Sunday Sermon: Godliness With Contentment is Great Gain (1 Timothy 6:1-10)

You are listening to the teaching ministry of Gabriel Hughes. Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday on this podcast we feature 20 minutes of Bible study through a

New Testament book. On Thursday is a study in the Old Testament and then we answer questions from the listeners on Friday.

Each Sunday we are pleased to share our sermon series. Here's Pastor Gabe. In honor of the word of the

King would you please stand. First Timothy chapter six beginning in verse one. Hear the word of the

Lord. Let all who are under a yoke as bond servants regard their own masters as worthy of all honor so that the name of God and the teaching may not be reviled.

Those who have believing masters must not be disrespectful on the ground that they are brothers. Rather, they must serve all the better since those who benefit by their good service are believers and beloved.

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.

You may be seated as we pray. Heavenly Father, as we come into our text today,

I pray that you sow into our hearts contentment that we continue in the exhortation that we have been hearing over the course of certainly the second half of 1st

Timothy and that is to be in pursuit of godliness. And here we read about godliness that is also accompanied by contentment, that we would be content with those things that you have given to us, the place where you have put us in our lives that we may worship and honor

God, growing in holiness through the gospel that has been proclaimed to us, knowing that our ultimate reward is not in any blessing that we could receive from this world, but our ultimate reward is

Christ and his kingdom. And in all the things that you give us in addition to that, we are content.

May the peace that surpasses all understanding guard our hearts and our minds in Christ Jesus.

As Paul proclaimed in Philippians 4, it is in Jesus' name that we pray and all God's people said, amen.

I want to begin this morning with something that I did not get to last week. This was actually at the end of my manuscript, but ran out of time and just kind of skipped ahead to the

Lord's table because we want to be able to get to that. I did include this in the manuscript that I published on my website.

I don't know if you're aware of this or not, but I try to take the manuscript that I've typed over the week. I don't necessarily preach it word for word, but whatever it was that I typed,

I will put on my blog and that's easy to find. You just go to pastorgabe .com. If it's easier for you to read and kind of glean the information that way, if there were things that you felt like you missed, quotations

I made or things of that nature, you can go to the manuscript on the website and it will be there.

I try to publish those on Monday, but sometimes I'm a little bit behind. So this was in the manuscript, but it wasn't something that I got to actually mention to you last week.

If you will remember, we were talking about elders being worthy of double honor, how to bring a charge against an elder and other instructions that pertain to godliness.

I've been in full -time ministry almost my whole life. Before I became a pastor,

I worked in listener -supported Christian radio. Whether it was the listeners who paid my living wage or any of the pastors, any of the churches

I worked for who supported my ministry and paid my bills, I am truly grateful to every person who has blessed me to apply myself to the work of ministry, that I might be able to do that full -time and that work would be supported.

By either listeners or members of the church or whatever ministry I was a part of, it is an honor that I've been tasked with preaching and rightly handling the word of truth.

So I learned at a young age, and my dad instilled this in me and the principles that he taught me growing up, to be a responsible worker and to be grateful for what

I received as a result. I want to take advantage of no one, but I want to work heartily for you and for Christ and for his kingdom.

Many of you know that my family and I are in a financial crunch right now because we're paying rent here in Casa Grande and still paying on our mortgage on the house that we're still trying to sell in Texas.

We actually just dropped the price on the house again, hoping that that will speed things up a little bit.

There are some listeners to the podcast who have very generously donated to us and have helped us out and will be sustained for a few more months,

I believe. But it was on that same weekend that this church voted to even give us money if we needed it for rent.

And I don't want to touch it until we have to, but I just want to say from the bottom of my heart and on behalf of my family, it means a lot to us.

And we thank you. Thank you for taking care of me and my family.

You may not be called to full -time ministry, but I hope it goes without saying that we all have a responsibility to do our work for the glory of God.

God has indeed given us all something that we are to use for his glory and for the advancement of his kingdom.

And great will your reward be if you use it to his service.

Maybe not in this life, but most especially, and I can say with full assurance because it comes from the word of God, not from the mouth of Gabe, you will be rewarded in the eternity that is to come.

