Financial Contentment - [1 Timothy 6:6-10]

For those who don't know me, my name is Scott Goddard, and I'll be teaching the lesson this morning. You don't normally see me in adult Sunday school. I'm normally upstairs teaching the junior high class.

And let us open in a word of prayer. Heavenly Father, thank you for this morning. I pray, Lord, as we look at the topic of financial contentment from 1 Timothy 6, that you would illumine our hearts and minds, and that you would take what we learned today, Lord, apply it to our practical lives, where we see these things flushed out at day-to-day as we handle money coming in and going out, and what we do with it, spending, giving, saving, et cetera.

Lord, just help us to understand some biblical principles better in that area, and we pray in Christ's name, amen. So to start off, I wanna just use sort of an object lesson. A few of you in the audience, I gave an item.

And there are many items that the Lord gives us in our day-to-day lives that we have to use, and some things can be used in a right and proper way, and some things can be used with the wrong motives or with evil intent in a sinful way, right?

So if I gave you an object, if you could stand up, please, and tell us, I'll go around here, tell us what the object is that I gave you, and tell us what it is to use that item in a good, proper, righteous, godly way, and how that same item could be used with wrong or sinful motives, okay, in a way that is destructive or ungodly.

Good, excellent, no, that's exactly right. I like it, thank you. Scott, what do you have? Good, in and of itself, the item is not sinful, but it could be used for godly purposes or ungodly purposes. Nate, what do you have?

Good, thanks, Nate. And for our lesson for today, to start us off, Diane, what do you have? Yes, and which is our topic today, that we're going to look at money and what the word of God says in 1 Timothy chapter six in regards to contentment with money, because we talked about, Diane talked about how you can use money for good things, purchasing for your family, supporting others, giving to the church, et cetera, but gambling, selfish motives, indulging in materialism, all these things creep up when we talk about money.

And though 1 Timothy chapter six is a pastoral epistle and written to Timothy, which this is not just for pastors in terms of Christian application, okay, because if you're not careful in whether it's in ministry or in your Christian walk, that if we have the wrong motives, if we seek personal gain, financial gain in what we do, whether it's our ministry here at the church, whether it's application to our finances as home, we'll find ourselves in temptation, unable to get out, and therefore this lesson from 1 Timothy six is applicable to us.

The Purpose and Outline of 1 Timothy

Well, the book of 1 Timothy is an interesting book because Paul, as he was released from Rome, went with Timothy to Ephesus. In Ephesus, a church was planted. Timothy was left there as the pastor. And so Paul and Timothy had a very close relationship.

Paul then wrote this letter to Timothy as someone who is his disciple, someone who knew Paul, who loved Paul. And Paul was writing to him as what we call a pastoral epistle. This was to help resolve problems that Timothy was having in the Ephesian church.

So ultimately, 1 Timothy we see as a corrective letter to help with problems in the church. This is a general outline of the book of 1 Timothy. Chapter one deals with false doctrine. Chapter two deals with structure in the church.

We see a lot of things about elders and deacons and so forth in chapters two and three. Chapter four, Timothy's instructed how to deal with false teachers in the church. Chapter five is pastoral responsibilities.

And in chapter six, which is our chapter for today, we see right living and right motives for the man of God. So after all these things to conclude the book, this is the topic that Paul, through the Holy Spirit, deems appropriate to relay to Timothy.

So as we lead up to this, we see that false teachers are coming in. How a pastor should deal with false teachers. This is kind of the theme moving into chapter six, leading up to financial responsibility.

So false teachers are in the church. We're not to be surprised that false teachers are in the church. And Paul says, as we're leading up to our discussion in 1 Timothy chapter six, we have a description of false teachers.

That's very interesting that this is immediately prior to our discussion on financial contentment. Let me read the preceding verses from the scriptures. If you want to open up to 1 Timothy chapter six, verses three through five, three through five.

Again, this is preceding the four, sorry, the five verses we're going to be looking at, which is 1 Timothy six, six through 10. As I read this, listen for the attributes, listen for the attributes of a false teacher.

1 Timothy chapter six, verses three through five. If anyone advocates a different doctrine and does not agree with sound words, those of our Lord Jesus Christ, and with the doctrine conforming to godliness, he is conceited and understands nothing, but he has a morbid interest in controversial questions and disputes about words out of which arise envy, strife, abusive language, evil suspicion, and constant friction between men of depraved minds and deprived of the truth, who suppose that godliness is a means of great gain.

