Amen, if you have a Bible, let me invite you to come with me to Hebrews. Hebrews chapter 13, you'll find it on page 1,009 in the Pew Bible. This is our third week in Hebrews chapter 13. I anticipate we won't finish the book before Christmas.
We'll have a Christmas sermon then, but we'll finish this up in early January. It's the third week in Hebrews chapter 13 on the subject of Christian love. Now that's not too surprising, I hope, if you've been around Christian a lot enough in the book of Hebrews. If we see the supremacy of Christ over all things, and if we have trusted in the sufficiency of Christ for our soul, to bring us to God, then we begin to bear the fruit of the Spirit of Christ in us, and the fruit of that Spirit is love.
So it's not surprising he's directing our love and speaking of love. In verses 1 to 3, the writer had mentioned the need for our continuing love to our brothers and sisters in the faith. He mentioned in verse 2 to show love to strangers, to welcome and help those who are new to us. He mentions loving the persecuted, those who have been imprisoned, those who have been mistreated.
Last week we saw it in verse 4, he speaks of merit of love, even sexual love. We're to hold marriage in honor and to keep the marriage met on the file. We saw there that our sexual love is to be expressed and enjoyed. We're not intended.
In the union of husband and wife. And we said, it's not hateful to believe and preach these things. It is loving for our Creator, best knows what is good for us, and it is loving to desire that best for other people. We want that for ourselves.
So God who is love tells us who to love and in what way we should love. And this morning in verses 5 and 6, he tells us what not to love. Do not love money. Let me invite you to give your attention to God and his word this morning as we consider this from Hebrews 13 verses 5 and 6.
This is the word of God. Keep your life free from love of money and be content with what you have. For he has said, I will never leave you nor forsake you. So we can confidently say, the Lord is my helper.
I will not fear what can man do to me. This is the word of the Lord. Let's look to him in prayer. Our Father in heaven grant that we would no longer be conformed to the pattern of this world, but that we would be transformed by the renewing of our minds.
Because of your mercy. Teach us we pray in Jesus name. Amen. Amen.
A Jewish man in Hungary, what to his rabbi and he complained, life is unbearable. There are nine of us living in one room. What can I do? The rabbi answered, take your goat into the room with you.
The man was incredulous. The rabbi insisted do as I say and come back in a week. A week later. The man returned looking more distraught than ever.
We can't stand it. He told the rabbi that goat is filthy. The rabbi said go home and let the goat out and come back in a week. And a week later the man returned radiant, beaming and exclaiming, life is beautiful.
We enjoy every minute of it now that the goat is gone. Contentment is more a matter of our perspective than it is our circumstances. Tonight or this morning, forgive me for that. Let me highlight a few things here.
There's a two part command in verse five. And then he tells us at the end of verse five and six how we can do that. So let me invite you to consider the first part of that command where he says to us, don't love money. Verse five, keep your life free from love of money.
Now why has he turned to this subject here in the book? Perhaps because of bad theology, hard circumstances, fallen hearts. Some had bad theology. Meaning they had heard him say at the end of chapter 12, we are receiving, we who believe in Jesus the King, we are receiving an enduring kingdom, one that cannot be shaken.
And they might have said to themselves, see I knew it. Everything is better with Jesus. Jesus is better than everything. It's better to be a Christian than it is to be a Jew now that Jesus the Messiah has come.
And he's giving me a kingdom. I knew it. God wants me to be rich in his kingdom, to live like a rich citizen here and now. So I'm going to get riches and I'm going to pile them up because that's the little God for me here and now.
Those who buy that lie, tend to say to others, you know, if you're not accumulating, maybe you're not receiving the kingdom. It's not my job to see you do it. Have more faith, brother. And you'll grow richer.
You know, this is the health wealth gospel. These folks are forgetting that the kingdom we receive is not of this world. It is true that we are co-heirs with Christ of all things. Everything belongs to him.
He shares everything with us. We have the hope of glory. But Paul mentions in Romans when he says we are co-heirs with Christ. And we give indeed we share in his sufferings that we might also share in his glory.
There is glory coming. But we don't get it all here and now. Others need this command because they face hard circumstances. His first hearers, you may recall, he had reminded them back in Hebrews chapter 10 verse 34 about their afflictions in Hebrews 10, 34.
