1 Timothy 6:1-10 Godliness + Contentment = Great Gain

We are listening to the podcast of Recast Church in Matawan, Michigan. This week, Pastor Don Filsek preaches from his series, Blueprints for a Healthy Church, following the plan from the book of 1 Timothy.

Let's listen in.

A Church Shaped by Faith, Community, and Service

I'm Don Filsek. I'm the lead pastor here, and welcome to all of you. I really am glad for this particular gathering of God's people here today. I want to remind you just at the outset of this that we are, I think it's good for us to reflect on this from time to time, we are just a sliver of the big picture of what God is doing on the face of this planet this morning.

I really do think it is awesome to gather together, and there's something that is unique, and I hope that this gathering is unique to you, not just because of our technical difficulties, but it's unique to you because you love the people that are gathered around you.

I encourage you to actually legitimately look around you for just a second. Go ahead and take a second to look around. We are a family here, you guys. We are being shaped together by His good news. We are being shaped together into deeper faith, deeper community, and deeper service.

And so I noticed when Spencer was talking about this, I had kind of browsed out in the entryway out there this morning, and I noticed that there's a lot of empty slots in the community group signups. I just want to clarify that as a church, we don't have a really big ask of people.

We don't have a ton of programming. We're not asking for every night of the week, and three times on Sunday, and that kind of stuff. We believe that everybody, at the end of the day, needs these three things in your life.

You need to be growing in faith, growing in community, and growing in service. And this has nothing to do with the need of the church to have people involved. We could just do Sunday morning, and walk away, and do Sunday morning again next week, and walk away, and do Sunday morning again next week.

But what we believe is that you need these three things. And so I want to state this pretty strongly. If you're not involved in Christian community, you are not getting all that you need to grow up in Christ.

If you're not connected to a community group, or connected to at least some form of Christian community with intentional accountability, intentional prayer, intentional relationship, then you're missing something.

It's kind of like, how many of you, when you were growing up, if your mom and dad laid $100 out in 20s, would leave half of it on the table? Like if they offered that to you, and they said, here's $100, how many of you were going to leave 50 of it laying there, or 40 of it laying there, or 60 of it laying there?

You weren't going to leave it there, right? If they gave you $100, how many of you were going to take it? Go ahead and raise your hand if you were going to take it. But by not getting involved in community, it's like you're leaving money on the table.

God is providing you an opportunity to get engaged and involved for your betterment, and so I would encourage you. My hope and prayer is that after connection time, and after this service, some of you are moved to go out there, put your name on a list, and take a chance on a community.

Group.

So I'm convinced that you need that, and I need it as well, and so Linda and I are involved in community groups here, not just leading them. We actually participate in one as well, and we need that. We need that community, and I'm convinced that all of us do here.

Contentment as a Countercultural Call

This morning we're going to encounter a text of Scripture in 1 Timothy that addresses a radical level of contentment, a radical level of contentment in our lives. So much of Scripture can be perceived as countercultural, but I would suggest to you that nothing is quite as abrasive to the American lifestyle and the American heart as a call to contentment and a call to satisfaction.

We are a culture that values the striving and reaching for more, right? Is that true of America? Is that true of the American heart, striving for more, achieving more, climbing the rungs of the ladder of success?

That is almost the definition of what it means to be American. And I would suggest to you that this striving after more and longing for more and never quite being content, never quite being satisfied, has found its way into the church with lines in Christian songs that some of you maybe even have heard or sung yourself that declare, we were made, this is a quote from a Christian song, we were made for so much more than ordinary.

Lives.

We were made for so much more than ordinary lives. Or titles of Christian books like this, Restless, with the subtitle, because you were made for.

More.

Think about that title, Restless, Christian book, Restless, because you were made for more. You see, when the church starts to marry the message of our culture to the gospel, we end up with radical calls to social reformation.

We believe, and we begin to adopt the idea that the primary reason that the church is here is to change our culture, is to change the way that the world is working, to change the way that others are thinking, to use our social cloud and our social platform as a means of trying to change other people to act the way that we want them to act.

