Starting on the 19th of February, we're starting, which will be the first and the third Wednesday going forward of each month, we're starting a Bible study here called the Word and Way. 6. 30 for a seven o'clock start. All are welcome to come. I think we're going to start with the book of Philippians because that is very much on my heart right now and I will be leading it in case you're wondering. And so it is going to be a place.
And this is very important people, not just to fill your heads with more information about the Bible, because there is a plethora of that out there in the wonderful world, but it is a space to chew on the word of God. together, to marinate in it together, that it would deeply form us and transform us, that we would be drawn into deeper relationship with God as we study His word together. And that word together is very important.
It won't just be me downloading a bunch of information, we're going to learn about it. together, because we each bring something unique and important to the picture, hey? So you're all welcome, and we're just gonna, you know, start it and see how it goes, hey? Wonderful! All right, let's get into our new theme, which is generosity. Giving is the good life. Yeah, I knew Chris. I knew if I waited long enough, Chris would pipe in.
Let's begin by looking at our scripture for this morning, which is 1 Timothy 6, 2 to 12 and 7 to 19. Okay, so just a little bit of context. Paul is writing to Timothy here. He has sent Timothy into Ephesus. There's some really dodgy teaching going on for the church in that part of the world. Paul's caught wind of it. He's sending Timothy in to correct. this false teaching. And a part of this false teaching is around the idea that, the pursuit of godliness can lead to great wealth and riches.
Turns out prosperity gospel is not a new thing, people. It's always been a thing. So he writes, these are the things you are to teach and insist on. If anyone teaches otherwise and does not agree to the sound instruction of our Lord Jesus Christ and to godly teaching. They are conceited and understand nothing.
They have an unhealthy interest in controversies and quarrels about words that result in envy, strife, malicious talk, evil suspicions and constant friction between people of corrupt mind who have been robbed of the truth and who think that godliness is a means to financial gain. The 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.
Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful Desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil Some people eager for money have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs But you, man of God, flee from all of this and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, and gentleness. Fight the good fight of the faith.
Take hold of the eternal life to which you were called when you made your good confession in the presence of many witnesses. Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant, nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share.
In this way, they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the life that is truly. life. And so really what this series about can be found in that last little bit there. So that we pursue a life of generosity in Christ, so that we are able to take hold of the good life, so that we are able to live the abundant life that Christ gain, came to give us. Simply, we cannot take hold of the abundant life of Christ.
We cannot take hold of the good life unless we become a people of deep and profound generosity. And this is a big part of what Paul is saying here. His intent in writing to Timothy, in writing to the church in Ephesus here. And these words ring just as true for us today as they did for the original audience. Because at the bottom line, it doesn't matter who you are in this world, everybody wants the good life.
We all have different opinions on what it might be, different faith traditions, different world views. But everybody is living, seeking, wanting, desiring to take hold of life. That is truly life to take hold of the good life. The paradoxically what Jesus and what scripture teach is that the good life it's not found in grasping and taking as our Western materialistic culture teaches and infuses into us, the good life is found.
In a life of generosity, in a life of sacrificial and abundant and free and cheerful giving. True life, the good life, isn't found in the abundance of wealth and possessions, is what Jesus himself says. But it's found in generosity. It's found in sharing of what we have. In the free and joyful giving of what we have. Billy Graham once said if a person gets his attitude toward money straight, it will help straighten out almost every other area in their life. That's a big claim, isn't it?
But if you ponder it, I think he's really onto something there. Such is the nature of money. Such is the power of money. And it's why Jesus talked about it so much as well. If a person gets his attitude toward money straight, it will help straighten out almost every other area in his life. Mmm. Yes. Just chew on that. But still listen to me at the same time. Some of you here Got your attitude pretty straight, okay?
We are, generally speaking, a pretty generous bunch of people here at the Red Door. But you know what? Some of you don't. Some of you got some attitude problems here. And you know what? I'm not saying that with any sense of guilt, shame or condemnation, yeah? We are all somewhat, I imagine, on some kind of spectrum here towards a life of deepening generosity. But regardless of where you sit, money is something that we must, must talk about.
And regularly be willing to examine our own relationship with, because it has such power. And particularly in the materialistic culture in which we live. It has a great power to deceive and to corrupt. And the problem is we often underestimate just how much. And that is the deceiving nature of money. It convinces us that it's not that powerful, that it's not that important, that we are all good.