As said in Colossians 3, 23 to 24, whatever you do, work heartily as for the

Lord and not for men, knowing that from the Lord, you will receive the inheritance as your reward.

You are serving the Lord Christ. As we come to our text today, you may have noticed that we begin with an instruction to slaves, how they are to conduct themselves in service to their earthly masters.

That's in verses one and two. In the second part of our text, we have a warning about false teachers and the kind of rotten fruit their teaching produces, verses three to five.

And then lastly, contending with the motivations of false teachers, Paul makes the point that godliness with contentment is great gain, verses six through 10.

There's a very famous verse in this section today that you might have caught. What is that famous verse from 1

Timothy chapter six? For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evils.

How do you often hear that verse said? Money is the root of all evil. Isn't that usually what you hear?

But as we just read it, suddenly you're going, wait a minute. That may not be the way that I often hear that verse, the way that it's laid out here.

And indeed, there is a context that is often not given whenever you hear that verse quoted.

So we're going to get to that today as well. So to summarize our outline, once again, number one, we have a regard for earthly masters.

It's verses one and two. Number two, the result of ungodly teaching, verses three to five.

And then number three, the reward of godliness with contentment in verses six through 10.

Once again, we receive this exhortation to pursue godliness, which is the result of listening to and living out the sound words of our

Lord Jesus Christ. Whereas false teaching has the opposite effect.

It is contrary to Christ and therefore results in more and more ungodliness.

But godliness with contentment is great gain. So let us come back again to the heading of our text in 1

Timothy chapter six, beginning of verse one. Let all who are under a yoke as bond servants regard their own masters as worthy of all honor so that the name of God and the teaching may not be reviled.

Now the Greek word that we have translated there, bond servants, the Greek word is doulos, which is literally translated slave.

So if you are reading from the legacy standard version, that was one of the things that the translators had in mind when they came up with that translation was to consistently translate the word doulos into slave.

So this is a person who is in the ownership of their master, and that's really what is meant by bond servant as well.

Just some translations will use that word because it has a softer connotation in our culture than the word slave does, but it really means the same thing.

They are under the possession of their master. Let us let all who are under a yoke as bond servants regard their own masters as worthy of all what?

What was the word that was used there? Worthy of all honor. Really this is the third of a trilogy of a context of honor that Paul has given since chapter five.

The first one that we read about was honoring widows and how to support widows in the church, caring for those who are most in need in our congregation.

Then the second one, which we looked at last week, was showing honor to elders. And then we're continuing with that same thought into the start of chapter six, where Paul talks about honoring masters.

Let the slaves, the bond servants regard their own masters as worthy of honor so that the name of God and the teaching may not be reviled.

Those who have believing masters must not be disrespectful on the ground that they are brothers.

Rather, they must serve all the better since those who benefit by their good service are believers and beloved.

So there are masters who will be believers and there are also masters that were unbelievers.

Peter actually talks about this in his first epistle that you must be in subjection to your masters even if they are unbelievers and even if they are cruel to you.

Martin Luther King Jr. read that passage when he was in a jail cell and got so angry at the fact that God's word was telling him that he needed to be subject to a master even if they're cruel to you that he threw his

Bible across his jail cell. He was so frustrated with that instruction. But nonetheless, we are told that regardless of whether those who are over us are kind or cruel, that we are to be in subjection.

Why? Paul says, so that the name of God and the teaching may not be reviled.

And I come back to the passage that I had quoted from Colossians chapter 3, that we are first in subjection to the

Lord. And in whatever we do to remember that we work first for the

Lord and not for men. Know that everything that you are given comes not from the boss you are employed to.

Everything you are given comes from God. God in his providence may work through your employer to give you the money that you need that you have earned by your hard work to help provide for your needs.

But ultimately, all this is from God. So, you may look at your paycheck as many do and complain or sigh or think that you are not making what you are worth or the level of work that you put into the job that you are doing.

I deserve more than this. Anybody ever had that monologue with themselves?

I certainly have. I have before. But that demonstrates a discontentment.

