Have you ever really wanted something? I mean wanted something so badly that you could taste it, so bad that you thought your life would be empty and meaningless until you got it. Maybe it was a certain toy growing up, or a certain kind of car, or a relationship, maybe even a motorcycle. As you looked at the object of your desire, you realized that you’d never rest until you had it. Have you ever felt that way?
Have you ever had the experience of finally getting what you’d wanted for so long? At first it feels so good, but gradually the newness starts to wear off. Pretty soon we start seeing imperfections in what we once thought was perfect. If it’s a toy, it breaks the day after Christmas. If it’s a car, it breaks down, and the warranty doesn’t cover the repairs. If it’s a relationship, we gradually start seeing that person’s character flaws and idiosyncrasies. Soon we realize that having whatever it was that we couldn’t live without isn’t all we thought it would be.
I’ve lived that story again and again in my life, and I’m sure you probably have too. When I was a child it was a new toy, perhaps a G. I. Joe or a bike or a skateboard. During my high school years it was having a girlfriend, thinking that if I just went out with the right person, my life would be complete. As an adult it’s been being at the right ministry, getting the fastest computer, having the right home, or even buying a motorcycle.
You know exactly what I’m talking about don’t you? Dissatisfaction with what we have is an American epidemic. Perhaps its an epidemic we’re susceptible to because we live in the most affluent society in the history of the human race. Dissatisfaction is an epidemic that’s carefully fed by the advertising industry, as it promises us again and again that our dissatisfaction will disappear if we just buy this or that product. We all know those advertising promises aren’t really true, but something deep inside our soul that’s not rational cries out, "Maybe this will make my restlessness go away." Dissatisfaction is what leads husbands to leave their wives after fifteen years of marriage; it’s what tempts people to max out their credit cards to buy new clothes.
This restlessness inside of each of us is especially strong at Christmas. I read an editorial in Newsweek two weeks ago that made this exact same point (Anna Quindlen, "Honestly--You Shouldn’t Have NEWSWEEK 12/3/01 p. 76). The author of the editorial Anna Quindlen pointed out that our nation has more malls than it has high schools, that we as Americans spend more time shopping than we do reading. The author concludes, "The holidays should be a time to honor our best values, not a time to muffle them in layers of stuff."
Muffled in layers of stuff…what a graphic description of American life today. Perhaps this is one reason why so many people get depressed during the holidays and why marriages start showing the signs of strain and stress. So this third weekend of advent as we light the candle of joy, we’re going to talk about keys to contentment. We’re going to look at three areas where we struggle with dissatisfaction, and how our relationship with God can help us find contentment where we feel restless and dissatisfied.We’ve been in a series through the New Testament books of 1 and 2 Timothy called Deepening Your Life With God. Today we’re going to look at 1 Tim 6:1-10 as we talk about keys to contentment.
1. Dissatisfaction With Your Job (1 Timothy 6:1-2)
We’re going to start by talking about dissatisfaction with our jobs. According to a recent Gallup poll, that describes about one out of five working Americans. You know you’re dissatisfied with your job when you feel exhausted after every single day, when you find new work assignments frustrating, when you find yourself taking longer and longer breaks. You find yourself regularly checking the want ads and updating your resume.
The verses we’re going to look at first deal with the relationship between slaves and masters. At first it’s hard to see how a passage from the Bible dealing with slaves and masters is relevant to our jobs, so let me talk about that for a minute. In the Roman empire when the New Testament was written, one-third of the people in the Roman workforce were slaves. You see, slavery in the ancient world wasn’t based on race like it was in our nation’s history. Instead, most people went into slavery for mostly economic reasons, because they couldn’t pay their debts. For most slaves, slavery was temporary, just until the person could pay off their bills. Some people liked the security of slavery and simply choose to spend their entire lives as slaves. Some people became slaves to advance their social standing because you could get an education as a slave that you often couldn’t afford on your own. Upon release, an emancipated slave could advance in Roman society, even becoming an Roman senator.
Now the Bible never condones slavery, but it also doesn’t condemn slavery. Instead, the Bible assumes that slavery will be a reality in most societies, and so it regulates slavery to make it more humane. The Old Testament law made provision for the emancipation of slaves after seven years of slavery. So the Bible assumes that slavery is a part of the sinful world, and it tries to regulate it, to make it more humane.
Slaves occupied the very bottom level of the workforce. Slaves truly worked dead end jobs, and even though slavery was often temporary, slaves were at the bottom of the ladder economically. So I don’t think it’s a leap to apply the principles between slaves and masters to people in their jobs, even though our jobs are voluntary.