It subtly convinces us that we're not, you know, I guess compromising our integrity and our faithfulness to Jesus. It is powerfully seductive and this is why we need to constantly be checking ourselves and our relationship with money and how we're going with it before the Word of God. And so this series isn't about making anyone feel guilty or condemned so that you give more. Okay, there is no bait and switch going on here.
At the end of the day, I couldn't give a flying fig how much money you gave. Ultimately, it is about your heart before God. That is the thing that is of ultimate importance. But what Scripture so clearly teaches is you cannot love money and love God simultaneously. And so there's a very great opportunity in this series I think for some of us who perhaps have some anxious feelings around money, who perhaps have fallen into the trap of loving and worshipping money.
There is the potential for you to experience a very great liberation. As you come before the word of God and what the word of God has to teach on this subject So why does taking hold of the good life? Why does taking hold of life that is truly life even really matter? It's said in this passage That God richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.
You know, God loves you and God wants you to enjoy life Sometimes I think we can fall under this assumption if we're going to be serious Christians, then we've got to have franny little faces and be very serious about everything and be very burdened and be constantly looking at where everyone is not doing the right thing. And we can like, it's little curmudgeons, right? And that's not how God wants us to live, okay? God wants us to enjoy this beautiful life.
Yes, should we carry burdens for the missions of God in this world that he has called us to? Absolutely. But that doesn't mean we have to have poo faces about it. That doesn't mean we can't have joy in the moment and enjoy the abundance that He has blessed us with. When you take hold of the good life, what happens? You become a beautiful and powerful vessel for others to taste and see and receive life that is truly life.
You become a conduit for it, a beautiful conduit of God's good blessings in this world. That's a pretty fun place to be. But when you're enslaved and you're ensnared and you're poisoned by a love of money, you become excluded from taking hold of the good life and sharing it with others. And I know this sounds extreme, but this is what this passage actually testifies to. You actually, rather than be an instrument of good in the world, you become an instrument of evil.
Ooh, that's a big claim, isn't it? And the reason why we step back from a claim like that is because in our minds we take the word evil and we think of an evil person and we think of somebody who's a serial killer or who does these overt, violent, vicious, malicious acts. But think of it this way, to have an abundance, to have enough to be able to bless another person, to make a difference in their world, to alleviate their suffering, to have enough.
But out of greed or fear of lack or love of money to withhold that good, that is to participate in the ways of evil. Yeah, you might not be actively engaging in a malicious act towards another person, but you are withholding good, and that is to participate with the forces of evil in this world. And again, this is not to shame, guilt, condemn, but this is just to shine light on the ways that we can be deceived in this area of money.
So imagine, imagine for a moment with me, if greed was suddenly eliminated from the human heart of every person on the planet. Everybody was suddenly abundantly content with having enough, and there was a freedom and a rest in that. And then they were so free to go, Oh, you have a need? Well here, I have an abundance. Come share what I have. Oh my gosh! The suffering that would be eliminated across the face of the earth if greed ceased to be a thing.
A contentment came upon every human heart and pushed out every inclination towards greed to grasp and to hold and to keep for oneself. Oh, it's quite powerful. John Mark Comer in his Practicing the Way series on generosity, which I can highly recommend. And if you haven't, as we do go through this series, if you feel a bit of a conviction in this space, you think this is something I need to pursue more in my life. This practice of generosity, this posture of generosity, a heart of generosity.
I would just Google it, practicing the way generosity, the teaching is really, really great. But he says there's a key task of our apprenticeship to Jesus. If you would call yourself a Christian in this place this morning, you are an apprentice to Jesus, a follower of Jesus, learning how to become more like Jesus, learning to do what he did in the world, to be how he was in the world. One of the key tasks as apprentices of Jesus is to discover the joy of living a generous life.
Have you discovered the joy of living a generous life? Some of you have, right? You love it. It is your very great joy to be a giver. But some of you, you're still not quite convinced. You're still kind of holding on to those purse strings, to money, to wealth, possessions. And again, as I said before, there is a very great opportunity through this series, I believe, if that is you.
If money has a hold on you in a way that is not good or godly or life giving, there is liberation for you as you come before the Word of God. So the theme of today's message is this, I'm going to talk about greed and contentment. And so how contentment protects us from the prison of greed, frees us to live a life of cheerful generosity, and enables us to take hold of the life that is truly life, the abundant life that Jesus died to give us.
So let's begin by looking at some questions to probe and tenderize our hearts. Fun? Okay, again, not condemnation, not shame. Curiosity. Okay. So let's approach these questions here with curiosity. Okay. This is not a, Oh, I'm so bad. I'm such a bad Christian. All right. That kind of posture is never going to motivate you into godliness. All right.
