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NewCity Orlando Sermons
The Art of Divine Contentment | Hebrews 13:5-6
Senior Pastor Damein Schitter continues our Art of Divine Contentment series, preaching from Hebrews 13:5-6
Hello everyone. This is Pastor Damian. You're listening to Sermon Audio from New City, orlando. At New City, we believe all of us need all of Jesus for all of life. For more resources, visit our website at newcityorlandocom. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 2:Good morning. Please pray this prayer of illumination with me. Give us understanding that we may keep your law and observe it with our whole hearts. Lead us in the path of your commandments, for we delight in it. Turn our eyes from looking at worthless things and give us life in your ways, through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen. Please remain standing, for today's scripture comes from Hebrews 13, five through six. 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 we can confidently say the Lord is my helper, I will not fear. What can man do to me? This is God's word. You may be seated.
Speaker 1:I want to, hopefully by way of encouragement, give you a brief update of the conversation I just had with my wife in between that and this, and as a joke, I said allegedly, the sermon is going to be shorter this morning, and she looked at me and smiled and she said allegedly, it better be. So there you go. We all need truth tellers in our lives and so let's give it a whirl. This will be uh, this will be part one of really a two-part series, in my mind, of completing our sermon series on the divine art of contentment. This month been preached the first two weeks, I'll preach the final two weeks, and the topic of both will be money, and so, while, uh, given the context, this will be a little shorter. So, while, given the context, this will be a little shorter, I view it in one way as a homily, but in another way as tilling the soil for next week, where we'll have a full sermon from 1 Timothy 6 and an encouragement to the rich and, spoiler alert, we're all rich. So, with that, in the spirit also of May, many of you have been to, or will be to, graduation ceremonies with speakers who will be speaking and, if not, many of you in this room have experienced it before, or you've actually been the one who's graduated and received encouragement. And so, in the spirit of that, let me ask you a question that all of those speakers assume, and that is this how do you know that you're successful? If I were to ask you that question in conversation and I said, hey, how do you know you're successful, what would populate your mind? It doesn't mean it doesn't tell me everything about you, but it tells me. It's a good litmus test of where you are right now in your heart. Whatever would come to mind when I say how do you know you're successful? Because with all of these graduation speeches, many of the graduates will be hearing a version of success. In essence, all of these speakers are inviting the graduates to consider a way to aim their life at something, both what to aim at and how to aim at that thing.
Speaker 1:I remember back my high school graduation and, just in general, those years of discerning a career path or a major and where I might go, and I remember clearly that part of that process was discerning what type of talents I might naturally have and how I could give myself to forming those talents and direct it in a career path and in whatever conversations I was having or thought process I had, the list was the list, but I immediately called out, that is to say, I removed possibilities on that list based on one factor and of course it was what's the salary range? What's the salary range of that job? Because I wasn't really interested in problems that I might uniquely be designed to solve, but rather I was looking for a privilege that would give me a life of comfort, full stop. That's what I was after, and I just wonder if you guys experienced that. Now I'd like to say that I'm past, that. I'd like to say that that was before.
Speaker 1:I was a Christian, that was me in the BC days, which is true, but what wouldn't be true is to say that that was one of the things that had been put to death. Finally, no, it's a lifestyle. As the writer of the Hebrews says, present active, imperative Keep your lives free from the love of money. On and on, it never goes away. I would imagine this is true for you in some ways and if I could boil it down, I really try to think about that because in one sense, it might be trite just to say that, because you might say yeah, and you might want to nuance it a bunch, but here's really where my heart was and where my heart still at times is. And what I really wanted by looking at the salary ranges is I wanted to have everything I thought I needed on my own terms, and I thought the surest way to that end was to have a lot of money, and I still believe that more often than I wish I would.
