True Contentment

1 Timothy 6:6-19

Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

          “Now there is great gain in godliness with contentment, for we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of the world.” Billy Graham once said that he’s “never seen a funeral where in which, behind the hearse, there was a U-Haul trailer going out to the graveyard.” We don’t build graves big enough to hold all the things we accumulate in this world. And even if we did, like the Egyptians used to do for their Pharaohs, packing them with all the things they thought they would need and enjoy in the afterlife, we’d be sorely disappointed when we realized that none of that stuff actually goes with us. “We brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of the world.”

          The Scriptures are abundantly clear on this point. Proverbs tells us that “He who trusts in riches will fall.” Mark records Jesus’ words, “Children, how difficult it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God.” And our Gospel for today about the rich man and Lazarus teaches that the fortunes of a person here in this world have no bearing on our eternal destiny. Remember that the man who was rich in this life, “who was clothed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day,” is not the one who was enjoying the pleasures of heaven after he died. Which reminds us of exactly the same warning that Jesus issues in the Gospel of Matthew when He says, “Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal, but lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves do not break in and steal.”

That’s not to say that this life isn’t important. It’s simply to say that the proper focus in this life is not on the things we can’t take with us. It’s on the one thing that will assure our eternal destination. Whatever it is that makes one content in a worldly sense is unimportant when we know that our

TRUE CONTENTMENT IS IN JESUS CHRIST.

Many of you probably learned to prayer before bedtime, as I did. And maybe you learned this familiar prayer. “Now I lay me down to sleep; I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.” There’s a story of a young boy, who one night got the words of that prayer mixed up. And inadvertently that boy spoke words of greater wisdom than he could have known. He prayed, ““Now I lay me down to sleep; I pray the Lord my soul to keep. if I should wake before I die. . . .” He stopped in embarrassment and said to his father. “Oh, Daddy, I got it all mixed up.” Wisely, his father responded, “Not at all, son; actually it works just as well the way you prayed it, because my deepest longing for you is that you may wake up before you die.”

And that father wasn’t just hoping for more days and years on this earth with his son. What he realized that to sleep through life without a solid understanding of the need to know your Savior would lead to exactly where the rich man ended up. But to wake up, to hear and believe Moses and the Prophets and the Good News that our Savior has risen from the dead, is the only assurance we have that our soul, and eventually our body, will end up beside Lazarus. At the side of Abraham and all the saints who have gone before us.

So why do we focus so much on the contentment that we believe comes from the things of this world? Especially when this life we’re living is so short compared to the eternity we’re certain to live either in the presence of God or separated from Him. It should be natural for us to consider the contentment, or lack thereof, that we’ll have in the life to come. But the problem is that nothing about this life we’re living is natural, or as God intended it. Not since the Fall anyway. The things we think are important now are never what God intended for His people to put above other things. What was intended was a life lived with God as the focus of life and enjoying the beauty, wonder, and pleasures of His perfect creation. That all fell apart when Adam and Eve disobeyed. And our inheritance of that sinful nature means that we get it all turned around as well.

And when we get it turned around, what we think is important is the pleasures of this world. Feasting sumptuously every day. Wearing the finest clothes. Having the best stuff. Instead of living our lives like Lazarus. Now, none of wants to literally live like Lazarus. And thanks be to God that we don’t need to literally lay at the gate of the rich man and beg for the scraps from his table. Or be covered in sores. But figuratively and spiritually that’s exactly who we are. We’re covered in the sores of sin with no way out of our predicament except by the generosity of someone else.

Let’s remember here that this is a parable, not something that actually happened. Some scholars have argued that this is a story and not a parable, but there’s a couple problems with that thinking. Remember, in the parable, both Lazarus and the rich man are fully embodied. If that were the case than the dead would have been raised before the second coming of Christ. The rich man has a tongue. He is thirsting. And Lazarus has a finger to dip in water. The parable is meant to get us thinking about certain questions, not to describe actual events that happened.

And a parable is always a teaching that gives us an earthly story to actually tell a heavenly meaning. And one of the points of this parable is to highlight this problem of riches and poverty and the neglect of the poor by the rich. And then in this understanding, to invite us into a proper stewardship of God’s gifts to us. If we can’t see ourselves as the poor man who is in need of what someone else has, then regardless of our lot in this life, we will never know where true contentment is found. It’s only found in the recognition that without Christ, our fate is sealed. And it will be the same as the rich man’s.

You might wonder why it is that Lazarus can’t go to hell to minister to the rich man. The reason is right there in verse 26 where Abraham says to the rich man, “between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able, and none may cross from there to us.” And that’s so that those who would, those who might desire, to pass from heaven to hell cannot. It’s strange that somebody in heaven would desire to go to hell. But here’s why, even though there’s a great divide, a chasm, that prevents them from going there. It’s because the love of God in heaven is so self-sacrificial, that those in heaven, seeing hell, would want to go there. To relieve the pain of those who are suffering. But those who have died can’t do this. As much as we think now that we might want to in order to save someone that we’ve loved from this eternal torment. But there is One who can. Jesus is the One who could leave heaven for the love of God and for the love of people who are lost. And He not only came into this world to save people, but also went all the way to hell and back again to proclaim that victory over sin, death, and the devil. And He did it by dying and rising from the grave.

And that detail is why the end of this parable is so interesting. The rich man is finally resigned to his own fate, but he doesn’t want that same fate to befall his five brothers. So he begs Abraham to send Lazarus to his father’s house to warn the brothers, “lest they also come into this place of torment. But Abraham said, ‘they have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them..’ And he said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’” And you’d think that would be true. That someone coming back from the dead would convince everyone of the truth. But we see how that’s worked out. Which is why Abraham says to the rich man, “If they do not hear Moses and the Prophets, neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead.” Someone has risen from the dead. Why is the whole world not convinced? Because it’s not about the physical proof. Faith isn’t about the things that can be seen with our imperfect senses.

What God is telling us is that the power of the Word is sufficient for working faith. We don’t need any of these other things. Of course, it’s essential that they happened, but God’s Word tells us all that. God tells us He created the world in six days and rested on the seventh. Believe it. He tells us that Christ came into the world to be our substitute and to atone for our sins. That should be enough. He tells us that Christ rose from the dead on the third day and ascended into heaven where He now sits at the right hand of the Father. The Word is sufficient for working faith. And if it doesn’t, what that means is that the soul that is content with this world is actively fighting the truth of the Gospel message. And the way to not be fighting the Gospel is to recognize our helpless state and find true contentment in the fact that Christ’s work, and His Word, is sufficient. And that through the work of the Holy Spirit He calls the poor. He enlightens the sick and needy. And He sanctifies all who have faith in His saving work.

As we heard in our Epistle, “Now there is great gain in godliness with contentment, for we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of the world.” And what Paul is conveying to his brother Timothy here is that our true contentment is in the knowledge that we needed nothing on entering this world, that anything we accumulate while we’re here can’t go with us, and especially that when we leave this world after having run the race and kept the faith, there is nothing we could possibly want that God won’t provide for us. And in that moment, when we’re at the side of Abraham and all the saints, and in the loving arms of Jesus, we will know what true contentment is. Amen.

The peace of God which surpasses all understanding guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.