All we got to do is be curious about what's going on in our internal world and then bring it before God where we see it's out of alignment without guilt, shame or condemnation. Okay. God already knows anyway. So what is your primary feeling about money? Even as we've started talking about now and we've talked about generosity, have you started to tighten up? Um, so is it fear? Is it anxiety? Is there guilt around money? Is there shame around money for you? Is there desire?
If you're, if you're really honest, really honest, okay, and I'll say this as well, because we're really good at this, you know, the hardest deceitful above all else, really good at answering questions like this about, in response to, I guess, how we would like to be perceived, rather than how we truly are, and that gets us nowhere either. Just be honest. Okay, if you've got an issue with money, just Yeah, no, I've, I've got an issue with it. It's not great.
Okay, and then we, then you can move on from there. Would you say that you have an abundance or a scarcity mindset? Okay. What is the story your financial world tells about where you believe the good life is found? Because your spending and your savings and your debt tell a story about what you believe about the good life. Mmm, think about that one. All right, next. Do you trust God to provide all your needs? You know, in, in full transparency, this is a big one for me. I don't.
So this has been very confronting and challenging for me. I found there is, there is places I don't naturally trust God to supply all my needs. I feel like I have to supply some of them myself because I don't know that I can fully, that, Fully trust that God's got me. Okay, in all honesty. Yeah, and so this series is good for me, too. Yeah, I do not have this nailed people, not by any stretch. So do you find yourself wanting more money than what you currently have?
How many of you do the lotto fantasy game? Oh, no, but I give a lot of it away. Hmm. Yep. Okay. Anyway, just ponder it without guilt, shame or condemnation. Just curiosity. If you do, Why is what you currently have not enough? That's a fun question, isn't it? Why is what you have, if you're always thinking I need more, why is what you have not enough? If you have food and clothing enough, as Paul wrote to Timothy in that passage we just read, why is that not enough?
How comfortable would you be to allow a trusted friend to view your finances? Like, would you, you know, happy to, somebody to come along? If we knocked on your door, Adam and Dale, would you show us your budget? Ha ha ha, ooh, the nervous laughter. But we should be willing to, right?
We should be willing to, if there's no guilt, shame or condemnation, if our identity and our salvation is not attached to this, and money is a very dangerous thing, we should be inviting other people into our financial world as an act of safety and protection of our own hearts. But are we willing to? Are we willing to? This is good, isn't it? Poke, prod, tenderise, smash, mash, mash. Again, curiosity, not condemnation.
All right, so let's look at the trap of greed for a moment that, Paul talks about as he writes to Timothy. So 1 Timothy 6, 6 to 10. Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people eager for money have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many many griefs. So what exactly is greed?
A greed, greed is an insatiable desire for material gain, for more than one needs. It's a desire to accumulate money, power, security to such a degree that it can supersede moral integrity. And even one's spiritual integrity, again when we talk about greed, it can be a slippery thing because in our minds we imagine somebody that's greedy, they writhe around on a bed of cash and you know, they hug their money and they just, you know, we, we go to extremes, right? But it is this lust.
For money, for possessions. And it can be subtle, it doesn't always look overt. And it's often revealed in moments of testing. Have I shared my Audi story with you guys before? I know I shared it in youth, but I don't know if I shared it in church. Okay, so towards the end of last year, I met Audi, just because, you know, I love Audi. Um, good different, right? Good different. And anyway. Go through the checkout, and, you know, that's an experience, isn't it?
Whew, whew, whew, whew, anxiety inducing. Um, and, um, obviously it was a new girl on checkout, and she was very flustered, and didn't really seem to know what she's doing, and anyway. I paid, and just had a feeling that, I just thought I better check, so I get home, I check my receipt, and it says on the receipt that I paid 100 cash. I was like, I did not pay cash. I tapped. Okay, I checked my credit card. It didn't go through my credit card. It's like over 100 worth of groceries, right?
So suddenly the little, little devil appears on the shoulder, goes, Ooh! 100 of free groceries! Winner, winner, chicken dinner! And then the other little thing pops up, little angel, the conviction. You go, is your integrity worth that? What are you going to do about that? What about that poor checkout girl? Clearly it was her first shift. Her till is not going to reconcile by over a hundred dollars. That's not going to reflect well on her. What might the consequences for her be?
