Find Contentment
For the next ten weeks we’ll be looking at the Ten Commandments both in worship and in small groups. As Christians we live under grace and not under the law, yet all ten things we are commanded to do in the ancient laws given to Moses are good, helpful, positive things which if followed will produce better people, families, and communities. I would be happy to live in a community where people were trying to be content, honest, law abiding, faithful, managed their anger appropriately, worked to have peaceful family relationships, knew and worshiped God and lived by God’s priorities. Even, if we fall short of fulfilling all of these perfectly, pursuing them is a good goal.
February 6, 2011
Exodus 20:17, Find Contentment
Douglas Scalise, Brewster Baptist Church
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The Ten Commandments can elicit strong emotions. There have been legal battles in the United States about the presence of the Ten Commandments in court rooms and other public or government places. Some people will argue vehemently about the importance of the Ten Commandments, however, if asked to recite all ten, they hesitate and falter. If you had to write down the Ten Commandments in order you alone know how well you would do.
In life some people treat the Ten Commandments like an exam; they only attempt five of the ten. We’re going to work backwards from the 10th commandment to the first. The last six commandments deal with our relationships with other people. The first four focus on our relationship with God.
So we will begin by looking at issues that impact our relationships and then move more deeply to those that deal directly with God. Since it’s true that the biggest room in the world is the room for improvement, I hope that taking time to study the Ten Commandments will help us improve and grow as Christians.
Today we begin with the Tenth Commandment from Exodus 20:17,
“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, or male or female slave, or ox, or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbor.”
The word, covet, means “to desire with the intent to own something that can never be rightfully yours.” Coveting is desiring to possess. It is related to other feelings such as envy and jealousy.
Coveting comes from within us and is also motivated by things we see around us. At its root, we covet things or even people because we are dissatisfied of discontented with our circumstances. The grass always appears greener on the other side of the fence, or as Erma Bombeck noted, over the septic tank. People live in one of two tents: content or discontent.
Today a word we might use for what coveting causes is materialism.
Where would advertisers be, if they couldn’t count on our desire to covet?
The problem is – the attitude of “more” doesn’t give us contentment and materialism can cause a number of problems in our lives.
Materialism can cause worry
Jesus said (Luke 12:15): “Beware. Don’t be greedy for what you don’t have. Real life is not measured by how much we own.”
When we focus on things we worry about them. We worry we don’t have enough or worry about keeping what we have. What happens when we buy a new car , we worry about the first time it gets dinged.
Materialism can cause Weariness
Proverbs 23:4, “Don’t weary yourself trying to make yourself rich. Why waste your time?” In the frantic rush to get ahead or just keep up, we get tired. Leo Tolstoy shared the story of a king, who tells a peasant, “You can have as much of my land as you are able to walk around in one day.” At the beginning of the day the peasant thinks, “Wow, I can have as much of the king’s land as I can walk around in one day!” He was determined to get as much as possible. So he began walking as soon as the sun came up and keeps on walking, until the close of the day pushing to get back to the king before the sunset. He gets there just in time then he collapses to the ground and dies.
He could have quite a bit of land if he’d had a lunch break. If he simply walked four miles and made a right turn and done that two more times he could have had 16 square miles of land and been set for life. How much land did he acquire? Six feet deep to be buried in.
The thing about the Rat Race is that even if you win the race, you’re still a rat.
We lose our health to make money and then we lose our money to restore our health.
Materialism can cause (worry, weariness) gloom
1 Timothy 6:10, “Some people, craving money, have pierced themselves with many sorrows”. Some people despair when they can’t have what they want.
If you cannot have everything, make the best of everything you have.
The Bible doesn’t condemn wealth and possessions. Nowhere does the Bible say that money is evil. What it does say is 1 Timothy 6:10: “The love of money is the root of all kinds of evil.” God is not opposed to wealth. God is opposed to the worship of wealth and to hoarding it. Jesus talked a great deal about money. 16 of the 38 parables Jesus told were concerned with money and possessions and our feelings about them. Jesus said (Mark 10:25): “It is harder for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God, than for a camel to go through the eye of a needle.”
One could make the argument that coveting is the motive behind breaking the other nine Commandments. Coveting is the “source of all sins.”
We will lie, cheat, steal; commit adultery because we are coveting, because we want more. Coveting is like seawater, the more we drink, the thirstier we become.
