Content in Christ

The Church’s Victory and the Joy of Returning Home

Amen. Thank you for leading us in that song, Gunnar. The enemies of Christ, the enemies of the church, will ultimately be triumphed over. The church will have the victory. It is good to be back here. I am so grateful for the opportunity that we had in Mexico for the preaching.

I don't remember how many sermons, I think I did like six sermons or something like that, and teachings. It was so encouraging and I love the brothers there, and I love the brothers and sisters that we went on the trip with.

But I'll tell you what, there's nothing like Providence Baptist Church right here in Perryville, Arkansas. I'm so grateful to be back with you. Thank you for those who prayed for us, and for those who sent encouraging messages to us.

It really means a lot to know that our church family was with us, even though you may not have been there physically with us, you were with us in spirit. Now, Lord willing, I say Lord willing because I've known a little bit about this baby stuff, but Lord willing, in a few weeks, October 13th of this year, we will meet our little baby girl, Margie Nelson.

I don't know what she's going to look like. Steph and I, the other day, were talking about that. What is she going to look like? I have no idea. Stephanie was wanting to do one of those 4D or whatever it is, ultrasounds.

I was like, well, let's just wait, we're so close now, right? And when she's here, I have no idea what she's going to look like, but I will tell you this, and don't you dispute this with me. She will be beautiful.

Now, I'm going to confess something to you. Don't be upset with me. Stephanie will attest to this. Boy, this is really going to come across harsh. I kind of think infants are ugly, except mine. So I have no idea what little Margie is going to look like, but I tell you this right now, she's going to be beautiful.

And don't you come to me and tell me that there are things about her that you want to change.

Right?

Like, I wish her hair was a different color. I wish her eyes were a different color. I wish her nose was a little bigger or a little smaller, because maybe, just maybe, I'd be tempted to fight you, right?

Because my baby girl, and she's going to be beautiful. Now, I want you to turn in your Bibles to 1 Timothy 6. We're going to do something a little different this morning. And I want to say that a love that a father has for his child is a great love, yet it's incomparable to the love that Christ has for the church.

And here's what I want to say to you this morning. Christ loves the church, and she is beautiful in His eyes. And she is beautiful just the way that He intends her to be. Who are we to decide that we want to make the church something different than what our Lord Jesus would have the church to be, right?

We want the church to be what is beautiful in our Lord Jesus' eyes. Therefore, we want the church to be what He desires it to be. Now, we covered 1 Timothy in Mexico, and this is one of the reasons I'm preaching to you from the end of 1 Timothy this morning.

But what I want to see this morning is that the church is to be content in Christ. And I want to show you that from 1 Timothy 6 verses 3 through 10. The church is beautiful in the eyes of Christ the way that He intends her to be, and so we desire to have the church the way that Christ would intend for us to be.

1 Timothy 6, I'm going to preach to you this morning from verses 3 through 10. Would you stand with me in the honor of reading God's Word? Here's what the Apostle Paul writes under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.

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.

Now, there is great gain in godliness with contentment. 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 pains.

Let's pray.

God, what we pray more than anything else is that when we leave this service later this morning, that we would be able to say this one thing with integrity, with meaning, with truthfulness, we would be able to say this thing, that we have met with God.

I pray every other thing that's in our mind or heart right now that would seek to take priority over this one thing would fall by the wayside, would be set aside, and that we would have this grand goal as our prize and priority right now, that we are here above all else to meet with you.

Would you speak to us now through your word? Help us to be a church that is content in Christ. Help us to understand these truths this morning. May we bring Christ's glory with the way that we respond in faith.

We pray it all in Jesus' name.

Amen.

You may be seated. The reason this morning that we love the church so much, the reason that we say things like, we want a healthy church here, the reason that this is so is because we love Christ. Our focus is not on the church so much as it's on the Lord Jesus.

And because we love Christ, we love His bride. We love the church. So let's begin this sermon. Let me just take you back to Christ for a moment. Look at verse 6. There is great gain in godliness with contentment.

It has been said before that you can have as much of Christ as you want. And the reality is, you already do. Friends, let us take seriously this truth. There is great gain in godliness with contentment.

Paul has consistently in 1 Timothy exhorted the church to godliness. This is applicable for the whole church, for the men of the church, for the women of the church, for new members, for old members, for older Christians, for newer Christians.

We are called to godliness. Godliness with contentment is great gain. And the church must relish in the satisfaction that is found only in Christ. Because of who He is. He is God because of what He has done.

God most high. By the way, today is 99 days till Christmas, so we get ready to celebrate the Incarnation. God came to dwell with us, to fulfill all righteousness, to give His life for ruined sinners. For undeserving rebels.