That's our lead in. So without looking at my overhead, who can tell me again, what is the main topic of 1 Timothy chapter six? What's the overall topic of 1 Timothy chapter six? Right motives for the word of God, right motives for the word of God.

And so here we're seeing first the wrong motives, here we're seeing the attributes of the false teacher. From 1 Timothy chapter six, verses three through five, leading up to our discussion on financial contentment, we see they advocate different doctrines, they don't agree with sound words, they're conceited, they understand nothing, they have morbid interest in controversial questions, disputes about words, envy, strife, abusive language, evil suspicion, and friction between men.

And what does it say at the end? That they suppose that godliness is a means of gain. Godliness is a means of gain. So what were these false teachers, what were these false teachers seeking for? They were in it for the money.

They think that godliness is a source of financial gain, okay? In contrast to that, Christian living and Christian ministry, when done the right way, is in fact a source of gain. But what kind of gain?

We'll see that shortly. But it's very different, very different from what the false teacher does. So we're contrasting here now what the false teacher looks like with what true godliness in ministry, true godliness in Christian living looks like.

I gave you all the passages there in your handout, 1 Timothy 6 through 6 .10, and we're gonna take them one at a time. 1 Timothy 6 .6 says, but, again contrasting what we just read, but godliness actually is means of great gain when accompanied by contentment, when accompanied by contentment.

So what must accompany godliness for Christian to have great gain? You say it out loud. Contentment, contentment. True or false? In this verse, 1 Timothy 6 .6, that's referring to financial gain. Is that referring to financial gain?

No, it's not. It's not at all. What kind of gain is it referring to, do you think? Absolutely, absolutely. It's a gain where God is the source, right? Where God is the source. True or false? False teachers of 1 Timothy 6, 3 through 5 can experience this great gain referred to in verse 6 .6.

Can the false teachers experience that gain? No, absolutely not. Absolutely not. That's exactly right. It's a very strong contrast from the false to the true. Excellent, thanks Dan. The next verse, 1 Timothy 6 .7 says, for we have brought nothing into the world so we can take nothing out of it either.

For we have brought nothing into the world so we can take nothing out of it either. Just take a moment there and on your handout, just restate that in your own words. This isn't precise, doesn't need to have every word in there.

What is the general principle that you see in 1 Timothy 6 .7? Just restate it in your own words on your handout. That's good, that's good. Something to the effect of, we can't take it with us when we die.

And I think as long as you have that on your handout, you're in good shape. We can't take this with you when we die. And if we live with that reality in mind, that will help us with financial contentment.

This is the tricky one. Can anyone think of an Old Testament reference? What Old Testament book that Paul may be recalling by making this statement? Very tricky question, but we wanna set the bar high.

So let's see. Ecclesiastes would be a good guess. But I think the references that I found that Paul may be closely referring to is Job 121, which says, naked I came from my mother's womb and naked I shall return there.

This is a good way for help us to realize that our material possessions are insignificant, both at birth and at death. And it's also a good reminder to help us realize that the things that we have, have very temporal value, very temporal value.

1 Timothy 6 .8 says, and if we have food and covering, with these we shall be content. If we have food and covering, with these we shall be content. So just take a minute there on your handout and restate that in your own words.

Write it down in your handout, restating 1 Timothy 6 .8 in your own words. And when someone's done with that, if they'd like to raise their hand and read me how they worded that. And if we have food and covering, with these we shall be content.

Yes, yes, yes, yes. Good, thank you, Fred.

So how would somebody restate, could someone else tell me how they restated 1 Timothy 6 .8, Dave? Excellent, thank you, Dave. I like that, I like that. That we just have to rest daily in the provision of the Lord for all of our needs.

And following that, we have a short exercise, which I found interesting just to think through myself. I'm gonna give you a minute to think through this yourself. It would be helpful if you had a pen to write on this.

But as you think about your needs versus wants, we talk about this in Christian circles a lot. Is this a need or a want? Well, we have very good guidelines here in 1 Timothy 6 .8, right? So as we're applying 1 Timothy 6 .8, thinking through needs versus wants as it pertains to financial contentment, what I'd like you to do is circle the areas on there that you would consider Christian needs.

And that will then imply that the things remain uncircled would fall more into the want category and some of them may not even fall there. And if we have food and covering with these, we shall be content.

Let's take a vote as we go through this. Who voted for computer to be a Christian need? Feels like that sometimes, doesn't it? I think we have unanimity on that point. How about clothing? Who circled clothing as a Christian need?