And not in your boss, maybe he is mean. He or she, whoever. Maybe you are doing more work than what they actually pay you for.

But when you complain about what is provided for you, your complaint is going above your employer. Your complaint is going to God.

That you are not content with what God has given to you. Are you grateful when you make that money?

Maybe the paycheck is unfair. Maybe it is. But nonetheless, you receive it and you are grateful to God.

God, thank you for this, that I might have food in my belly tonight.

That I have a pillow that I can lay my head upon and sleep. That there's a roof over my head.

I have family members to care for and I'm able to care for them. I have something that I can even give back to the

Lord to further the cause of ministry. Are you grateful to those things that God has provided for you?

But Paul goes on beyond this to say, even those who have believing masters must not be disrespectful on the ground that they are brothers.

So we treat one another with brotherly kindness. Now, it's surely interesting that Paul would say this about the slave -master relationship even among believers.

I mean, shouldn't a believing brother want to set his slave free?

Well, there could be various reasons why that person is enslaved. He might be paying off a debt. It could very well be that's his employment.

He would rather be there than out in the world trying to have to fend for himself. Just because a person was enslaved to a master did not mean that something unjust was automatically happening.

But even those master's instructions are given in Scripture that they are to treat their slaves with respect.

Paul doesn't do that here in 1 Timothy 6, but we do find that in other places, Colossians 3 being one of them. So they must serve all the better since those who benefit by their good service are believers and beloved.

It's like, it is my pleasure to serve you because you are my brother or sister in the

Lord. So again, this is the third of those places where Paul instructs showing honor to those who are due honor.

We've heard of widows, elders in the church, and now here, even those slaves are to show kindness to their masters and show them honor.

For your master is providing for your livelihood. In the churches there in the first century, it was a pretty common thing that a slave might be considered part of the family.

So even in the early church in the first century, there would be families that would come together to church and their slaves would come right along with them.

And the slaves were to be regarded as equals. They were not to be sent outside to listen outside the windows.

That was what was happening in American era slavery where you would have the masters that would come to church, they might bring their slaves with them, but the slaves could not be in the service with them.

They had to be outside with the windows open, sitting in the grass, and that was how they listened to the songs or to the service.

But here at this particular time in the Roman system of slavery that existed, you might have a slave that was considered as part of the family.

That slave might even be an heir of what the master possessed. And in his will, he entrusted some of his own possessions that would go to his slave when he died.

Some of those slaves might have been able to buy their own freedom, but instead decided they wanted to remain under their master's employment because this was the work that they had.

It was the job that I've been given. It's the job that I'm going to subject myself to do. So a lot of times we will find in the context of scripture an instruction to slaves and masters that will be right alongside instructions that you'll see to husbands and wives and to parents and children.

This is the case in Ephesians 5 and 6 where Ephesians 5 begins with telling wives to be subject to your husbands, then the instruction to husbands to love your wives as Christ loved the church, giving himself up for her.

Then you have the instruction from children to parents. Children, honor your parents in the

Lord for this is right. And then you have the instruction of fathers and how to care for children that they are to train them in the discipline and the instruction of the

Lord, a scripture that Alan had even quoted this morning, and then not to spurn them on to anger.

And then right after that is the instruction, slaves to honor their masters, masters to treat their slaves with kindness.

It's right there in the context with family. So that was the case, that was the context in which these instructions were given there in 1

Timothy chapter 6. And so from here, after giving this instruction to slaves to be content with their wages and the service into which they were put,

Paul continues to expound upon contentment in the passages that go on.

So we've read about these instructions here to slaves and masters. And next, we're going to read about this warning that Paul gives with regards to those teachers who teach falsely.

So notice at the end of verse 2, if you're reading from the English Standard Version, you might notice there's a break there right in the middle of verse 2.

The last few words of verse 2 say, teach and urge these things. Teach and urge what things?

Well, exactly what Paul said, probably going with that trilogy of honor, honoring widows, honoring elders, slaves honoring masters that we just read about.

But surely, it's also encompassing of everything that we've read thus far in 1 Timothy. Nothing is off limits here.

