Search for Contentment - 1 Timothy 6:1-10

Title: Search for contentment
Date: May 12, 2009
Text: 1 Timothy 6:1-10

Introduction
- Philip Parham tells the story of a rich industrialist who was disturbed to find a fisherman sitting lazily beside his boat.
- "Why aren't you out there fishing?" he asked.
- "Because I've caught enough fish for today," said the fisherman.
- "Why don't you catch more fish than you need?' the rich man asked.
- "What would I do with them?"
- "You could earn more money," came the impatient reply, "and buy a better boat so you could go deeper and catch more fish.
- You could purchase nylon nets, catch even more fish, and make more money. Soon you'd have a fleet of boats and be rich like me."
- The fisherman asked, "Then what would I do?"
"You could sit down and enjoy life," said the industrialist.
- "What do you think I'm doing now?" the fisherman replied as he looked placidly out to sea.
- Today we are going to talk about the subject of contentment
- Timothy was a young man when Paul asked him to join him in his missions work
- Eventually, Timothy was appointed the pastor of the church in Ephesus
- Paul wrote down some pointers for Timothy to remember, while taking care of the church
Contentment with our job (1 Tim 1-2)

- People who got into debt, could go into slavery to pay off that debt
- This does not mean they would be a slave forever, when the debt was paid off, they would be released
- You could buy a slave out of their slavery
- This was called redeeming the slave
- As a slave, you could have a good boss or a bad one
- If you have a bad boss, Paul says to still respect him, so that God’s name would not be slandered
- Ultimately, we have a higher boss, than our employer
- The way we work reflects on our Christian reputation
- When we work, we are really working for our higher boss, God
- Col 3:22
- Eph 6:6
- Paul’s point in these verses is to say that we should be working as though we are working for God
- We are known to be Christians
- Our behavior as an employee should not bring disrepute on Jesus
- You might be the only real Christian your boss has ever met, and how you treat your boss, how you do your job, and how you interact with your co-workers all communicate your commitment to Jesus Christ
- Paul also says that if we work for a good boss, a Christian, we should really work even harder for them, not taking advantage of their Christianity
- Sometimes people are slower to pay their bills to Christian suppliers or contractors, taking advantage of their Christian relationship
- Only, when we take advantage of them, we are not being Christian
- This is not God’s way
- There are lots of Christian business owners who prefer to not hire fellow Christians.
- The reason is that often a Christian employee thinks that he or she doesn’t have to work as hard, that they’ll get special breaks because they share a common faith with the boss
- In our employment relationships, do everything in a way that would please God

Contentment with our faith (3-5)

- There are genuine Christians who’ve grown dissatisfied with his or her Christian faith.
- I don’t mean that we should be content with who we are, we should always be growing as Christians
- “Be content with what you have, never with what you are”
- But we can become complacent in our faith
- This happens especially with people raised in Christian homes, people who’ve heard all the Bible stories since they were preschoolers.
- They’ve heard dozens of sermons on every Christian theme. For many of these people, familiarity has bred contempt.
- To spice things up, they can get all twiggy
- Instead of sticking with the trunk of the tree, they go off on the twigs, the non-essentials
- They develop their own pet theories about things, instead of sticking to the main message of Christianity
- Be content with what God is teaching you
- If it does not appear exciting, any more, ask God to give you back your first love
- Rev 2:4-5
- When we go off on interesting tangents and doctrines, we are ripe for being sidetracked into cultic ideas, and can lose out on what God is doing in our lives
- This can also lead to us losing focus entirely, and doing our ministry for the sake of profit
- Stick to the trunk of the tree

Contentment with our income 6-10

- Here Paul is telling that we should be satisfied with what God has given us
- Take care of it, maintain it, be thankful for it
- God is intimately involved in our life, he knows all that is happening to us
- He desires us to learn to trust him, and so we go through times when we may not be as well off as we would like
- But these times will probably be followed by times of blessing
- Prov 30:8-9
- "Content makes poor men rich; discontent makes rich men poor." - Benjamin Franklin
- I heard about a rich man who was determined to take his wealth with him (Russell 88). He told his wife to get all his money together, put it in a sack, and then hang the sack from the rafters in the attic. He said, "When my spirit is caught up to heaven, I’ll grab the sack on my way." Well he eventually died, and the woman raced to the attic, only to find the money still there. She said, "I knew I should’ve put the sack in the basement."
- It’s been said, "Money will buy you a bed but not sleep. It will buy you books but not intelligence, food but not an appetite, a house but not a home, medicine but not health, amusement but not happiness, religion but not salvation--[money will buy you] a passport to anywhere in the world except to heaven."
- What’s most important in your today? Is it the value of your stocks or the kind of car you drive? Is it the amount of money you spend on your kids at Christmas?
- Or is it the quality of your relationships? Is it knowing that God loves you deeply and has rescued you from sin by bringing you to Jesus? What is most important?