Greed and Contentment - 1 Timothy 6:1-10, 17-19 - Gospel Church

What's going on, Merciel?

How we doing? Hope you're doing well. Grace and peace to you.

My name is Tanner, if you don't know me. I am the church planting fellow right now, Merciel, which is a fancy way of saying me and my family and a few of my really best friends are planting a church in Norfolk, Virginia in 2023, which is just a fancy way. Thank you. Please pray for us, which is just a fancy way of saying we're going to make disciples. We're going to tell people that God wants to live life with them. I don't know if you know that today. God wants to live life with you. Yes, Jesus died on the cross to take away the penalty of our sins, but he wants to be in step with you every second of the day.

The God who made you wants to know you, wants to live life with you. And we're going to another city to just announce that news. That's what we're going to do. That's why we're selling our houses. We are losing our jobs and we're moving there just on faith.

And yes, there are churches needed everywhere, but God has put this city on our heart and we are so pumped. We do have an interest meeting upon us and we would love for you to come. It is in the kids' space, 630. Be there. There's another one coming up at the end of October.

You should have gotten a magnet on your way in or something like that. It's got our website. If you want to check us out, you can RSVP or you could just show up. And hey, if you've been praying for us, thank you. If you're praying for my family, for our team, thank you so much. Just a couple of quick things you can be praying for. Everyone who's planting a church is praying to be as local and as lost as possible as quickly as possible.

Let me explain what I mean to you. We go in there for lost people, for people who don't know Jesus. That's why we're going.

So we want to get as local as possible. Specifically, we're praying to be 40% non-Anglo as quickly as possible because our city is already a majority minority city and we want to love on some people. So if you could pray with us on that, that would be great. We were praying that 25 of us would leave here and maybe some of y'all are some of those 25. Amen, somebody. So, hey, I want to pray really quick for our time together and we're just going to dive into God's word.

All right. Father, we love you. Thank you that you love us. God, we need you. God, we need you in the mundane and the big things. Lord, we need godliness with contentment. Would you give us eyes to see and ears to hear?

God, we love you so much. Praise the Jesus name. Amen.

Well, we just heard the passage read a moment ago. Here's our big idea. If you are taking notes this weekend, the gospel church is marked by godliness with contentment. Somebody say godliness. Somebody say contentment. Somebody say godliness with contentment. That was great.

I love it. Hey, I don't know the last time you looked up a definition of contentment, but this is the best one I got. It's a perfect condition of life in which no aid or support is needed. Y'all, contentment gets at nothing else is needed. There's satisfaction, completeness, and I just got to be honest. That does not always describe me.

Perfect condition. Okay. And the way I think about discontentment or lack of completion really is in two ways. It's I'm discontent in micro small ways and in macro big ways. Let's start with micro. So micro, the best way I can kind of describe how discontent I can be. Maybe our culture can be is just through the cell phone media consumption stats.

They're just off the charts. Y'all, I saw this this week. The average person on the average day touches their phone 2600 times. I was like, I don't even know if I do. I breathe 2600 times in a day. You're telling me I touched this thing that many times and then I was like, that can't be right. I looked at the average number of pickups today. How many times you just pick it up?

And it was 58. Now I'm gonna put myself out there. Okay. All right. I'm gonna be honest with y'all.

I had an airport day recently, a travel day. Okay. I looked at my number of pickups.

Y'all, I'm embarrassed to say what I'm about to say. Give me grace. Love me.

159 times. Now I could justify and tell you I was only on social media for three minutes, checking out my man, Ronald Redmond, checking out the Thrasher family, Will Ferguson and Midnight Mama. That is my beautiful wife and her account because she she bawling out with her little business thing. But that don't matter. That's just justifying it. I could tell you I was listening to a Christian book and taking notes and working on the sermon, but I picked it up 159 times, people.

That is crazy. And it's all it's all pointing back to when I pick it up, I'm looking for something, right? A lot of times discontentment just comes in the form of distraction, right? Surface level distraction can reveal under the surface discontentment many times in our lives. And that's not even talking about the macro. The macro is the home searching, job searching.