We forget that the gospel of salvation through faith really impacts the world in one heart at a time, and that that is our purpose. We say that our mission is to worship him and find more worshipers for his name.

That's what we say here at Recast. And that's us, church. That's what we do. We worship him, and we go out to find more worshipers for him. Not more people who agree with us politically. Not more people who will stand with us in our social cause.

Not for more people who will view the mask mandates in the same way as us. Not for those who view vaccination the same way as us.

Who are we looking for?

Those who will bow their knee to the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, and we say, come on in, come on in. That's what we are all about. We certainly hope that our culture improves, right? As people, but it's only as people accept the gospel, and individual lives come under submission to his lordship, and as people are transformed by his great love that has the power to set a heart free.

And so we can quickly miss the plot, and if we're not careful, we will begin to place our hope in the here and now. If we're not careful, we will wake up one day and find that our hope has somehow been replaced in social agendas.

Our hope has subtly shifted to a political platform, or we will find our schedule filled up with merely pleasing ourselves and striving for sweeter cars and larger houses and more and more and more entertainment.

So our text this morning starts with an extremely radical example of contentment, and then exposes the greed of those who abuse the faith for gain, and it concludes with blaring sirens warning us away from the discontented pursuit of wealth.

1 Timothy 6:1-10 and the Three Movements of the Text

So let's open our Bibles, if you're not already there. Open your device, if you have one in front of you, to 1 Timothy 6, verses 1 through 10. Again, 1 Timothy 6, verses 1 through 10, and recast, this is God's holy and precious word.

This is what he desires for us to hear in this gathering this morning, and this is not you can hear my voice, but you need to recognize that the words are God's. First Timothy 6, 1 through 10. Let all who are under a yoke as bondservants 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 will take nothing 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.

Let's pray.

Father, I thank you so much for your word that will tackle and wrestle to the ground the thoughts of our hearts and the way that we can be so prone to discontent. So you provide us with texts like this that will clarify for us and convict us and draw us deeper into you.

Father, if this message serves to just encourage us to do better, then I have failed in my.

Charge.

Because the solution is not for any one of us to pull ourselves up from the bootstraps and just be better. We need a Savior who has done it for us. So Father, I pray even now that if there's anyone here who does not know you as Savior, that today might be a day of salvation, that you might open eyes to the reality of the hope that is only, only, only found in Jesus Christ and him dying on the cross for our sins.

And then for those who do belong to you, who have already been embraced by your love and have already received that love through faith in your Son and through asking him to be their Lord and Master, I pray that you would help us to be set free even now in our hearts to rejoice and delight in our Savior.

I ask that you would meet us here in this place with joy and gladness and produce within our hearts an overwhelming, overflowing contentment in Christ. I ask this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Encourage you to get comfortable and keep your Bibles open to 1 Timothy 6, 1 through 10. Recognize that you might have lost your place there or set your device down. So grab that and make sure that the Bible is open in front of you so that you can see the things that I'm saying are coming from God's holy word.

And if at any time during the message you want to get up and get more coffee, juice, or donut holes, while supplies last back there, take advantage of that. And you're not going to distract me. Bathrooms, for those of you that maybe this is the first time here, out the double doors down the hallway on the left-hand side if you need those at all too.

But let's do the best that we can to try to keep our focus on God's word in the balance of the time that we have left here. Our text breaks down into three sections, and I'm going to throw in these three points.

I'm going to use alliteration just to remind you that I used to be a Baptist pastor. So I can do this from time to time, and I just kind of try to keep you guessing, what's he going to do next? So we're going to all start with eyes on this one.

The first is instructions to Christian slaves, verses 1 and 2. The second is indictment of the greed of false teachers, verses 3 through 5. And then the third movement is invitation to contentment, verses 6 through 10.

So instructions to Christian slaves, indictment of the greed of false teachers, and the invitation to contentment. So our text starts in a strange place this morning, one that might just immediately make us a bit uncomfortable.

