Giving Thanks and Contentment
1 Timothy 2:1-4 (NKJV) 1 Therefore I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, 2 for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence. 3 For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, 4 who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.
Introduction:
- I’m feeling a little sentimental after Thanksgiving.
- I love Thanksgiving week.
- I love my family.
- I love a table full of my family.
- Everyone needs a thankful heart. “giving of thanks be made for all men”
1.1 Being a thankful people.
1.2 Giving thanks for all people.
1.3. Learning how to be a thankful people.
1.4. Learning to say *thank you* on a regular basis.
- Thankful to our Father for salvation.
Colossians 1:12-14 (NKJV) 12 giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light. 13 He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, 14 in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.
- Living a thankful life is one of the aspects that sets us apart.
- Being kind to the unthankful.
Luke 6:35-36 (NKJV) 35 But love your enemies, do good, and lend, hoping for nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High. For He is kind to the unthankful and evil. 36 Therefore be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful.
3.1 Our Father is merciful to the evil or we would have never found salvation.
3.2. We cannot only be thankful for and love those who are easy to love.
3.3. I wonder if the unlovely, the unthankful, and unkind are used to accomplish the most in our lives.
3.4. Thankfulness that is not contingent on another’s actions.
3.5. Your reward will be great.
Contentment in Christ is the way to thankfulness.
1 Timothy 6:2-10 (ESV) Teach and urge these things. 3 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, 4 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, 5 and constant friction among people who are depraved in mind and deprived of the truth, imagining that godliness is a means of gain. 6 But godliness with contentment is great gain, 7 for we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. 8 But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content.
- Being thankful is hard and maybe even impossible when one is discontented.
4.1.1. I’m thankful but if only… but our Father is again kind to the evil.
4.1.2. Each of us are affected by the effects of the fall with a disease of discontentment.
4.1.3. The never ending striving for more.
“if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content”
4.1.4. It is true that life is expensive, what is it that we need for the necessities of life… what does a simple, uncluttered, quiet life look like in the hustle and bustle.
4.1.5. Contentment is a very useful under used asset, instead it is often taught or at the least implied that we should have faith and expect more from life
4.1.6. But nothing can exceed the value and worth of having our sins forgiven and inheriting eternal life.
4.2. Contentment/autarkeia (0841):
4.2.1. a perfect condition of life in which no aid or support is needed
4.2.2. sufficiency of the necessities of life
4.2.3. a mind contented with its lot
4.2.4. So contentment is this perfect place in life in which you need no ones support to be satisfied, all the necessities of life are provided for, and your mind is at peace.
4.2.5. Sounds a little impossible.
4.3. Sounds like a supernatural place on a supernatural journey.
4.3.1. Staying on the road of contentment.
4.3.2. Our life is suppose to be different
- Created to enjoy pleasure.
Psalm 36:8 They feast on the abundance of your house, and you give them drink from the river of your delights.
1 Tim. 6:6 But godliness with contentment is great gain,
5.1 The river of delight
5.2.You were created to enjoy abundance.
Ps 16:11 You will show me the path of life; In Your presence is fullness of joy; At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
5.3. John Piper writes “ In his day or ours, Paul could have responded to this effort to turn godliness into gain by saying “Christians don’t live for gain. Christians do what is right for it’s own sake. Christians aren’t motivated by profit.” But that is not what Paul says. Instead he says “Godliness with contentment is great gain” Instead of saying that Christians do not live for gain, he says Christians ought to live for a greater gain than the slick money lovers do. Godliness is the way to get this great gain, but only if we are content with simplicity rather than greedy for riches.”
5.4. Christ is the way to Godliness.
5.5. The river of the Spirit of God is the way to being satified.
5.6. Contentment comes as we live out of and in our nearness with Christ.
5.7 Feasting on his abundance.
5.8. Contentment in Christ, with Christ, and with the provision of Christ is the goal of each and every person…
Hebrews 13:5 Let your conduct be without covetousness; be content with such things as you have. For He Himself has said, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” NKJV
5.9. Contentment resulting in thankfulness in Christ is about changing our pleasures.
- When will Christ be enough?
2 Cor. 9:8 And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work.
6.1 I have personally been working on this question for going on 20 years…
6.2. When our godliness has freed us from the worldly desires of wealth, fame, and success then our godliness is very profitable.
6.3. So when is enough enough for you? And when is Christ going to become enough?
6.4. We begin exploring an finding the pleasures of God…
6.5. “I believe the pleasure we cannot desire too much is pleasure in God and all that He is for us in Jesus.” “when it comes to satisfying our spiritual appetites, there is no such thing as excess. There are no restraints placed on us by God.” “We need never pause to inquire whether we’ve crossed a line or become overindulgent” Sam Storms