Contentment

Welcome to Gospel in Life. Have you ever wondered what it really means to live a great life? The Bible says the Ten Commandments aren't confining rules, but a framework for building a life of true greatness. Today, Tim Keller takes an in-depth look at the final commandment, Do Not Covet, and helps us understand what it means to live a life of true contentment, grounded in the saving grace of Jesus Christ. After you listen, we invite you to go online to gospelandlife.com and sign up for our email updates. When you sign up, you'll receive our quarterly journal with stories of gospel-changed lives as well as other valuable gospel-centered resources. Subscribe today at gospelandlife.com. Philippians 4, 10-13 I rejoice greatly in the Lord that at last you have renewed your concern for me. Indeed, you have been concerned, but you have had no opportunity to show it. I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well-fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do everything through him who gives me strength. Here ends the reading of God's holy word. We've been going through the Ten Commandments, and today we come to the Tenth Commandment, and Paul is talking about the Tenth Commandment. Here we have Paul in prison when he wrote the book of Philippians, facing and expecting death. And he has the audacity to say, I have found the secret of being content. I have this inner gyroscope. I have this deep calm and equilibrium no matter what the circumstances. I have learned the secret of being content. And this is remarkable. I don't know of any city where contentment is a harder thing to find. You know, you can find almost anything in stores around here. There's a store for anything, right? And yet, why people spend millions of dollars on L. Ron Hubbard's Dianetics and on Est's seminars and $100 a pop for your therapist is because you're after what Paul had. And, you know what you're after, you know what we're after? we're struggling, we're reaching, we're stretching out as far as we can to get this inner equilibrium and this inner calm just so we can face our bills, our boss, our date, or our dateless calendar, you see. And it's crushing us and we can't even face that. And what Paul's talking about is a contentment that will enable us to face something. What Paul's talking about is a galaxy beyond that which we're grasping for we can't get. Christians have had it for years. Not all Christians, but Christians, not just Paul, not just super people like the people who wrote the Bible, but Christians over the years have also discovered it. You've got that famous picture from the English Reformation when Hugh Latimer and Nicholas Ridley, two great leaders in the English church, were being burned at the stake. Remember? Some of you have surely heard about this back-to-back they were putting the, you know, the fire at, to their feet, and I guess it's Latimer that turned around and said, and everybody's hearing, he says, be of good cheer, Master Ridley, and play the man, for today, by God's grace, we will light a candle in England that will never be put out. And, you know, you know, I just get overwhelmed, even, even quoting it, I keep saying, how could anybody be in a condition of heart to talk like that at a time like that? You say, man, I can't even face my boss. I can't face my bills. I can't face my date. And look at what he was facing. I have learned the secret of being content. And the amazing thing is in the Bible, this is not some kind of high nirvana that only certain people who sit on the top of flagpoles and fast and pray for 30 years can find. The Bible actually does not just say this is possible. Do you realize that the Bible says this is commanded? because that's what the Tenth Commandment is. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, or thy neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor anything which is thy neighbor's. You know what that's saying? Thou shalt not covet? Coveting is this inner grasping. Coveting is not stealing. Coveting is not committing adultery. Coveting is not killing. Those things have been covered, you see, in the earlier commandments. Coveting is that inner grasping after things that says, I've got to have these things or I'm so empty. Thou shalt not covet means thou shalt love God enough to be content in all circumstances. That's what the commandment is. The first commandment and the tenth commandment are like bookends and they summarize the whole. The first commandment was love God with all your heart. Put nothing before him. Be totally absorbed in him. And the tenth commandment is the result. The first commandment is love God, and the tenth commandment is if you love God enough, love God enough so that you'll be content in all circumstances, and then all the rest of the commandments in between fall in place. If I love God enough to be content in all things, why would I want to steal money? Why would I want to steal sex? Why would I want to steal status? Why would I want to steal revenge? Why would I need these things? These things. Pleasure is nice. Pleasure, it was created by God. Money, comfort, sexuality, these things were created by God. They're nice. They're marvelous. They're icing on the cake. They stimulate the palate of the soul. But they're not food. They're not food. Can you imagine living on icing? What would happen to you? There's a couple of doctors out there. You just tell me what happened living on icing. What would that do