Category: Sermons

Text — Ecclesiastes 2:1 – 3:9
Subject — Quest
Theme — The quest for meaning
Proposition — In Ecclesiastes 2 – 3:9 the teacher goes on a quest for meaning and finds two dead ends in his quest.

Purpose — Therefore having gone on a quest, with the Teacher for meaning this morning and having found three dead ends in a quest for meaning let us praise God that because He has united us to Christ, we walk in the ways of the covenant and so find meaning where the Teacher, speaking as a covenant breaker, could not find meaning.

Introduction

As we begin to examine Ecclesiastes again, we emphasize again that only in the covenant … only as in Christ can we find meaning. Because Christ is the answer to our sin problem, Christ is the answer to our epistemological problems. Those in Christ can find meaning in all that the teacher couldn’t find meaning in, because in Christ they have a person who can bring all the different parts of our lives together to make a meaningful whole. Because we are united to Christ “in whom are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden,” (Colossians 2:3) we can have and find meaning. Because we are in covenant with God, “in His light we see light.”

The problem of man outside of Christ who desires meaning is that he is seeking to find meaning all the while defying the one, who alone, can give meaning.

For example, just this weak I was corresponding with someone I hadn’t spoken to in 30 years about this issue of finding meaning. I suggested, as I am teaching here, that meaning can only be found by presupposing God.

The response I received from this old acquaintance was,

“Isn’t it possible that knowledge and meaningful experience naturally evolve from consciousness and require no other preconditions? That knowledge and meaningful experience were not created and set out for consciousness to acquire but rather are created by consciousness?

Here we hear the voice of the covenant breaker that we so often hear in Ecclesiastes. Meaning is not derivative or dependent upon God but naturally evolves from consciousness. Meaning is created by one’s own evolved consciousness. Thousands of years later men are still evading God in order to have meaning independent of God.

And through the voice of the teacher in Ecclesiastes man outside of covenant with God continues to look for meaning.

In Ecclesiastes the Teacher’s purpose it to make clear that man’s life in the world is without foundation if he refuses to reckon above all with God.

We remember from last week that in the Teacher’s “burden of God” statement (1:13) the Teacher is acknowledging God from the outset as the one who is the source of his task and the one, in whom alone, his task can find traction. So, this heavy burden imposed by God is imposed for a discernible reason … it is imposed to challenge man’s self proclaimed autonomy from God.

And the book continues from here both as one who speaks as one trying to escape this burden of God by knowing autonomously and one who embraces this divinely sanctioned burden by knowing as one who thinks God’s thoughts after Him.

These words … “What a heavy burden God has laid on men” thus become a sort of thematic string we find throughout the book. To quote Michael Kelly from his commentary “The Burden of God”

“Each major section of the book … shows this theme returning again and again in order to underscore God’s absolute predominance over the life of man. It is this fact with which humanistic man in his wisdom does not wish to reckon, but which the book will make plain that he must. Man in his rebellion would dispense with God. the Teacher’s purpose is to make clear that man’s life in the world is without foundation if he refuses to reckon above all with God. Because man stands under God’s curse he must be made to take account of the fact that it is God Who is both the cause of the condition that troubles his life as well as the solution.”

And so to the covenant breaker this heavy burden imposed by God is a burden that will break him and send him flying into despair, but to the covenant keeper this heavy burden imposed by God is bearable because the work of finding meaning can be successful to the one in covenant.

This morning we are taking a look at three areas the Teacher explores in terms of finding meaning. In these areas of pleasure, labor, and wisdom, that we are looking at this morning, the Teacher does not communicate that these are evil in and of themselves (vs. 10). The point emphasized here is that these otherwise good gifts have no meaning if they are taken up as having meaning in themselves alone. He comes to this conclusion as a Son of the Covenant viewing the areas as one who has been given covenant eyes to see what the conclusion of the Covenant breaker must be.

I.) Humanist Wisdom Pursues Meaning in the Context of Pleasure And Finds A Dead End (2:1-3, 10)

Hedonism — This is a school of thought that teaches that the achievement of pleasure is the highest good. We often hear it capsulized in the idea of “eat, drink, and be merry.”

That Hedonism was thought to be an answer for meaning can be seen in an ancient Egyptian song. The following is a song attributed to the reign of one of the Intef kings before or after the 12th dynasty, and the text was used in the eighteenth and nineteenth dynasties.

