Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - The Secret to Contentment | New Testament 1 Timothy 6

Episode Date: September 22, 2023

What makes discontentment with money and wealth so dangerous? Are you at risk of walking away from God because of what you want? In today's episode, Keith looks to 1 Timothy 6 for warnings against discontentment and the key to living a content life. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Join the TMBT community in reading the entire New Testament in one year. Get your FREE reading plan here. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it with others, so others can find it too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter@TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passages: 1 Timothy 6

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life. In the time it takes to get to work. I'm Keith Simon. We all know that we have more stuff than ever, but how do you get your head around exactly how much stuff we have? Well, the average size of the American home has tripled in the past 50 years, and yet we don't have enough room in our homes to store our stuff. That's why the United States has upward of 50,000 storage facilities, more than five times the number of starry. We dream of having stuff, then we buy the stuff and then insure the stuff, and then we try to find a place to store the stuff. When you see all the stuff we have and how devoted to it we are, it makes you wonder, do we own stuff, or does stuff own us?

I've always heard a line that says you don't ever see a hearse pulling a U-Haul, until one time I came across a picture of a hearse pulling a U-Haul. evidently we're trying to take our stuff with us into the next life. There are two tombs in Egypt that explain two different approaches to stuff. The first tomb is of a man named William Borden. He was born in 1887 and died in 1913. William Borden went to Yale. He was the heir of a family with great wealth. They had made their money in silver and in land.

William Borden decided that he wanted to be able to be able to. to become a missionary to the Muslims, and therefore he refused to spend the money that his family had given to him. He refused to buy a car, and he gave away hundreds of thousands of dollars to missions. When he was 25 years old, he left the United States to go to Egypt, where he intended to fulfill his God-given calling of sharing Jesus with people who were Muslim. But almost as soon as he got to Egypt, he died of spinal meningitis. Remember, he was 25 years old. On his tomb located in Egypt, it talks about his love for God and his love for the Muslim people. But then it ends with this phrase, apart from faith in Christ, there is no explanation for such a life.

I think what that last sentence means is that his life doesn't make any sense, apart from the Bible, apart from Jesus. I want to compare William Borden's tomb to the tomb of King Tut. King Tut is one of the famous pharaohs. He too died young. He died at 17, and he was buried with gold chariots, thousands of gold artifacts. He was buried in a gold coffin. The ancient Egyptians believed in an afterlife where you could take your earthly treasures with you. So King Tut's riches stayed with him for nearly 3,000 years until Howard Carter discovered the burial chamber in 1922. Both William Borden and King Tutte died young. They both had great wealth. Borden gave his wealth away. King Tutte held onto his wealth, believing he could take it with him. How do we think about our stuff? How do we think about

our wealth? Well, in 1 Timothy chapter 6 verse 6, the apostle Paul says, Godliness with contentment is great gain. Godliness with contentment is great gain. When people ask me, what do I hope for my kids? I think the right answer is, I hope they will be content. Paul says contentment is of great gain, and I think he's right. One dictionary defines contentment as the state of happiness and satisfaction. Another says contentment means to be satisfied with what you have. So I'm content with my appearance. I'm content with my job.

I'm content with my marriage. I'm content with where I live. To say your content is to say that you're not disappointed, you're not desperately trying to change something. If everything stayed as is, you'd be happy. To be content is not to say that everything is perfect, far from it. But it does mean to say that we're okay with all the imperfections of life. Now, as we've seen, we should seek contentment in every area of life.

But in 1st Timothy 6, Paul is talking specifically about money and possessions, because he goes on in verse 7 to say, we brought nothing into the world and we can take nothing out of it. Now that sounds a lot like Job. After Job had lost everything in his life, he said this, naked I come from my mother's womb and naked I will depart. So I enter and leave the world with nothing. Now, that's just an observation of a fact.

And given that it's true, that every single person comes into the world with nothing and leaves with nothing, it's surprising that we spend so much time. and effort, trying to accumulate things that we can't take with us. Proverbs 23-5, cast but a glance at riches and they are gone, for they will surely sprout wings and fly off to the sky like an eagle. The next time you buy something cool, imagine it's sprouting wings and flying off, because that's what the Book of Proverbs is saying is going to happen. I mean, sooner or later, it is going to disappear. When Jesus warns us to not store up treasures on earth, it's not because wealth might be lost, it's because wealth will always be lost.

