Sermon Tone Analysis

Are you content?

I don’t mean happy.

Happiness is fleeting and it depends on circumstances.

You go to a restaurant and the appetizers are sumptuous.

The entree’ is perfectly prepared and tastes incredible.

The company is good - every one is laughing and happy and it’s a wonderful evening.

But dessert comes and it’s only so so.

And then your liberal cousin Eddie picks an argument with your reactionary cousin Wilhelm.

And what was a happy, fun occasion isn’t happy any more.

Happy is fleeting and depends on circumstances.

But contentment is different.

Are you content?

For many of us today, Paul’s words to Timothy will be a much needed reminder.

However, for a few of us, these words will be a revelation.

Our scripture today is 1 Timothy 6:2b-10.

Go ahead and look it up in your Bibles.

If you are watching by live stream, pick up your Bible too so you can follow along.

If you are here and don’t have one with you, there is no shame in using the one in the pew rack.

And if you don’t personally own a Bible, please take one of ours home as a gift from us.

There’s plenty where that one came from and we’d be blessed if you’d receive the Bible as a gift.

If you’ve ever driven to Macon, you’ve seen the billboard.

It’s at the intersection of Gray Highway and 2nd street across the street from the abandoned Bojangles.

At the bottom of the billboard you’ll see the words, “Every Jackpot is a Good Jackpot.”

It’s a Georgia Lottery Billboard and in giant numbers it tells you what the next Mega Millions and Power Ball jackpots will be.

If you’ve driven that way you’ve seen it.

And I would be willing to bet - pun intended - that when you see the billboard and the numbers are especially large, you do what I do.

You daydream about what you would do if you won the lottery.

One time one of the jackpots went over a billion dollars - what would you do with that kind of money?

Now, here’s the deal.

Let’s suppose when you saw that number, you bought a ticket to play.

You know the odds are astronomical but lightning does strike on occasion, but really, it’s two bucks.

We waste more than that on any give cup of overpriced Starbucks coffee.

It’s not immoral - you won’t die and go to hell - you simply bought a ticket on a daydream.

But what if it becomes something different for you?

Right now you have plenty of food and money to pay your bills and go on all kinds of trips and buy all kinds of toys.

But what if it started burning a whole in your soul that you’ve got to have more money - that what you have - as much as it is - just isn’t enough.

Not because you are in desperate straights to survive, but because being rich sounds like a lot more fun than being comfortable.

I use the lottery as the illustration but what if your entire life revolves around acquiring money?

Not because you are poor and are wondering where your next meal is coming from.

But because you are comfortable - quite comfortable.

And enough has become never enough.

And more always means more and more.

What does...

What does that say about Jesus?

1 Timothy 6:2–10 (ESV)

Teach and urge these things.

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.

He has an unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels about words, which produce envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions, and constant friction among people who are depraved in mind and deprived of the truth, imagining that godliness is a means of gain.

But godliness with contentment is great gain, for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world.

But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content.

But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction.

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

It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs.

We know that the Ephesian church had issues.

We know that Paul sent Timothy to that church to help take care of those issues.

Their problem was their leadership and what they were teaching.

The leadership of the Church - of every Church - is tasked with Proclaiming and Protecting the Gospel.

That’s the foundation of the church.

But the Ephesian elders had picked up the idea that what you believe doesn’t have to affect how you act.

You could simply act any which way and you’d still be OK with God.

They separated the spiritual from the physical.

They believed that what you did in the body should always result in your physical comfort and pleasure.

And as long as you believed the right things regardless really of how you acted, well, you were good with God.

Paul told Timothy - you’ve got to fix this.

1 Timothy 6:2b “...Teach and urge these things.”

We’re going to do a lot of definitions today because words matter - and we need to take those meanings to heart.

Paul says teach and urge.

Teach we know - but urge.

You could say exhort - but what does that mean.

Urge could be rendered console or encourage.

That didn’t bowl you over but it did me, and here’s why.

If you are broken, you are hurting and crying, and someone consoles you - what are they doing?

They are telling you - maybe not in words just yet, but in presence - that everything is going to be alright.

Am I wrong?

For the widow that just lost her husband of decades, would you console her are by saying, “You are right honey, your life is over.

“You will be destitute and you will end up on Medicaid in some decrepit, roach infested nursing home with no one even knowing when you die.”

Is that how you console someone?

“Oh yes, this is the end of your life - I don’t know how you’ll keep on going.

I’d probably kill myself.”

No, nobody with an ounce of anything does that.

Console means you tell them, “I know it looks like the end of the world, but it’s not.

“You will be OK.

“Everything will work out.

Listen, listen, you are saying, - “God will see to it.”

Paul is telling Timothy - there are some hurt folks in this church.

They are being beat up in two ways.

People are telling them they don’t believe right and the people around them are living large while they aren’t.

Comfort them Timothy.

Console them with these words from the Lord.

These words that you and I are studying right here, right now, today, were written to console us.

To assure us that God’s got this.

1 Timothy 6:3-4 “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...”

What is the Church’s job?

What is our jobs as Christians?

We are to Proclaim and Protect the gospel.

Can you articulate the gospel in 3 sentences?

Jesus came to seek and to save the lost.

He died on a cross and rose from the grave so that anyone who calls on the name of Jesus will be saved.

And one day, Jesus is going to make all things new.

The gospel is Jesus.