And so there's a moment of testing, right? What are you going to get into? The voice of greed? Or the conviction and the integrity of the spirit. And then we have these little moments of testing, don't we? So even if it's just a few bucks of missed, you know, change, you've paid for something and you get more back, what are you going to do? You're just going to quietly take it as a win? What about your tax return? How, what do you do there? Are you completely integrous with what you claim?
Or do you go, Oh, no one will ever notice. I'm just going to claim a bit extra. Oh, not as a Christian. You do not do that, my friends. No. We are witnesses in this world. Do not give into that. It is not worth selling your integrity for a few extra bucks that you can't even take with you when you die. Yet, how often are we tempted, the seduction of it in the moment, to take it as a little win? And we've sacrificed our integrity and our witness in that moment.
And again, this is not to shame or condemn, this is just to shine light on the truth of the seductive nature of money and greed. Alright, and again, what is important to note with all of this, it's not saying that money and material comforts and possessions are a bad thing. and that enjoying them is a bad thing. Alright, we can easily hear that, can't we? We think, we can think that's some kind of virtue in poverty.
Alright, a person in poverty is no more virtuous in and of themselves than a person who has wealth. Yeah? Because a person who has, who is in poverty can still last after money just as much as somebody who has wealth. Yeah, it's not a matter of whether you have money or not. It's all about your posture towards it. So the warning is, if you love money, if you want to get rich, if you love it whether you have it or not, you are trapped. That is what Paul is saying here.
This passage speaks to both those who are rich and those who aren't but they want to be. So verses 6 to 10 are for those who don't have money but want it. Verses 17 to 19 are for those who do have money. So money has the power to poison our lives whether we have it or not. And so the word here, he also uses this word foolish. They fall into a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires.
The word for foolish here, when the Bible talks about foolishness, it's talking about someone who is wise in their own eyes. Someone who is blind to truth and is blind to reality. And so the desire for money, it deceives and it blinds us to reality in soul destroying ways. So two ways that it can blind us. It blinds us to who we truly are and it can blind us to what we truly have. So how does it blind us to who we are?
So in verse 17, Paul writes, Command those who are rich in this present world to not be arrogant, nor to put their hope in wealth. Money can make us arrogant. And again we go, oh no, I'm not arrogant, because an arrogant person is this kind of person, right? And we we have this image, this caricature in our mind, and we don't fit that, so we're good. Right? But arrogance at its core is just having an overestimation and overconfidence about one's own abilities and capacities.
And when the area of money, Deuteronomy 18, does a beautiful job of describing this. And it says this, he gave you manna to eat in the wilderness, speaking to the Israelites. Something your ancestors had never known to humble you and to test you, so that in the end it might go well with you. All God wants at the end of the day is that it would go well with us. God is not a meanie trying to make your life hard. He wants it to go well with you.
But you may say to yourself, my power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me. But remember the Lord your God, for it is He who gives you the ability to produce wealth. You know, we sit here in this room, some of you might not feel wealthy, but let me tell you, chances are you are. You know, we talk about this when we talk about money where we sit in the spectrum of global wealth and we're all doing okay.
We're all in like the top at least 10%, most of us probably in the top 5%, all right? But we like to compare ourselves to the billionaires and go, I'm not a billionaire. I'm not rich. Well, you compare yourself to the other 95 percent of the world. And yeah, actually, you are. So this word is for you. When Paul writes to Timothy, he says, Command those who are rich, that this, this, this, this is us. You know, there's a, seriously, goes through some people's minds.
But anyway, there is a website where you can go to, you can plug in your annual income, and it will tell you how long it takes Gina Reinhart to earn your annual income. So apparently it takes Gina about half an hour to earn our combined family income. All right. So we look at Gina and go, Oh, Gina's rich. I'm not rich. Yeah. But, but, you know, but, but look at the other 90 to 95 percent and hear that this word is for us and hear that we need to guard our hearts because we are the rich.
We are the rich, but it has the power to blind us so that we don't see ourselves in this light. You know, he says, Paul writes, for we brought nothing into the world. We can take nothing out of it. We came into this world naked and vulnerable. We leave it in the same state and in the in between we can live life in a somewhat neurotic pursuit of trying to cover ourselves.
And one of the foolish traps of money is to convince us that if we have enough of it, if we're rich, then we're covered, then we're safe. But it's a fig leaf, it's folly, it's foolish arrogance. Not, every, all the money in the world cannot cover you from the things that can truly destroy your life. Money cannot cover you, it is a fig leaf. And yet, it foolishly deludes us into thinking it can.