to your body? What do you think living on icing does to your soul? And a person who's loving God enough to be content is saying, these things are nice, but they're not crucial. If I love God enough to be content in all things, then the lifestyle of greatness of the Ten Commandments flows out of that. The life of integrity, the Ninth Commandment. The life of purity, the Seventh Commandment. The life of generosity, the Eighth Commandment. The life of forgiveness, the Sixth Commandment, and so on. It all flows out. And that's the reason Paul was converted by... It's interesting. Paul, who wrote this passage, Philippians 4, 10-13, was converted by the Tenth Commandment. Paul tells us the story of his conversion in Romans 7. He says, I was alive apart from the law. In fact, a matter of fact, I think we'll spend time next week on that. But I'll just say this. We'll spend time on Paul's conversion next week. But I'll say this here. Paul said, I was alive apart from the law. That means I felt good about myself. I thought I was godly. And he says, until the commandment came, thou shalt not covet. And then sin revived and I died. The commandment, he said, slew me. We'll unwrap that next week, but you know what he's saying? He says, I thought I was a godly person until one day I was meditating on this commandment, thou shalt not covet. And I began to realize what it said. It says a godly person will love God enough so that nothing else is necessary, so that he will be content in all circumstances, in plenty and in want. And suddenly, Paul says, I'm not anything like that. He was deeply convicted of sin. He says, I can't even come near that. I'm not godly at all. Help me. And that was the beginning of his conversion. And I don't know where you are this morning, but I would hope you will start this message as I have started it by realizing that you're nowhere near what the Bible commands. The Bible is saying God created you. You owe him everything It the most natural thing in the world for God to ask you to love him with all your heart soul and mind The most natural thing Why Because number one you owe it to him so legally it natural Nobody would say it unjust But practically it natural because you need to love him so that no other thing can dominate your life. And these other little things that you have to have, that you covet, that you grasp after, which are never there in the proportions that you want them in, and therefore you're always running around in a state of discontent. It's absolutely natural for God to say, love me with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind. Because if you did, you would live like that. You have to start by saying, I am incapable of that. I am so far from that, because until you recognize you're incapable of contentment, you are incapable of contentment. You have that? Until you recognize you're incapable of it, you'll never be capable of it. It starts when you ditch the self-help books. It starts when you come and say, like Paul, I thought I was alive, but this commandment has slain me. I thought I could make it. I thought I could do it. But now I see how far short I fall. And I have been leveled by this commandment. Help me. And that's the beginning of the path that led to the place where... That's how Paul started. that was the beginning, saying, I was slain by this commandment, and that started a journey. They brought Paul to the place where he could write what he wrote in Philippians chapter 4. I have learned the secret of being content in all things. Now, actually, Paul doesn't leave us completely grasping after the secret. He doesn't leave us saying, I have learned the secret, and you can't have it. Instead, I've been around little boys too much. Yeah, okay. Instead, he says, here it is. Because he outlines it for us. Look, there's three things he teaches us right here. One, two, three. Number one, he shows us why we need it. He shows us what it is, this contentment, and then he shows us basically how to get it. Why, what, and how? Let's do those three so we can understand the secret too. Why? When Paul uses the word secret, he's using a very important word. He's using a word that shows that this is not something that everybody has. It's something people want to have. The word secret means it's something that is not easy to find. He's not saying it's an easy thing to find. and Paul's pointing to something that we all know and the most thoughtful people in history know and that is that there is a deep longing in our hearts for something that nothing can satisfy that's what he's referring to now I went digging around and I hope I can find all my little quotes and things but for example in the front of well never mind I don't want you to page all around Mark Twain talks about it Mark Twain says you don't know quite what it is you want you do not know quite what it is you do want but it's just fairly it just fairly makes your heart ache you want it so you don't know quite what it is you do want but it fairly makes your heart ache you want it so uh i think in the in the uh sometimes we experience that don't you you remember something that makes you anxious and then 10 or 10 minutes or so later you you get involved in something else and you stay anxious but you can't remember what you were anxious about Do you remember that? You know, you say, wait a minute, I know I'm feeling vaguely depressed and anxious. What is it? I can't remember what it is. I know I'm supposed to be feeling