He mentions joyfully accepting the plundering of your property since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and abiding one. They had been joyful. I mean, people robbed them because they were believers in Jesus and the others thought they could get away. Whether it was governing officials, whether it was family or neighbors, enemies, they were ready to give up everything to follow Jesus.
They were happy to do so to be persecuted for his name. But they were in danger of growing resentful for it. Perhaps in danger of being reluctant to profess or to continue to profess faith in Jesus as that plundering threatened, not unlike business people today, who fear losing clients or deals if their faith is made known. Or maybe the issue is the fallen heart, simply tugging us away from God's instruction of love in verses 1 to 6.
In my youthful Christian exuberance in trusting Jesus as a young believer, reading through the book of Proverbs, praying some of the prayers you find there, I remember distinctly and earnestly praying Proverbs chapter 30 verse 8, I mean neither poverty nor riches feed me with the food that is needful for me lest I be full and deny you and say who is the Lord, or lest I be poor and steal and profane the name of my God. Lord make it so, I said, and I can't count the number of times when I have sense wish that the Lord would not answer that prayer in my life. Now, granted, amen, don't give me poverty, Lord, lest I be tempted to steal. But oh, give me more, give me more.
Few Christians haven't felt that tug in their heart, the tug of the sinful heart that remains in believers, the tug that all through this passage verses 1 through 6, that desire to verses 1 to 3 pull away from people instead of proactively loving them. That desire for intimacy, we maybe don't have the spouse verse 4, or that desire for income, we maybe don't get from our work verse 5, that lust for pleasure or possessions that our Father hasn't seen fit for us here and now. Well, notice what he says here when he says, keep your lives free from love of money. Notice what he doesn't say.
He doesn't say keep your life free from money. Keep your life free from the love of money. It's not the money that is bad. Abraham and Joe were filthy rich believers by the blessing of God.
Just as the problem in verse 4 is not sex but lost in the illicit expression of sexuality. So the problem here in verse 5 is not money, it is the love of money and the lack of contentment with what we have. So it's not, as Paul says elsewhere, it's not money, it's the love of money that is the root of all kinds of evil. Money is not your problem.
Your heart is your problem. How much you have doesn't determine if you love it. You can have a lot and not love money and you can have a little and love it a lot. The issue is not do we have money so much as does money have us.
Are we slaves to money or is it our servant? So this raises the issue of enjoying good things in life and the way to receive good things and God's pleasures in them and not be their slave is to receive them with gratitude to God who gave them and with a purpose to serve him in the use of them. As Paul says in 1 Timothy chapter 4 verse 4, so those who were forbidding marriage and by consequence of the marriage bed, he says everything created by God is good and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving. So it's not that we must not enjoy sex, but we are to enjoy it in marriage with thanks to God.
It's not that we must not enjoy wealth, but we are not to put our hopes in it. 1 Timothy chapter 6 verse 17, Paul says, as for the rich in this present age, charge them not to be haughty, nor to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches, but on God who richly provides us with everything to enjoy. And so I say to us, who live in the wealthiest nation in the history of the world, as this national holiday of thanksgiving is upon us, this may be the most important holiday to orientate your heart toward love for God and not love for money, because it encourages you to cultivate and express gratitude to your heavenly Father. And the failure to do that opens the door to many other sins.
It is striking. If you look at the list of sexual perversions and other kinds of rebellions that Paul mentions in Romans chapter 1, he begins with idolatry and speaks of it this way, for although they knew God, they did not honor him as God, or give thanks to him. But they became futile when they're thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Let us be thankful and cultivate thankfulness to God, and so love God and not love money.
This is the first part of his command to us. The second is in the second phrase there, verse 5, which tells us to be content. Keep your life free from love of money and be content with what you have. Don't be eager to pile it up.
Don't be restless about what you don't have. Remember what Jesus said, a person's life does not consist in the abundance of their possessions. Let me encourage us all to measure well, not by the things we have, but by the things we have that we would not take money for. Family, friends, your brothers and sisters in the faith, the unsearchable riches of Christ, every spiritual blessing we have in him, money can't buy those things.
If we have to pay attention to God, we need to look at our hearts. We need to ask the question, not only what do I really love and what is my treasure, but we need to ask am I content with what I do have? Am I content with the condition in which I find myself? Now what is Christian contentment?