To take our sins upon Himself. To bear God's wrath in our place. To resurrect in victory. Don't you love that song we sing, Glorious Exchange? That on the cross, Jesus took our sin, and by His life, death, burial, and resurrection, by faith alone, by grace through faith in Christ, we receive His righteousness.

What a gospel we have. And the question comes this morning to us, church, how is a church to be content in Christ? Well, the overarching answer is that we believe.

It's faith.

We must believe. We must trust Christ. We must believe all that God is for us in Christ. To rest ourselves in the finished work of Jesus. But friends, this faith is an active faith. And it's going to show itself in various ways.

And so that's what I want to do this morning. Three ways that this faith shows itself. Three ways of how a church is content in Christ. So how does a church show itself content in Christ? Number one, defend His truth.

Defend His truth. Now look at verse three. If anyone teaches a different doctrine. Now, faith that is content in Christ seeks to defend the truth of Christ. So we see here the reality in verse three. And this is something that, in fact, I'll just turn over to chapter one real quick.

This is the very reason Paul wrote this letter. In chapter one, verse three, Paul says to Timothy, as I urged you when I was going to Macedonia, remain at Ephesus so that you may charge certain persons not to teach any different doctrine.

That's the only time this is used in the text. This one Greek word is used in the New Testament. It's in chapter one that I just read, verse three. And it's in chapter six, verse three. Paul is telling the church that they must not teach any different doctrine.

This is one Greek word made up of two words. It's a compound word. The two words are heteros and didaskalo. Heteros, that sounds familiar to you. I hope it's where we get the prefix hetero. It means what?

Different, right? It's like there is no other name, no other name given among men under heaven by which we must be saved other than Christ. No other, that word, no different is hetero. It's used in Galatians one when it talks about a different gospel, hetero.

That's what Paul is saying here, hetero, different. And then teaching, didaskalo, that's teaching. So Paul is against here, different doctrine. The doctrine that the church must hold fast to, the doctrine that the church must defend, the teaching that the church must cling to is the teaching of the apostles, the teaching of the Bible, the teaching of Christ.

And those who relish in Christ defend His truth. Now, there are false teachers in the church today. There are false teachers in the church in First Timothy. There's false teachers all around today. You think about Joyce Myers, you think about Andy Stanley, you think about Beth Moore, you think about Joel Osteen.

But let me give you three truths about false teachers that are passage mentions. The first is this, false teachers crave notoriety. See if you notice a pattern here. False teachers crave notoriety but understand nothing.

Look at verse four. That is, anyone who teaches a different doctrine, verse four, is puffed up with conceit and understands nothing. Now, this word for conceit. A false teacher is conceited. This is a very interesting word.

A lexical definition of the word is this, to be so arrogant as to be practically demented. That is, they are so full of themselves that they are literally crazy. They want to be known. They want to have a platform.

They want fame. And they are willing to abuse the church to get it. This is an analogy I've heard before, but imagine if you will, a king has a beautiful queen and the king leaves. He has to leave his realm for a few months and he leaves his queen entrusted with a servant.

And what the servant decides to do to the queen in order to better his own position is to beat her and to abuse her. Well, what's going to happen when the king returns? That servant will be destroyed.

Well, friends, this is what false teachers have to answer for when Christ returns. They are abusing the church in order to get themselves ahead, in order to make a name for themselves. They are conceited, the text says.

They crave notoriety, but understand nothing. Shame, shame, shame on any person, man or woman, who would abuse the church to exalt their own name. They crave notoriety, but understand nothing. Secondly, they crave wealth, but own nothing.

Look at verse 5. And constant friction among people who are depraved in mind and deprived of the truth, imagining that godliness is a means of gain. Did you know that there are people who will be moral for money?

Understand?

They'll seek morality for the sake of money. When I say this, I see Joel Osteen's smiling face. But it's more than just that. The application doesn't stop there. There are some people in the pulpit today who are pastors week in and week out.

They stand in the pulpit, they open the Bible, and they sputter stuff because they don't know what else to do, right? They're not skilled at anything else. They're too lazy to get any other kind of job.

So they keep on pastoring and keep on preaching simply because that's the way that they earn money. They don't know what else to do. They're using godliness as a means to worldly gain, morality for money.

But Paul reminds us, look at verse 7, that we own nothing. We brought nothing into the world and we cannot take anything out of the world. There's a passage in Ecclesiastes that references this. It's also a passage in Job, where Job says, naked I came from my mother's womb, naked I will return.

