Godliness with Contentment (1 Timothy 6:2b-10)

Church, 1 Timothy 6:2b-10

Godliness with Contentment

Sunday, February 13, 2022

Intro

In 2003, there was a movie released called Secondhand Lions. In this movie, a young boy (Walter) is dropped by his mother to stay with his uncles. His mother and a whole lot of others are searching for gold and riches that these two uncles had supposedly stolen. Some said it was from Al Capone himself. But if they did, one would never know as they looked at the simplicity of these two old men. They lived with hardly anything. And while they are as grumpy as the men portrayed in Grumpier Old Men, the thing they take a liking to most, is the care and upbringing of their nephew. But along the way, it doesn’t stop any and everyone from questioning and investing if they took the money. For they all want a claim to it if they did. Their greed was seen in their deceptive tricks and attempts of care to find out the secret.

It’s interesting how greed does that, isn’t it? It brings out the worst in us all. As for the uncles, the boy Walter, you will have to watch the movie to find out what happened. But this morning, we must examine our own hearts to see what has a hold on them. Is it a desire for riches and a love of money? Or is it something else?

Main Point

The greatest riches in the world fail in comparison to the gain and contentment we find in Jesus.

Points

The destruction in a love for money

The great gain found in contentment

(Give when get there)

Point #1: The destruction in a love for money

Teach and urge these things Paul urges Timothy. Teach and urge the people to honor one another. Teach and urge the necessity to train for godliness. Teach and urge the church to be a pillar and buttress of truth. Teach and urge the people to pray for all people, to pray for the nations as God desires all peoples to come and know him. Teach and urge the church to wage the good warfare in fighting for and holding to their faith in Jesus. These are the things that Timothy is to make sure he is teaching and urging here in the church at Ephesus. Paul has been laboring to encourage Timothy in the midst of the challenging task he has before him in helping the church to be fit for purpose. But more importantly, here, once more, Paul urges Timothy to teach and urge these things as a means of leading the church in a right and faithful teaching, opposed to those who are false teachers. For he comes in following this charge, warning that if anyone teaches a different doctrine and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness, he is puffed up with conceit and understands nothing.

That is a hard word. But a needed word, for what is coming from these false teachers is rooted not in Christ, but in a love for money, a desire to be rich. And this desire is contrary to that of godliness and of the ways of Christ. It’s desire is from the seed of the serpent, the seed of Satan (Genesis 4:9, the story of Cain).

For the false teachers hearts are puffed full of conceit and they lack understanding.

We see this there in verse 4. The false teachers are like blowfish, full of nothing but air as they want to quarrel and argue over vain and pointless words. For we have already learned throughout Paul’s letter that these false teachers are all about myths and endless genealogies. They are about speculations rather than the truth. For they would rather trace certain family lines instead of fixing their eyes on God’s faithfulness that is clear and plainly given that Jesus is the Son of Abraham and the Son of David (Matthew 1:1). This is how Matthew begins his gospel account and there is not another more important genealogy given than that. For that is God’s faithfulness being put on full display.

John Calvin says this of the false teachers and their being puffed up with air, ““as it is commonly expressed, without substance or foundation; for if any person carefully inquire what sort of contentions are burning among the sophists, he will perceive that they do not arise from realities, but are framed out of nothing. In a word, Paul intended to condemn all questions which sharpen us for disputes that are of no value.”

Teaching and preaching of the word is to be for value, for building up the saints, for uniting, for pointing our hearts more to Jesus! Kent Hughes in his commentary says, “Healthy Christianity focuses on Jesus Christ as the fulfillment of God’s promises through his atoning death, resurrection, and ascension. It lifts up Jesus as the perfect second Adam. It lifts him up as the son of Abraham par excellence. It lifts him up as the true Israel. It lifts him up as the ultimate son of David. It lifts him up as the Lamb of God. It lifts him up as Redeemer and Savior. It lifts him up as the true Temple. It lifts him up as the Alpha and Omega. It glories in him as our only hope in life and death!” For true and right teaching sees Jesus as the main thing and seeks to keep Jesus at the very center of the teaching and all that the church is about. The Prince of Preachers himself, Charles Spurgeon, was convinced himself that the sermon could not do any good unless the savor of Christ is in it.

But, because the false teachers are puffed up with conceit, with hot air, and lack understanding, they do not unite, but rather they create controversy and divide. They take Jesus from being the focus and shift the focus to their own vain discussions.

For their teaching is rooted in an unhealthy craving

It is not just that the false teachers get off on tangents or misspeak, or get dragged into a debate. Because of their conceited hearts, they actually crave these controversies and quarrels. They hunger for them and pursue them. And as they pursue these controversies and quarrels, it creates division within those listening. It says there in verse 4 and the first of verse 5…

Some through the years have argued if we would just leave doctrine out, then we wouldn’t have divisions. Yet, the reality we see here in the truth of Scripture, its not doctrine that is the culprit for division, at least not that of sound doctrine, sound teaching. The culprit for division within the church is when we wander from the teachings of Christ and his sound teachings, his doctrine and start wandering into our own speculations and agendas, trying to make much of ourselves instead. False teaching will do great harm to the church, for it corrupts the teachers, but it also corrupts those who listen and hear them.