Let me give you two definitions, one positive, one negative, one positive from Jeremiah Burrows in his wonderful little book called the Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment, in which he says this, contentment is that sweet, inward, quiet, gracious, frame of spirit which freely submits to and delights in God's wise and fatherly disposal in every condition. John Owen defines contentment negatively this way, first positive, contentment is a gracious frame or disposition of mind, quiet, and composed without complaining at God's providential disposals of our outward concerns, without envy at the more prosperous conditions of others, without fears and anxious cares about future supplies. Beware then discontentment with God's fatherly loving, good and wise provision for you. Beware the covetousness that breathes discontentment and grumbling against the Lord.
Covetousness follows as one put in a principle of increasing desire but decreasing satisfaction, a form of the law of diminishing returns. You get something and it means less to you over time. This is what you'll experience post-Christmas with those wonderful things you belong for that people got. You belong for that people got for you within three days or three months or three years.
They mean less to you. And it takes more and more to be satisfied. The name J.D. Rockefeller still, I think arguably the wealthiest man in the history of the world.
I mean he's long gone now but he was an oil magnet, an industrialist, and a friend asked him how much money he wanted and he said, this was on the front of his career so I want a million. And then he made a million and his friend again asked him how much money he wanted and he said, I want another million. We smile perhaps, oh the cares of the Uber rich. I think he got to this, I forget it's $60 billion or something but the time it was all said and done in today's dollars.
Oh the cares of, oh that has such problems. Do you just want the double of a million or more? We might say, oh how greedy to want that much more. Why, I just want 10% more of what little I have.
We said ourselves. And what could be wrong with that? But don't you know Ecclesiastes 5 verse 10 is waiting for you there. It's waiting for us all.
He who loves money will not be satisfied with money. Nor he who loves wealth with his income. One day a rich industrialist, a different one I suppose, was disturbed to find a fisherman sitting lazily beside his boat. Why aren't you out there fishing?
He asked him because I've caught enough fish for today. The fisherman replied, well why don't you catch more fish than you need? The rich man said, what would I do with them? Said the fisherman.
Well you could earn more money. Came to the impatient reply and buy a better boat so you could go deeper and catch more fish. You could purchase nylon nets, catch even more fish, make more money. Sing and have a fleet of boats and be rich like me.
The fisherman asked. Then what would I do? You would sit down and enjoy life. Said the industrialist.
What do you think I'm doing now? Said the fisherman. If you love money, you'll never have enough money. You'll never be satisfied with what you have.
It's about the heart though and not the money. The writer of Hebrews is not saying all ambition is bad. He's not saying to businessmen or business women. I'd really like to see an increase in productivity or an increase in product or an increase in fruitfulness this next year.
He's not saying that that's wrong. It's a question of attitude. Self-regarding ambition is destructive. The kind that's dominated by greed with little attention to the needs of other people or the will of God or even personal health.
There are people who are literally killing themselves trying to make an extra buck. None of this is to say that any of us should be a slouch at work. If the Christian ethic was relaxed, fold your arms and let other people do the hard work. No, no, no.
Every believer ought to bring their best to their job or their location. We should present our work to the Lord as a sacrificial offering. We should work heartily as unto the Lord, not as man, please. There's not with an eye to our boss, but because Jesus is in charge of all things and we should seek to serve him in it.
If he's in chapter 4 verse 28, let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor doing honest work with his own hands so that he may have something to share with anyone who needs. Making money by being honest and industrious to provide for ourselves and to be generous with others. That's commendable. It's a lot of his practice commanded.
So the issue here isn't even ambition. It's not necessarily contrary to being content. But again, it's a question of motives. One person says to themselves, I'm going to outperform.
I'm going to rise and get more. And all the while, they are frustrated with those who stand in their way. Angry at bosses who don't reward them, envious of colleagues who get promoted, irritated with family who diverts so much of their time and energy, grumbling against God for holding back from them. But another works hard and says, the Lord is my father.
He loves me. He knows what is best for me and he takes care of me. And I'm happy with what he provides. I'll share with those who need.
I'll go to work to seek to serve him and to be industrious that I might be charitable. It's about the attitude. Kent Hughes says this, a boatload of discontented materialists, lovers of money, will not do well in the coming storms. Those who always want more will turn away from God when their Christianity brings material subtraction rather than addition.