You know, for me, and, and again, just a moment of transparency, for the last couple of years, for the first time in our financial world, we have had, like, savings. Okay? And this is, this is quite a novelty, right? God has always provided for us. And, and yet, we have this savings. And now my, I find I now have this sense if I'm not careful, I'm covered. I've got savings. I'm covered. I've got superannuation. This could all go tomorrow. It's a house of cards.
There is no security in having savings, in having, it's a myth, it's foolishness. It convinces you I'm covered because I've earned enough money myself to cover myself so that I am not vulnerable anymore. This is a picture of the garden, right? What happened to Adam and Eve? They suddenly realized their vulnerability, started putting on some fig leaves. Oh, we're covered now. And God's like, oh, no, you're not. Here you go. Here's some proper covering, right? That's what he says to us all.
He has us covered. Money does not have us covered. It's one of the lies it is. It tells us that it has us covered. You know, we cannot earn our salvation through money. We can't earn eternal life through money. We can't cover ourself from death by money, but God can, God can cover us and God has us covered. So number two. It blinds us to how much we have.
So like drugs, where the consistent consumption of drugs leads to an increasing tolerance and therefore the need for more to experience that same hit, that same amount of relief. When you do make a bit more money, you can afford to go buy and do more things that you couldn't do before or have before. And these things are luxuries, not necessities, because you got by without them before. And quickly, luxuries become necessities. You need more and more just to feel normal.
And what used to be a luxury is now a necessity. You know, I was just reflecting on this, because I'm old enough to remember a time where air conditioning wasn't a thing. Like, we didn't grow up with air conditioning. And somehow we endured summer here in Perth, year in, year out, without air conditioning. Not even in our cars did we have air conditioning. And we certainly did not have it in the demountables at school, where we just sweated, right? Days on end. You don't have air conditioning.
Oh, okay. Um, and yet it's become a necessity, hasn't it? It is a rare thing to find a home that does not have some form of air conditioning in it now, because what used once used to be a luxury has now become a necessity, and so society goes. You know, air travel, like. That was a luxury back when I was young. We had family on the East Coast. How did we go visit them? We hopped in the car, didn't have air conditioning, and drove two and a half days non stop to go visit them.
Because flight, air flight wasn't an option, right? It was a luxury that. It wasn't a necessity. And so it easily, luxury easily becomes a necessity and then we end up on this hamster wheel of always having to have more to feel like we've got enough. There's a book um, by the title of The Psychology of Money, which is quite an interesting read. And then it was this little story, which I thought was really good.
So at a party given by a billionaire, Joseph Heller, who's a famous American author, and he was a guest at this party, he was informed by a fellow guest that their host, a hedge fund manager, had made more money in a single day than Heller had earned from his widely popular novel, which had sold over 10 million copies over its history. So Heller, the author, he responds to this. He says, yes, but I have something he will never have. I have enough. I thought, oh, that's quite profound, isn't it?
Imagine if somebody just came, knocked on your door and said, here's enough. You now have enough. And you're like, oh, thank you. I now have enough. How would that change how you live, how you view the world? But somebody has come and given you enough. The person is, the enoughness is Jesus. And it's because of the blinding and seductive nature of money. This is why Jesus says in Luke 12, 15, Watch out! You know I say that because he shouts it in the text as an exclamation mark, right?
Watch out! Be on your guard against all forms of greed. Why does he say it? Because it's so insidious and it's so subtle. So you, we've got to be on guard against us. Against it. And again, it's not condemnation thing because anytime we are given over to the ways of greed we are missing out on the abundant life that Christ came to give us. We're missing out on the true and the good life. We've been deceived. You know, is that story?
In Matthew 19, six, verses 16 to 22, in this rich young ruler, he comes to Jesus and he says, what good thing must I do to get eternal life? Why do you ask me what is good? Jesus replies, there's only one who is good. If you want to enter life, keep the commandments. Which ones? The young man says, and Jesus says, Don't murder, don't commit adultery, don't steal, don't lie, honour your mother and father, love your neighbour as yourself. All these I have kept, the young man says.
So interesting, doesn't it? He doesn't stop there, he goes, Oh good, I've done all those, see you later Jesus. The young man knows he still doesn't have it, doesn't he? Despite his obedience, he knows something is still missing. So he says, what do I still lack? What do I still lack, Lord? Next, Jesus answered, If you want to be perfect, go sell your possessions and give to the poor and you'll have treasure in heaven. Then come and follow me.