Whatever Paul has instructed Timothy in in this letter, teach them. Teach them to your people, to your congregation.

Urge that they keep in following them. Now, what was the very first instruction that we heard at the start of this letter that Paul is writing to Timothy as he is pastoring the church in Ephesus?

The very first instruction was, don't let anyone teach any different doctrine.

That was the first instruction. As I said to you a couple of weeks ago, 1 Timothy is likely a polemic in which there were various problems that were going on in the church in Ephesus, but Paul loved this church so much that he sent his most entrusted protégé to Ephesus to help iron out these problems, discipline where discipline was needed, and to give them the solid teaching of the word that Timothy had heard repeatedly over and over again from the apostle.

And so a lot of the things that Paul instructs Timothy in in this letter was likely dealing with a problem that was going on in the church.

When we read in 1 Timothy 2, I do not permit a woman to teach or have authority over a man, but rather she is to remain quiet, likely there were women that were standing up and fancying themselves in the position of elder and trying to assume authority over even the men of the church.

But then Paul gives the basic instructions with regards to the qualifications for a pastor in 1

Timothy 3, 1 through 7, so that this church would be reminded, this is what a pastor should look like.

This is according to the word of God, this is according to the authority of an apostle, that this is how the church of God is to be structured.

And we read there also in chapter 3, Paul said that he was writing this letter, the very intention of the letter was so that you would know how one ought to conduct themselves in the household of God, which is the church of the living

God. And accompanied with that instruction, how one ought to conduct themselves, we have seen this instruction over and over again to be in pursuit of godliness.

But this letter is bookended by an instruction to beware of false teachers.

And don't let those false teachers teach anything contrary to the doctrine that you have been taught, to those words that come straight from the teaching of our

Lord Jesus Christ. So listen to what Paul says here in verse 3, 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, and then he's going to go on and say what the result of that will be in verses 4 and 5.

But let me stop here for just a moment. So a different doctrine, a different doctrine than what?

A different doctrine than the gospel, first of all, but then Paul says, does not agree with the sound words of our

Lord Jesus Christ. Now, he may have been referencing here words that directly came from Christ.

The gospels were already written at this time. They were already in circulation in the churches that had been planted throughout the

Roman Empire. We had read a little bit of that last week, as a matter of fact, where Paul quoted directly from Christ.

This according to the word of our Lord how you are to honor the elders of the church, the overseers of the church.

He says it's from Scripture. It's not anywhere in the Old Testament, but we do find those words exactly as Jesus quoted them in the gospels.

So the gospels were written by this time, at least Matthew, Mark, and Luke for sure. They had been copied.

They had been distributed to the churches. The churches knew exactly what Jesus taught.

Now, even before the gospels were written, the churches still knew what Jesus taught because this was what the apostles were teaching the churches.

Those apostles who had been with Jesus, who had heard his teaching, who had heard the proclamation of the gospel, who themselves were eyewitnesses to his arrest, his kangaroo trial, his being put to death on a thieves' cross, this innocent man who was hung there.

He had done nothing wrong and yet was treated shamefully. He was buried in a borrowed tomb.

He rose again on the third day. They saw him for 40 days between his resurrection and his ascension into heaven.

They saw him lifted into heaven right before their very eyes and he was concealed by a cloud.

And then two angels standing among them going, men of Galilee, why are you standing here gawking? The same way you have seen him go is the way you are going to see him to return.

The apostles were eyewitnesses to this, the giving of the Holy Spirit, the preaching of the gospel for the first time in Jerusalem at Pentecost.

The spirit that Jesus promised and said, he will bring back to your memory all that I have taught you.

And new things will he teach you as well. The things pertaining to Christian living that we're reading about in the epistles in this letter here in 1

Timothy. The apostles were eyewitnesses to all of this. The words that came directly from Christ, they had been preaching from the very beginning.

And not just the words of Christ, but if you'll remember back to Peter's first sermon there at Pentecost in Jerusalem, he quoted heavily from the

Old Testament. This is what the scriptures said about the Christ. And then

Jesus came and fulfilled all that was written in the law and the prophets. So not just what

Jesus said, not just what we have in red letters in the gospels. They wouldn't have been writing in red ink back in those days, right?

