Contentment Found in God

Today we continue our series “Enough Is Enough,” in which we are taking a hard look at what it means to be biblically content. Contentment is found in our relationship with Jesus. And one of the most important elements of that relationship is how God demonstrated his love for us through the death of Jesus.

In the song “I So Hate Consequences,” by Relient K, the singer sings of running away from the one person we need in this life: God. When he pauses in his endless pursuits of this life to catch his breath, he hears God calling him home: “You said, ‘I miss you son. Come home’”

Hebrews 13:5 ESV

Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.”

So often we invest our time in things we hope will turn around and give us the love we are seeking, but that love can only be found in God.

The good news is, God loves you! John 3:16 is perhaps the best-known verse declaring his love, but its popularity doesn’t make it any less true:

John 3:16 ESV

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

There are several key descriptions and actions here that are worth slowing down to focus on. For God … what? He “so loved the world.” The action of God sending Jesus was an action rooted in love. Why was Jesus born? Because God loves you. Why did Jesus live a perfect life on earth? Because God loves you. Why did Jesus teach us so many wonderful things about God? Because God loves you. Why did Jesus die on the cross? Because God loves you. Why did Jesus rise from the dead? Because God loves you. All of that is wrapped up in the declarative statement “For God so loved the world.”

God’s love is giving in its nature. That’s what John 3:16 tells us: he “so loved the world” that he did what? “He gave.” He loved us and wanted to give us a gift. And not just any gift. Not something worldly, like we spend so much of our time pursuing, not a gift that in the end doesn’t satisfy. No, he gave us his own Son.

Galatians 2:20 ESV

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

And the end goal of that gift wasn’t death but “eternal life.” Who is eternal? God is eternal. So if he loves you and gives you his Son so that you can also be eternal, what must that mean? That God wants to spend eternity with you.

During the COVID-19 quarantine, many of you had to spend a lot of time with loved ones. But as the quarantine dragged on for weeks, you may have grown a little tired of them. Maybe you volunteered to go shopping? Or took a walk by yourself? Eternity is a long time. In fact, it is an endless time. And yet, God wants to spend that with you. Despite all your imperfections, God loves you so much that he wants you to come home and be with him forever.

And in John 3:16 he shows us the way home. It isn’t through what you do; it isn’t by the way you behave; it is simply a matter of belief. And this flies in the face of our work ethic and success-oriented lifestyles. But God’s love is redeeming. It redeems us from the slavery we have sold ourselves to when we try to earn God’s love by being “good” or by checking all the boxes. God wants one thing from you: believe in his Son. That’s what he asks. In Mark 4:26–29, Jesus tells a parable of how the kingdom grows.

Mark 4:26–29 ESV

And he said, “The kingdom of God is as if a man should scatter seed on the ground. He sleeps and rises night and day, and the seed sprouts and grows; he knows not how. The earth produces by itself, first the blade, then the ear, then the full grain in the ear. But when the grain is ripe, at once he puts in the sickle, because the harvest has come.”

It doesn’t grow by our craftiness or effort. Indeed, it happens while we sleep, and we don’t know how it came to be. Commenting on this, Robert Farrar Capon says, “It grows of itself and in its own good time. Above all, it grows we know not how. Any bright ideas we might have about the subject will always and everywhere be the wrong ideas. Indeed, their wrongness will be proved simply by our having them; because if the kingdom could have been made to grow in this world by bright ideas, it would have sprouted up all over the place six times a day ever since Adam”

His observation on the kingdom’s growth applies to our pursuit of contentment: if we could find contentment in this life through our accomplishments, we would have already found it. There would be a buffet of options and all of them would work. If we could make ourselves right with God through what we do, all over creation you’d see perfection. But we don’t. The only path to God is through belief, and the only place of rest we will find is in the love of God.