When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth. Then Jesus said to his disciples, Truly, I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. Again, I tell you, it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. So if we hear Are the rich. Yeah, we gotta, we gotta hear these words, right? And feel the weight of them, okay?
And realize that Jesus sees money so much more clearly than we do. And he sees the danger of it. And he sees how it calls to our hearts and says, follow me, I will give you life. Worship me, I will give you life. And when we do that, we end up ensnared and enslaved. And we gotta be so vigilant. Jesus took it really seriously. So, so must, so must we. And what is so tragic about this scenario, is that here's this young guy, who knows he's missing out on something.
But his heart is so attached to wealth and money, that he can't walk away from it. He can't let it go. So if Jesus was to come before you today, And go, you know, all that savings you got, all that superannuation you got, go give it. How would you go with that? You know, these are good thought exercise, again, not to breed guilt, shame or condemnation but just to measure our own attachment to our financial wealth and the hope and the trust that we are putting in it.
Is our super, is our savings, is our earning capacity our saviour, our assurance, our security? Or is our heavenly provider? Or is our heavenly father our true provider? Alright, so how do we escape this trap? How do we become people of deep, joyful, sacrificial generosity who've taken hold of the good life? As Paul says here, Godliness with contentment is great gain. And the words great gain here actually means mega wealth.
So he's saying godliness with contentment, that is what true mega wealth is. Not dollars, not assets, not possessions. Contentment. Contentment is where true value lies. Contentment is true wealth. Contentment is true riches. Contentment is a superpower, people! It is a superpower! Oh, what joy it is to live in a posture of contentment in this life. Contentment positions us for generosity because it just frees us to be able to give. We're not held by these things. They don't own us.
We're just free to be conduits for it all. Discontentment positions us for a life of grasping and taking. Have you ever come across a content, greedy person? Have you ever come across a miserable, generous person? They just don't go together, do they? And without contentment, without being able to enjoy and rest in what you have, the enoughness and the goodness of what you have already been blessed with, money will destroy you.
It will rob you of the gift of just being able to enjoy and appreciate the richness of this life that God has given you. With contentment, money and wealth simply become tools and means to share and bless and to see his kingdom come.
And just think about how many parents You know, we had to resist this as well when our kids were younger, but how many parents are unable to just enjoy their kids because they're so strung out trying to earn enough money to get that bigger and better house, that family holiday that we just simply must have because we're missing out by not being able to take our kids here or there, and so they enslave themselves.
to debt and to this level of earning capacity that they think they need and then end up missing out on the very precious thing that is right in front of them. And we don't get time back. We can never buy it back. Once it is gone, it is gone. And this is why it's so evil and so deceptive because it robs us of the true blessings in life, which is the people right in front of us. When we are so anxious by our financial worlds, that we cannot just embrace the good that we have.
That is a very great sadness, indeed. That is a very great sadness, indeed. Particularly when we have been blessed with so, so very much. And this is the beauty of contentment, because content, to be content, is to be satisfied with what you have. And when you are satisfied with what you have, you're not ruled by an impulse for more. Are you? That impulse isn't controlling you. If that more comes your way, yay, great. You've got it. To enjoy and share. Beautiful.
And if it's not there anymore, oh well, I was content before and this is what Paul says in Philippians, right? I have learned. He learned it. He learned it to be content in whatever circumstances, whether it was to be in need or to have plenty. He learned the secret of being content in all situations, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or want. And how did he learn this? He says it here, I can do all this through him who gives me strength.
Genuine contentment is not self sufficiency, it's Christ sufficiency. That's where it's found, in allowing Christ to be your sufficiency. You know what? We're going to bring this home now, soonish. We are in a war, ultimately. Yeah, we did a spiritual warfare series last, last year. We're in a war, and so much of that war is about a war of trust. Are we going to trust Jesus? Or are we going to trust the ways of this world? Who or what will we follow? Who or what will we trust in?
And it's not just our own flesh that we battle with in this war. You know, we have a very real enemy always seeking to seduce us to place our trust in other things like money. And so we need to be wise to the enemy's schemes in this. The subtle ways that he seduces us in this place to give our worship over. to money, to mammon, as Jesus would call her. These seductive forces are so strong in our culture. We live in a culture that exists, our economy exists on our discontentment.
Advertisers have to keep us discontent so that we will keep buying, that we will keep going into debt to have more than what we need. Our economy thrives on it. You remember years ago. Just, just starting to be aware of the effect that, junk mail could have on our levels of contentment. Because every week, you know, it rocks up in bountiful quantities, junk mail, in your letterbox. And so you start to look through it and you're like, ooh, ooh, ooh.