Instructions to Christian Slaves and the Limits of Social Change

And it starts with instructions from Paul to Timothy about slaves. And although the translation of ESV has bond servants, it says under the yoke of a bond servant. And that's a nice gentle way.

That word is the word.

It's the word for slave in Greek. There's no other word for it than that Greek word, and that's exactly what is intended.

By it.

Now, I originally had this as a separate sermon, but after studying it, I saw a fairly significant connection between those first two verses in chapter 6 and what comes after. And I began to understand as I studied it, why in the world did the guy in the Middle Ages who was setting up the chapters and the verses, why did he include this in chapter 6 instead of including it in chapter 5?

It makes a little bit of sense. There's this connection, the big connecting point between what happens in the first two verses and the remainder is the required contentment that really is the only way that a slave could be moved to serve his master with honor and with respect and with diligence.

The radical type of contentment required in the Christian life is imaged in these first two verses. These instructions are radical. They're a little bit jarring to us where we live. And in verse 1, Paul calls all Christian slaves in his ancient culture to serve their unbelieving masters in verse 1 for two particular reasons.

He says, here's why I want you to serve them well. He wants to make sure that the name of God is not reviled, and he also desires that the teaching of the good news is not perceived as a negative thing to society at large.

So that the teaching is not reviled, nor is the name of God reviled. And so in verse 2, Paul calls Christian slaves then who have believing masters to be respectful and to continue their work. The implication, of course, in this that he has to give this instruction is that some slaves in that ancient culture thought that they could slack off due to having masters that were believers.

Okay, we're just, we're brothers in Christ now, I don't have to do anything. But Paul says that you should serve all the more diligently because you are benefiting a fellow believer who is now also equally someone that you love in Christ.

And obviously, there's instruction to Christian masters in other books of the Bible. The obvious instructions here to the church in Ephesus through Timothy has something to do with the way that slaves were responding in that ancient culture.

So I believe that we have no struggle with understanding what this text is saying. You can read it in English and understand it. How many of you, like, just read it at face value, you get what it's saying.

It makes sense, like, you can understand it. Our brains can apprehend what Paul was saying to Timothy. Our struggle is likely in what he is not saying. It's likely that our minds go there. Why doesn't Paul just tell masters, release your slaves and be done with the whole broken social institution?

Just be done with it. Just can it. Release them. How many of you would like, like, that's kind of what you want it to say. Go ahead and raise your hand if that's kind of what you want it to say. So we have to lean into why it doesn't say that.

Why does God's holy word revealed through the Holy Spirit not say, just right at this point, release all your slaves. And let me clarify a couple of things that need to be expressed before we can fully deal with slavery as expressed in this text, as well as throughout anywhere in the New Testament.

The first thing that we need to take on for this is slavery was not racially driven in Rome. So we're already talking about a different type of thing than what we experienced in the American South 150 years ago.

The second thing that you need to understand is that slavery was the engine of the Roman economy. That doesn't justify it. That doesn't make it right. But what you need to understand is that when this was penned, it's estimated that up to one third of the entire population of the Roman Empire were slaves.

Up to one third.

Think what that would mean if one out of every three people that you saw, one out of every three people that you interacted with on a daily basis in the Roman Empire was a slave. How many of you think that that might be a little bit hard to extricate?

It might be a little hard to remove. Are you getting what I'm saying? It might be a little hard to tear apart, and to oppose it would be to tear apart the very fabric of that society. Now I'm not saying that's not a good thing, but there's a time coming for that.

We know historically there was. But the third thing that you need to understand is for many, slavery was preferable, now that sounds strange, but for many, slavery was preferable in the Roman Empire to poverty.

Poverty was to come under a certain painful death with no food and exposure.

Full stop.

And so they would prefer to literally enter into an arrangement or an agreement of slavery to a master. A master would provide food and lodging. And there was contractual relationship, and you would actually sign into the work at a farm or in a household or something like that.