Good. Anyone think that clothing is not a Christian need and perhaps a want? Good. Good. And I think our verse in 1 Timothy 6 .8 confirms that too. If we have food and covering, some translations translate this word clothing, with these we shall be content.

How about shelter? How about shelter? Who circled shelter as a Christian need? How about a want? Who circled that as a want or left it as a want? So everyone put that as a need? Is that consistent with our verse, 1 Timothy 6 .8?

And if we have food and covering with these, we shall be content. Is that consistent with that verse? In what sense, Dan? Yes, I did a word study on the Greek word that's used here as covering, and that covers both clothing and shelter in context.

In context. Though some translations just put the word clothing, it can include shelter as well. Yes. So do you think some people have the wrong view of what it means to have a shelter need? How do you think we fare here in Massachusetts?

Does that make it a struggle, do you think, for Christians that we live in that culture, that we live in that society?

Yeah, yeah. Mark, you had something to add to that.

Sure. And that's an excellent point. This area of needs versus want is bigger than just these general categories. We could dissect each one of these categories into sub-points and find out really where we ought to be.

And we should, it's a good, I think, motives check for ourselves to look at these needs and see where we fare within that. Thank you. How about a spouse? Is a spouse a Christian need? No? Is that funny?

Okay, okay, okay. So, yes.

Yep, yep. This person here. Yep, no, good point. How about food?

Who circled food? Oh, good, okay, so we're still there. Okay, good. I think it's pretty explicit from the verks. How about BibleWorks 7 .0? Come on. Bob Dunn, excellent. One person's paying attention.

Good, thank you. No, BibleWorks 7 .0 isn't. Some people probably don't even have that in the want category, but nevertheless. It's sort of a fancy computer program that helps you dissect all the words and the original languages and so forth.

How about, that's right, that's right. How about health? This is the one that's always a point of discussion with Christians, is having good health. And that might be answered differently in some of these other churches, right?

Some of these. But I think scripturally, we're in good ground saying that. And we think right back even to the Job verse that we read earlier. And I think that's a pinnacle reference. How about a savings account with three months of expenses?

Anyone circle that? And how about children? Children, having children. Is that a Christian need? It is a blessing, amen. Good, well, I think we're all on the same page with that. And it helps us to realize that real contentment is independent of poverty or wealth, that our satisfaction comes from the Lord.

It's satisfaction found within our soul. This is what this whole verses are talking about. This is spiritual gain, spiritual satisfaction, spiritual contentment in the Lord. And it reminds me about Paul, who's writing this, who knows himself firsthand very well about contentment.

Bob, could you read for us Philippians chapter four, verses 11 through 13? And this is a good example from Paul, from his personal experience, how he understood contentment and how he applied it to his life.

Philippians four, 11 through 13. Good, thank you, Bob. So as we think about this list of needs versus wants and so forth, some of these wants can feel pretty strong at times. We feel like we really want things at certain times.

And so when we think about perhaps going without those things that we really want, what kind of emotions does that invoke? Whether it's you personally, or you just think about what it would be like to go without something that you feel like you really want?

Anxiety, yeah. I think that's a common thing that a lot of us feel. We want something so bad that we feel that, yeah. Anyone else? All right, so contentment in the Lord doesn't just come naturally. We have to rest in the Lord, seek our contentment in Him.

The Warning Against the Love of Money

Good, thank you. Okay, so as I read 1 Timothy six, nine through 10, as I read through it, underline the results of wrong motives in ministry or in your Christian walk. So wrong motives. But those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a snare and many foolish and harmful desires which plunge men into ruin and destruction.

For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs. From those verses, let's see if we can pull out four grievous results of having wrong motives, whether it's in ministry or toward financial contentment in our own Christian walk.

These results, Paul is speaking of them as such grievous, it's like plunging a sword into your own body. Who found one in there? What's the result of wrong motives? They will fall into temptation. This isn't just being tempted, they won't just be tempted, they'll actually fall into temptation, okay?

They will go all the way and yield to that temptation. What else is a result? Of having wrong motives in this area. They fall into ruin and destruction. Good, good. What it is is that they actually, they fall into a snare.

So they fall into temptation and then they fall into a snare. And what do snares do? They keep us down. They stay down there. They're falling and they keep falling. That's the pattern that develops. And they fall then into foolish and harmful desires, number three.

