What's the secret to true contentment?
Some believe it's attained by accumulating wealth or the newest luxuries. Others believe contentment can only be found in a simplified life with minimal possessions. Today on Truth for Life, Alistair Begg looks to the Apostle Paul's teaching for a biblical answer to that question. Invite you to turn with me again to First Timothy six and to the verses that we read. And our subject this morning is essentially contentment.
Contentment. What has been referred to as the rare jewel of Christian contentment. The preceding verses set the context for this instruction. We notice that the false teachers viewed godliness as a means to financial gain, and Paul was chiding them for this. Indeed, he was warning against this.
And he described these individuals as men of corruption. Their minds had been corrupted; they were warped as far as the truth of the gospel had been concerned, and they had begun to think that they could turn godliness to their own personal profit.
Now, having having introduced this notion of profit or of gain, he picks up on it with. Great wisdom and skill, and he says, if you want to think in terms of godliness and gain, let me suggest to you that you are actually half right, because he says there is a link between godliness and gain, and it is that which is present when godliness is accompanied by contentment. You don't have godliness apart from contentment, and you don't have contentment apart from godliness. These two elements are interwoven with one another.
Now, when we think this morning about contentment, what are we thinking about? Perhaps we can define it in this way: that contentment is a sense of satisfaction that results from having what one desires. Or from not desiring more than one has.
Now, the absence of such contentment is absolutely ruinous, and there are indications of this all around us. When we come to think in terms of contentment, if we are ever going to approximate to understanding it, believing it, and living it, then it is essential that we turn to this book. And what I would like to do is to consider with you just this concept. If you take notes, in my own notes I have a the concept. B is the contrast, which doesn't come till we get to verse nine with the people who want to get rich, and we won't get to verse nine this morning.
I'm pretty confident of that.
So we really have one point, and that is this concept of contentment. J.B. Phillips paraphrases verse six: There is a real profit, of course, but it comes only to those who live contentedly, as God would have them live. It is imperative that we understand that Paul is not suggesting here, for a moment, that contentment, as an ideal, is the key to life. And certainly is not suggesting that is the key to death.
Now, the reason I mention this is because it is fairly trendy to think in terms of contentment. It is not difficult to engage people in conversations these days, and they are very, very happy to talk about simplifying things. And they want to tell you about how they have been simplifying their lives, and how this particular guru or this particular philosophy or whatever it might be has led them to this process of simplification. It often leads them to organic farming and to stress-free living and to yoga and to a number of other things. But the fact is that in their desire for contentment, in the vast majority of cases, these individuals are not only disinterested in the gospel; they are radically opposed to the gospel.
And so, if we were to be so foolish as to fasten on the idea of contentment in abstraction from what the Bible teaches in relationship to godliness, then we may well find ourselves as bedfellows with Buddhists and Confucianists and Harry Krishnas and a whole list of other people united in a common quest for contentment. And especially a contentment that is discovered in simplifying our lives.
Now, there is no question that most of us could do well with simplifying our lives, and we'll come to that. But the point that I'm endeavoring to make is this: contentment and godliness are horse and cart; they go hand in hand. Paul has already distinguished in 1 Timothy 4:8 between physical values and spiritual values. He says physical training is of some value. But godliness has value for all things, and when we tackled those verses, we said how people say, "As long as you have your health, that's all that matters." And we said, "No, that's not all that matters, because a healthy body with a sick soul is a tragic thing." And so people will say, "Well, as long as you're contented, that's all that matters." No, it's not all that matters, because contentment and godliness are completely interwoven in the instruction of Scripture.
Now this is borne out when we realize that the word for contentment, which Paul is using here, autarchia, means essentially self sufficiency, and the Stoic philosophers made much of this word. Indeed, it was one of their favorite words because remember the Stoics, unlike the Epicureans, who were just immersing themselves in stuff. The Stoics found their life and lifestyle in distancing themselves from the surrounding environment, and so the apex for the Stoic was a sense of self-sufficiency, whereby they were removed from all of the clamor and from all of the clutter of stuff that was offered to them as a source of satisfaction.