On the other hand, those who are content who have found their ultimate treasure in the unflagging presence and care of God will sail on. Contemplates says to our fellow Christians and to the world that Christ lives with us. Christ is for us. Christ is enough.
He is more than enough. Is he enough for you and his supply for you satisfaction to your heart? We've got to cultivate contentment. It's got to be cultivated.
This is why he commands it. Christians have to be told, don't love money and to be content because God can help us do it. We're always struggling with it. We've got to dig out from the roots, discontentment and covetousness.
How do we do any of this? Is there any help? Do we just walk away at the end of this text and say, well, I guess I should do better? Let's go.
Come on, don't love it. Don't love money. No, no, no. He helps us here.
He helps us at the end of verse 5 and in verse 6. He helps us by telling us how do we do this, by counting, and this is the third and final point, by counting on the Lord and on his promises to us. Notice all the way back verse. Keep your life free from the love money.
Be content with what you have for. He has said, I will never leave you, nor forsake you. Contemement comes from believing the promise of the Lord when He says I will never leave you and I will never forsake you. The promise is emphatic.
God has grasped hold of us and He never lets us go. I think the hymn writer, how firm of foundation puts it well. That soul that on Jesus has leaned for repose. I will not.
I will not desert to His foes. That soul, though all hell should endeavor to shake. I will never, no, never, no, never forsake, says God to His people. I will be present with you.
I will be for you. I am not against you. I am for you. I am not far from you.
I am with you. I will not abandon you. I will provide for you. This is what God is saying to us.
It's like the promise of Romans 8, 32. He who spared not His own Son. How will He not also graciously give us all things in Him? In other words, having not spared His Son so that His Son would go to the cross to die the death that we deserve.
Having given to us His Son, His most precious possession. He's not holding any other good thing behind His back that He thinks is wise and necessary for us. He's not holding out on us. We have at this exact moment just exactly what our Heavenly Father thinks we ought to have.
But my car broke, we say. And I've got these unexpected expenses. In life's not fair we complain. Just talking about me.
Well, of course your car broke. We should say to ourselves. They don't make them to last forever. They can't make them not.
Cars. And it just might be that your mechanic has been praying that his Father in heaven would give him his daily rent. And you're the answer to that prayer. The Lord says to you, I will never leave you and I will never forsake you.
What do you say to that? No matter how you want to say. Verse 6, so we can confidently say, the Lord is my helper. I will not fear what can man do to me.
So I'm 118 here. Why is he talking suddenly about the fear of man? Because trusting in the Lord professing Jesus before others may lead to impoverishment as others who do not follow Him. Make life difficult for you.
Why is he talking about the fear of man? Because not trusting in the Lord may lead you to be willing to do evil to get money. You fear people so you go along with them. But trusting the Lord gives you the freedom to say no, even if it's to your financial injury.
Do you see this then? Contemement is the child of faith. Covenants is the offspring of fear. Competence in the Lord is the antidote.
Look close here. This is the story of Great Preacher from the 4th century, John Chrysostom. He was called before the emperor for challenging the emperor's authority. And the emperor said to John Chrysostom, if you don't stop saying what you're saying, I'll banish you.
And John Chrysostom said, this is my Father's world. Where are you going to send me? And the emperor said, okay, I'll kill you. And he said, no, you want my life is bid with Christ and God.
And then he said, well, I'll drive you away from all your friends. And he said, I have such a friend in heaven. He will never leave the orphans like me. And then he said, well, I'll take away all your possessions.
And he said, no, the Lord is my treasure. You see what John Chrysostom has said. He said, the Lord is my helper. I will not fear what can man even an emperor do to me.
That's a man who was content. And the writer of the book of Hebrews would have us be a man, a woman, a believer like that to share that content. And so this thanksgiving, let me encourage all of us to cultivate gratitude and contentment and let that contentment become vocal so that we speak. The Lord is my helper.
Let's give thanks for what he's given to us. Give thanks for Jesus. Thanks for giving us himself. Thanks for giving us every spiritual blessing in Jesus for holding on to us for never letting us go and for being our everlasting friend and helper.
Let's pray. Father, we bless you because you have blessed us. Forgive the grumbling and complaining, the unsatisfied, the unthankful hearts of your children, for all of us. And remold us, reshape us, make us again grateful.
And so love you and not the things which you give us as much as you. In Jesus name I pray. Amen. Amen, let's stand and sing.