Now it's, I guess it happens on social media, right? You're scrolling through stuff and different things pop up. Ooh, that looks good. Ooh, I think I need that. And you didn't even know this thing existed five seconds ago. And all of a sudden it's gone from not existing to a need. Click, click, click. Bye, bye, bye. And so with, with, back in the olden days when it, you know, it was just discontentment mail, that's what we started to call it. Discontentment mail.
And it just went straight in the bin. We didn't even look at it. And then we put a little thing on the, it was funny, put a little, a little sign on the front, you know, no junk mail. Which Charlotte made the sign out of junk mail. Out of letters cut out of. Junk must look like, you know, a serial killer letter, but um, Still, it is discontentment mail. Yeah, so when you're scrolling and these ads pop up, they're discontentment ads.
They are there to breed discontent in you so that you will buy, be wise, be wise, be wise to the schemes. Alright, how do we get contentment? Finally, this is coming to an end, people. How do we get contentment? There are three reasons that we can be content. So Jonathan Edwards, back in the 1700s, he wrote this in one of his sermons. And I have mentioned this before, but it's really great.
If we can ground ourselves in these three things, that will lead to a glorious amount of contentment in our lives. These three things, the reason why the follower of Jesus can be content in any and all circumstances. Firstly, your bad things will turn out for good. Romans 8 28. Your good things, number two, your good things cannot be taken from you. Your treasure is in heaven where it cannot be stolen or lost or eroded.
Your good things such as eternal life, the love of God for you, you are covered. These things cannot be taken from you. And thirdly, the best is yet to come. No matter where you are today, you have not reached the peak of your existence. The best is yet to come. Imagine if we believed those three things. We would just be people of the most glorious contentment, we'd be not. Alright, next, how we get contentment. We take the gospel of grace, and we drill it into our hearts.
To see all as grace, and all as a gift in this life, to be received with gratitude. Just puts us in a posture of such glorious freedom where we are able to receive. We don't have to grasp. We don't have to take. We receive all as grace, all as gift. And we trust because God gave what is most precious to Him for our sake. We can trust He's got us covered. Yeah. We can trust that He will provide for us. We can trust that He is our shepherd.
Therefore we shall not want We can trust that He will richly provide us with all that we need. In Romans 8, he who did not spare his own son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also graciously give us all things? Will I have enough can be the question that consumes us. Yes, with Jesus, yes, you will. Yes, wow, that's joyfully liberating, isn't it? If only we'd believe it! Contentment leads to generosity, but you know what? The reverse is also true. Generosity leads to contentment.
Both are true. So, if you find you struggle with just being content and at peace with what you have, Start to practice acts of generosity. Don't wait to feel it, you know. Do it awkward. Do it afraid. Do it so it stings and it hurts. And then you'll find, oh, the joy of giving. I was listening to one guy this week, he's an engineer, and I love, engineers are a crack up, right? Because they're so intentional about everything and they measure everything.
And so this guy had, you know, had, as an engineer, had applied his engineering mindset to the act of generosity. And so everything was measured. And, um, but he, but the way he describes it was, he says, when I give, I feel God's pleasure. When I engage in acts of generosity, I feel God's pleasure. And to feel the pleasure of God, wow, that is a beautiful, beautiful thing.
And let me tell you, when you're stingy and you're bound up in fear of money and love of money, you know, you aren't feeling the pleasure of God in that place. And one way to start is just to start. By giving. Yeah? Sometimes we think, oh, I've got to feel it before I do it. No, no, no, no, no. These bodily acts are really, really powerful. What we do with our bodies, it can actually transform our hearts. And we often think, no, no, my heart has to transform first, and then my body will follow.
No, do it. Just, just start this week. Take a certain portion of money aside, start small, if this is very scary for you, and go, God, who? Where? What? How can I be generous with this? You know, we have set aside, you know, we're both accountants by background, and so we're very, you know, practiced with our budgeting, and that has been a very great blessing in our lives, particularly for a large portion of our lives where finances were pretty, pretty tight.
And, um, But we have this portion of money that's set aside, each pay, that is our giving money. That's beyond our tithes, that's beyond our offerings, that's beyond our giving to Compassion and all these other ministries that we sow into. It is just money that sits there so that when the moment comes, oh yeah, okay, yep, we'll buy these people dinner. Oh yeah, we will do this for that. You know, yep, we'll sponsor a couple of youth leaders to go to camp.