What's interesting is if someone repeatedly is falling into foolish and harmful desires, at this point, it may indicate that you're seeing an unregenerate state in a person. And that person then can take the ultimate fall into, where, Dan?

Where's the ultimate fall? Faithlessness that leads to perdition. So selfish discontentment is serious business. Paul is putting a very high price on contentment. And lastly, what was the last thing that we see for a grievous result of wrong motives in this area?

They fall into, I think we said it, foolish and harmless desires, right? This is the pattern that we see of one sin leading to another sin leading to another sin leading to another sin. So it's those who are selfish.

And selfishness is the key word because selfishness, think about it, when it leads to one sin, it often leads to other things, dishonesty, theft, seeking the praise of men, power, comfort, seeking satisfaction of our flesh.

This word of selfishness, discontentment has this trickle-down effect. It just rolls and it rolls and it rolls. So as you think of 1 Timothy 6, 9 through 10, how would you summarize that in your own words?

How would you summarize that in your own words? And I appreciate you referencing also Ecclesiastes because I think that we can't avoid that book here. That's right, in Ecclesiastes 5, 10 says this, thinking about one thing leading to the next.

He who loves money will not be satisfied with money. He who loves money will not be satisfied with money. And in a sense, that's almost a good summary too of 1 Timothy 6, 9 through 10. That personal wealth or personal gain should not be our goal, especially in ministry, especially in ministry, while we're doing Christian ministry.

All of us here are involved in Christian ministry. If you're here at BBC and you're a member of BBC, you're involved in Christian ministry and you should not be doing it for personal gain, personal gain.

Oh yes, Dan, what would you guys say to that?

He who loves money will not be satisfied with money. So in these verses, would you say then being rich or the desire to be rich is what's under Paul's condemnation, the desire to be rich. So those are the verses that we wanted to look at and I wanna try to summarize those for you in three main points.

And these would be sort of your takeaways if I was to give you just one thing to take away from this. And then we'll go into some discussion questions afterwards. So three components of financial contentment in your ministry, or you could substitute the word in your Christian walk.

But again, all of you as servants of the Lord are involved in ministry. You must realize that you can't take anything with you when you die. You must realize you cannot take anything with you when you die.

We saw that principle from 1 Timothy 6, verse seven.

Yes, yes, yes, absolutely.

Oh, and I agree with you, absolutely. Yeah, I think this is more in terms of personal contentment in what you're seeking personally, whether it's the goods and money that comes with it for yourself versus what you're talking about, which is the proper and right use of it, which I think Diane pointed out well at the very beginning.

The second one is that you must daily rest in the provision of the Lord for all your needs. We saw that principle from 1 Timothy 6, eight. You must daily rest in the provision of the Lord.

For all of your needs, absolutely. Oh, good point, thank you.

The key word there being in the Lord, right? And lastly, you must not have wealth or personal gain as your goal. You must not have wealth or personal gain as your goal. So I included some discussion questions just to sort of open it up and flesh out some of these thoughts on some random topics that may apply as we're talking about temptation, financial gain, personal gain, et cetera.

We might not have time for all of them, but we'll hit a few of them. And then I want to do a little plug for IBS while I have the opportunity of a microphone. So does the idea of making less money by a job change or perhaps entering full-time ministry give you anxiety?

So think of your life now and your budget and all that. And we think about what we have and our current needs and how they're met, or potentially we feel that maybe they're not met, if that's our thoughts perhaps.

And if we think about a job change giving us less money, how does that make us, how would that make you feel? So is it okay? Is there room to have anxiety in such a situation like that?

Jesus told his disciples, your heavenly father knows you need all these things. This is not a surprise to him that you need food, you need to take care of all that. So rest in him. But there is a balance between going through life happy, go lucky, don't worry, be happy, and just humiliating worry on the other hand.

Yeah. You're supposed to exercise the rich again. That's where this issue of three months expenses on the bank, that's a wise thing. Is that a need? You can argue about your definition of need, but it's certainly wise.

Good. And particularly in this day and age when that's one of the characteristics of life today is that the days when you've got a job that you're gonna stay with for 35 or 40 years are probably over.

And so if you wanna cushion that blow, with a young man's plan on getting laid off periodically, just expect that and be ready for it. Good point. Good point.

We don't have time to do a lot of these. Let me skip down to a couple other ones. So how about this one? Number four, should the pastor, or let's say paid members of the church staff know how much the members of the congregation give in the weekly offering?