What if I could get the job that does this and I like this and this? It's just like in so many ways, this relationship when the kid gets to this phase, when life is like this, when it's a little bit easier, that's kind of the macro discontent. Y'all, if we're honest, discontentment is just a constant struggle. Y'all, the good news for us today from God's word is that contentment is possible. And Paul, the author of this letter, is writing to a church and you might have caught it. He said some teachers were up in here teaching godliness is a means to gain, like a means to material worldly gain.

He said, no, no, no. Godliness with contentment is great gain. And that's what we're going to be talking about. So by God's grace, God doesn't want us to leave here thinking contentment is a pipe dream. It can be hours in Christ Jesus today.

That's the good news. So what I want to do is get ourselves in Paul's mind as best we can. We're going to talk about the destination.

We're going to talk about the central companion on that destination. Then we're going to talk about godliness with contentment being great gain. Does that sound good?

If it sounds good, say good. Okay, here we go. Number one, godliness is the destination. Godliness is the destination. The Bible says 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. You know, godliness may be a term we think we know what it means real quick, okay, but we've got to get what Paul meant by it. There's obviously some kind of teaching out there that didn't accord with godliness, and Paul's saying those people don't understand nothing. So what comes to our minds when we think of godliness? In a lot of conversations, what I pick up is basically people would break it down to character, right? The good things you do, the bad things you don't do.

Be nice, don't be mean. For Paul, his view of godliness was much bigger than niceness or meanness. The word godliness means godlikeness, reverence for God.

Godly people are shaped by their reverence for God in every area of their lives. You see, when Paul taught about following Jesus and the resurrection and salvation by faith, he didn't just envision that you'd be made righteous with God and given a ticket out of hell or a clean slate. He envisioned you'd be so made right, so transformed that the direction you're headed in your life would forever be changed. You see, Paul didn't just envision a new vessel on the water, but a new destination.

That vessel is headed. One of my really good friends here who's a pastor, Brian Miller, said there's a great difference between striving for acceptance by God and striving for alignment with God. And that's what godliness gets after. I tell people all the time, my favorite view of salvation is it's like you can't hardly see nothing and you get handed the pair of glasses that just life gets crisper and clearer. Your reality is enhanced by salvation.

It's not a ticket, it's a pair of glasses. One fourth century theologian compared salvation to being given a compass and knowing where north is for the first time. No more wandering, no more aimlessness. We good.

Y'all know the song I Thank God? He said, I tried with all my might, but I just can't win the fight. I'm slowly drifting. A vagabond, but just when I ran out of road.

How's he do it? I met a man I didn't know, and he told me that I was not alone. He picked me up, turned me round, set my feet on solid ground. I thank the master. I thank the savior because you healed my heart. You changed my name forever free.

I am not the same. I thank the master. I thank the savior. I thank God.

I love that song because it communicates. Now I'm living on solid ground. The Psalms say, God, you got me out of the miry bog. You got me out the mud. The point of getting brought out the mud is so that your feet are stable. Your reality is different.

It's not the same no more. God's goal is to give you a new life, a new direction. Does God want to give you character for character's sake?

Yes, but even more, he wants the right character headed in the right direction. For Paul, godliness was the direction and the destination. Godliness is the destination of the Christian life. We were made for godliness, to reflect him. When God saves us, he picks us up out of the just slavery of living for self. He gives us the gift of his righteousness and then the path of his righteousness. Y'all, Brian, one more time, I'm going to give it to you.

Y'all need to get an O'Brien now. Godliness is living in alignment with God by keeping your attention on God. Listen, God is not just after a cross purchased life. He is after a cross shaped life. Y'all, where the cross isn't just your foundation, it's your destination. Where the cross doesn't just save you from your sins, but it directs your steps. The true north of the Christian life on our compass is the cross. He said, pick up your cross daily and follow me. My prayer for us, Mercy Hills, that we'll look back on our lives one day and we'll see thousands of days where we chose to pick up our cross.

And thousands of moments where we chose to pick it up. When you look back, it would just make one big cross shaped life. And we're not saved because we live a cross shaped life. It's because we got saved. We want to and are able to live a cross shaped life. If you can imagine a fleet of boats wrecking into each other and just all messed up.