The positive way to counter coveting is to find contentment.
How do we Find Contentment?
1. Being Grateful For What We Already Have
1 Timothy 6:6-8 tells us, “Of course, there is great gain in godliness combined with contentment; 7 for we brought nothing into the world, it is certain that we can take nothing out of it; 8 but if we have food and clothing, we will be content with these.”
The best way to have a contented state of mind is to count our blessings not our cash. We get into trouble with “When” and “Then” thinking:
“When” I get a promotion “then” I’ll be happy. When I make more money, then, I’ll be happy.
“When” I get a bigger house “then” I’ll be happy.
“When I’m older, When I was younger…” and on and on it goes.
“When” and “then” and we are never happy.
As Christians we don’t want to fall for the lie of “when and then” or “more” – thinking that having more will make you happy… Learn to be content while having ambitions and goals. Rather than looking at what we don’t have and thinking if we had it then everything would be perfect, we can learn to look at what we do have and being grateful for it.
A farmer lived on the same farm all his life. It was a good farm, but with the passing of years, the farmer began to tire and longed for a change; for something better. Every day he found a new reason for criticizing some feature of the farm. Finally, he decided to sell and contacted an agent, who prepared a sale advertisement. As one might expect, it emphasized all the farm’s advantages – ideal location, modern equipment, healthy stock, and acres of fertile ground.
Before advertising, the agent called the farmer and read the copy to him for his approval. When she’d finished reading the farmer said, “Hold everything, I’ve changed my mind. I’m not going to sell. I’ve been looking for a place like that all my life!”
A man had no shoes and complained, until he met a man who had no feet.
If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof over your head and a place to sleep, you are richer than 75% of this world.
If you have money in the bank, in your wallet, and spare change in a dish someplace, you are among the wealthiest 8% in the world.
If you woke up this morning with more health than illness, you are more blessed than the million who will not survive this week
If you have never experienced the danger of battle, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture, or the pangs of starvation, you are more fortunate than 500 million people in the world.
Do we have an attitude of gratitude? Let’s be grateful for what we already have.
As we seek to find contentment it helps not only to be grateful for what we have but to Point 2. Recognise the limitations of wealth
Money talks, but it doesn’t always talk sense.
Money is a good thing, but it’s possible to pay too high a price for it.
Don’t value money for any more than it’s worth. Wealth cannot deliver all that it promises. Money can buy medicine, but it cannot buy health.
It can buy a house, but not a home. It can buy companionship, but not friendship.
It can buy entertainment, but not happiness. It can buy food, but not an appetite.
It can buy a bed, but not sleep. It can buy a crucifix, but not a Saviour.
In Charles Dickens’s ‘A Christmas Carol’, Marleys’ ghost lamented a life of clinging to money: “My Spirit never roved beyond the narrow limits of our money changing hole.” Two and a half thousand years earlier, the writer of the book of Ecclesiastes (5:10) knew this only to well: “Those who love money will never have enough. How absurd to think that wealth brings true happiness.”
Things satisfy for a while, but then they lose their thrill.
Possessions do not give us permanent happiness and they do not give us permanent security. Proverbs 18:11, “The rich think of their wealth as an impregnable defense, they imagine it is a high wall of safety.”
If we are going to have security we have to put it in something that will not be taken away. We can lose our wealth overnight as many have discovered. If money and possessions brought happiness, then the wealthiest people would be the happiest – and that’s not true. Ask Tiger Woods or Bernie Madoff. As a philosopher named Mick Jagger put it: “I can’t get no satisfaction”
He also sang in another song, “You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes you just might find you get what you need.”
A man asked God how long a million years was to the Almighty.
God replied, “A million years to me is just like a single second in your time.”
The man asked God what a million dollars was to the Lord.
God replied, “A million dollars to me is just like a single penny to you”
The man asked: “God, could I have one of your pennies?”
God replied, “Certainly, just a second.”
True contentment is found not in having everything you want, But in not wanting to have everything.
Be grateful, recognize the limitations of wealth, thirdly to find contentment, Focus on people, not possessions
We can covet so much, that things can become more important to us than people. Possessions cannot compensate for unhappy relationships.
Relationships bring happiness, not things. Proverbs 15:27, “A greedy person brings trouble to their family.” In our race for riches, marriages can break apart and our children can become distant relatives. The best thing that parents can give their children is time – not treasure. Sometimes we are so anxious to give our children what we didn’t have, that we forget to give them what we did have.
