Rev Dr Quek Suan Yew

Contentment or Contention?

1 Timothy 6:6-8 “But godliness with contentment is great gain.
7 For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out.
8 And having food and raiment let us be therewith content.”

Introduction – Contentment is sort after by millions throughout the ages but without success. Many of them believe with all their heart that it is found in materialism. Therefore “gain equals contentment” is the obsession of many. Millions all over the world gamble on quick rich schemes or buy lottery tickets hoping for that elusive multi-million dollar jackpot. Those who did strike it rich regret it. They testified that their lives have been irreparably ruined by it. They wished they had never won. But testimonies like these are like water off a duck’s back. Every soul believes that he is smarter and better, and what happened to these whose lives were ruined by their quick money will not happen to them. He will avoid their mistakes. He will not be swayed but will continue to long for that elusive millions week after week and probably for the rest of his life until he dies! This hopeless longing to be rich has resulted in a load full of misery! Tragically and ironically, the pursuit for contentment through gain has only brought discontentment. This is the bane of societies all over the world. Is there no way out of this vicious cycle of seeking for the elusive pot of gold at the end of that proverbial rainbow?

As long as man tries to attain contentment through the ways of the flesh, he will never find it. This is the snare of the god of this world who has blinded the minds of many. Man has been deceived into thinking that the meaning of life is in the abundance of things that he possesses. He works hard for more materialism than he could live on. But that is still not enough. He is never contented. He contends for more with other men even though they are his neighbours. He lies and cheats and even kills just to have more of what he really does not need because he cannot even use up what he has already attained and accumulated. This blindness will send him to his grave soon enough. By the time he finds out that he has been deceived, he is lying on his death bed. In his death throes, he finally realizes that all his wealth and money and the luxuries of life are worthless to a body that cannot eat or hear or see or drink. He is dying and his body feels only constant pain and a crippling fatigue that gets weaker with every passing day. Millions have travelled this dark deceptive route and died miserably full of great discontentment. Tragically, many millions more are heading in the same hellish direction with perhaps less material success than this man. But the end and the path are the same!

Is this the only route for all man or is there a better alternative? Thank God that by His sovereign grace and mercy He has carved out for all man a bright and heavenly route. Which route are you travelling on, dear reader? Below are three clear markers to help us in our travelling. The one who has all the right threes will find the door of heaven and will surely be welcomed in by God Himself!

I. Godliness or Worldliness? – The first marker is godliness versus worldliness. Godliness is not the same as holiness. Holiness has the root meaning of something or someone that is purified or set aside for holy use. Sometimes it is translated as sanctified, i.e. made clean from sin where the stain and guilt of sins have been removed. The Bible teaches that there are holy things. The items inside the Tabernacle and the tithes and offerings of the people of Israel were considered as holy by God. They have been set apart for God. At the burning bush incident the ground that Moses stood on was said to be holy. God told Moses to take off his shoes. Exodus 3:5 “And he said, Draw not nigh hither: put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground.” These are tangible things. But there are no godly tangible things. There are godly virtues such as godly sincerity (cf. 1Cor 1:12) or godly sorrow (cf. 2 Cor 7:10) or godly jealousy (cf. 2 Cor 11:2) or even godly edifying (cf. 1 Tim 1:4). There are of course godly people living godly lives. To be holy is to live a life where sins are gotten rid of and that is devoted to honour Christ. To live a godly life is to live a life like God where Christ could be seen by the way we live for Christ is God. Godliness has its root meaning, as the word clearly suggests, “to be godly” or to be like God. To be godly a person first has to be holy. However, it is not true that the attribute of holiness is also godliness. For example, the ground that Moses stood on was holy but not godly. Moses was a holy as well as a godly person. He repented of his sins and lived a life in obedience to God’s Word which made him holy and godly in his witness for Christ.