That's kind of a more...that's a newer invention to come up with a red letter Bible. But those things that would have been written in your red letter

Bible, in red letters, also stuff that's in black and white, all of this pertains to the teaching of Christ.

And there are some teachers that are coming along and they think they've got something better.

I've got something better than the word of the Son of God. And in their arrogance, and that's exactly how what

Peter calls them in 2 Peter 2, what Jude calls them in his letter, they are arrogant because they think more highly of their words than the word of God.

And in their arrogance, they come teaching different doctrines, heterodoxy, that does not agree with the sound words of our

Lord Jesus Christ. What might some of the doctrines of Christ, what might the doctrines of Christ be?

Goodness, that list would be long, and I could spend an entire sermon, if not more, going through all the different doctrines that we could be understanding and learning from Christ and his apostles.

But let me give you a brief list. The deity of Christ, knowing that he is

God. My friends, that is essential in the Christian faith.

His incarnation, knowing that he is God who put on human flesh and dwelt among us.

His death and his resurrection, that he actually suffered and died, that he actually, in his body, rose again from the dead.

My friends, as Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15, if Christ has not been raised, none of us get raised, and we're all dead in our sins.

The resurrection was not some figurative, abstract thing. Jesus really died, he really rose again.

He really was the atonement for our sins and took the wrath of God upon himself with his death on the cross.

And he really rose from the dead, as said in Romans 4 .25, for our justification.

He didn't just die for our justification, it's even by his resurrection that we can be declared innocent before a holy

God, for those who have faith in him. The second coming of Christ, his eventual return.

We're going to hear about, when we get to 2 Timothy, how Paul had to put men out of the church who were claiming that the resurrection of the dead had already happened.

So you can even teach falsely about the return of Christ, and that false teaching is deemed heresy, that leads people astray and causes division.

What else might we consider to be the doctrines of Christ? The doctrine of the Trinity. For Jesus said that he came to reveal the

Father. I love the way that Stephen Nichols put it in our Sunday school lesson this morning. He came to exegete the

Father. So reveal to us our Father who is in heaven and give the Holy Spirit. The Trinity of God is even in the teaching of Christ.

What does it mean to be born again? Even Nicodemus didn't understand that one.

I got to crawl back up into my mother's womb and be born again. What are you talking about? What does it mean to live new life in Christ?

The old man is gone and the new has come. What were Jesus' instructions on the way we are to love one another?

I'll tell you this, folks, it's different than the way that the world says you're to love one another. What did

Jesus say about sin? What did he preach about hell?

What did he preach about heaven? What did he say about the kingdom? What did

Jesus say about his own reign as king? What did he say the gospel is and how are we to share it?

What did Jesus say about God's word? The way that he revered the scriptures in such high esteem, do we hold the scriptures as high as Jesus did?

What did Jesus say about keeping his commandments? In John 14, 15, he said, you'll show me that you love me when you keep my commandments.

These are all doctrines that have come from our Lord Christ. There are many, many others that we could add to this list, some of them with names so big you'll be going, okay,

I didn't go to seminary for that one, so I don't know what you're talking about. But they're nonetheless doctrines that all flow from the teaching of our

Lord Jesus Christ. And Paul says that the result of that teaching is going to be godliness.

If we listen to that teaching and we follow it, we grow in godliness. Remember what we said about godliness.

Godliness is just simply becoming more like God. That we would grow in holiness, in the righteousness of Christ that we have been clothed in, we are being sanctified, being prepared for that day when we can enter into God's presence and dwell with him forever in glory.

When you came to Christ, you were completely justified, but you've not yet been fully sanctified.

God has declared you innocent and cleansed of your sins before him, and yet there is still a work that he is doing in you until the day of Christ.

But Paul says here that those who go against the sound words of our Lord Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness, so this teaching produces godliness, that's what accord means.

This is not like the old joke, you know, what kind of car did the apostles drive? They drove a

Honda because they were all in one accord. There you go. Okay. Teaching that accords with godliness, it's sinking in later with some of you.