And then all of a sudden it's like they all just they all know north and they reorient and they are on their way. That's the godly life. When Paul says godliness, he means a person who's walking in the power of spirit, chasing the glory of God by faith in the Son of God and becoming just like Jesus. So when Paul hears about a teaching where some people are saying godliness is a means of gain, like material gain, he's like, that ain't gonna work. He's like, let me look back at what I taught these people. In Acts chapter 20, we learned that he was in the city that Timothy's in right here for three years. And it says he taught them the whole counsel of God.

And he wasn't there that long giving them an endless list of rules and behavior stuff. He was there giving them the clear sight of Jesus, his purpose, his power, his destination. You know, in any situation, any letter, Paul is just busting out a gospel compass based on what he's hearing.

He's like, OK, tell me your situation. That's north. Let's get it. The cross shapes what we gonna do next. We've been reading First Timothy. I hope you've been reading that on your own. Look at what he said to about the widow situation there in chapter five.

Check this out. She who is truly a widow left all alone has set her hope on God and continues in supplications and prayers night and day. But she who is self-indulgent is dead even while she lives. Command these things as well so that they may be without reproach. Y'all, when Paul pulls out the gospel compass over the widow situation, he's so assuming someone in this position is so full of the love of God is so so at least reorienting to that reality that this is what their life will look like. Command this, Timothy.

Teach this. This is what accords with sound doctrine. You see, when Paul uses words like sound doctrine and godliness, he's not just talking about not doing bad stuff. He's like, is your church like going north or what are y'all doing? Are y'all just sitting on your boats trying to clean up the dock? You know what I mean? Like, what are y'all doing?

That's kind of the question he was asking. So Mercy Hill, when you hear the term godliness, what do you think of? What do you think God wants with your life? Do you think he's after just giving you a ticket for a ride one day or giving us a pair of glasses and changing everything?

Do we come to church just to hear, does the person speaking today have something I need to go check the deck on? Are we coming and saying, is my compass busted? Like, God, help me. God, am I viewing reality correctly?

Please help me. Are we just coming like, I didn't hear anything. Nothing to clean up. Let's keep rolling. It's a constant reorientation for the destination of godliness. Point number two, contentment is the essential companion.

The Bible says, among people who are depraved in mind and deprived of the truth, imagining. He said, imagine that, 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. Godliness with contentment is great gain. There's a sense in which godliness makes contentment possible. Right?

If someone could argue you could be content and not be a Christian, I would say in some sense, I agree. Right? The Greeks at this time period, they viewed contentment as like a virtue. Like, you almost could like put it on your brand. Like, I don't need nothing. Right? In a lot of Eastern cultures, minimalism, these things point out like a detachment from the material. And that's a good thing. That's a great thing. It's simplicity. We should all be simple people. But y'all, Christian contentment to Paul is more than not needing stuff. Remember, godliness with contentment is great gain. Contentment alone isn't great gain. Godliness alone is it's godliness with contentment. Contentment in conjunction with godliness is this idea that I have no needs because I have God in the midst of whatever situation I'm in. Remember the text said with food and clothing, we will be content.

Being okay with food and clothing and knowing what true north is, that's enough. Contentment gets to having all you need in Jesus. The famous passage on contentment comes from Philippians chapter four.

Check this out right quick. Paul again, he's writing for prison right here. Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low and I know how to abound in any and every circumstance. I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need.

I can do all things through him who strengthens me. Y'all, the path to contentment is not changing our situation. We just got to let that side in.

That's so opposite of how we operate. Contentment can be found in the midst of any situation in Christ. Where does contentment come from?

Y'all, the root of contentment is not willpower. It's union with Jesus. Paul does not leave us thinking, show me how good you are at losing stuff. He leaves you thinking, do I know Jesus like Paul?

Do I have that kind of connection and union and grace? We are content when we're so united to Jesus and leaning into that relationship with him. It transcends the reality of our circumstances. So if that's the root of contentment, what does contentment look like? The fruit of contentment is not detachment, it's devotion. We're not talking about you being able to say, I'm removed from reality. We're not after a gnostic view of reality or anti-matter view of reality.