Christian, beware of false teachers who would make anything the center attention and the focus of the church anything other than Jesus! For it is on the confession that Jesus is the Christ in which the church is built. It is the truth that Jesus alone is the way, the truth, and the life that we want to champion and lift up as a buttress of truth.

False Teachers are so depraved…they think godliness is a means of gain.

The false teachers are so ignorant, they are so full of conceit that they miss the point of godliness. For they consider that godliness is a means of gain. That is of shameful gain in the sense of both gain of power and gain financially. And while godliness is of value here and in eternity, it does not have the idea of gain in power or financially in mind. But we see how the heart is deceitful and full of wickedness. Our hearts when they become consumed with other things, outside of God, they will slowly consume us and choke the life out of us. For conceit and greed are like a serpent. They wrap themselves around our hearts and squeeze tighter and tighter around us, suffocating us, eventually choking the life out of us. Brothers, sisters, friends, these desires are crouching and waiting to devour us, we must rule over them (Genesis 4:6-7). For Cain failed to rule over his desire, will we continue to ignore the dangers of the evil desires within us? Especially the dangerous lure of the desire for riches?

The desire for riches will strike our hearts, causing us to be lured into temptation, into a snare, a trap. (v.9)

James 4:1-4 speaks here at this danger of the tempting lure of sin and the evil that comes from it. It says:

What causes quarrels and what causes fights among you? Is it not this, that your passions are at war within you? You desire and do not have, so you murder. You covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God.

The temptation for us in longing for riches is to steal to get what we desire. To kill to get it. And while we may rest for a while, these various temptations will come. We will be tempted to allow jealousy and strife to enter our hearts, all because we want the possessions of our neighbor, our friend. The temptations will soon grow, tempting us to take from them or to speak ill of them, painting them in a bad light, all because of our own jealousy. These are the temptations, the snares that await our hearts with this desire for riches. Let us beware, let us be warned. The serpent is waiting to strike and coil himself around us.

For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils

For as these temptations await, all kind of evil will flow out of these temptations. We cannot ignore Paul’s warnings that the temptations lead us to ruin and destruction. The desire for riches will lead us to act upon these temptations in stealing, being envious and jealous. It will lead us to have strife among us.

For it is the desire of riches and love of money that causes the idolatry of work and the neglect of the family. It is the desire of riches and the love of money that causes us to store up treasures in this world, while forsaking the investing in the Kingdom of God. It is the desire of riches and the love of money that causes us to be overcome with anxiety over money. I myself must stand guard against this temptation and danger.

A desire for riches and a love for money can start small, but it can destroy a marriage, a family, it can destroy our lives if we do not deal with it.

The desire and love of money will even cause some to fall away from the faith

There at the end of verse 10, we read: It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs. The desire for riches and the love of money will shipwreck our faith if we do not deal with it. For it is the great treasures that kept the rich young man from following Jesus. He would rather hold to his treasures than Jesus. He would rather clutch them in his hands than the pierced hand of the one who laid down his own life to save him. Jesus told us in the Sermon on the Mount, there in Matthew 6:24; No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.

The Conceit that comes from the chase of money

Therefore, part of the conceit of the false teachers is coming from this love of money. And it has lured them away. For they failed to be content in Christ. And that is where we turn in our second point this morning…

Point #2: The great gain found in contentment

The false teachers imagined that godliness was a means of gain due to their depraved minds and the fact that they were deprived of the truth. But, godliness with contentment is great gain. Contentment can be described as the idea of being in a state of having what is adequate, a sufficiency. The question though, how are we to reach this point?

Contentment comes in Jesus, recognizing what we have in him.

It comes when we see the extent of God’s love for us in Jesus:

For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life (John 3:16)

That while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8)

It comes when we see that in Jesus we have every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places (Ephesians 1:3-14)

Adopted as sons

Redemption through the blood of Jesus

United in Christ

An inheritance obtained

Sealed promise by the Spirit

Contentment comes when we set our treasure in heaven (Matthew 6:19-21)

Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

We must value the eternal, the unfading treasures that are ours in Christ than we do the temporary things here on earth.

For we are finite creatures:

Verse 7

Job 1:21- And he said, “Nake I came from my mother’s womb, and naked I shall return.”

Contentment comes when we practice thanksgiving regularly.

When we are thankless, we forget all the good things we have and have been given.

But when we are in the habit of going to God in thanksgiving, we realize the ways he daily provides for us. For we are told to not be anxious for these things there in Matthew 6. Too we are told there that the LORD knows we need drink and food and clothing. And these he provides for us. We have much to be thankful for.

Even in the midst of suffering and sickness, we have much to be thankful for, especially if we are in Christ. For it is in Christ that all things are being made new. It is in Christ that we look forward to the day when all tears and sorrows will be wiped away. Sorrow still exists for now, but it has a death date, its time is limited. For we will be made new and reign with Christ forever, if we are united to Jesus!

Contentment endures all things (Philippians 4:10-13)

Full and Hungry

Abundance and Need

Contentment produces godliness

Above all, as we grow in our contentment, we grow in godliness.

For as we become more content, we look more to Jesus and keep our eyes set on him alone!

Point #3: A Heart Check

Which of these two points describes us?

A Lover of Money?

Or Contentment?

Are we willing to ask a close friend or family member which describes us?

Get there help

And go to Jesus in confession if it is anything but contentment in Jesus, go to Jesus and find lasting joy and peace in him!