Either it leaves us while we live or it leaves us when we die, but there are no exceptions. Verse 8, but if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. So Paul is saying that we should learn to be content with the basics in life. The extras, that things beyond the basics, well, they can make life more convenient or less stressful or more comfortable, but we shouldn't need them to be happy. Paul is telling us, don't build your happiness on stuff. If you do, you'll always be disappointed, because there will always be more stuff to have, cooler stuff to have, newer stuff to have. Paul writes in Philippians 4, I have learned to be content, whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be a need, and I know what

it is to have plenty. I've learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in one. I can do all this through him who gives me strength. Paul says, look, there have been times in my life where I've had a lot, and there have been times in my life where I've had little. But notice that the secret of contentment is the same, no matter if you're rich or if you're poor. And what's the secret of contentment? Well, that I find my life in Jesus. I can do all things through him. I can live in every situation in plenty and in want if I have Jesus,

because he is the secret of my contentment. Paul continues in verse 9. 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. So Paul is issuing a warning to people. people who are rich or people who want to get rich. But since most of us don't think of ourselves as rich or even imagine that we could ever truly be rich, we don't heed his warning. There was a TV show called Downton Abbey that was real popular a few years ago and my wife watched it and she told me that

the castles that the people lived in during the time that Downton Abbey covered, the rich people, the royalty would live upstairs and the servants would live downstairs. So, they were on different floors and they hardly ever saw each other. Well, that may have been the case in England centuries ago, but that's not how we live today. In our life today, we intersect with all kinds of people, some who have a lot more resources, a lot more money than us, and some who have a lot less. So think of yourself, maybe you've got a good job, maybe you're doing fine financially, maybe you're even doing a little better than fine. But you know people who are making two to three times the amount of money that you are.

And in your mind, those people are the rich people, not you. But then those people you think of as being rich, they're hanging out in a circle of people who make more money than they do. And what all that leads to is that nobody ever feels rich. But more importantly, we miss the Bible's warning to us. And the warning is this. Riches, or even the desire to be rich, is a trap that can damage your soul and lead you far away from God.

Here's what Jesus says in Mark 4. He says the worries of this life, the deceitfulness of wealth, and the desires for other things come in and choke out our spiritual life and make us unfruitful. So when you feel the desire for more stuff, when you lose your contentment, don't play around. discontentment is dangerous to your soul it's dangerous to your eternity here's how paul ends this passage in 1st timothy 6 he says 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 so again paul issues another warning and he says the pursuit of wealth has led many people away from the faith now that's not he saying that. That's the Apostle Paul, inspired by God, giving us a warning that people who are eager for money have wandered away from Jesus. Now, if you asked them, why did you guys leave Jesus? Why is it that you're not so much interested in going to church anymore? Why is it that you've dropped out of your small group? Why is it that you don't read your Bible as much? None of them would say, well, because I decided that I want to make a lot of money and be rich. And no, of course they wouldn't say that. They'd have some reason about why it made sense

them, maybe because they got too busy. I don't know. But what Paul is saying is that underneath those reasons down deeper in our heart, the pursuit of wealth, the pursuit of more stuff, the pursuit of more resources, it has led them away from Jesus. Maybe they got the wealth, and now they are less dependent on God and more dependent on themselves. Or maybe they haven't gotten the wealth that they want yet. And so they're spending more time and energy pursuing it. Paul also says that the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. I think he's saying that the heart that loves money will soon be struggling with all kinds of other sins. Because when you lose your contentment in God, when you want more,

you're susceptible to worry and fear and complaining and jealousy and envy and anxiety and a whole host of other sins. So remember that Paul started this section of scripture in 1st Timothy 6 by saying that godliness with contentment is great gain? How do I get that heart? How do I get a content heart? Well, listen to this prayer found in Psalm 119, verse 36. Turn my heart towards your statues and not towards selfish gain.

The psalmist knows his heart. The psalmist sees that his heart is prone to wander, to lose contentment in God, and seek happiness and riches. And so he prays about it. He takes his heart to God. and says, God, turn my heart away from selfish gain and turn my heart toward you, toward your promises. Let's make that our prayer today.