We're after union with Christ that leads to devotion with Christ. Now, somebody might look in and say, you don't need nothing. And that's great.

That's a testimony to the world. But it's not that I'm anti stuff. It's just, am I content with God where I'm at? Are you rich?

Are you poor? Are you content? Church, we don't aim for detachment. We aim for union with Jesus and we find ourselves devoted to him.

Church, is your life characterized by union with Jesus? He has purchased the union. Amen.

We don't earn the union. Amen. We just abide in it. We just swim in it.

New morning mercies, I swim in that. You know, that's where we live. That's our address. Church, you could live in a hut and not be content or you could live in a castle and not be content. Contentment is less about what you have and more about who you are and what you're feasting on for satisfaction. Contentment is about what we're satisfied by. And when we're not satisfied in Christ, we will look elsewhere. Look at the next verses after our text here today. But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content.

With the food and clothing, that's where we'll 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 the 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. Y'all, this is not a money sermon, but we can't miss how it said the desire to be rich is a temptation we can fall into.

And that's contrasted with just being content with food and clothing. The love of money is the root of all kinds of evils, not having it. What our hearts are tempted to do with it is the problem. Money serves as a unique tempter in some instances. We can trust it, want it, long for it, find ourselves confident when we got it and not confident when we don't.

That kind of sounds like a God to me. What the love of money does is it boils our reality down to living in alignment with the rest of the world. It changes our north. Like, when we start loving it, north changes. It starts to dictate our behavior more than anything else.

Eventually, anything beyond this world, such as God and eternity, is just not a priority. Y'all, look at this language. It says those who desire to be rich. That says nothing about what you have. You could have nothing and fall into this trap or have everything and fall into it. It's the love of money that is the root of all kinds of evil. And having little doesn't make you content, right?

Like, it kind of goes both ways. Just because you ain't got nothing don't make you content, you know? And just because you got something don't mean you love money. If we have food and clothing with these, we will be content. Contentment is a state of being. Contrast that with those who desire to be rich. The Bible said they love money. They have a craving.

You see the contrast, don't you? Church, are we content or are we craving? Is there just an undercurrent of craving to our lives? Contentment is an essential companion and it only comes if we are united to Christ and really leaning into that. Number three, let's talk about godliness with contentment, the great gain. Let's go back to Paul's argument. This is the root of what was bothering him.

He was like, hold up now. Among people who are deprived in mind and deprived of the truth, imagining that godliness is a means of gain. I just can't imagine him writing that. He's like, imagining that godliness is a means of gain, but godliness with contentment is great gain. Y'all, the root of the issue seemed to be not that this church was saying, let's get rid of godliness, but let's make it a part of the chase of something else. So that's why texts like this are particularly dangerous if you are a follower of Jesus. He ain't coming for people who don't follow Jesus, you know? Man, if you're not a believer, I want you to be content and it's going to happen in Christ or it won't happen, but believers, we've got to listen when we start hearing that there's this unique temptation to make godliness a means of gain instead of godliness with contentment being great gain one time. The contagion in the water was that godliness was the mean to something else. And Paul's like, none of that.

We ain't having that. Godliness with contentment does lead to gain, but more importantly, it is gain. Somebody say is. You need to circle that one if you've got a Bible.

Circle it. Is. It is a mean.

It is gain. In Jesus right now, we have all we could ever want or need. Contentment is like a satisfactory feast that when somebody offers you something, you're like, I'm good.

You're just like, I'm good. In our relationship with Christ, who He is, where we're going, our abiding, our destination, all that, we are good. These psalms are loaded with verses like this right here.

Check this out. Y'all, is that our hearts today? And y'all, if you go read that psalm, I encourage you to memorize a lot of verses in it.

This is how it starts. He says, Surely God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart. God is good. And then he says, But as for me, I had almost slipped. For I was envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. What he's saying is my eyes started seeing something and my compass started, you know, shaking around. What he saw got to his heart and he started dwelling on it and meditating on it.

