Is it sinful to be wealthy? Is it godly to live in poverty? Is one extreme more conducive to contentment than the other? Today on Truth for Life, Alister McGrath addresses these questions and points out why it's possible to feel empty or satisfied, whether you're poverty-stricken or have everything in the world. Let's open our Bibles to First Timothy chapter six.
Think, he says. Consider your exit. All the stuff that we manage to amass in the journey through life, and it is considerable for each of us. All of that stuff has to be checked at the toll booth of death. When you come to that toll booth, you leave everything behind, and you go through as you arrived, completely with nothing.
There are no pockets in a shroud.
Now, when this dawns on the life of an individual, they are at least in the position to be able to think through to some sensible conclusions. In the ballad of John and Yoko Ono, with which I'm sure you're also very familiar, there is a line that pops out as if from nowhere, and and and Lennon sings, "Last night the wife said, 'Oh boy, when you're dead, you can't take nothing with you but your soul.'" Now, where did that come from? Presumably, the two of them are sitting round at night, talking metaphysics, talking about life. She's one of the richest landowners at that point in New York City, in terms of the Dakota Building and all the apartments that she has she has possessed. But she says to him, "Hey, John, when you go, you don't take anything." And it dawns on him, and he writes it down in the song.
He then goes honeymooning down by the sea, and took the last train back from Paris, and so on. And on with his journey.
Now, while there are no pockets in a shroud, and while we arrive naked and we leave essentially naked, we don't live naked and we don't live without pockets.
So the real issue is what goes in our pockets, because stuff does go in our pockets.
Well, that's where verse eight balances out verse seven. If we brought nothing into the world, we can take nothing out of it. Principle understood. But he says, if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that. It's essentially what you have worked out so masterfully in the Jungle Book, right?
You're all thinking of it already, aren't you? Bare necessities, the simple bare necessities. That's what he's saying. Bare necessities, the simple bare necessities. That's is that what he's saying here?
If we have food and clothing, here is the basics for contentment.
Now, loved ones, you've got to get this. I have to get this. This is absolutely pivotal. Here in verse eight is the level at which our expectations and consequently our contentment should be pitched. This is the level of expectation for contentment, food and clothes, contentment.
Not food and clothes plus, but food and clothes. We will be content with that, he says. Discontentedness in life, my discontentedness in life, is on account of being seduced into believing. The the lie that a man's life consists in the abundance of his possessions. That's what Jesus says in Luke chapter twelve.
He says to his disciples, "Listen, if you want to think about a man's life, a man's life does not consist in the abundance of what he possesses. No matter how successful or how notorious my late father-in-law was within the Chrysler Corporation, he didn't take any of that with him." And what he left behind was a legacy in relationship to Christian things, in believing children and in believing grandchildren and in great grandchildren that will be nurtured in the framework of faith. It would have been a dreadful waste of sixty-nine years of a life and some forty-three of them as a Christian life. Have you not at least begun to understand some of these things? Godliness with contentment is great gain.
He says the two things go together. We brought nothing into the world; we're taking nothing out of it. Those are the fixed points. But he says, if we have food and clothes, we'll be content with that.
Now here's a question: Is Paul issuing a call to poverty? No. Is Paul condemning riches? No. In fact, if you look at verse seventeen, to which we'll come in a later study, he gives instructions to those who are rich.
This little section has to do with those who want to get rich, and he has a certain way of thinking for those who are tempted to believe that getting rich is the answer to life. And he instructs them in that way. But there are some people who are rich. The rich people are to make sure. That they don't get arrogant, they don't put their hope in their riches, which is so uncertain, but they put their hope in God.
Now, notice the final phrase of verse seventeen: "Who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment." He richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. Paul is not issuing a call to poverty or to a certain level of simplicity beyond which we sin. Rather, he is saying that whatever exceeds the basics of food and clothing can be gratefully received and can be enjoyed. But the essence of contentment is not in the other stuff. And he's saying if you don't learn to be contented with food and clothes, then the amassing of all the other junk will hold out the notion of security, but it actually only creates anxiety.
Because when you didn't have anything, you didn't have to worry about it.
Now that you've got it, you have to worry about where it is. Did it get serviced? Who's looking after it? When will I go back for it? When does it?
And so on. It drives you totally nuts. But don't leave here and go and buy yourself a hair shirt, or phone Waterbed City to see if they have beds of nails for you to lie on. That would be easy, wouldn't it? Oh yes, we could all do that.
From where we are now to a shack in the woods with nothing, we understand First Timothy six six. We have it mastered. Tell me about your heart in the shack. Do you ever look over at the other guy's shack and say, "Hey"? He's got a chimney on his.
If I had a chimney, that would be the thing to have. Yeah, you see, the issue, the issue is not out here coming in. The issue is in here going out. You see, why is it that kids get steamed up about toys? If they're contented when they arrive and they've got nothing really to play with, they only have stuff to eat.