Now Paul obviously recognizes this, and he picks up this word and he makes use of it. But we need to understand Paul as Paul makes himself understood. For Paul, contentment with godliness was not about self sufficiency; it was about Christ sufficiency. When he summarizes the life that he lives in just a few words in Philippians one twenty one, he says, "To me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain." He said, "If you want to understand my perspective on life, then you need to understand that my life is Christ, and Christ is my life. And when I face my death, Christ is my sufficiency." So we dare not read into this statement.
Late twentieth-century ideas of contentment, but rather we must understand that for the Christian, contentment involves submission to and delight in our heavenly Father's wise disposal. Isn't that what Jesus was teaching in Matthew chapter six when he says to these folks, "Don't worry about your life"? Why do you worry about your clothes? He says. Do you ever worry about your clothes?
Be honest. How many of you worried about your clothes this morning before you came to church?
Okay, fine. Jesus says, "Don't worry." Don't go around saying what are we going to eat, or what are we going to wear, or what are we going to drink. He says that's what pagans do; they run after all these things.
Now, notice this phrase: "Your heavenly Father knows you need them." I don't know if you underline in your Bible, but if you do, this is a good one to underline. "Your heavenly Father knows you need them." You see, the Christian worldview is that the Creator God did not simply create the world and take His hands off it. That's deism. He created the world and is organically involved in the world that he has made, and therefore he is interested in the affairs of his children. We have been intricately wrought in our mother's womb.
He has guarded and guided us through those that pilgrimage. Whatever lies beyond that, God remains sovereign in these things. And for the Christian, contentment is in recognizing Father knows best. The hymn writer puts it like this: Day by day, and with each passing moment, strength I find to meet my trials. There, trusting in my father's wise bestowment, what have I to worry or to fear?
Now, the way in which we will get to grips with this, says Paul, is by thinking about the fixed points in between which our lives are lived. Isn't that what he's saying here in verse seven? For we brought nothing into the world; that's our arrival, and we can take nothing out of it; that's our departure.
So you never understand contentment unless you put down these two fixed points: entry and exit. The Christian does not believe in reincarnation. We're not going around in a circle. We're not coming back as something else or someone else. We're heading for the exit.
The entry was planned. The exit is also planned. All the days of our lives are written in His book before one of them came to be. God is in charge of all of that.
Now says Paul: Think about godliness with contentment in light of these two poles. Think about your arrival, or think about the arrival of your children. I've been present for three natural births, and I've heard of countless others. And as of yet, I have not heard of a birth whereby an infant came into the world bringing packages—little, little Nordstrom bags and and little Bath and Body Works bags or stuff like that, little lipsticks and everything. Here I am.
It never happened. It doesn't happen.
Well, when they kind of got their bottoms smacked and woke up, were they disappointed to be without the Nordstrom's bags? No. They were totally satisfied to come squirting in, stark naked, into the provision that God had made for their helpless existence.
Now, Paul says, if you want to think contentment, think about your naked arrival. Isn't that what Job does, as he puts things to rights, as he opens his book? Despite all of his problems, he says, "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked I shall depart." He says, "Let's just put down the fix points here for a moment." You have the same thing when the writer of Ecclesiastes addresses the issues in Ecclesiastes five. I think it is. Yeah, verse fifteen.
Naked a man comes from his mother's womb, and as he comes, so he departs. He takes nothing from his labor that he can carry in his hand. All human beings made a satisfactory beginning to life without bringing any material stuff.
Now here it is: the wisdom of contentment has its basis, says Paul. In understanding our possessionless entry and exit, consider your exit. Are you planning on taking luggage? If you are, I suggest it's foolish, unless you're planning to build a mausoleum and surround yourself with all your toys and tributes to any apparent success you may care to boast in. But it will all rot.
No one will care. No one will visit. No one will know. Think, he says. Consider your exit.
All the stuff that we manage to amass in the journey through life, and it is considerable for each of us. All of that stuff has to be checked. At the toll booth of death, when you come to that toll booth, you leave everything behind, and you go through as you arrived, completely with nothing. There are no pockets in a shroud.