You need to go check that psalm out because it's not until he goes to the sanctuary that he gets right. And he says, I was like a beast towards you. Nevertheless, you hold my right hand. I'm in it. We back, baby. Thank you that you hold me.

You keep me when I'm tripping. Is this our heart today? I want us to consider the state of our heart with contentment because there's there's two incomplete ways that this could hit us. And I want to just talk about those because I want us to get the great gain. I want the great gain for me, my family.

I want it for you. Contentment can be misappropriated as telling somebody to tone it down. So what we begin to hear is chill out. So so people with a more laid back temperament are like, oh, I'm content. And people who are more driven are like, there must be something wrong with me. And both of those are potentially dangerous.

So I just want to I just want to push for a minute, y'all. First, contentment is not a resignation from life is not a deadening of appetites. It's a satisfaction of appetites. Contentment is about satisfaction, no matter the circumstance. So when when we think of a content person, we shouldn't think laziness or resignation. If anything, it's our union with Christ and our devotion to him that pushes us to take big risks and do crazy stuff. I mean, Paul wrote this from jail, you know, wrote a lot of his stuff from jail because he was so living for Jesus that he was like getting in trouble.

He wasn't checking out on life. It doesn't remove you from chasing after big things. It redeems your motives, power and methods of chasing what you're chasing.

You can say it like this. Contentment doesn't diminish ambition. It redeems ambition. So some of us, maybe we lean a little chill and we can't allow our personalities to tell us we're doing something deeply trusting and spiritual when in reality we're just comfortable. Contentment is not complacency. The true north of the Christian life, the godliness should be pushing us. And if we often don't find ourselves fighting a big battle like we've already won, we can't lose in this Christian game. You know that, right? Because he won, I can't lose. Let's get it.

And we should take huge risks. So if the gospel isn't pushing us for the glory of God and the good of our neighbor, if stuff don't bother us in this world, if we don't take risks, if we don't want to hop on planes, if we don't want to do stuff, maybe godliness isn't pushing us. Maybe we're closer to complacency than we are to contentment. But on the flip side, to my hustlers, don't hear Paul beating you up.

Paul hustled harder than you, I promise. But he did it with contentment underneath the surface of everything he did. Contentment allows you to take massive kingdom risks, do crazy stuff like end up in jail for sharing about Jesus and then lead a jailer to Christ like Paul did. You know what it can make you do? It can make you go really fast and then stop on a dime and just be present and just be there. Some hustlers under the sound of my voice like me want to know how I know I struggle with contentment. It's not that I'm naturally driven, it's that I can't be present. Content people are present people.

Discontentment is often just in the form of distraction. Contentment so dials me in to where I'm at with Christ because Christ is there. And I'm asking the question, Lord, what are you doing and how are you calling me to be a part of it? Holy Spirit, I'm trying to keep in step with you. Let's get it.

Where are you at? Let's go. So it's not the personality ain't the issue. And y'all listen, what what starts in our minds and the restlessness here always becomes restlessness here. You know that, right?

That's why I grab my phone a hundred and fifty nine times. What starts in our minds always in our hearts just always gets out into our words and our actions and our deeds. So our discontentment, our lack of being present, we feel it sometimes, don't we?

We're just chasing something. But y'all listen to me, church, if we can't find Jesus in contentment where we're at, we can't find it anywhere. Contentment ain't there. It's right here.

If I can't find it here, it ain't anywhere. I'll be content when, no, you won't. It don't work that way.

It just doesn't work like that. This contentment is like a cloak that fits itself to your contextual frame and your circumstances. And we convince ourselves, oh, I got out the cloak by changing my circumstance. And guess what it do? It just fits back to you.

You were like, man, I'll be so I'll be so present when I'll be so this, I'll be so that. And then the cloak, it just fits back to you. But also, you know, contentment is a cloak, too. Contentment can also be the one that fits to our frame. Contentment can become our reality, y'all. Contentment is available right here.

It's not out there. We don't need a contentment coach. We need a contentment cloak.

Do not go to the bookstore of steps to be content. Put on Christ. Jesus is not your contentment coach. He is your contentment cloak. Just put him on.