Now with that said, look at vv. 1-2. Two situations are envisioned in these two verses. The first is a Christian slave who works for a non-Christian. Continuing the theme of "honor" from chapter 5, Paul tells Christian slaves to treat their non-Christian masters as worthy of full respect, or honor. The reason for this command is to prevent God’s reputation from being dragged through the mud by the slave. Should a Christian slave treat the non-Christian master in a disrespectful manner, that would slander God’s reputation in the eyes of the non-Christian master. Paul is thinking about the salvation of the slave owner, that its possible that the Christian slave is the only Christian close enough to the slave owner to share the good news of Jesus with him.
The second situation envisioned in these two verses is a Christian slave who works for a Christian. Because the slave-master distinction was broken down in the Christian church, it was entirely possible for a master to attend a church where one of his or her slaves was a leader. You see, in worship, when the church met, there was no distinction between slaves and free people. Perhaps this was leading some Christian slaves to stop working as hard for their Christian masters. Perhaps they were getting lazy or showing disrespect, perhaps expecting special treatment. So Paul urges them to work all the harder, because their service will benefit a fellow believer in Jesus. Not only will it benefit a fellow believer, but because of the Christian calling to love other Christians, their service is an expression of Christlike love to the master.
So here we find the key to dealing with dissatisfaction with our job. Contentment can be found in viewing your work as service to God.
How do you see your job? Every Monday millions of followers of Jesus Christ go to work without ever giving the slightest thought to what God thinks about what they do. Most of us will spend more time working than doing anything else in our lives. Isn’t God concerned about what we do with all that time and energy? Does God care about selling insurance or repairing cars? Is God interested in computer networks, building houses, and making movies? Most Christians have never even asked the question.
You see, most Christians view their jobs as a necessary evil. They see their job as a kind of toil that they must experience so they can do the things they really want to do. Things like spend time with their family, go to the beach for the weekend, and so forth.
But God created us to work; labor is a part of God’s intention for us. The entrance of sin into our world made work more of a toil for sure, but work in itself is not a result of sin. In the book of Genesis, Adam was told to take care of the garden long before sin entered into the equation. There are over 230 different occupations mentioned in the Bible because God cares about our labor.
Part of our service of God is our job, whether it’s digging ditches, being a factory foreman, or selling clothes. We serve God in our jobs when we communicate God’s character through the quality of our work and the quality of our workplace relationships. That’s why Paul’s especially concerned about Christian employees with non-Christian bosses.You might be the only real Christian your boss has ever met, and how you treat your boss, how you do your job, and how you interact with your co-workers all communicate your commitment to Jesus Christ.
When we have a Christian boss, we should work even harder because it becomes even clearer that this is service to God. Unfortunately, I know lots of Christian business owners who prefer to not hire fellow Christians. The reason is that often a Christian employee thinks that he or she doesn’t have to work as hard, that they’ll get special breaks because they share a common faith with the boss. Paul would say working for a Christian boss means we should work all the harder, seeing our work as an expression of Christian love to our boss.
Are you dissatisfied with your job? Maybe the job isn’t the problem. Maybe you haven’t yet learned to view your job as service to God.
Now this isn’t to say that we shouldn’t get a better job if we can. In 1 Corinthians, one of Paul’s other letters, he encourages slaves to gain their freedom if they can, to move on to better kinds of employment. But even in the midst of a dead end job we can find contentment if we look at our job as our service to God.
Before I came on staff here at the church I worked in the mental health field for ten years. The last few years I worked at a psychiatric hospital. I like to tell people that it was great preparation for working in a church! Just kidding. I worked the graveyard shift because I was going to school full-time during the day. I reached a point where I hated my job, and I yearned to leave my "secular" job so I could really serve God by being on staff at a church. I prayed and prayed, asking God to please take me out of this dead end job that I’d grew to hate and into what I thought of as real ministry at a church. God spoke to my heart that until I could see my job as real service to God, he wouldn’t open any church doors for me. I had to learn this lesson first, and only then could I move into a church based job.
Do you view your job as service to God?
2. Dissatisfaction With Our Faith (1 Timothy 6:3-5)
The second kind of dissatisfaction is dissatisfaction with your faith. Now for people trapped in false religious ideas, dissatisfaction with their faith can lead them out of spiritual darkness and into spiritual light. What I’m thinking of here is genuine Christians who’ve grown dissatisfied with his or her Christian faith. I see this especially with people raised in Christian homes, people who’ve heard all the Bible stories since they were preschoolers. They’ve heard dozens of sermons on every Christian theme. For many of these people, familiarity has bred contempt.
When you’re dissatisfied with your faith, you become especially vulnerable to false ideas about God. If you feel as if your faith stale, the idea that someone might have something new and fresh to say about God can be very alluring. This is why it’s said that the cults are the unpaid bills of the church. You see non-Christian cults are especially attractive to a person who was raised in a Christian home but who’s grown dissatisfied with his or her faith.