bad. And then you say, oh, that's right. Then you suddenly remember. You know that experience. But it's more cosmic than that. That can happen in the micro level. But in the macro level, it's also true that all of us have something that we really need to have, that we desperately long for, that we always feel like we're on the verge of finding when we meet a new friend or when we go on a new vacation or when we start a new job or we fall in love again. And when that happens, you feel like you're on the verge of getting it, but you can never quite remember what it is. That's what Mark Twain is saying. One of my favorite quotes by Leonard Bernstein is where he says, you know, about Beethoven's 50. He said this on an omnibus TV broadcast, which I got out of the Museum of Broadcasting the other day, 1954. And he says there about Beethoven, he says, the reason he loves Beethoven is this. He says, when I listen to it, I feel like there is something right in the world. There is something that follows on its own laws consistently. Consistently. What a day. It's something that checks throughout. There is something that will never let us down. And what he's talking about, he doesn't know. He says, when I hear the best music, I feel like I'm close to this something, but I can't quite reach it. Wallace Stevens, great poet, at one point says, what I want, even in contentment, I feel the need of some imperishable bliss. He says, whenever I find a perishable bliss, a good job, you know, a great meal, a beautiful boat ride, a marvelous vista. He says, even as I'm sitting back in content, I realize this is actually stimulating in me the desire for something which this object, which has aroused the desire in me, cannot fulfill. Even in contentment, I feel the need of some imperishable bliss. you know Goethe talked about something that he called Sehnsucht which meant blissful longing and of course our friend C.S. Lewis puts it awfully well. Lewis says when you stand before a landscape which seems to embody what you've been looking for all your life in your hobbies the secret pardon me the secret attraction often on the verge of breaking through through the scent of cut wood in the workshop or the clap clap of water against the boat side. You have never had it, but if it should ever become manifest, you would say, here at last is the thing I was made for. It's the thing we desired before we met our wives or made our friends or chose our work. While we are, this is. If we lose this, we lose all. All the thoughtful people, whether they're Christians or not, all we say, there is a longing for something beautiful, something gorgeous, something satisfying that we never can quite remember what it is. It's like being anxious and not remembering what it was that made us anxious. Here, it's being aroused with longing for something we can never quite remember what it is. And when we get near an object that brings us to it, we realize almost instantly that the object cannot satisfy the longing that it aroused. because you see contentment is a secret it's something that we know about but we don't know about it's something we all feel but we don't know the key to it and all human beings who are thoughtful recognize it now once you realize that or even if you don't realize that this fact breaks the human race into three groups and everybody in this room is in one of them so listen and figure out where you are. The first group are people who simply decide that the objects that are arousing the desire must be those things which will satisfy the desire. You just assume it's logical that these things arouse the desire, so therefore they must satisfy the desire. Now, for example, in the commandment, thou shalt not covet, you've got three basic categories. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, and thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's possessions, all the other things. And in the book of John, 1 John, it talks about those things under the same three categories, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. Why is there so much pain and suffering in the world? And how do we handle it in a way that won't destroy us, but could actually make us stronger, wiser, and more hopeful? All month long on Gospel in Life, Tim Keller is teaching from the book of 1 Peter, and looking at how Peter encouraged early believers who were facing intense suffering and pain. In his book, Walking with God Through Pain and Suffering, Dr. Keller takes a deeper look at how, with God's help, we can face life's most intense challenges and confront the hard questions on suffering. Through deep pastoral insight and real-life stories, Dr. Keller explores how we can face pain and suffering in our own lives This month Walking with God Through Pain and Suffering is our thank you for your gift to help Gospel and Life share the message of Christ love and compassion with people all over the world So request your copy today at gospelandlife slash give That's gospelandlife.com slash give. Now here's Dr. Keller with the remainder of today's teaching. See, some of us find that the objects that most arouse this desire are romantic or sexual objects, thy neighbor's wife. And we really believe if we can just get into a relationship with the right one, and a lot of us, a lot of us are totally dominated by that worldview. You may say, oh, I'm a Christian, or I'm a Protestant, or I'm a Catholic, or I'm Jewish, or I'm Buddhist. You may say, that's my