When Haddon was gonna be born six years ago, a little over six years ago, I remember talking to the kids one day, and I don't know why we said this, it was just really funny, but I told the girls, Haddon's gonna be born naked.

And they're like, what? You know, like in their mind, they're like, no, he's not coming out with clothes on, right? He's coming out naked. That is, he's coming out of his mother's womb with nothing, right?

He owns nothing. And guess what? When you go back to the grave, the only reason you have clothes on is because an undertaker puts them on you, right? You go back with nothing. Now think about this for just a moment.

What is it that you actually own in this life? Think about this, church. What is it that you can look and you can say, this is really and truly mine? In terms of, I'm going to take this out of this life into eternity.

The answer is nothing. Just your soul and your resurrected body. Friends, we really spend far too much of our lives consumed with possessions. Now, this text is not against possessions. This text is not against money.

Verse 10 is sometimes misquoted. Sometimes the verse 10 is quoted like this. Money is the root of all evil. That's not what verse 10 says. It doesn't say that money is the root of all evil. It says the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.

So it doesn't mean like, well, if I got money in my bank account, I have all kinds of evil in my bank account. No, no, you understand, right? We understand the difference. There's a difference between money and an inordinate love, a love for money, a love for possessions.

We spend much of our lives centered around things and items and possessions that we can't take out of this life with us. Everything that you possess is only on loan from God. These false teachers then are foolish.

They crave wealth, but they own nothing. Look again at verse 9 and 10. Those who desire to be rich fall into temptation. Have you ever done that? You ever daydreamed about that? Man, if I just had a little more money.

Man, if I just had a million dollars or things that I would do. Those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into, listen, do you believe what the Word says?

Into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and have pierced themselves with many pains. So listen to this real quick.

What do money and possessions get you at best at the end of your life? Well, at best, they get you to a point in your life where you have a bunch of stuff that when you die, you can't take it with you.

But at worst, listen, at worst, the love of these things will ruin your soul and send you to hell. Do you believe this text? These false teachers crave wealth but own nothing. This is not a good trade.

There are many people in the Bible we learn that do this. So you think, well, I mean, is there any examples from history? Yeah, examples from the Bible. Elisha's servant Gehazi, you remember what happens with him when Naaman comes and washes himself in the Jordan and then he's going to go and he offers Elisha money and Elisha says, no, no, no, I'm not taking any money.

And then he leaves and then Gehazi says, I want money. And he goes out to him and he makes up a store and he gets money. And then he's cursed with leprosy. Or you could think of more well-known Judas.

Judas betrays the Lord. Judas was a disciple of the Lord for three years. And then at the end of that, he trades Jesus for 30 pieces of silver. Or in the Bible, you have people like Balaam, the false prophet.

Or you have Ananias and Sapphira, you remember them? They sold a piece of land and then they came to the church and they said, oh yeah, we sold it and we're going to give you all the money. But really, they kept back a portion for themselves.

It wasn't that they didn't have a right to do with that. They could give however they want. The problem is they sought the notoriety. And so they pretended they gave it all, right? Because they loved money.

They loved fame. You have Ahab and Jezebel. But the point here is, again, 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 pains.

And in other words, these false teachers crave notoriety. They understand nothing. They crave wealth, but they own nothing. Thirdly, they crave conflict, but produce nothing. You ever been around people like that?

They just want to argue, argue, argue.

Verse 4.

It says, 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.

Friends, these are the type of people in the church that they just want to argue about words. By the way, this is not saying that doctrine isn't important. We should be very serious and rigid in doctrine.

We want to get the Trinity right. We want to get the atonement right. We want to get the gospel right. We should be very serious about these things. But these are the kind of people that like to just sit around, point out others' faults, argue about how many angels can stand on the head of the pen, just argue, argue, argue around a table for hours, making silly arguments, ridiculing those who are not as educated as them.

Sometimes the conflict may come from they've got their doctrine right, but they're just prideful, self-serving. Or sometimes it comes from they're just inventing new doctrine. Either way, the point is they love to fight.

They love to get on Twitter and debate. They love to just argue. They crave it. But here's what the text says. It produces nothing. Now, it actually doesn't produce nothing. It just produces nothing profitable.

What it does produce, if you read verse 4, it says it produces envy, the end of verse 4 there, dissension, slander, evil suspicions, constant friction. In other words, they crave conflict, but it produces nothing profitable.

They crave conflict, but all the conflict does is just bruise the bride. So the church needs to defend the truth. A church that is content in Christ is serious about defending the truth from people who crave notoriety, but understand nothing, who crave wealth, but own nothing, who crave conflict and produce nothing.