Look what the Bible has to say about those who are dissatisfied with their faith in vv. 3-5. False doctrines are contrasted with "sound instruction" and "godly teaching." The Greek word translated "sound" in v. 3 is a medical word that means "healthy," and it refers to anything that promotes health and wellness, in this case spiritual health. So sound instruction is teaching about Jesus promotes spiritual health in our lives.
The phrase "godly teaching" in v. 3 refers to teachings about how to be a godly person. We’ve encountered this word "godly" before in 1 Timothy, and it refers to a God-centered life. So "godly teaching" is any teaching that instructs us in how to live a God-centered life.
The false teacher, in contrast, gives unsound instruction and ungodly teaching. This person is puffed up with him or her own importance. The "unhealthy interest in controversies" in v. 4 is a deliberate contrast with the "sound instruction" of v. 3. The word "unhealthy" literally means "sick" and it’s the opposite of the word "sound" in v. 3. This sick, morbid interest in debates and controversies leads to a break down in relationships. So rather than promoting authentic Christian community, these teachings destroy community.
Those with a sick interest in controversies are obsessed with the latest fad to sweep through the church. In the church in Ephesus it was over the Jewish dietary laws, while in our day it might be controversies over the rapture of the church or keeping the Sabbath or whether the tension in the middle east is a signal that Christ is about to return. This morbid obsession with controversies tears apart churches.
We learn here that the false teachers in Ephesus were out to get rich from religion. They were also teaching their followers that their new teaching will help them get rich too (Marshall 642). This reminds me of those preachers who proclaim the prosperity message in so many churches today. These preachers claim that God’s will is for every follower of Jesus to be wealthy. These preachers drive a Rolls Royce, wear Rolex watches, and flaunt their wealth because in their mind wealth is a sign of godliness, while poverty is a sign of ungodliness. They teach that godliness is a means to financial gain, just like the false teachers in Ephesus addressed here.
Here we find the key to dealing with dissatisfaction with our faith. Contentment can be found in cultivating accurate beliefs and spiritual practices.
Think of your soul as being like a garden. That garden needs constant care, for the weeds to be pulled, to be watered, to be nurtured and cared for. If you neglect the garden, weeds will grow, flowers will become uprooted, and eventually the garden will wither and die from lack of nourishment. If we don’t cultivate our souls constantly, that’s what happens to us. Our faith become stale, which makes us vulnerable to false doctrines and unhealthy controversies. When our faith grows stale, our prayers feel futile, our reading of the Bible meaningless. Our worship feels empty, our relationships with other Christians feel superficial, our service to God joyless.
All of these are signs that our garden is drying up. We cultivate our garden with accurate beliefs. These are the beliefs about God and about ourselves rooted in what the Bible clearly says, rather than speculation and controversies. Without continuing to draw accurate beliefs from the Bible, our garden grows sick and withers. Hopefully these beliefs are grounded in our weekend worship services and in the various classes and seminars we offer in our church.
We also cultivate our garden by engaging in daily spiritual practices. These are the daily habits we build into our lives to cultivate our garden, practices like Bible reading, prayer, tithing, and so forth. We teach people five of these spiritual practices in our "Discovering Spiritual Maturity" (201) seminar that Pastor Bruce teaches.
We deal with dissatisfaction with our faith by cultivating accurate beliefs and spiritual practices.
3. Dissatisfaction With Our Income (1 Timothy 6:6-10)
Finally we come to dissatisfaction with our income. This is perhaps where we struggle the most when it comes to discontentment, especially during the Christmas season. As we look at all the gifts we’d like to buy and the gifts we’d like to receive, we become aware of how much we can and can’t afford.
Now honestly, most of us don’t think of ourselves as wealthy. Surveys have found that people tend to look at those who make exactly double of whatever they make as rich, regardless of their income level. So someone who makes $30,000 a year thinks of someone who makes $60,000 as rich. And those who make $50,000 think of the wealthy as those who make $100,000, and those who make $100,000 as those who make $200,000. Even billionaire Ted Turner struggles with dissatisfaction with his income. He said recently, "It’s all relative. I sit down and say, ’I’ve got $10 billion, but Bill Gates has $100 billion; I feel like a complete failure in life" (People 6/12/00 p. 62).
When we think about money, most of us reflect the attitude of that old Pink Floyd song "Money." "Share it fairly, but keep your hands of my stack."
People will do incredibly immoral and bizarre things for money. They’ll go on the Jerry Springer show and expose sick and bizarre secrets to voyeuristic viewers for a quick buck. We see teenagers rob a liquor store to buy an expensive pair of tennis shoes. Business people will sacrifice their health, their family and their dignity to get that six figure income. Yet it’s never enough.