Speaker 1:You see, there's a key thing that money offers and it is a buffer from life's uncertainties. Think about this If your car breaks down on the way home from church, it breaks down. You find yourself on the side of the road and you call the tow truck. If you're a person who's wealthy, who has a lot of means, do you think you're more or less anxious than the person who's living paycheck to paycheck? What do you think the thought process of that person, who the least on their mind is how I'm going to pay for this? The highest thing on their mind is how long it's taking the tow truck, this entitlement of how long. Why is it taking so long? That's going to be a different internal situation than the person who's just praying that it's nothing serious because they have no idea how they're going to pay for this. Do you see that? The buffer, the shock absorber of life and the uncertainties of life? Well, that's just a true thing, right? Another question is in that moment, who would feel their dependence on God more? Just, most naturally, just, most naturally. Okay, it's probably not the wealthy person. It's probably the one who feels their vulnerability more acutely, who feels the insecurity of what it's like to not have money or a lot of it. And here's one final question in that scenario, it would be who feels their dependence upon God more in that moment? It's probably the one who feels their insecurity more, their vulnerability more.
Speaker 1:Paul Miller in his book A Praying Life, speaking about prayer. But, of course, what is the Christian life in communion with God? But prayer, this ongoing conversation with God, paul Miller says, quote one of the subtlest hindrances to prayer, is also probably the most pervasive In the broader culture and in our churches we prize intellect, competency and wealth. And because we can do life without God, praying seems nice but unnecessary. Money can do what prayer does and it's quicker and less time consuming.
Speaker 1:A friend of mine who is wealthy once said I know where my heart is when I find the phrase this phrase coming out of my mouth more often than it should and that is, if money can take care of it, it's not a real problem. Now, in one sense that's true. It's a diagnostic. What are the real problems in life, what are the true problems? And so often we pour money into problems that money actually can't solve, like finding meaning in life, a purpose in life. If money is your purpose, that will be a meaningless life. This is what the Bible is very clear about. But then there are other ways where greed keeps us from truly giving money to the problems that money could solve, and so you get this weirdly confusing reality.
Speaker 1:And you see, ultimately, what I think is happening, and why we need passages like this, is that all of us are tempted to want abundance without dependence. We want an abundant life without being dependent upon God, who is the source of life. We want abundant wealth, but not dependent on God, the source of all wealth. We want abundant power, but not to be dependent upon the source of all power, which is the triune God, the God who calls us into relationship with him, the God who offers us his presence, and all of this, I believe, comes from a deep fear of our true vulnerability. We all know how vulnerable we are, we all know how dependent as creatures we are, and we are terrified. And so we seek something that will give us the capacity for increased control of our own lives, a shock absorber to protect us from the real world. And, of course, we know that the one bump ultimately, that no matter how impressive your shock absorbers are in life, the one bump that will bottom you out is death. And we don't know when that's going to happen. And so today, in this shorter version, part one of this two-part exploration of contentment and money, two points First, money's alluring power, and then, second, contentment's antidote. All right, so first, money's alluring power.
Speaker 1:I know you've heard things like what I'm about to say before, but I didn't know the details, so I thought I'd pass them on to you. If you think about Jesus's parables, only nearly half of them, or 16 out of 38, that's 42% to be exact. For those who are keeping score at home, 42% of Jesus's parables are essentially teaching us about the deceitfulness of riches and the danger of greed. Okay, so then I thought, well, what if we preached about money as much as Jesus did in his parables? What that would mean is, we would preach 22 sermons a year on money and you might be like well, what does that mean? It means that every other week we'd be preaching on the dangers of wealth and money. Every other week. So that's twice a month. So this month we're actually going to do it Two weeks in a row on the dangers of wealth and greed.
Speaker 1:Now I'll just say it right out and I really mean it and I'll probably say it again. I'll probably say it again, I'll certainly say it more next week money is truly not the issue. Money is not the issue. Our fearful covetousness is the issue. It's our hearts, it's the love of money. But the problem is, is that anyone who engages money knows that, while that's true, it also feels trite to talk that way, because the reality is, is that money is kind of like electricity? It's really good and it's really powerful and it can be channeled in ways that bring light and bring heat and bring air conditioning. In Florida, that really matters. When the power grid goes down, nobody's happy about that and we shouldn't want that. But anytime you deal with electricity, what does it come with? It comes with a warning label Beware occupational hazard, danger, pay attention. Okay. So that's the spirit in which we're going to address this reality over the next two weeks. One danger is that we're often unaware of the immense power money holds in our lives All of us. We're very unaware of this, so therefore the first step would be recognizing it.