Teaching that accords with godliness is very simply just saying teaching that produces godliness. So again, what's contrary to that?

Those words that are opposed to the sound teaching of the word Christ or leave the teaching of Christ and people who come up with their own fancy doctrines and their own speculations and myths, as Paul called them at the beginning of the letter, these things don't result in godliness, they result in what?

Look at verses 4 and 5. The one who does not agree with the sound words of our

Lord Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness is puffed up with conceit. He's full of himself.

He's arrogant and he 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.

One of the ways that you can tell false teaching, maybe something seems a little bit off but you're not really sure what it is, look at the fruit of it.

What is it producing? Now, you got to be careful with that one because as a pastor, I have often heard that doctrine divides.

Well, yeah, you're right. Doctrine does divide. It divides truth from error. So, when we get to teaching doctrine and people start getting contentious with it and you start seeing divisions in the church because we're devoted to sound doctrine, you might start to think, okay, well, there might be something wrong with the teaching that's going on here because look at the fruit, people are being divided.

And the question would be divided from what? Who is it that's causing the division?

Is the teaching of the truth causing the division? Can't be, can't be the case. Or is it those who hate the truth that are causing the division?

So, that's what you got to watch out for. But what is the fruit that is being produced by what is being taught?

Is the church growing in Christlikeness? Are we growing closer together?

Are we growing in unity with one another? Because as Jesus said in John, John repeats this again in 1

John, that Jesus' disciples will love one another. We will show that we are his, that we belong to him because we love one another.

As you've heard in the old hymn, they will know that we are Christians by our love. Is that what you see happening in a church that is devoted to the sound teaching of the word of Christ?

Because that will be the result, growing in godliness and in Christlikeness. Or is what you're seeing a bunch of people filling themselves up?

That even they, even the congregation is becoming conceited and they understand nothing.

They have unhealthy craving for controversies. They quarrel over words.

And even among them you can see demonstrated envy and dissension and slander and evil suspicions among one another.

This is not producing the fruit of God. It is a common tactic in American evangelicalism to find whatever quirks or insecurities you have and preach that Jesus helps you solve that.

Do you think you're ugly? Do you think you're ugly? Overweight? Need a little more money?

Do you want to be married? Do you want to have kids? Maybe your spouse is a jerk, I need help with this.

Do you want to flourish in your career? There's a Jesus for that. And they will present

Jesus as this person that can help you with all of these maladies that you think you have in your life.

This is the common approach in American evangelicalism. But Jesus had never promised that in this life you have your best life now.

Our best life is in the life that is to come. As Jonathan Edwards said, if we are in Christ Jesus, this life is the only hell we will ever know.

Is that not a comfort to think about? But as Edwards went on to say, for those who are not in Christ, this life is the only heaven they will ever know.

And it does get worse for those who are not in Christ Jesus. As a pastor,

I've counseled many who have struggled with physical ailments or even situational conditions, their situation, their circumstance.

And they have asked that God would take this from me. And I will pray with them,

I will weep with them. And we hope that God will heal or God will raise up, open the doors of opportunity, whatever it might happen to be.

That God will restore your marriage, that God will get a hold of that child of yours who just continues to rebel and doesn't want to believe.

And finally, that person will just...they will wake up, they will understand, they will see their sin and they will recognize their need for a

Savior and that Christ is that Savior. We will pray and we will weep over those things. Sometimes, we've been blessed to see those prayers answered the way that we want to have them answered.

But there are other times that that's not the response that we get. And it may be

God's intention for you, for your sake and even for your benefit, though you may not be able to understand that now.

It may be that God intends for you to struggle through this, to labor with this, and maybe so your entire life, so that you will continue to put your hope in God and not your circumstances.

Listen, the Apostle Paul, Paul, in 2 Corinthians 12, he said, there was a messenger of Satan, a thorn in my flesh that was sent to torment me.

And three times, I pleaded with God to take it away. Did God take it away?

He didn't. And, I mean, this is Paul. This is the guy who could do miracles with his handkerchiefs.