This is just a random question that discusses finances and so forth that applies to ministry. Why not? So it's good to keep that confidential. Thank you. Thank you, Louis. So I've heard this saying, First Timothy is a pastoral epistle after all.

Have you ever heard the saying that a pastor should be paid little to quote, keep him humble? To keep him humble. Is that a biblical principle? Should we apply that? Why or why not? Dave. Dave, you had something to add?

Oh, okay. That's First Timothy five, yeah. Yeah, in fact, First Timothy 5, 17, which is immediately preceding the text we looked at today is the verse that Louis was referring to saying that the teacher of the word is worthy of double honor, which I think can include both honor in terms of recognition and respect.

But I think there's a component of that which refers to finances as well. This is a good one. Last one, number seven. If a paid minister is suffering from financial strain, should the need be told to the congregation?

And then I would apply that to say, what about the strain of an unpaid lay minister? Anybody here says, for example, has a financial need. Should we share that need with one another in light of our discussion of First Timothy six?

Should the pastor share a need? Yeah, Dave. Good, so it's okay either way. There's flexibility there, is what you're saying. Good, any other thoughts on that? Good point, good point. Yeah, it goes to our needs once discussion, right?

Good, well, that's a worthwhile discussion and thank you for that. So I included there a sort of a takeaway just to do a personal motives check. Think about our involvement in ministry, our own Christian walk, how we view our personal finances, what we do to get gain and why we do it.

And I think it's a good time to evaluate that. And that remember that ultimately, if we do things the right way, as opposed to the way the false teachers do things, if we do think God's way, there is great gain.

It's not just gain, but Paul uses the term great gain. Bob, could you close us in prayer? Amen, while I still have the microphone before I let everyone run off of their chairs, I think I still have two or three minutes.

So I'm gonna do an IBS plug. The Institute for Biblical Studies is something we started last year and we had the first year of it. Mike taught a class on hermeneutics. Steve taught a class on apologetics.

Then let's see, Pradeep taught a class on church history one, which was the time of the early church up to before the Reformation. Then Steve had a second go around and taught a class on eschatology. So there's some people here who took those classes and if anyone who did take a class wants to share sort of a personal experience or testimony, saying what they liked about the classes or didn't like about the classes, now would be a great time to do that.

The upcoming classes for this fall are going to be church history two, taught by Bob Dunn. He's all geared up and getting ready to go there. The syllabus is online. It's not a class that someone would have had to take in church history one to take.

It's just if you're interested and Bob did a great Sunday school class on it, sort of a preview of what he'll be teaching on. So you can look at that. You don't have to have taken church history one to take it.

We're trying to encourage people who wanna study deeper on their own time on some particular topics of interest to them to sign up for the classes. So you can look at the brochures here also on the website.

Following that, I'll do a short class on elementary Greek. And the reason I wanna put a plug in for that is because not only that it's my own class, but also because I think it is profitable. The class content, and I tell you this because this is representative of our congregation.

You can then tell others about these classes as well, but we don't have a whole congregation here. But the objective of that class will be using a textbook called It's Still Greek to Me. And it's going to be how to do Bible studies without mastering Greek.

So how do you get access to the, oh, sorry, yeah, wrong one. Yeah, Greek for the rest of us, Greek for the rest of us. And it's how to get access to the Greek tools. All right, how do you do Greek word studies?

If you come across a commentary and you see a word in Greek, do you just kind of skip over that? Or can you make some sense out of what they're talking about there? So that's gonna be the intent of that class.

Now, it's not gonna be a full study of Greek. So I think those will both be profitable classes and the Greek class also will be good preparation for James White's class, who is scheduled to come here next spring and talk about bibliology.

How did we get the Bible that we have today? What are the good translations? And there's, in my estimation, there's no better foundation for a study on that topic than to have some understanding of the principles of the Greek language.

So I would encourage you guys to all check that out. And I could answer any questions anyone has about IBS now, or if there's anyone who took one of the IBS classes who'd like to share a short testimony on how they have benefited from those classes, that would be great as well.

Any thoughts or questions? The upcoming class, do you have the date, Bob, offhand? September 7th. September 7th, so it's just about one month from now. Yeah, Thursday night, 6 .30 to 8 .30. The classes run seven weeks long, good.

And they're free, they're free. Just have to buy the books. Any testimonies from someone who took one of the classes? Thanks, Fred. Any last questions on that? Thank you, Pat. So there you go, two hearty endorsements.

So spread the word and thank you for your time.