Speaker 1:Recently I heard a sermon by Tim Keller and he describes how he told his wife, kathy, that he was speaking at these men's breakfasts over the next seven weeks, each week, taking one of the seven deadly sins. And she said to him so are these publicized? Like, do people know what week you're going to be teaching on which sin? And he said yes. And she said watch this, when you get to greed, attendance will plummet. And he said she was right. It went way down, noticeably down. And so then he said I thought about it and as I engaged people, what I realized, it wasn't because people were convicted and didn't want to hear about greed, it was that they didn't think it was relevant to their life. Lust, totally Gluttony you betcha.
Speaker 1:Greed, I don't know, not so much as I reflect back. I'm sure it's happened, but I don't remember in any membership interview in the last 10 years at New City. When I ask every time I do one, what are the two to three sin patterns you struggle with? Never once has anyone said greed, not in my interviews. Maybe it's happened, I can't remember. I've never had anyone reach out to me that I can remember and confess a pattern of greed. Now I'm sure it's happened, but I can name a bunch of other things that people regularly reach out to me on. So the only thing that I can I'm basically agreeing with Tim Keller on this is that I think we're blind to it and we'll talk more about this next week. Now some of you are like oh, I'm not blind to it, and I don't think we all are, but I think something taught you that it was dangerous and now you're aware of it, and not everyone has had that experience yet, but Jesus continually invites us to reflect on that.
Speaker 1:This week I sent a text message and then later a phone call with a friend of mine who, I believe, thinks about this not only deeply but very regularly, and I just said to him. I asked him when we read the passage here in Hebrews 13, verse 5, when we read the passage here in Hebrews 13, verse 5, keep your life free from the love of money he could have said anything else. Why did he say money? And what he sent me back is gold. And I'm just going to quote him. This is what he said my take dot dot dot.
Speaker 1:Money is the only only was in all caps. Money is the only universally recognized token exchangeable for the world's treasures, power and influence. Nothing else has its utility. People with it are seen as smarter, more powerful, more useful, more interesting, more exclusive, et cetera, than those without. And, as a token, it's not exclusive. It can be obtained and in doing so, change the perceived identity of the individual. It's the single most powerful, accessible and fungible mechanism of perceived personal identity transformation.
Speaker 1:This was in a text message, right? So end quote, by the way, end quote. So here's the thing. I think that money is not fundamentally a problem. It's our orphan, insecure heart that is the problem, and we're just craving for power. We're craving for status, we're craving for a definition of success that, no matter what room we walk in, no matter how bad our day is, no matter when our kids disrespect us and we sin against our spouse, what is that thing we go to comfort ourself in? If we have a lot of money, it could be that, or if we don't, it is that universal token that, whatever room we walk in, we can hide behind that. Okay, we'll discuss this further next week.
Speaker 1:But think about the precious, the ring from the Lord of the Rings. Right, this was also in the text message, but I'm changing it enough. If you don't like it that way, you blame me and not him. So, basically, what money, as it is like, the precious does is that if you put it on, it promises you two things. The first one you want, the second one you don't believe. The first one is it promises you will become powerful. If you put the is it promises you will become powerful. If you put the ring on, you will become powerful. If you are wealthy, if you achieve that, you will become powerful. The second thing is you will also become ruled. Think about all the people who put the ring on. They thought they could handle it, they thought they could control it and it ended up ruling them, except for one person, and even he was tempted, and that was Frodo. What was the difference Is that Frodo knew that the ring was not his. He was to steward the power, the great power of the ring, not to have it and anyone who wanted to have it. They would be ruled by it. But Frodo said I don't want to have it, I want to steward it, I want to protect everyone else from it. You see, the whole dynamic is elusive to us.