Let thy desire flourish,
In order to let thy heart forget the beatifications for thee.
Follow thy desire, as long as thou shalt live.
Put myrrh upon thy head and clothing of fine linen upon thee,
Being anointed with genuine marvels of the god’s property.
Set an increase to thy good things;
Let not thy heart flag.
Follow thy desire and thy good.
Fulfill thy needs upon earth, after the command of thy heart,
Until there come for thee that day of mourning.

Likewise the Teacher might have written,

He built his soul a lordly pleasure house
Wherein at ease he did dwell
He said, “Oh my soul make merry and carouse”
Dear soul, for all is well”

For the Teacher this meant Mirth, Spirits, and in vs. 10 he says he did not with-hold from His heart any pleasure. Yet weighing knee deep in this pursuit he concludes that there is no meaning apart from God.

Proverbs 25:16 is an interesting verse … “If you find honey, eat just enough – too much of
it, and you will vomit.”

In other words, even good things, in abundance, will eventually make you sick.

Of course we have seen this pursuit of finding meaning in pleasure continue full steam in the latter half of the 20th century. Hugh Hefner built his Playboy Empire. Drugs and Alcohol have proliferated in pursuit of a pleasure that allows one to drop out from this reality. Multiple Marriages combined with Multiple divorces have characterized our culture’s mad pursuit of pleasure. The gaming industry which is a multi-billion dollar industry is pursued in the name of pleasure. Our obsession with sports and entertainment outlets to the neglect of all other considerations reveals that 21st century man is still characterized as one who seeks to find his or her meaning of life in the pursuit of pleasure.

Now, pleasure, in and of itself, is not evil, as it is practiced consistent with God’s Law-Word, but pleasure will not give meaning if it is pursued as an end in itself as the Teacher tells us.

And yet we continue to embrace pleasure as a way to find meaning.

Ravi Zacharias says something that we here in this wealthy nation should take special note of:

“I am absolutely convinced that meaninglessness does not come from being weary of pain; meaninglessness comes from being weary of pleasure.”

II.) Humanist Wisdom Pursues Meaning in the Context of Work Achievements And Finds A Dead End (2:4-11, 17)

Many have been the men who have emptied themselves into their work. They are commonly referred to as “workaholics.” The Teacher toyed with finding meaning in just such a manner but the end was despair.

I suspect we are seeing this kind of thing repeated today.

A news release from The Conference Board reported in its most recent periodic poll that only 45 percent of workers in the U.S. were satisfied with their jobs, the lowest level in the 23-year history of the poll.

I suppose there could be a host of reasons why workers in the US are not satisfied with their jobs. One of those thought certainly could be the reality that ultimate meaning can’t be found in ones work.

The Teacher found here that what initially gave a rush finally, in the end, failed to fulfill.

“At age 45, Hughes was one of the most glamorous men in America. He courted actresses, piloted exotic test aircraft, and worked on top-secret CIA contracts. He owned a string of hotels around the world, even an airline – TWA – to carry him on global jaunts.

Twenty years later, at age 65, Howard Hughes still had plenty of money – $2.3 billion to be exact. But the world’s richest man had become one of its most pathetic. He lived in small dark rooms atop his hotels. Without sun and without joy. He was unkempt: a scraggly beard had grown waist-length, his hair fell down his back, his fingernails were two inches long. His once-powerful 6’4” frame had shrunk to about 100 pounds.

This famous and powerful man spent most of his time watching movies over and over, with the same movie showing as many as 150 times. He lay naked in bed, deathly afraid of germs. Life held no meaning for him. Finally, emaciated and hooked on drugs, he died at age 67, for a lack of a medical device his own company had helped to develop.”vii

A Chinese billionaire who converted to Christianity was asked “Why did you convert?”

This was his answer — “All my life I have spent my time climbing the mountain of wealth and success and when I finally got to the top…I looked around and nothing was there.”

Jesus once said, “What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul?” (Matthew 16:26)

III.) Humanist Wisdom Comes To Some Conclusions Regarding Wisdom & Folly Apart From God (2:12-16)

Even for the Covenant breaker (the Humanist) their Wisdom will discern a difference between Humanist Wisdom and total Humanist folly (14), even though as sons of the covenant we might say the difference is only one of degree. Be that as it is the Teacher, speaking with as one with Humanist Wisdom begins to despair.

By introducing the idea of death, quite apart from saying anything about God in vs. 16 the Teacher has brought us to the end of anything called Wisdom that does not reckon with God. Wisdom, so called, apart from God ends in death just as folly apart from God ends in death. Apart from God, when matters are viewed in the long term there is no advantage whatsoever in being comparatively Wise as juxtaposed with the fool.