This is the guy who preached so long that a guy died and Paul brought him back to life again.

Now, I can't do that, so I try to keep my sermon shorter. But these are the miracles he was able to work as an apostle of Christ.

He was literally putting his life on the line to advance the gospel. And yet, he asked

God, can you take this thing away from me? Three times pleads with him. And I have to believe, too, that Paul, as a man of prayer, probably pleaded more fervently than I've ever pleaded for anything.

And yet, God's response to Paul was, my grace is sufficient for you, for my power is perfected in weakness, 2

Corinthians 12, 9. And Paul said from that point on, then

I'm going to boast in my weaknesses, in my persecutions, in my hardships, in my calamities, for when

I am weak, God is strong, and the joy of the

Lord is my strength. And so, there are many teachers out there that will try to promise you a

Jesus that will take care of your circumstances. But they are rather puffed up with conceit.

They're flattering you, right? They're telling you what you want to hear. They're trying to scratch your itching ears, which

Paul comes into, even uses that expression exactly in 2 Timothy. This is a person who is puffed up with conceit.

It's only thinking about themselves, not in your best interest, and certainly not honoring

God by preaching his word rightly. So, he understands nothing.

And he likewise teaches you to be conceited and understand nothing. And it goes on to say in verse 5 that they imagine that godliness is a means of gain.

So, what that means is they're using the doctrines of Christ, they're using teaching that is supposed to accord with godliness, but they are instead filling your mind up with things that are contrary to the sound words of the teaching of Christ.

And they imagine they can do all of this to benefit themselves. These false teachers are doing what they are doing to make themselves rich, to profit themselves.

But Paul says in verse 6, but godliness with contentment is great gain.

Growing in holiness, being content with what the Lord has given you. Now, listen, this does not mean that you just need to be satisfied with whatever tax bracket you're in, be thankful for whatever it is you're making, and never try to make advancements in your job or in your career.

That's not what Paul is saying. And I hope that you do succeed in the job that you do.

Climb the corporate ladder. Do it honorably and respectfully and following the rules as the scripture instructs us to do.

And when you make it rich, remember this little church and the space problems that we're having in here. So it is good to make those advancements, but as James says in James 4, he warns those who are pursuing those kinds of things.

Who are you that you go into such and such a town and you say, today we're going to make a profit, we're going to do this or that?

And he said, you arrogant person. You ought to say, if the Lord wills, we will do this or that.

Once again, everything that we are blessed with, everything that we possess comes from God. If the

Lord wills. So have godliness, pursue godliness, growing in holiness and Christ -likeness with contentment.

And that's the greatest gain that you can have. No matter what happens this side of heaven for you, whether you succeed in becoming wealthy or not, you have gained greatly if you have pursued godliness and been thankful to God for whatever it is you get.

Paul says, 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.

That's right out of Matthew 6. Look at the birds. Jesus said in the

Sermon on the Mount, they neither sow nor reap nor gather in the barns and yet your heavenly father feeds them.

Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to your span of life?

My wife and I, this past Friday, just celebrated 15 years since our first date.

So 15 years ago, we went on our first date. And I remember we had flip phones back then.

Anybody remember flip phones now? We were so glued to our smartphones. I think we forgot how archaic cell phones used to be at one point.

But we both had flip phones and you couldn't really do a whole lot with a flip phone. You had like what, a 1 .5

megapixel camera on this thing or whatever it is. Now you're taking like National Geographic level photos with your iPhone.

There was once upon a time, it looked like whatever picture you're looking at was assembled with Legos. But you could customize a message with a certain amount of words that would come up anytime you would open your phone.

And my wife, I'll never forget, the message that she had on her phone whenever she opened it up was just three words.

God feeds birds. And it was a reminder to her that God takes care of the birds.

So how much more is he taking care of you? With food and clothing, with these things, we will be content.

But now let's close out here with verses 9 and 10 as we finish this up. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare.

Now, notice it doesn't say those who are rich fall into a temptation or a snare. Those who desire to be rich, that can be a poor person.

So it's not, this isn't Paul coming against anybody who is rich. Even those who are poor can desire to be rich.