religion. But what your real religion is, what you're really basing your life on, is if I finally find that right person, everything else will fall into place. That's what we believe. Now, what happens is, never, when you get into a relationship, can any relationship bear up under the weight of that. And so they always turn to dust, one way or the other. It doesn't necessarily mean a marriage turns to dust. It just means eventually you put more weight on that person in that relationship than it can possibly bear. You say, now at last I will find what I need. And after a while, when you find that romance doesn't work, some people finally say, well, I'll just settle for sex. At least that will do it. That's lust of the flesh. It's my neighbor's wife. But then there's a couple other possibilities. There's also people who find that their desire is aroused mainly not by romance and sexuality, but by possessions, by going after things, by accumulating. That's what makes me, we think, that's what really satisfies that desire. That's what really, really brings the secret of contentment. And then you've got the third category, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, the neighbor's wife, the neighbor's possessions, and then the neighbor's house. Power. Status. Celebrity. Getting ahead of my career. If I can just get there. If I can get there. And this marvelous quote, and I had to be careful how I put it in the bulletin, by Cynthia Heimel, who writes for The Village Voice. She was writing about three people who live in New York that she knows are very big celebrities, and I had to pull their names out just because it wasn't fair. But look what she says. The minute a person becomes a celebrity is the same minute he or she becomes a monster. when God wants to play a really rotten practical joke on you he realized he grants your deepest wish and then giggles merrily when you suddenly realize you want to kill yourself I think an unfair way to put it but there's a kernel of truth in this Romans 1 says sometimes the best way God can bring you to your senses is to give you what you think will satisfy you the night each of them became famous they wanted to shriek with relief finally now they were adored invincible magic. The morning after the night each of them became famous, they wanted to take an overdose. If they were miserable before, they were twice as miserable now because that giant thing they were striving for, that fame thing that was going to make everything okay, that was going to make their lives bearable, that was going to provide them with personal fulfillment, and ha-ha happiness had happened and nothing changed. They were still them. The disillusionment turned them howling and insufferable. Does it work if you're the first kind of person to say these objects that arouse my desire, these objects that arouse this desire for contentment and inner strength and fulfillment must be the source of that inner strength and fulfillment. When you build your life on them, you know what you're like? It's like building a 75 by 75 house on a 35 by 35 foundation. When you first build a house on a foundation far too small for it, the house looks fine, and generally speaking, the soft earth will keep it up for a while. There's a whole slew of row houses, by the way, in northern Philadelphia that were built about 50 years ago like that, and now they're all sinking into the ground. Not all parts of them. You know, the parts on the foundation is okay, but the house starts to break. It starts to break up. Because whereas the foundation does not change, all the parts around the foundation do change. If you build your life on your business, what happens if your business hits the skids? If you build your life on a relationship, what happens when you find out, gasp, that that person isn't perfect, and that person's doing the same thing to you, wants to build his or her life on you? What happens? What you're doing is your life is bigger than any of these things. Your house is bigger than the foundation. and Ibsen says if you take away the life's lie from any man they lose all their happiness if you take away the life's lie Ibsen says everybody's got a life's lie and after a while the house begins to break up that's the first kind of person what's the second kind of person the second kind of person is somebody and I think there's a lot of those kinds of folks around New York. These are people who have decided to stop building their life on anything. They realized after a couple of relationships or after business, they began to realize, why am I so unhappy? And they went into self-analysis. Now, they might have gone into it through therapy or something professional, or you just might have gotten into it through books, or you may have just done it yourself. But what you do is you get objective, and you pull yourself back, and you say, why am I so unhappy and you begin to realize yes I've built my life too much on this yes I've built my life too much of this I realize that I thought that these objects were going to bring me happiness and I can't do it and I won't do it anymore and so you feel happier right you know what self-analysis does all I can show you is why you're unhappy there's a Harvard psychiatrist Robert Coles that says I went into analysis because I was so nasty and hostile when I came out of analysis I was still nasty and hostile, but now I knew why I was nasty and hostile. And here's a scary one. Ernest Becker, who is a