Our children need our presence more than our presents. We are to love people and use things. If we start loving things we may end up using people. Focus on people not possessions.
4. Look beyond what is temporary
2 Corinthians 4:18, “We fix our eyes not on what is seen, but what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal”.
As Christians we live our lives in the light of eternity.
Jesus said: “How will you benefit if you gain the whole world but lose your own soul? Is anything worth more than your soul?” Mark 8:36
We need to realize that there is a whole lot more going on, than just the here and now. Psalm 90:10 says, “The days of our life are seventy years, or perhaps eighty, if we are strong; even then their span is only toil and trouble; they are soon gone, and we fly away.” Seventy years is a good life. We’ve got seven days a week so say we allocate ten years per day. Monday is birth to 10-years-old, Tuesday 11-20, Wednesday 21-30, Thursday 31-40, till we’ve got seventy years. Now some of you may be older than 70 or you have parents who are older than 70, and your thinking that Psalm 90 says seventy, yes, but sometimes God gives us a long weekend with holiday on Monday! A few people even get an extra holiday Tuesday! Regardless our life here on earth is a blip on the eternal screen. I’m 46 years old that means I’m already more than halfway through Friday, how’s your week looking? Look beyond what is temporary to find contentment. We are not in the land of the living going to the land of the dying.
We are in the land of the dying heading towards the land of the living.
5. Be a giver
Ironically we find contentment and defeat covetousness not by getting but by giving. Jesus talked a great deal about giving because giving is a cure for covetousness. You can give without loving. But you can’t love without giving.
C.S. Lewis wrote: “I am afraid biblical charity is more than merely giving away that which we can afford to do without anyway.”
Paul quoted a saying of Jesus (Acts 20:35): “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” Doing something for somebody who can never repay you is a great way to cultivate this attitude in life.
6. Find Your security in Jesus Christ
You do not find happiness through possessions, pleasure or power.
Happiness in life comes from purpose. Jesus said: “Your heavenly father already knows all your needs, and he will give you all you need from day to day if you live for him and make the Kingdom of God your primary concern.” (Matthew 6:32-33)
Make sure God’s will for your life is the top priority. When we focus on that, everything else will fall into place. That doesn’t mean it will be an easy journey but we will have discovered the path to contentment. God made us for a purpose and in Jesus we find that purpose. Now, that’s the exact opposite of the message we hear that often says that our personal value is based on our financial value and we have this idea that if we own a lot we must be worth a lot and if I only have a little, I can’t be worth very much as a person. It’s a lie. God says you are valuable.
I’ve got a $20 bill, one of those really nice new crisp ones. This is twenty pounds, its clean its crisp it’s worth $20. [Put bill on the floor, kick around with feet]. A moment ago, it was brand-new it was clean, crisp, now I’ve stepped on it; it hasn’t lost its value its still worth $20. Lets scrunch it up more. [scrunch up note] a moment ago it was crisp, and worth $20, then I stepped on it, and it didn’t lose its value, now I’ve creased it up it hasn’t lost its value its still worth $20.
It doesn’t matter how creased, how dirty your life is, you have never lost your value in God’s eyes. We are so valuable that Jesus died on the cross for us.
I began by saying “The grass appears greener on the other side of the fence”. The grass is not necessarily greener on the other side of the fence or on this side of the fence. The grass is greener when we water it. Let’s water our faith and our contentment in Jesus Christ.
Some of us may need a money manager or assistance with budgeting, but it is even more essential we have a Life Manager and the word for that in the Bible is Lord. Jesus Christ wants to be your Manager to cleanse us from coveting and teach us true contentment. To live as a Christian and to be a friend of God is more valuable than anything.
Prayer
Lord God, you said we shouldn’t covet. But sometimes in our weakness we’ve reached out for things that we thought would satisfy us. Yet once we had them, they seemed like cheap counterfeits. They didn’t satisfy us at all.
Please help us to surrender our selfish desires.
Help us Jesus to learn that True Contentment comes from you alone.
And so Lord, we say to you, we only desire those things that you know will satisfy us and fulfill us. In Jesus Name. Amen.
Blessing: Philippians 4:11b-13
I have learned to be content with whatever I have. 12 I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plenty. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need. 13 I can do all things through him who strengthens me.