Only Christians possess these two attributes. Believers are commanded by God in 1 Timothy 6:6 to be godly, for godliness with contentment is great gain. The believer is to obey all the Word of God in order to be godly. For example, when he obeys all the “do-not’s”, i.e. stays away from all things negative i.e. God forbids him to do, he is not godly yet until he obeys all the do’s in the Bible so that his behaviour will be like God according to Holy Scriptures. A Christian who does not gamble may be considered as holy in that he obeys the negative and stays away from the sin of gambling; but if he does not read the Bible much, he is not godly. He does not obey the do’s of the Bible because he does not know them well enough due to his lack of knowledge of the Bible. A godly believer reads and studies the Bible with a heart of obedience. His mind is like the mind of Christ desiring the things that Christ desires for his life. His heart is ruled and motivated by the love of Christ. He desires to exalt only Christ in his life. Therefore his being is godly and so is his witness for Christ. This is what he longs for and finds it daily. He is therefore very contented as what he desires for in Christ is fulfilled in his life daily. He does not desire the things of the world because he has the mind of Christ and no longer the mind of the world thinking about worldly things all the day long.

How is your mind like? Is it contending or content?

II. Gain or Loss? – The second marker is the ability to know what gain is. The child of God knows that godliness with contentment is great gain. This is the true wealth he should desire. What the world offers him is dung and he considers it as dung every day. The smell of dung is in the world to every godly contented believer. The smell is of course not only literal but also figurative. It is the evil and wickedness in the world that “smells” which the child of God detests. He sees God’s creation in all its beauty and glory but the moment he sees the cities and the towns, the stench of sin and darkness mask the beauty and glory of God’s creation. The murder, rape, fornication and adultery, cheating, lying, drunkenness, idolatry, quarrels, greed, abuses, etc. are sins that are so common nowadays that the sin-sick world has gotten used to it and accepts this as the new normal. This is of course made much easier by dressing them up using the glitter and glitz of deception that appeals to the lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eyes and the pride of life.

Millions all over the world believe that material gain equals success. They strive hard to get out of poverty regardless of the costs. They pay for it with their sweat and blood and ultimately their lives. Energies of youth are wasted on sporting “success” in the name of fun. Behind the diabolical delusion is the Devil himself who continues to blind the minds of the people of world into living a “reality” that is nothing but a deadly dream. By the time they awaken out of this dream their lives are already spent and death is only a breath away. Modern technology and medical sciences only add to this deception. They have no ability to remove the blindness but have successfully convinced the world otherwise and that the world is better now than ever before because man is living in the first world and no longer the third. Millions are still accumulating more and more thinking that gain is measured by dollars and cents and that a man is successful when he lives in a large house and drives flashy vehicles. They do not know how poor and bankrupt they are until they die in their sin. By then it will be too late. They would be beyond help, for no one can escape the pit of hell that awaits all whose gain is worldliness and not godliness.

Life is always a matter of gain or loss. God says that a child of God knows that he must measure gain in terms of eternity and not what he holds in his hands on earth. His hands are weak and the grip is loose. Everything can be easily taken out of his sinful hands. But when he gives his life over to Christ, he places his whole being into the hands that can never falter. Nothing can take him out of God’s and Christ’s eternally all-powerful hand. John 10:27-29 “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: 28 And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. 29 My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father's hand.” Therefore after salvation in Christ his eyes have been forever opened. He is now a spiritual person and no longer blinded by the Devil. He sees and smells the world for what it really is . . . a giant global cesspool of diabolical vanity dressed up in moth eaten finery and perfumed to mask the deathly stench. The child of God sees through all these and now realizes that real gain is in godliness with contentment. The world has nothing to offer that can be called valuable. It is nothing but dust and ashes meshed together that crumbles and decays with time. The evidence is all around man if only he will see. Perhaps then he will stop seeking worldliness, for there is no gain but loss awaiting him at the end of life. The child of God seeks true wealth. His life is lived in obedience to God’s holy and perfect Word. It gives him a new life in Christ that he has never tasted before. It is so rich and gives fullness of meaning to life that he once thought was unreachable. What he once disdained he now delights in with all his heart, soul, strength and mind. Worshipping God every Lord’s Day brings greatest joy. Fellowshipping with like-minded brothers and sisters in Christ is the only kind of fellowship that he finds meaningful. Prayer and singing praises to his heavenly Father and glorifying Christ who is his wonderful new Lord and Saviour consumes him unceasingly. His new motive for service and life is the love for his Christ. No longer will he be motivated by the love of money which he now knows is the root of all evil. This love that motivates him will be sustained by God’s unceasing grace and mercies in his life. Loving God and serving Him all the days of his life gives him the purpose for living that never wanes but grows stronger with every passing trial that he experiences in his life of sacrificial service for his new Lord and Master Jesus Christ. Every day is a wonderful and new day of love-filled service and witness for his Saviour where pleasing Him according to Holy Scriptures will surely receive from Him one day the word of eternal approval “Well done my good and faithful servant!” This to the child of God is true gain!

