sufficient because God has spoken it. This word is inspiring because it pledges the personal fellowship of God. This word is complete because it embraces all time. This word is condescending because it is personal in its application. This word is assuring, because it is redundant in its expression.
Conclusion:
So watch your conversations, Live with contentment, and Have confidence in God.