Speaker 1:I recently heard a story of a church in the late 1600s in Boston. Their elders got together and decided with the congregation, by the way, that in business, anything more than 4% profit was greed. Well, I think it's impossible to name a percent, especially in the complexity of our world. But here's what I love about it and it's why I share this they realized that greed was elusive and relative. And so they got together and they decided we're oftentimes blind to greed. Let's all decide what a number is, what's enough. And they as a church I don't know how big it was decided that 4% was enough. Well, later they found out that a businessman was hiding this, that he was actually taking 6% profit, and they put him under church discipline because he had agreed that anything above 4% was greed. So here's my point.
Speaker 1:My point is that there are people now who look at other people and say that's greed, but when you find yourself there, all of a sudden, it's not greed anymore. You see, even if they would have said 6%, this man would have taken 8%, and if they would have said 10%, it would have been 12%. You see how slippery this is. This is why Jesus teaches on this. This is why the writer of the Hebrews, as in chapter 13, closing the letter, he speaks on a handful of things, and one of them is keep yourselves from the love of money.
Speaker 1:Letter. He speaks on a handful of things, and one of them is keep yourselves from the love of money. Listen, when money become, when it has us, it's because it's become a substitute for the Father, who is our ultimate provision and protection. We've just substituted money because we have more control. We think over money, and I think the love of money is born out of fear, and the thing is is that it works for a while, but then we begin to be ruled by it, and so let's make this transition into the second point. What I've tried to do is I've talked about money's alluring power, and the reason I use the word allure is because think of a fishing lure. It's shiny and we go for it and we try to grab it, but once we actually get it, sometimes it actually gets us. It has its hook in us all of a sudden, and now it controls us, it takes us wherever it wants.
Speaker 1:And so what's the antidote? What's the antidote? Well, the writer of the Hebrews says keep your life free from the love of money and be content with what you have. So contentment is the antidote. That's the sermon series. But then he goes on specifically and says for he has said that is God, I will never leave you nor forsake you. So we can confidently say the Lord is my helper, I will not fear. What can man do for me?
Speaker 1:Look at the author's reasoning for contentment. He says be content with what you already have, because the thing that you think money will give you, god has already given you. What do we think money will give us? Security, self-righteousness, love, honor, respect, peace, joy, power. But what the author is saying is that you already have these things. You have them in God's presence, as you're connected to the source of life. Yes, god knows you need money. Yes, god will provide for you. You're his child, even you who are wicked. Would you not provide for your children? If your child asks for bread, will you give them a stone or a snake? No, of course God will provide for us. You have these things, he's saying, and when the apostle calls us to keep our lives free from the love of money, he seeks to secure us from the disease of covetousness that Ben talked about last week by calling our attention to God's promise and his presence.
Speaker 1:John Calvin was so helpful to me this week. He says this the source of covetousness, which is often the love of money and possessions, is simply mistrust of God. The source of covetousness is mistrust of God. God can't be trusted. What did we see in the garden? You can't really trust God. He's keeping things from you. Don't trust him. And this produces a fear in us, because if we mistrust God, who's left to protect us, who's left to provide for us, who's left to give us meaning and honor and respect and peace? Well, we are. And again, as my friend said, the thing that makes that possible oftentimes is money. And so when we we can only overcome fear when we're assured of God's love, his help and his presence.
Speaker 1:But here's the tricky thing as we close, some of you right now are thinking, yeah, okay, this is a good reminder. Or yeah, again, here I am again struggling with this. And, in the spirit of self-reliance, you and I and I know this well will think that the way to purify our hearts and to redirect our misaligned desires will be to come up with a new spiritual self-improvement project. That's like, okay, well, I need to bring, by the way, what I'm about to say. These are all good ideas, they're just not the answer. You know what I really need? To bring some friends that I trust and they need to look, they need to see everything on my budget. They need to be able to ask any question they want. That's a really good idea and I would recommend it. You better trust them. You also need them to be able to speak into your life. If you're gonna do that but even if that happens, it's not gonna change you you might think, okay, I need to buckle down on the budget. You might think I need to do X, y and Z, whatever, fill in the blank, but it becomes a spiritual self-improvement project.