Just put him on one time. The great gain is in godliness with contentment. These false teachers imagine that godliness was a means of gain.

Paul's like, nah. So our personalities don't need to change today, but our hearts do. Our personalities and stories never excuse our worship of God.

They always inform our worship of God. So whether you're naturally a go getter or you're naturally dialed back, do some heart work. Don't beat yourself up. Feel invited by the King of Kings to a life of godliness with contentment, which brings us to our application for today. Let us learn godliness with contentment. Somebody say learn. And one thing I'm praying for us is just the grace to start learning.

Y'all, so many things in the Christian life. You can't earn it, but you do got to learn it. You got it. We just got to learn. There's a grace of learning once you realize your father loves you and you are safe. You ain't getting kicked out.

Stop trying to earn and let's get where we can learn. It's such good news. It's the greatest news. Because what it means is I don't have to strive to get in.

I'm in because he's good. Now let me learn from a father who loves me, not a coach who's going to cut me. And then somebody let's learn godliness with contentment. Are we headed north? Are we headed from the cross to the cross?

Are we content? I don't know what's going on in your mind when I ask you those questions, but you got to remember Paul didn't say he could do it. Paul didn't say I can be content.

He said I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Friends left to ourselves, we choose the wrong true north every time. Discontentment is so often our reality because even if you are a believer today, there still indwells in you some things. And we need God's grace. Don't feel the guilt trip.

This is a field trip. Y'all listen, we are so guilty of discontentment. We just are.

There is no amount of conjuring that can get us out of that. We settle for just being thought well of. We strive for the lowest things. I so quickly want to just settle for people liking me. I ain't aiming for no cross.

So often that's my reality. But the good news of the gospel is that Jesus Christ died for the most sinful, self-consumed, self-oriented, busted, compass person version of you. He didn't die to give us a blueprint to salvation. He died to give us salvation, to give us newness. Friends, Jesus isn't on the other side of contentment saying hurry up. He is the path to contentment. He is the path. You see, Jesus was the most godly and content man who ever lived. At the end of his life, he made it north. He made it, baby. And what he did was is he said, I'm going to take this L and all y'all fools who ain't do none of this, you get the victory that I earned. That's the good news of the gospel. He's not our coach.

He is our cloak. When you're a believer, the mindset of God does not hit me up when you get out. It's I'm inviting you.

He is wooing you to trust him. Today, friend, we shouldn't leave here beating ourselves up. We should hear an inviting call from the King of Kings. Y'all, Psalm 23 one says, the Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. Other translations say I have everything I need.

I got everything I need. God wants us to get there. He's inviting us on a journey to get there.

And there's two types of people in the room, unbeliever or non follower of Jesus. I just want to talk to you for a second and let you know that contentment cannot be found anywhere else. For many people, when they look back on their story of how they started following Jesus, it often starts with exhaustion where it's just like, man, what am I doing wasting my life? That's what happened to me 12 years ago. I was like, I am just exhausted. I didn't have words for it, but I was done being my own God. I was done being my own king.

I was so done. And then people started telling me the story of the world and the story of the gospel and the story, the good news and how my sin debt and all this stuff and Jesus and cross and resurrection. And I was like, OK, I want that in the moment you want out of the slavery of sin. Then the reality comes that you can't get out. You are trapped and we are complicit in our disorientation. We have chosen the wrong compass.

And for that, we are guilty before our holy God. But God in his goodness wants to gift you new life. Just give it to you.

Clean slate, new compass, whole deal. He just wants to give it to you. And what happens is, is we go from exhausted to like that can't be true. And it's like it is true.

It's free. Jesus came to put an end to your searching. All you want, all you need is found in your creator, God, who made you and is wooing you so you can lay down that which is killing you. The perfect, spotless Lamb of God, godly and content all his ways, offers to trade his place with you.

How amazing is that? You can put your trust in him today. We do have baptisms coming up next weekend. If God has been moving in your life, if you have gone from death to life, if you have put your trust in Christ, if this is a conversation you've been having with one of our pastors, group members, somebody, fill this form out.