Because, you know, we are intentional about. We have a, the bucket, the generosity bucket. And it is good to be intentional in that way. So start to practice acts of generosity. Just where you're at, with what you can. Another way, start to curate your own heart in that posture of God is my provider. So every time you take that little plastic card and you tap it, go, thank you Lord for providing for me that I am able to pay for this. Thank you, Lord, for your abundant generosity.
Thank you that you are my provider. You are my shepherd, I shall not want. If you did that every time you tapped, because let's face it, how often do we tap? Quite regularly these days, don't we? The magic little card. Tappy tap, tap, tap, tap, tap. And if we were to actually say a little prayer of gratitude every time we did that, how might that change our posture? Simple, simple, simple little thing. Cultivate an abundance mindset. This is my challenge, okay?
In all honesty, again, I tend to have more of a scarcity mindset than abundance mindset. I tend to focus more my attention on the lack than I do in the abundance. And there's, Jesus says this in Matthew 6, 22. He's talking about the eye as the lamp of the body. He says if your eye is healthy, your whole body is going to be full of light. But if your eye is unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. If, then, the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness?
And what that means, what that saying meant, what it meant to the people of the day, it was about your view of the world, whether you had a scarcity or abundance mindset. So if you had good, a good eye, a healthy eye, it meant, you were one who looked out at the world and you saw. of God. You saw the abundance of this world, and that would fill your body with light. The mindset of abundance. But then, the bad eye, the one in darkness, looks out and see a world of scarcity, and is ruled by fear.
They can't give generously, because they're too preoccupied with getting and keeping, and their heart is weighed down by earthly treasures that ultimately just rot and rust anyway. So, If you would say maybe I have more of a scarcity mindset than abundance one, perhaps that is something you need to shift your perspective on and start to behold the abundance that exists. There is enough. There is enough.
He is the God who takes the loaves and the fishes and makes it not just enough, but abundantly provided through that little bit. So even if you look out and you say, there's not enough, there's not enough, I've got a grasp for, for mine so that I'm okay. No, he can make loaves and fishes multiply. He's Okay, it's gonna be okay. It's gonna be okay. Again, lean into joy, lean into gratitude. Joyful people aren't stingy. Yeah, they're generous, right? Joy just breathes.
And we, and you have joy because you have the Holy Spirit and a fruit of the Spirit is joy! It is there for you to lean into and embrace and live out of. If only you would acknowledge it and choose to. And join yourself with joy each day and gratitude greases the wheels for that. Doesn't it? As you wake up and you go, thank you for that breath in my lungs. Thank you for another night of dwelling in safety. Thank you, Lord, for the gift of indoor plumbing. Thank you, Lord, for refrigerators.
These little things we take for granted, right? But are yet so good. So good. Clean water. Oh, my gosh. Amazing. So much to be grateful for, to rejoice about. And remember this, and I think this is the key thing that God wants to get into our hearts today, is that He's got you covered. He's got your back. You know when somebody, um, pays for something for you and they say, yeah, I've got you covered? He's paid. He's got you covered. You can lean into that. You can trust him.
Take off the fig leaves of your finances. They've not got you covered at all. You can trust him. Be at peace. Let that anxiety go. That you have to grasp and hold and get enough to be okay. You don't need to. He's got you. Covered. He's got you covered. That is so great, isn't it? All right, let's finish. Teen, do you want to come on up? Let's finish with this scripture here from Hebrews 13 verse 5. Beautiful little summary of all of what we've just talked about.
Keep 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. I have got you covered. Amen? Alright church, how about you stand? Let me quickly pray, and then we'll end in worship. Father God, Lord, help this word to sink deep into our hearts, that we would be so free in our trust in you as our provider, that wealth, possessions, money, just would have no hold on our hearts.
We would see it for what it truly, truly is. Just a means of blessing, of advancing your kingdom. Open our eyes. Lord, help our eyes to be good. Help us to look out into this world, to see it as a world of glorious abundance. Lord, lead us into deeper places of trust. Lord, for the ones who might be here today, so bound up by love of money, it has me so anxious. I know it has a hold on me.
Holy Spirit, would you come and through your gracious and kind conviction, would you lead people into places of freedom and liberation? Free our hearts to be so generous. Free our hearts to honour you with our finances. Free our hearts to be rich towards you. Free our hearts to see the need in the world and just be so willing. to respond and so joyful that we have the means to be able to respond. May our hearts rejoice truly, not in that we have money, but we have ability to bless.
Shift our mindset, help us to take hold of life that is truly life. Amen.