And following these kind of people leads to nothing. That is no true gain in this life. You will not benefit from a Bible study by Beth Moore, right? There's no gain in this life. No gain in the life to come.

Nothing but God's wrath. No satisfaction in Christ. And those who listen to them, the text says in verse 5, they are depraved in mind and deprived of the truth. So there's two groups of people here. There are the false teachers, and there are those who just go along with what the false teachers say.

Do not be in either of these camps. Do not be a false teacher, and do not be one who just goes along with what the false teacher says. Stand for the truth. Defend for the truth. A church content in Christ defends His truth.

Secondly, a church content in Christ desires His word. Number one, defends His truth. Secondly, desires His word. Now there's a phrase in verse 3 that just captivates me. If anyone teaches a different doctrine and does not agree, and here's the phrase, with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ.

And by the way, the second half of that says, and the teaching that accords with godliness. In other words, there's always a connection between true teaching and godliness. Wherever godliness is, there is true teaching.

Wherever true teaching is, there is godliness. Now this phrase, the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ, in this phrase, Paul uses the full title of Jesus. What is he calling? The Lord Jesus Christ. So here we have an affirmation of His deity.

He is the Lord. He is Yahweh. He is truly God. He's also truly man. He is the Lord Jesus. He's truly God who took on human flesh. He's truly man. And He is the Messiah. The only mediator between God and man.

Christ.

He is the anointed one. The promised one. The one all the scriptures point to. He is the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the one whom the church adores. The one whom our soul loves. Now Paul likens the embracing of false teaching to denying the very words, verse 3, of our Lord Jesus Christ.

That is, to deny sound doctrine isn't just saying, well I'm disagreeing with my pastor, or I'm disagreeing with this or that. To deny sound doctrine is to deny the very words of our Lord Jesus Christ.

It reminds us that those who are satisfied in Christ desire His Word. They cherish His Word. They are students of His Word. The Bible, friends, the Bible is the words of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now listen to this whole thing I'm about to say, because I'm not telling you to toss out your red letter Bible.

I own at least one, maybe a couple, red letter Bibles. What is a red letter Bible? A red letter Bible is a Bible in the Gospels that has the words that Jesus spoke in red. I don't have a problem with that.

That's fine. However, it has led people that I've encountered sometimes to say that the words that Jesus spoke, the red letter words, are the really important words, and we kind of hold them in a little bit higher esteem than the black letter words.

But can I tell you something this morning? That the whole Bible, red, black, whatever print you have it in, blue, the whole Bible from Genesis 1 through Revelation 22 is the words of our Lord Jesus Christ.

It's not merely the red letter words that He spoke. Yes, those are His words, but the whole Bible is breathed out by God. The whole Bible can be considered the words of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now, what happens when you disagree with the sound words?

Sound means healthy. The healthy, sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ. What happens? Number one, you dismiss His importance. That is, you treat Him flippantly. Children, I'll use this analogy. When your parents tell you to do something and you don't do it, you dishonor them.

You dismiss their importance. That's what we do when we take the Bible and we treat it. We dismiss the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ. We dismiss the importance of Jesus. We treat Him flippantly.

We treat Him as though His words don't matter. It's like getting some sort of important document from the bank or a document from the government and then wadding it up and throwing it away. Secondly, when we don't listen to the sound words of our Lord Jesus, we deny His person.

That is, the word in verse 3, for words, is logos. Maybe that sounds familiar to you. That's the same word in John 1 .1 when it says, in the beginning was the logos. That is, in the beginning was the Word.

And the logos was with God. And God was the Word. God, Jesus is with God. Jesus is God. Jesus is the logos. So think about it this way. If you dismiss the logos of the logos, you're dismissing the logos.

You understand?

If you dismiss the words of the Word, you're dismissing the Word. You cannot separate the words of Jesus from the person of Jesus in this sense. Suppose that my wife tells me exactly what she wants for her birthday.

And I say, but I, you know, she wants to go to this restaurant, Saltgrass. She wants to order this food. She wants these kind of flowers. And I say, yeah, but those are just your words. I decided to take you to McDonald's instead.

No, you don't separate the words from the person. To dismiss the words of Jesus is to deny His person. Thirdly, we dismiss His importance. We deny His person. Thirdly, when we don't listen to the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ, we defame His character.

Now listen to this. To disagree with Jesus is essentially to accuse Jesus. When you disagree with the Bible, the reason it's so wrong is because you're bringing an accusation against the Lord. The Bible says this thing, you're going to do this thing, and you bring an accusation against Jesus.