How come the appeal of toys and other people's toys drive these little rascals nuts? Because they're sinners, and because all of this stuff only appeals to their sinful nature in them, which is acquisitive, and thinks that with this little house or this little bike or this little bus or this little empire, then I'll be the king of my castle. What is that? It's an appeal to their inherent selfishness. That's why secular man has no answer for these things.
He can't explain this. The answer is not in some radical externalizing of things, but it is in a change at the very core of my being. The other things that we have in life should never be regarded as necessities, because if we regard them as necessities, then when we do not have them, our contentment will be destroyed. Do you understand that? That's when we turn luxuries into necessities, we jeopardize our ability for contentedness.
No wonder we live in such a discontented age, because we are told that the previous generation's luxuries have become our necessities.
So we cannot live now without a level of luxury which we have now deemed necessity, and in the absence of all of this stuff. There is an absence of godliness, with contentment, which is great gain. But still, we want to believe the lie. You know, if you talk with people, they'll tell you not to believe the lie. Lady Alethea Savile, one of the Sloane Rangers of Knightsbridge of a few years ago, brought up with a very silver spoon in her mouth.
On the fringes of royalty and moving in the kind of circles in London that invited her to every significant party, and made it possible for her to purchase anything she chose on account of the resources of her father's trust funds, in her name. The Guardian described her as an intelligent girl who could see the worthlessness of the world she found herself in, but couldn't work out a way to make it more fulfilling. Listen to what she said. What I crave more than anything else is middle class normality, ordinary boring parents, ordinary boring brothers and sisters, and ordinary boring things.
So she drives through Knightsbridge in her XJS, and the kids on the corner say. She must be happy with everything she has. And one day I'll have a car like that. And one day I'll shop in there. And one day I'll have my hair done in there.
And then I'll be just as contented as she is. Yeah, that's probably right. You probably will. She would have stopped in the middle of the street and given you the car. She would have stopped in the street and set fire to the car.
Because she had never understood that godliness with contentment is great gain. Calvin comments in this way. He says, "For nature is content with a little." Nature is content with a little, and all that goes beyond natural usage is superfluous. Not that a more liberal use of possessions should be condemned as bad in itself, but a desire for it is always sinful. See, not that a more liberal use of possessions should be condemned as bad in itself, but the prevailing longing, driving passion, and commitment to have this as the source of life and contentment is, he says, always sinful.
So we need to learn. That the human heart finds satisfaction ultimately only in God, not in worldly accumulations, not actually even in the discarding of worldly accumulations. As the psalmist says, "Better the little that the righteous have than the wealth of many wicked." Contentedness is not found in piling up added securities beside the daily necessities of food and clothing.
Now you don't have to have a lot to understand this, do you? I don't think so. Contented people are, are, are fabulous. If you had a contented parent or a contented grandpa, and you spend any time with them, it's it's gold. And so it was dangerous.
You deify your relatives, you know, in their absence. My grandfather, he would, he'd come up here and do a little Irish jig for you and tell you the truth. But my grandfather was severely wounded in the trenches, the front line trenches in the First World War.
So much so that he could never drive a car. His right arm was immobilized. There was shrapnel through his body till the day he died.
So he never drove a car. He never owned a car. We went everywhere on the bus. Or the ferry, or the subway. He used to smoke on the bus, and he thought I didn't know he smoked.
He would sit next to me and give me candies and make me look out the window while he took a drag on his cigarette. He was—he didn't want to be a bad example to me. He stopped after Christ got a hold of him, but it was always hard. He'd blow it out the kitchen, the bathroom window every so often. But the thing I remember about my grandfather more than anything else is I never once in all of his life heard him complain.
I never heard him ask for anything. I never heard him say he needed something. I never, never once, once. And my first child was born before he died, so I lived with him for a while. We say, "Well, he's kind of down there, you know." He's, after all, you know.
No, no, no, I don't get it wrong. You think it's the people that have it all that do this? No, no, no, no, no. See, sometimes when you don't have it, you're consumed with money. All the best things in life are free.
You can keep them for the birds and the bees, but give me money. That's what I want. Your loving gives me a thrill, but your loving don't pay my bills.
So give me money. That's what I want. That's what I want. That's what I want. Now, how did Lenin get from "Give me money, that's what I want" to last night?
The wife said, "Oh boy, when you're dead, you don't take nothing with you but your soul." I'll tell you how he got there. He got what he wanted, and when he got it, he knew that it did not bring contentment. He could fly anywhere in the world, be with anyone he chose, buy anything in all the universe, and he was empty. Contentment is not ultimately a matter of money in the bank or the absence of money in the bank. It is a heart attitude towards life and things itself.
In the course of my days, God has introduced me to many people who have vast resources, and if they were to be here this morning and sit in this church, you wouldn't even recognize them by their clothes or by anything. You know people like that, and what is it that marks them? Contentedness. They never went for the money in. First place, God gave him the money because He knew He could trust him with the money.