Now, when this dawns on the life of an individual, they are at least in the position to be able to think through to some sensible conclusions. In the ballad of John and Yoko Ono, there is a line that pops out as if from nowhere, and and and Lennon sings, "Last night the wife said, 'Oh boy, when you're dead, you can't take nothing with you but your soul.'" Now, where did that come from? Presumably, the two of them are sitting round at night, talking metaphysics, talking about life. Goodness gracious! They had all the money in the world and all the time in the world to talk about whatever they wanted to talk about.
She's one of the richest landowners at that point in New York City in terms of the Dakota Building and all the apartments that she has possessed. But she says to him, "Hey, John, when you go, you don't take anything." And it dawns on him, and he writes it down in the song. He then goes honeymooning down by the sea, and took the last train back from Paris, and so on, and on with his journey.
Now, while there are no pockets in a shroud, and while we arrive naked and we leave essentially naked, we don't live naked, and we don't live without pockets.
So the real issue is what goes in our pockets, because stuff does go in our pockets.
Well, that's where verse eight balances out verse seven. If we brought nothing into the war, we can take nothing out of it. Principle understood. But he says, if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. There are certain things we need to get through life.
One is shelter, and the other is food.
So that's what he's talking about. The word that is used for clothing speaks not only of the stuff that we would put immediately on our bodies, but speaks of the shelter in which we might live, as within a dwelling place. And he says, "So, if we have food and we have clothes, there is the basis of contentment." It's essentially what you have worked out so masterfully in the Jungle Book, right? You're all thinking of it already, aren't you? Bare necessities, the simple bare necessities.
That's what he's saying. Oh, you were thinking I'm the king of the swingers, the jungle VIP.
Sorry, that was the wrong one. No, bare necessities, the simple bare necessities. That's is that what he's saying here? If we have food and clothing, here is the basics for contentment.
Now, loved ones, you've got to get this. I have to get this. This is absolutely pivotal. Here in verse eight is the level. At which our expectations and consequently our contentment should be pitched.
This is the level of expectation for contentment, food and clothes. Contentment, not food and clothes plus, but food and clothes. We will be content with that, he says. Discontentedness in life, my discontentedness in life, is on account of being seduced into believing the the lie that a man's life consists in the abundance of his possessions. That's what Jesus says in Luke chapter twelve.
He says to his disciples, "Listen, if you want to think about a man's life, a man's life does not consist in the abundance of what he possesses." No matter how successful or how notorious my late father-in-law was within the Chrysler Corporation, he didn't take any of that with him. And what he left behind was a legacy in relationship to Christian things, in believing children, and in believing grandchildren, and in great grandchildren that will be nurtured in the framework of faith. It would have been a dreadful waste of sixty-nine years of a life, and some forty-three of them as a Christian life. Had he not at least begun to understand some of these things, godliness with contentment is great gain. He says the two things go together.
We brought nothing into the world; we're taking nothing out of it. Those are the fixed points. But he says, if we have food and clothes, we'll be content with that. My favorite illustration from literature of this comes from Jerome K. Jerome's little book, which I'm sure you all read regularly, called Three Men in a Boat.
It was actually published in 1889, and it's still in print.
So it's got to be a pretty good book if, after all these years, it is still in print. And it's the story—a humorous story, a little quaint for our years now—but the story of three men going down the Thames on a boat, and the preparations that they make for this journey. And when they meet together at the side of the river, the first thing that they determine they need to settle is what it is that they're going to take with them on their journey. And if you like to relax for just a moment, I'm going to read a little bit of the story to you. The first list we made out had to be discarded.
It was clear that the upper reaches of the Thames would not allow of the navigation of a boat sufficiently large to take the things we had set down as indispensable.
So we tore the list up and looked at one another. George said, "You know, we're on the wrong track altogether." We must not think of the things we could do with, but only of the things that we can't do without. George comes out really quite sensible at times. You'd be surprised. I call that downright wisdom, not merely as regards the present case, but with reference to our trip up the river of life generally.