Look what the Bible says about dissatisfaction with our income in vv. 6-10. Godliness holds great advantage in our lives if it’s accompanied by true contentment. The Greek word "contentment" refers to feeling satisfied with what you have in life. Contentment isn’t simply giving up and saying, "Well I guess this is my lot in life." Contentment goes much deeper, and its much more positive than mere surrender to fate. Contentment is not obsessing about having more, but being secure in what you have today, even if it’s not everything you want. Contentment is able to distinguish between what we really need--like food and shelter--and what we want, like motorcycles and recreational vehicles.
The implication of v. 6 is that a God-centered life brings true contentment into our lives. A God centered life fills that empty place in our soul that that advertisers exploit. Only a God centered life can fill that empty place.
Paul reminds us that all of us have an appointment with death. And when death does come, we can’t take our money or our possessions with us. We enter into the world broke, completely dependant on the generosity of our parents. In our lives we accumulate lots of stuff, make some money, and have a family, but when we leave, we leave alone. None of our possessions go with us.
I heard about a rich man who was determined to take his wealth with him (Russell 88). He told his wife to get all his money together, put it in a sack, and then hang the sack from the rafters in the attic. He said, "When my spirit is caught up to heaven, I’ll grab the sack on my way." Well he eventually died, and the woman raced to the attic, only to find the money still there. She said, "I knew I should’ve put the sack in the basement."
People who are driven to get rich fall into temptation. This is why it’s so difficult for a wealthy person to become a follower of Jesus Christ, not because having money is unspiritual, but because the desire to get rich plunges us into a lifestyle that’s inconsistent with following Jesus. People do desperate things to get rich, things that lead to ruin, both in this life and in the life to come.
Verse 10 is an often misquoted verse. Paul is not saying that money is the root of all evil. Money is no more than a symbol, currency made of paper and metal, nothing more. There’s nothing inside the paper or the metal that’s inherently unspiritual or evil.
It’s the love of money, devotion to getting more and more money that is a root of all kinds of evil. Paul is saying that a drive to get rich is a source of all kinds of evil behavior. If you don’t believe it, read the LA Times this next week and put a check next to every article about someone who did something immoral to get more money.
Apparently some of the members of the church in Ephesus had abandoned their faith in Jesus because they were eager to get rich. Now I’m sure they didn’t come to church one day and announce, "I’ve decided I don’t want to follow Jesus anymore because I want to get rich instead." Instead, they’ve wandered away their pursuit of more and more stuff, more and more money, they’ve gradually drifted away from Jesus.
So here we find how to deal with dissatisfaction with your income. Contentment can be found in focusing on what’s most important in life.
It’s been said, "Money will buy you a bed but not sleep. It will buy you books but not intelligence, food but not an appetite, a house but not a home, medicine but not health, amusement but not happiness, religion but not salvation--[money will buy you] a passport to anywhere in the world except to heaven."
What’s most important in your today? Is it the value of your stocks or the kind of car you drive? Is it the amount of money you spend on your kids at Christmas? Or is it the quality of your relationships? Is it knowing that God loves you deeply and has rescued you from sin by bringing you to Jesus? What is most important?
When we’re hooked by our culture’s advertising industry, we need to remind ourselves what’s most important. This is one reason why is so important for us to celebrate Advent each year the four weeks leading up to Christmas. The messages our culture sends us about Christmas poisons our hearts, robbing us of contentment. Our culture fans the flame of dissatisfaction, luring us to spend more than we have, to indulge ourselves, to measure our value by the limit on our credit card. And so we come each weekend, poisoned by our culture’s materialism, needing the antidote of advent. We come needing to refocus, to remember what’s most important. We find contentment with our level of income by focusing on what’s most important.
Conclusion
These are the keys to contentment. But like any key, these keys do us no good unless we use them to unlock God’s promised contentment. This is why so many Christians are dissatisfied with their jobs, with their faith, and with their income, because they’ve been given these keys, but they haven’t used them. We unlock contentment today by deciding to view our work as service to God, by deciding to cultivate our soul with accurate beliefs and spiritual practices, and finally by deciding to focus on what’s really important in life. Will you do that today?
Imagine being on a beach, and God asking you to make an elaborate sandcastle on the beach. Imagine that this sandcastle is your life: your job, your accomplishments, your achievements, your bank account, your home. So you build it. As you finally finish, you stand back to look at your beautiful sand castle, the life you’ve built for yourself. But just as you do, the waves begin to touch the base of the castle. Soon the waves are destroying your castle, as you see all you’ve worked for, all you’ve poured your life into, turn back into sand. You cry out, "Stop. It’s my castle" and you try to stop the waves, but the ocean is far too powerful. But then you remember, you only built the castle because God asked you to. Which is more important? The castle you’ve built or God who you were trying to please by building the castle? That’s the question we need to ask ourselves every day, especially this third weekend of advent.
Sources
Marshall, I. H. The Pastoral Epistles. International Critical Commentary. T. & T. Clark, 1999.
Russell, Bob. Money: A User’s Manual.