disciple of Freud, and he never embraced the faith, never embraced any religion at all, but he says this. All the analysis in the world does not allow the person to find out who he is and why he is on earth, why he has to die, and how he can make life a triumph. And it is when psychology pretends to do this, when it seeks to offer a full explanation for human unhappiness, it becomes a fraud and makes an impasse from which you cannot escape. He says all psychology can do, all self-analysis can do is show you what you built your life on, why you're so unhappy, but it cannot, it cannot show you why you're here, why you have to die, how to make life a triumph, all the things you need for contentment. Not only that, Becker also goes ahead and says the real problem with analysis is it'll show you what you feel guilty about. And of course Freud was into that, but Becker says something fascinating. He says the problem is once you find out what you're guilty about, you can't do anything about your guilt. The only way you can do something about guilt is this, you have to decide if it's true or false. The only way to get rid of true guilt is to say I'm guilty, it's wrong, and you repent and you're relieved. Or you say it's false guilt, and then you have to say, well, you argue yourself out of it. You shouldn't feel guilty about that. But how do you decide what's true and what's false? And Becker said there's no way to know. In fact, Becker also says the problem with guilt is simply this. No strength can overcome guilt but the strength of a God. What happens to you that are in the second category, that you look around and you say, yes, I've been worshiping things. I've been building my life on things that are too small for my life. I've had it. I'm not going to do it anymore. So you worship nothing. You build your life on nothing. You become cynical. You become hard. At least you're not being disappointed. Admittedly, at least you're not going up and down all the time like you used to be. At least now you're just down here and you stay down there. You see, you're saying, I used to cry after the moon. But now you just cry. You're a cynic. You're probably less of a nuisance to society. You're probably less of a nuisance to your friends than your relatives. You're probably less of a nuisance to yourself. You're not crashing all the time, but look where you are. Analysis can't tell you anything you really need to know to be happy. It can't give you the secret. And then there a third category and we ought to do what Becker says He wasn a Christian He wasn a believer in anything But we ought to do this We ought to reason This is how C Lewis reasons I get hungry in my stomach and I look around My goodness, there's food. A little baby duckling wants to swim and sure enough, there's such a thing as water. And if there are desires in you that nothing on earth can fulfill, it means that you were built for something else. You need to get beyond yourself. And as nice as sex is, as nice as sexuality is, God invented it. As nice as relationships and friendships are, as nice as money is, as nice as comfort is, as nice as all these things are, they are icing. You can't live on icing. And so the third kind of person says, I have learned the secret of being content. I will love God with all my heart, soul, strength, and mind. The secret, my dear friends, of contentment is for people not who nibble around the edges of Christianity, not for people who nibble around the edges and live in the suburbs of Christianity, but those people who will go downtown. It's for people who are willing not to say, I'll be a little bit more religious, I need a little bit of help, I need some moral reformation. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength, and mind. Put him in the center of your life. And then, and only then, can you even begin to know what it means not to covet. They all go together. What is contentment? Contentment, just to pull the little word apart, the word contentment that Paul uses here is a little Greek word, outarche. Arche means to be full, to be satiated. It's like when you've eaten a terrific meal, a terrific meal, not too much, so you're uncomfortable, but just every bit that you could possibly take in great food. And you find out where it used to be freezing out there, it's not freezing anymore. And you find out where before you're anxious, you just really want to take a nap. You know, you are satiated, and that's what Paul's talking about, but he's not talking about a physical satiation. He's talking about a soul satiation. And then that's what arke means, but he says out arke, and the word out means, from auto means self. And he doesn't mean you're satisfied with yourself. Contentment is being satisfied by yourself. That doesn't mean by means from. It means all by yourself, not needing plenty and not needing want. A Christian knows that when you're in trouble, you have to work on your heart to love God enough to stay content. But even when you're in prosperity, you have to work on your heart. Because when you're in prosperity, you have to constantly say, hey, this isn't my life. This isn't the cake. This is the icing. Father, thank you. Today, it's here. The success, the relationship, the love, it's here. That's wonderful. But, you know, tomorrow could be away. It could be gone. I don't need it. You're not under any obligation to keep it here. You're all I need. Out RK, I have learned the secret of being content. What it