And you would work for him, and he would provide food and lodging, and to demonstrate that it was preferable, we have many documents, ancient documents, where people submitted themselves to slavery in order, sounds strange, in order to get ahead.

In order to get ahead in Rome. How could you get ahead? Well, the fourth thing that you need to understand is that the average age of manumission, which is the achievement of freedom or liberty for a particular slave, the average age of release in the Roman Empire was around 30 years of age.

So they would go into this relationship with a master and work off a debt that they had arranged for a certain amount of years or whatever, and then they would be released. Now, I'm not saying that there wasn't abuse.

I'm not trying to make a cheery thing about slavery. I'm not trying to be an apologist for slavery. I think it's a terrible thing. Really glad. How many of you just say, really glad that it's done with?

Anybody with me on that? Super, super glad that it's not a routine thing anymore and that it's opposed where it still exists. But it would be unhelpful for us to read into the text of the New Testament, American racial slavery in the South as the same as the slavery that Paul is addressing.

That would be anachronistic. It would be not understanding the time and taking the time difference between that ancient time and our more recent history. But there's a deeper level to what Paul is doing here that speaks into our current social context loud and clear.

I hope it's loud and clear, despite the fact that it comes through implication. The expectation is increasing that we are called as a people primarily to change social systems and structures. How many of you hear that?

The primary thing that you're here to do is to change social structures, to be all about changing the systems of society and all of that. But this text shows us one thing through instructions to these ancient slaves in Ephesus that's very valuable for us.

Social change. Why doesn't Paul This is the answer to the question, by the way. Why doesn't Paul say, get rid of your slaves? Just go ahead and release them. Social change is not the end goal of our faith.

That might come as a radical shock to some of us, but social change is not the end goal. That's not our target. That's not what we're shooting for, church. Personal redemption that leads to eternity with Jesus Christ is the end goal of his church.

That is our hope. Full stop. Changing broken social structures leads to, guess what, church? New broken social structures. Did you know it already? What's it going to be replaced with? Something else that's broken.

Every single human endeavor results in broken social structures. It will not This is it, church. It's not going to be fixed here. Settle in. It's not going to be fixed here. We are not going to come up with a social program.

We are not going to come up with a political party. We are not going to come up with the endeavor that it takes for us to usher in utopia. That is not our hope. There is no human utopia coming. There is the reign of God coming.

There is the return of the king coming. The reason that Paul doesn't tell slaves to demand their emancipation, or to even command the masters to release their slaves here, is that he's not looking for the church to be radically subversive to cultural norms.

That's not his standard. There is a right time and a right place to take on slavery, and that right time and place will prove to be England and America. From the place where Paul is writing, the church had a gospel message to bring to the.

World.

That gospel message will eventually result in radical social changes like abolition, but without the church focusing on the central call of the gospel during Paul's era, without them focusing on living and loving well in that context, we would have neither gospel witness nor the abolition of slavery.

The church would have been squashed trying to oppose the Roman Empire. It was so entrenched in Roman society that to oppose it and call for its abolition would have been to upset the entire fabric of that ancient society, and I'm not saying that there's not a time to upset social fabrics of society, but I am also equally saying the only way to upset the social fabric of a society is one life reached with the gospel at a time.

That's our call, church.

One life transformed at a time until eventually there is a push and a move towards what is good and right. But I like the way that Murray Harris says it in his book, Slaves of Christ. He says this in a quote, the gospel lays the explosive charge that ultimately led to the destruction of slavery, end quote.

Church, we play a long game. We play a long game.

A long game that was started 2 ,000 years ago, and we are just a blip on the radar of that long game that God is working towards his glory and his honor and towards the return of his king. Amen? So we do not expect it to come in our lifetime, although how many of you would be glad if he came in our lifetime?

But the change is not going to come through us. The change is going to come through him. That's our hope. So talk about a radical model and example of contentment and grace. Paul tells the slaves in the church in Ephesus, of which there would have been many, serve with honor and respect and do so, so that the gospel has inroads into your broken culture.