How is your heart? Does it seek after gain or loss?

III. Nakedness or Clothed? – The third and final marker is the fact that everyone enters into this world naked. How did you come into this world? Were you fully clothed or naked? This is a silly question because we all know that without exception, regardless of whether one is born of royal blood or not, everyone enters into this world naked! Man never existed until he begins to exist in his mother’s womb. The moment he is born he exists forever. He comes into this world a sinner because of the sin of Adam. Romans 5:12-14 “Wherefore, as by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin; and so death passed upon all men, for that all have sinned: 13 (For until the law sin was in the world: but sin is not imputed when there is no law. 14 Nevertheless death reigned from Adam to Moses, even over them that had not sinned after the similitude of Adam's transgression, who is the figure of him that was to come.” This is evidenced by the fact that man dies, including babies, sometimes inside the mother’s womb even before they are born. Death is the clearest evidence of man’s transgressions in this world. There is no destruction of the soul. The reality is whether he will exist in hell or in heaven. If he dies in his sins he will end up in hell where there is no escape. We have witnessed enough of death around us to know that “we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out.” Therefore it is foolish to pursue after materialism when we know that all that we have and own are useless in the afterlife. Naked we enter and naked we leave this world.

This hopeless state is ours if we die in sin. It is not if we have Christ as our Lord and Saviour. To have Christ as our Lord and Saviour comes with it the evidence of a transformed life. Godliness is the new hallmark of his life, not worldliness. Gain is in things eternal and no longer things temporal, for all things that originate from the world and everything that is in it are loss to the child of God. If this is your experience, then you have contentment and have stopped contending for the foolish things of the world. Your focus is now on things eternal. This results in a heart and mind where godliness is everything. Having food and raiment, in whatever state of form it matters not, the child of God is content.

Conclusion – The conclusion of the matter is one of choice. Below are two passages of the Word of God that will help us to choose contentment. If you are a child of God, your eyes are opened. Your choice in life reveals your life in Christ.

Ecclesiastes 5:10-17 “He that loveth silver shall not be satisfied with silver; nor he that loveth abundance with increase: this is also vanity. 11 When goods increase, they are increased that eat them: and what good is there to the owners thereof, saving the beholding of them with their eyes? 12 The sleep of a labouring man is sweet, whether he eat little or much: but the abundance of the rich will not suffer him to sleep. 13 There is a sore evil which I have seen under the sun, namely, riches kept for the owners thereof to their hurt. 14 But those riches perish by evil travail: and he begetteth a son, and there is nothing in his hand. 15 As he came forth of his mother's womb, naked shall he return to go as he came, and shall take nothing of his labour, which he may carry away in his hand. 16 And this also is a sore evil, that in all points as he came, so shall he go: and what profit hath he that hath laboured for the wind? 17 All his days also he eateth in darkness, and he hath much sorrow and wrath with his sickness.”

Revelation 14:13 “And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labours; and their works do follow them.” Amen.