is, it's the ability to say, God, you're enough. I love you enough. And so it's your honor, not the acclaim of others. It's your love, not the love of others, which is the most fundamental. That's what it means. That's what contentment is. How do we get it? Well, I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. and let's just say isn't it interesting ministers are always told you've got to have three points but sometimes there's only been one point and all three points are different ways of saying the same thing. Christ who strengthens me. A Christian is somebody who on the one hand has a new self-image and also a new attitude toward him or herself and also a new attitude toward God. I can do all things through Christ who is my strength. Paul in 1 Corinthians 3, 1 Corinthians 4 gives us the Christian self-image. He says, it is a small thing whether I'm judged by you or any human court. Yea, I judge not mine own self. My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It's God who judges me. Did you hear all that? Let me translate. What he says is, I don't care what you think of me. He says, it's a small matter whether I'm judged by any human court. And a lot of people, especially the number two, remember those three categories, the number two category, a lot of people can get to the place where they don't care what anybody else says. They say, I don't care what people think about me. I'm not building my life on anything. A cynic can get rid of that. But then Paul says, I don't care what you think of me. And then he says, I don't even care what I think of me. It's not just that he says, I don't care what other people think of me and their standards. it's a small thing whether i'm judged of you or any human court he says yay i judge not my own self my conscience is clear but that does not make me innocent he says i feel innocent right now but that doesn't matter because you see i am not taking my self-image from what you say but i'm not even taking it from what i say i'm not taking it from your standards but i'm not even taking it from my standards i'm free it's god who judges me i've got a god who loves me i've got a god who accepts me in Jesus Christ. I hold on to that. With that new self-image, why do you think Paul is so steady? Why do you think he's such a steady Eddie? Why do you think on the one hand, a Christian therefore is not just able to handle troubles, but he's also able to handle plenty? Because the plenty doesn't give him a big head, doesn't turn the person into a howling monster. Can't. Because the self-image is so unique. Let me close by asking you this. Some of you say, I wish I could believe like that. I wish I had faith like that. I wish I had enough faith in Jesus, in God, to give my life and begin to know the secret of being content. But I just don't have enough faith. I wish I could. And so you shrug. You let yourself off the hook. I won't let you off the hook that easily. It's not a matter that you can't trust in Christ. it's a matter of you refusing to distrust yourself anybody who says i can't trust in god acting as if well faith is beyond me you're refusing to see the fact that right now you are living a life of faith faith in yourself that's the reason why after everything else has let you down you've turned into a cynic you say i'm not going to let i am not going to trust anything i'm not going to trust anything i'm not going to trust the god i'm not going to trust some preacher telling me who I've got to give my life to. I'm not going to trust. Relationships are not going to trust anything from now on. Yes, you are. You're trusting your own judgment. You're trusting yourself. You're saying you're the one that can make up your mind about what's right and wrong, what's good and bad. You see, you still are basing your life on faith, faith in your own competence to run your life. And my friends, that is a leap in the dark against the evidence. don't tell me i can't know the secret because i just don't have enough faith you have the power to look at yourself and admit that you are not competent to run your own life that you've made plenty of decisions that have been bad that even now you do not know what to do with it my friends paul says i learned the secret what is the secret christ who is my strength christ who strengthens me. Through him, I can do anything. That's why Paul is able to say, this commandment that slew me actually gave me life. And the commandment that slays you today could give you life. You could say, Lord, because I see I'm not content, I see I'll never get there. I need to give my life to you the way Paul did. So I can someday say, I know what it is like to be in need. No, not someday. Today, you can say, I can do everything through him who gives me strength. All of us need this. Some of us need to do it for the first time. Let's bow. Let's take a moment of silence and let's go to him and say, I put my life squarely on you. Give me the contentment that comes only from your throne. Let's pray. Thanks for joining us here on the Gospel and Life podcast. If you were encouraged by today's teaching. You can help others discover this podcast by rating and reviewing it. And to find more great gospel-centered content by Tim Keller, visit gospelandlife.com. Today's sermon was recorded in 1990. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel and Life podcast were recorded between 1989 and 2017, while Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church. you