How many of you think that sounds like a radical call to contentment?

That's pretty serious.

And again, Paul reminds Timothy to teach and urge the content of the message that he's been bringing in 1 Timothy. He says, Jesus, remember it's that Jesus is the only hope. It's all about him, just like Paul said back at the end of chapter 3.

False Teachers, Arrogance, and Quarrels About Words

And so the second movement, this reminder to teach what Paul has been laying out, causes Paul now to launch into an indictment of those who refuse to teach the truth. In verse 3, Paul identifies the nature of false teachers in Ephesus.

They are those who teach a doctrine different from Paul and different than the other apostles. Further, they do not agree with the healthy words, or the text says sound words, which can be translated healthy.

They don't agree with the healthy words of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And lastly, they do not hold to teachings that lead to good living, that accord with godliness, that accord with a life lived of good worship to God, moment by moment, hour by hour, day by day.

So let me point out that to disagree, I mean, he's referring to teachers there in Ephesus, but teachers in any Christian context that would disagree with the apostles, disagree with Jesus, and he says that requires quite a significant arrogance.

Paul explains that part of their motivation, according to verse 4, is the fact that they are the toxic combination of both arrogance and ignorance. Think about those two together in a single person, arrogance and ignorance.

And that's what these false teachers have. I've mentioned before that these two combine in a single person to form an obnoxious, toxic.

Combination.

And yet I'm convinced that we've all played this role at times, haven't we? You ever been both arrogant and ignorant at the same time? Go ahead and raise your hand, I just want to see if I'm alone in this or all of us are in agreement on this.

Okay, we've been arrogant and ignorant at the same time. But of course, we can get that way about different things. So much more is at stake with spiritual teaching, where somebody both spouts confidently something that they know nothing about.

It's a lot more at stake with spiritual teaching than a debate over who won the World Series in 2010.

Right?

I mean, have you ever been confident about a sports fact that you weren't right about? Anybody? We may be arrogantly ignorant about sports facts with little at stake except a little bit of pride, right?

Like, okay, I'm ashamed I kind of said that with confidence and I was wrong. But there are false teachers who would just flat out make stuff up with confidence despite the fact that they really understand nothing and they would do so about God.

They would do so about His Word. They would do so about the nature of Jesus Christ Himself. How many of you know that there's more at stake there?

That's pretty serious stuff.

There are people who would just make it up. Further, the indictment on this all, so there are those who would just make stuff up but there's an indictment that these false teachers have a craving for controversies and for quarrels.

About words.

Sound and healthy teaching in verse 3 results in godliness. It results in a life of good worship, a life where all that we do is turn back to the honor and glory of our Lord. But look at the fruit of these false teachers.

They love to stir things up. They don't love to land on answers. Ironically, this passes off as a lot of spiritual leadership today just asking questions. And as I said in an earlier message, you can use a Google search.

I'm talking pretty narrowly. I mean, there's some good stuff out on the internet and I'm not a Luddite. I'm not anti-technology. I've got my iPad up here and I've got an iPhone and I will look for things from time to time.

So don't hear me say that I'm completely against technology but what I will say is that you can use a Google search to try to find an answer to your spiritual questions. You can be confused about a verse, type it in a search and you will encounter no end of those who crave controversy.

You can go down the rabbit hole quickly. You can go down that rabbit hole of quarrels about words and about all kinds of error. What I mean by this is that we are increasingly valuing the impersonal over personal when it comes to us seeking knowledge and wisdom.

We think we have Google, why ask someone?

Why ask anyone?

I can just reach in my pocket and find an answer to that. Is it a good answer? Is it a right answer? Eh, probably not. But you can find an answer. We value immediacy over the time that it takes to wrestle to understand scripture.

We would rather just look up someone's opinion rather than sit in the text and let it wash over us until we come to a conclusion and we let the Holy Spirit work in our hearts to come to the knowledge of what His word is saying.