Speaker 1:Listen, I'm telling you, the only thing that can actually change you is God's presence by the Holy Spirit, most often through prayer. Okay, and so this is why Pentecost matters, as Ben said, the third great work of God, giving of his Holy Spirit to us to dwell in us. So let me just lead you through what this looks like in my life, using the two promises given here, verse 6 I will never leave you nor forsake you. The Lord is my helper. I will not fear. What can man do to me? This is what it would look like as I recognize greed in my life not as I would. By the way, as I do recognize greed in my life, I pray God's promises back to him, and since this author gives us these promises to combat greed and the love of money, let's use those.
Speaker 1:I want to confess, and all I mean by confess is I want to tell God the truth, and this is what the truth looks like in these moments. Something like God, I need you to reorder my loves and desires. Right now, I'm living and making decisions with my money, the way that I am, because I don't believe you are enough. I don't believe you will provide for me. I don't believe that you're with me. I don't believe you when you say you will never leave me or forsake me. Look at those people over there and look at me. They're not struggling with this. They don't have the needs that I have. And, god, I also don't believe that you're my helper.
Speaker 1:I live in fear, desperately wanting the respect, honor and admiration of other men and women, and I believe that if I had more money I could make progress there, and I believe that if I had more money I could make progress there. Ultimately, I fear them more than I fear you. I fear not being in control more than opening my life to you, I repent and ask for forgiveness and for increased faith to experience your promises for me. You see, what this does in prayer, being honest with God and then praying his promises back to him is that it takes contentment from merely a concept that we understand to a comfort that we experience. And that is what will reorder your desires Not merely a concept that you understand, but a comfort that you experience. And this happens by the Holy Spirit and oftentimes through prayer. And so what I'll say in close it was a little closer, babe, a little shorter what I'll say in closing is that that the only place, the only place that I can step out of the shame of the vulnerability again of going to anyone much less God and telling him again that I trust myself and my own hands more than his provision the only thing that gets me past the shame is to recognize that in Jesus I have his righteousness.
Speaker 1:I'm an adopted child, so that's the only thing that can turn my heart back. Otherwise I cower, otherwise I'm afraid. And so that's what I invite you to. You have to understand that the righteousness of Christ is yours. You did nothing to earn it. You can do nothing to lose it. But to grow in that life, to receive increased abundance, is to from that righteousness. Be honest with yourself, be honest with God, because you don't earn points by living in the dark and you don't earn points by living in the light. But what you do is you experience the comfort of God's peace the more you move toward him from the righteousness of Christ, being honest with him.
Speaker 1:Let's pray, father, I ask that you would come now and teach us. Teach us what it is to see the deception, the lie of the love of money. I pray that, wherever we would be whether we have lots of it, whether we have lots of it but compared to others we're with, don't have lots of it, or whether we really don't have lots of it wherever we would be, that you would move us toward contentment, that we would see everything that the lie and whisper of the love of money tells us. You have provided for us. You've given us status, you've given us purpose, you've given us meaning, you've given us security, you've given us comfort, and that last speed bump of life can't take any of those from us. We yield to you in Jesus' name, amen.
Speaker 1:And in this time of reflection, now, in that very thing, I just want to offer this In your heart, now, would you take a posture of yielding to God, would you just reflect on whatever fears you might have as it relates to money, whatever anxieties you might have as it relates to money, money, power, approval, status, and would you bring it in the eyes of your heart, your mind's eye, and would you actually open your hands or just in your mind, yield those things to him and let God come and speak his promise to you that I will never leave you nor forsake you. Let's take a few moments and do that.