We'll be in touch with you. And if you want to put trust in Christ today at the end, we'll have prayer team down here like any weekend, man. The Lord can do it.

He can do it. Believer, what would it look like if we collectively were content people, just a harbor full of boats, just and aiming north from the cross with contentment, not from complacency and not from craving, but from contentment? What would that look like for our neighborhoods and our cities?

What would that look like for Norfolk? That's what I dream about, man. You see, your godliness with contentment starts as your game, but it can become somebody else's game because here is what happens when you start playing a game like you don't need to win, but you've already won and you start playing so they can win. They're like, who are you?

And what do you got? I don't got. You're like an alien from outer space. You play by a different set of rules. You can look at people say, I already won, baby. I love this. Don't need it.

Do you want what I got? And that's what happened to me. I saw a dude. It was like this dude was just just from another planet.

It was as if he was the Lord Jesus Christ himself, which he was sinless more. I got to know him. But nonetheless, when somebody is aiming north, you're like, I ain't doing that. That ain't me. I'm busted.

I'm messed up. So when we put on godliness with contentment, y'all, we become the countercultural aliens who have already won. And we can take losses and take back seats and just our contentment drives us to big risk.

It drives us to things we can play for others to win because we've already won. Y'all, the gospel transform us from living for contentment to living from it. I'm no longer chasing. I've been found.

I'm good. Now I can go get it, but I can get it like I've already got it. My identity ain't based on what we talk about no more. That win already purchased, baby. And it's a gift. And now I can give it away, give it away, give it away now. I don't need it.

I don't need it no more. If contentment is not your experience today, that's OK. We get to learn. Read the Bible, read the Psalms, just overload on Psalms, overload on them.

Those ain't perfect people. Read books on spiritual practices, read biographies of old saints and just the way they were like, Lord, help, help orient me, give me the North help. Have you found your person yet that you're like, man, this person just gets me like I'm a read everything they've ever written. I was in my I was in the word the other day and I saw this in a psalm. I was like, man, this is it right here. This is it.

Check this out. The psalmist says, Return, O my soul, to your rest, for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you, for you have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling. I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living. Don't you love how he starts out by saying so? And then he starts talking to him. He's like, get right.

He good. You see that? That's a lot. That's a quiet time, by the way, is talking to yourself and talking to your king. That's all it is. Contentment is a daily battle. I'm not planting a church to be content, but because I am. And when that battle comes up, we've got to fight to not shame ourselves, but to hear the Savior saying it's OK. Lay it down again.

Lay it down again. I'm with you. May people look at our lives and see us chasing great things and taking big risks, but not as ones who are playing to win or we're doomed. My identity is crushed if this don't happen.

But we're playing like we've already won. May people see our lives that we go so hard, but we sleep so good. I sleep good because I'm content. My soul, our souls are at rest. One would people see us as ones who know where we are, know where we're going, living on solid ground, but also as ones who know whose we are. We are walking with God until our final day comes. But we will walk as ones who've already been found. May the Lord find us godly and content.

Let's pray. Father, Lord, it doesn't make sense that this is the way it gets to be. Lord, for the way we've lived, for the way we've just made a shipwreck of our lives, the sin we've done and continue to do and the ways we continue to trust it. Lord, forgive us. Well, God, you're so gracious, so kind, and you chase us down in your love, Father. God, praise your name. And then when we're in you, God, you invite us to live a new way and give us the grace to become new. God, please would that be true of this church?

Please would it be true of Port City Church in Norfolk, Virginia? Please, God, may we not live for contentment, but from it. God, would you set us free? And, Lord, I pray if there's somebody under the sound of my voice who needs to be set free, it would happen today.

Father, God, would chains be broken for your glory? We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Hey, y'all, every week here, we pray, we bring, we sing. That's a fancy way of saying there's always an opportunity to come pray at the front of every campus. And we got people who want to pray with you, who love you, want victory for you. Y'all, you can bring. We can respond to worship by bringing our tithes and our offerings. There's a bunch of ways to do it. You can see that on the screen. And then we sing about the goodness of God, how he's our good shepherd. Will you stand and sing with me?