And those who desire to be rich fall into temptation. When your pursuit is money, when your pursuit is mammon, when your pursuit is the wealth of this world, then you fall into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction.

I don't know if you've ever read the stories before of people who win the lottery and how miserable they say they were after they won.

I've read stories from people who won hundreds of millions of dollars in the lottery and then said, I wish I'd never won it at all because their life became absolutely miserable.

As if winning a fortune that could set me up for the rest of my life was not enough to make me happy.

Fancy that. You can listen to interviews with big movie stars and music stars that will end up on the

Hollywood Walk of Fame or in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. And if they get real honest with themselves and the person who is interviewing them, then they will say that they've yet to find happiness.

I remember when I was a kid, admiring, probably idolizing Harrison Ford, my favorite actor.

He was in all my favorite movies, Star Wars, Indiana Jones. He came on an interview, it was probably 60 minutes or a program like that.

I saw that it was coming on. It's like, this is my favorite actor. I'm going to listen to what it is that he has to say. And I'll never forget the interviewer asking him, what is it?

You're the biggest movie star in the world. What have you not found yet? And Ford said, happiness.

Still wasn't happy. All the fame and fortune that a man could make and had not yet found contentment.

It is a lie of the devil. It is a lie of the spirit of this age to think that this is the stuff of the world that you need in order to be content, in order to be happy, and come to find it just makes us miserable.

Because in our heart of hearts, we know this stuff doesn't last. And so it can't actually sustain me.

I'm still going to die. What am I going to do about that? So we put our hope and trust in the one who conquered death.

Only he who rose from the dead can raise you from the dead to live with him in eternal glory forever in heaven.

And so Paul concludes at least this section here with this verse, verse 10, 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.

Now, given that we've just looked at the context of chapter 6, verses 3 through 10, does this verse not look a little bit different to you than maybe the way that you've often heard it?

What is the context in which Paul is warning about here? He's been warning about false teachers. So when he says, for the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils, he's talking about those teachers that tell you what you want to hear because they love money and so do you.

And it will lead to all kinds of evils. Really, you can understand this verse this way, false teaching is the root of all kinds of evils.

Because it's through that love of money that these false teachers shape their doctrine and their teaching for great gain, and it will plunge you and themselves into ruin.

It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith because they're not preaching the faith. They're scratching your itching ears, and they have pierced themselves with many pangs.

They come to the other side of that teaching and the pursuit of the false stuff that these false teachers have been telling them, and they come to find that they're still empty, and they've still not found the answer to life.

There's a lot of people in Casa Grande and in the surrounding area that are lonely, that are confused, that are searching, and still yet have not found what is the meaning of life.

And the meaning of life is Christ. As said explicitly in Ecclesiastes 12, it's to love

God and obey his commandments. And we come into that relationship with God through Jesus Christ our

Savior. And we obey his commandments through the righteousness that he has clothed us with.

So that we may grow in godliness and find contentment, our full satisfaction in Christ, knowing that that is great gain.

Godliness with contentment is great gain. You know the words of Psalm 23, right?

Very beginning of Psalm 23, The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.

May we be fully satisfied in Christ. My strength in need is small,

Child of weakness, watch and pray. Find in me thy all in all.

Jesus made it all, all to Him I owe.

Sin hath left a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow.

For now, indeed, I praise the leper's flaws.

And Jesus made it all, all to Him I owe.

Sin hath left a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow.

For now, indeed, I praise the leper's flaws.

And Jesus made it all, all to Him I owe.

Sin hath left a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow.

I stand in Him complete, Jesus died my soul to save.

My lips shall still repeat, Jesus made it all, all to Him I owe.

Sin hath left a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow.

Jesus made it all, all to Him I owe.

Sin hath left a crimson stain, He washed it white as snow.

This is When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. There are lots of great Bible teaching programs on the web, and we thank you for selecting ours.

But this is no replacement for regular fellowship with a church family. Find a good, Gospel -teaching,

Christ -centered church to worship with this weekend, and join us again Monday for more Bible study when we understand the text.