Let this indictment stand as a warning to all of us. If the fruit of a leader, if the fruit of a minister or a teacher is that those under their teaching are in endless debates and are in endless argument, if the people under someone's teaching are left with an impression of wealth and envy for more, if they are left with unhealthy relationships toward one another, then it is not of God.

That's what Paul is saying here. There's an increasing style of ministry that refuses to land on answers, but rather multiplies questions. There's a way of teaching the Bible that leaves people with more doubt about the Bible than trust that God has revealed Himself in the pages of His word, that it's inspired.

By Him.

So be sure to know those you would let teach you. Get to know them. Be sure that they love these things in this order. And I would say, I have no problem saying that you should lean into this and take this on as a standard.

In this order, ask the question, do they love the Lord Jesus Christ?

That's first.

Do they love Jesus?

Second, do they love the word of God?

Do they love God's word?

And lastly, and often left out of the equation, do they love you?

Do they love you?

Do they have your best interest in mind? And I have never searched and found an answer on Google that I was confident that the writer loved me. They don't even know me. And so what am I calling for? I'm calling for a more personal, together look at God's word.

Taking it on and studying it, make sure you land with what you think it's saying first before you ever consult with another. And then go, come to me, come to Spencer. Come to a parent who maybe is someone who's spiritual and connected to God and loves God's word and loves Jesus and loves you.

Go to them and ask them. Is that making sense to you guys? I'm not saying that Google doesn't have its place. I just, I think it's a terrible place for spiritual advice.

It's horrible.

Tried it a few times this week just to test it out. Not good. Not good stuff. And especially I would suggest to you now, some of you are like, I'm strong enough for that and I think there's some truth to that.

Like if you have some knowledge of God's word, you can filter through the things that are just junk and you can find some nuggets in there. You know what I'm talking about? But man, if you're not spiritually strong and you're not connected to his word and you're not knowledgeable about this, there are all kinds of subtleties that will drag you away like that.

Be careful. There are some who will be satisfied with leaving you in envy. They will leave you in dissension. They will leave you eager to slander your brothers and sisters. They will leave you with evil suspicions.

And they will be satisfied with leaving a church or a people with constant friction. The word there is like a sore. It's kind of a gruesome Greek word. It's like an abrasive sore that just keeps the scab keeps getting pulled off.

Constant friction, chafing. But because there are people who will leave you like that and believe it or not, there are spiritual leaders who will gladly deprive people of the truth. And they can only ever lead people to a depraved mind because the truth is not in them.

People deprived of the truth will be left with a depraved mind and constant friction among themselves. And this sounds like a lot of churches today, unfortunately. God forbid that we would become a people, a church, deprived of the truth.

A fundamental need for health in a church is biblical literacy so that we continue to grow in our faith together. Without the truth, we will quickly become a people who only ever do what is right in our own eyes.

Everyone with their own standard. Everyone with their own morality. Everyone with their own opinion. And that spells the end of fellowship. A church without the truth will quickly spiral into depravity and poor relationships of slander and envy and all of these things.

So why would a person keep preaching that which is speculative at best and is just flat.

Out false at worst?

Like maybe they know it's false and they just keep teaching it. Why would faith healers keep deceiving? Why would prosperity preachers keep going to Africa to promote their messages of getting wealthy in a place of abject poverty?

Think about it. Why do they keep doing this? Paul gives an inspired answer here. He proposes to know the answer. He says they do so to get gain out of quote unquote godliness. In other words, to simplify what Paul is getting at here in this text, there are teachers that are in it, are you ready?

For the money.

There are teachers that are in it for the money. The final indictment on false teachers is that they are willing to say whatever is needed to get into your wallet. Paul is clear that giving is indeed a spiritual act and he talked about it last week.

But a healthy church leader is not after your wallet. They are running hard after the truth.

That is a healthy leader.

Godliness with Contentment Is Great Gain

And that leads to the final movement in the text we see starting in verse 6, the invitation. Invitation to contentment church. It gives us a formula in verse 6 that provides the structure for the remainder of the text.