We don't want to condemn them for being rich; they're underpinning ministry all over the place because of their hands-off approach. They're not wearing their money as a badge. They're not strutting their stuff. Let me finish in this way. In King Henry the Sixth, Part Two, she probably were reading this week.
There's a wonderful little section where the king is out in the country, and he is encountered by two gamekeepers. And one of the gamekeepers says to him, "Who are you?" He says, "I'm the king." The guy replies, "But if thou be a king, where is thy crown?" To which the king replies, "My crown is in my heart, not on my head. Not decked with diamonds and Indian stones. Not to be seen. My crown is called content.
A crown it is." That seldom kings enjoy. Question: Where's your crown? What's your crown? You wearing it on your head at a jaunty angle? It's so easy to do, isn't it?
So easy to fall into the lie.
So easy to set our expectations for contentment. Always just one notch higher. How much money do you need, Mr. Rockefeller? Just a little more than I have.
Now I want to say this, and then I'm going to read a note, and we're done. My greatest fear in addressing this issue is that I may talk about it in such a way. As to create the impression that somehow or another, you know, I took this test and I mastered it. I got more stuff at this point in my life than I could ever have imagined amassing since I came here with absolutely nothing from Scotland. And I want to tell myself that when I go to McDonald's when it just opens and get that that black coffee and the blueberry muffin which cost me a dollar seventy four, and then have a little bit of luxury buy the New York Times for a dollar which takes me up to two seventy four.
I want to tell myself that I'm really content with that. That if I had. If I if I didn't have my car to drive therein, or if I didn't have my home to return to, or whatever else it is that I could find simple pleasures in the conversations with the people around me, in the good mornings, and in the how are yous, and how's it going, and that kind of stuff, I want to tell myself I can be content with that. I'm not sure I can, but you see, we're supposed to be. If you have coffee.
And a blueberry muffin. We will be content with that. Oh yeah. But the guy next to you gets the big breakfast. Oh man, look at that sucker!
You going in your pockets? You going? Oh, I don't. Jeez. A letter, and we're done.
Guy writes to me this week. says I wanted to drop a note of thanks for the ministry of Parkside. I became a Christian some years ago, but I was not living for Christ. I didn't understand what it meant to walk with the Lord. We've been coming to Parkside, and God has been speaking to us.
He says attached, please find a check, which was for a substantial sum of money. He said I've been saving for many years to buy a Harley Davidson motorcycle. Several weeks ago, however, during one of your moving messages, I realized that I should use my financial blessings for God's work rather than buying a bike in the spring. It dawned on me through your messages that I would rather be known as a strong Christian than a businessman who owns a motorcycle, and that I needed to strengthen the former before pursuing the latter. Please use the funds at your discretion.
I have also sent funds to Truth for Life, so that others around the nation may become convicted to serve the Lord Jesus. Thank you for your leadership. Godliness with contentment is great gain. We brought nothing in; we're taking nothing out. If we have food and clothes, we'll be content with that.
You're listening to Truth for Life with Alister Beg. He'll return in just a moment to close today's program.
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Today is the last day we're featuring this brand new verse-by-verse study through the Book of Second Timothy. It's designed to be used alongside the ESV Bible, and it includes Alister's commentary as well as questions to help you stand firm in the gospel and faithfully proclaim God's truth. Again, the guarding the truth study guide is yours today when you become a truth partner, or when you give a one-time gift at truthforlife.org/donate.
Now, here's Aleister with the closing prayer. Father, thank you that your word is sharp as a two-edged sword; that it speaks into our lives. It's not some remote book. Down through the corridors of time, it rings into our experience, and we thank you for it. Help us to evaluate our lives today in relationship to the fixed points of entry and exit.
First of all, in relationship to whether we know Christ and are ready to serve Him. Secondly, if in following Him, we are prepared. To begin at least to work at this great discovery of godliness with contentment. Save us from sidestepping the difficult question. Save us also from making bizarre and extravagant claims, or doing things that are dramatic, without having our heart attitude changed.
We pray that you would take our lives afresh this day. All of our coming and our going, our plans and our hopes and our dreams and our schemes, and help us, Lord, in all of the pins we might amass and in of all of the jewelry we may manage to wear. That you will allow us to fasten. Onto the rare jewel of Christian contentment. Save us from looking over our shoulders, from jealousy, from antagonism, from spite.
Turn our eyes to Christ alone. We pray, and may His grace and mercy and peace that comes from the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit be our abiding portion. Evermore, Amen. I'm Bob Lapine. I hope you can join us tomorrow when we will consider the desire to get rich.
How can you tell if you have an inordinate love of money? We'll learn the telltale signs tomorrow. The Bible teaching of Aleister Beg is furnished by Truth for Life. Where the Learning is for Living.