You're like the people in Luke 23 that brought accusations against the Lord. They accused Him of teaching falsehood. They accused Him of not being who He says that He is. And this is what we do if we disagree with Christ's words.

You defame His character.

This is serious. You accuse Him.

Fourthly, you despise His wisdom. To disagree, verse 3 there, with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ is to pretend as though you are wiser than God. It is to despise His wisdom. Jesus says, though, behold, one greater than Solomon is here.

Who are we to answer back to God? Who are we to think that we could do the church better than what Jesus teaches us? Or to do evangelism better than how Jesus teaches us? Or to have our homes, our families, our marriages better than how Jesus teaches us?

To not listen to the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ is to dismiss His importance, deny His person, defame His character, despise His wisdom. Fifthly, defy His sovereignty. That is, to disagree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ is to call into question His authority.

It is to laugh in the face of God as though He does not have the right to rule over you. Have you ever thought about that? I don't know the whole story of this, so you can correct me if I'm wrong. I saw a little clip about it over the weekend.

But apparently, I think it was a retired police officer that was riding his bicycle, and there was these two people that just thought it'd be fun to run over the bicycle. And this man lost his life. This just recently happened.

Why is our country like this? Like, why are people like this? I know there's always people like this in the world since the fall. Like, what is going on? We live in a place where so many people defy the authority of God.

They believe that they have the right to come to the Bible and scoff at it, not believe it, dismiss it, and live however they want. Friends, I'm telling you, in the church, when we disagree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ, we defy His sovereignty.

And then, sixthly and finally, so we dismiss His importance. We deny His person. We defame His character. We despise His wisdom. We defy His sovereignty. And sixthly, and this gets us to the text, we disrupt His church.

When we say we're going to do church our own way, we're not going to listen to the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ. We're going to teach different doctrine. This is what we do. We disrupt the church.

Those who disrupt the church harm the godliness of true saints, and they perpetuate the hard hearts of false converts. They bring dishonor upon this holy institution. Here's what I'm trying to tell us in this point.

Those who are content in Christ desire His word. We don't play games with God's word. God's word is not a buffet line. Y 'all like Chinese food?

I like Chinese food.

I like, you know, there used to be such a thing existed, Chinese food restaurants that weren't buffets. But I'm like, if I'm going to Chinese food, I want a buffet. I want to walk on the buffet aisle and say, I want this.

I don't want that, right? Okay, amen. You can do that at a Chinese buffet. You can't do it with the Bible. You can't walk through the Bible and say, you know what? I really like this. I like this. I don't like that.

No, we don't play games with God's word. Christ's church is called to agree with all of His words. They are sound. They are good. They are healthy. They are life giving. Let me give one last exhortation here and then we'll do our last point.

Are you a student of the Bible?

Right?

I like, I don't know, I really get in this mode as we enter into the kind of the last quarter of a year. But I get on this mode of you need to be reading your Bible. You need to be reading your Bible.

I'm not trying to be legalistic. I'm not saying if you don't read your Bible, X amount that you can't go to heaven. I'm not saying that kind of stuff. What I am saying as a general rule, and you come tell me if I'm wrong about this, but as a general rule, most Christians in this room can use more Bible in their life.

And we ought to be a people that are hungry for His book, studying it, reading it, knowing it, prioritizing, sitting under the preaching of it, loving to study and to know the truth because we're content in Christ.

Those content in Christ defend His truth and desire His word. Thirdly, the church content in Christ delights in His glory, defends His truth, desires His word, delights in His glory. Now we're going to camp here on verse six.

Verse six, there is great gain in godliness with contentment. I'm going to tell you, I'm going to be so bold as to tell you this. You don't believe this verse enough. And I'm right there with you too often.

You don't believe this verse enough because you chase after, and I chase after, the things in this world to find a solace for our souls too often. Paul reminds us here, Jesus is enough. Friends, Christ is not the means to some other gain.

Listen to me, this is the danger of the prosperity gospel. We don't come to Jesus for money, right? We don't come to Jesus for fame, for notoriety, for health. Oh, if you come to Christ, I'll get rid of cancer.

Okay, I want Jesus.

No, no, no.

Then that's not making Jesus beautiful. That's just your desire to be healthy is what you're after, right?

No, no.

What we come to Christ for is what?

Christ.

Well, what do you get in the gospel? Sometimes what you get in the gospel is more difficulty, more trial, more persecution, more frustration. Oh, but what I get in the gospel is so much greater than all those things because what I get is Christ.

All the other things in my life I can count as disregarded, as inferior compared to the surpassing worth of knowing Christ. This is what we get in the gospel. And so Paul tells us godliness with contentment is great gain.