So now we've got an analogy.
Okay? Says, let's not think about going down the Thames. Let's think about going down the river of life. Then he comments, "How many people on that voyage load up the boat till it is in danger of swamping with a store of foolish things which they think essential to the pleasure and comfort of the trip, but which are really only useless lumber. How they pile the poor little craft mast high with fine clothes, big houses, useless servants, and a host of swell friends that don't care tuppence for them, and that they don't care three ha'pence for." With expensive entertainments that nobody enjoys, I love that.
You know, you have to go to these things.
Well, I better not mention what it is, but anyway. And you're sitting in there after about seven minutes. You're gone. There can't be a soul in here enjoying this. We got to go for ice cream, but and you have to endure it to the end with expensive entertainments that nobody enjoys, with formalities and fashions, with pretense and ostentation, and with oh heaviest, maddest lumber of all, the dread of what will my neighbor think?
With luxuries that only cloy, with pleasures that are a bore, with empty show that, like the criminal's iron crown of yore, makes to bleed. And swoon the aching head that wears it. It is lumber, all lumber. Throw it overboard. It makes the boat so heavy to pull.
You nearly faint at the oars. It makes it so cumbersome and dangerous to manage. You never know a moment's freedom from anxiety and care. Never a moment's rest for dreamy laziness. No time to watch the windy shadows skimming lightly o'er the shallows.
Or the glittering sunbeams flitting in and out among the ripples, or the great trees by the margin looking down at their own image, or the woods all green and golden, or the lilies white and yellow, or the sombre waving rushes, or the sedges, or the orchids, or the blue forget-me-nots. Throw the lumber over, men. Let your bode of life be light, packed with only what you need: a homely home and simple pleasures, one or two friends worth the name, someone to love, someone to love you, a cat, a dog, and a pipe or two. I'm not editing this, and a pipe or two, enough to eat and enough to wear, and a little more than enough to drink. For thirst is a dangerous thing.
You will find the boat easier to pull then, and it will not be so liable to upset, and it will not matter so much if it does upset. See, that's the problem.
So we get so much crud that if it upsets, we can't we can't deal with the upset. Says, but if you do it this way, then even if it flips over, it won't be that big of a deal because you don't have that much junk on it. You will have time to think as well as to work, time to drink in life's sunshine, time to listen to the Aeolian music that the wind of God draws from the human heartstrings around us. Time to—I beg your pardon—he says—I really quite forgot myself. But there it is.
Now there isn't a person in this room right now. Who doesn't feel themselves pulled and pushed and moved by this? There can be. I mean, if you if you do not, then you you're in you have some issues you need to deal with. You're in need of treatment.
We're listening to Truth for Life with Aleister Beg. You'll hear more about godliness with contentment tomorrow. Clearly, the Bible's definition of contentment is countercultural. Of course, Jesus' teaching often is. Imagine being in the crowd for his sermon on the plain when he commanded his listeners to love their enemies.
That was a shocking command back then, and it's no less challenging for us today.
So, how can Jesus' teaching transform the way we live, and love, and respond to others?
Well, today on Truth for Life, we're offering a free ebook and a study guide. It's Alister's book, *The Christian Manifesto: Jesus' Life-Changing Words from the Sermon on the Plain*. And in this book, Alister walks you through the lessons found in Luke chapter six. As you read, you'll learn why Jesus calls us to be generous and kind and forgiving, even to those who hurt us. You can download your free ebook and study guide today at truthforlife.org/manifesto, and then share that link with family and friends so that together you can learn how to live lives that are truly satisfying and that will make a difference.
Incidentally, if you ever have the opportunity to travel to the places where biblical events actually happened, you find it changes the way you see Scripture. That's exactly what you'll experience when you join Alister for the Journeys of Paul Mediterranean Cruise in 2027. And to learn more or book your cabin, visit deeperfaithcruise.com. I'm Bob Lapine. We're glad you studied God's Word with us today.
Tomorrow we'll learn why it's possible to feel empty, whether you're in poverty or have everything in the world. The Bible teaching of Aleister Beg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.