And so, we see that apart from God there is no meaning. The fool is as well served as the so called wise. Only by viewing life in light of God can we find meaning.

His despair deepens as he reaches conclusions regarding Wisdom as that Wisdom exists apart from God (17-23) and here we begin to see a muscular Nihilism in his despair. Nihilism is the denial that there is any meaning with the presence of a general mood of despair at a perceived pointlessness of existence that one may develop upon realizing there are no necessary norms, rules, or laws. Nihilism then is what we read in vs. 17-23.

The Teacher says that given these truths of man without God He hates life (17). Already he has lost patience with this pursuit.

RJR has said at this point,

“Even as patience is associated with hope, so by implication the loss of hope means impatience. When we have no hope, both waiting and tribulations become meaningless to us, and we cannot patiently endure them.”

So the Teacher has lost hope speaking with the voice of the covenant breaker and in losing hope he has lost all patience and in that loss of patience he declares his hatred for life.

And well he should. Man apart from God should hate life. This is the end of all men who try to live with themselves as their God when they consistently follow that philosophy to its bitter end.

However, what often happens with this kind of man is he seeks to bring that hatred to everyone else. He hates life and so all the world must hate as well.

In 2:24-26 the Teacher shifts from his exploration of man’s end and man’s conclusions as one apart from God (2:14-23) to a few words regarding life having meaning if one is a Son of the covenant who understands life in light of God. The only answer to the despair of 2:14-23 is to reckon with the reality of the God of the Covenant. 2:24-26 reveals that the pursuit of meaning in the context of pleasure and labor, can only be found if one presupposes the God of the Bible.

So, in 2:24-26 we see the deep clouds of depression part and the sunlight of hope enters again. If man will reckon with God … if man will live in light of God man can have hope. If man will receive his pleasure and labor as from the hand of God (24) and understand them in light of God man no longer has to be one who hates life. Man’s life can have meaning but only as one who lives as submitted to God. The Teacher can have enjoyment like no other because he receives what he receives from the “hand of God.”

Notice when God is submitted to, the pleasure and the labor that found so much despair suddenly change to matters that find joy unspeakable.

Vs. 26 gives us a strong hint that the way we are understanding the text is correct. God deals with His covenant people in one way and he deals with those outside the covenant in another way. The last phrase in vs. 26 “this too is meaningless … a chasing of the wind” refers then to God’s non arbitrary judgment upon the efforts of the sinner … efforts that have been chronicled earlier.

Conclusion

Re-cap

Last week we sought to lay out that much of what Ecclesiastes is doing is giving a negative apologetic on where to find meaning. By that we mean that with Solomonic wisdom the preacher examines different avenues of life on where meaning might be found and once examining those avenues, with both the tools and resources to make a thorough examination, he concludes that no absolute meaning can be found in those avenues (1:13).

However, we also sought to show last week that this negative apologetic is being done from the vantage point of one who is outside the covenant. The Preacher himself is a child of the covenant but he is reporting with the voice of one who is outside the covenant. Periodically he will return as a spokesman as a child of the covenant but in great segments of this treatise he speaks as one outside the covenant in order to conclude at each turn that for those outside the covenant, all is vanity of vanity — a chasing of the wind.

Godless learning yields cynicism and skepticism (1:7-8)
Godless greatness yields sorrow (1:16-18)
Godless pleasure yields disappointment (2:1-2)
Godless labor yields hatred of life (2:17)
Godless philosophy yields emptiness (3:1-9)
Godless eternity yields a lack of fulfillment (3:11)
Godless life yields depression (4:1-2)
Godless religion yields dread (5:4-7)
Godless wealth yields trouble (5:12)
Godless existence yields frustration (6:12)
Godless wisdom yields despair (11:1-8)

We said his purpose throughout is to remind his listeners that to stray from the covenant is to invite the crushing burden of the curse upon them without any hope. We contend then that the purpose of the book is to expose that the man who is outside of covenant with God, because of his separation from God, can find no meaning in life. Life lived apart from God leads to the kind of intellectual schizophrenia that yields existentialism, nihilism, and all other sorts of meaningless philosophies.

This then forces us to understand that man’s problem presented in Ecclesiastes is not a problem of finiteness. It is not the case that all men can find no meaning because they are finite. No, the problem presented in the book of Ecclesiastes is that man is a sinner. Sinners can not find meaning.

Man is born seeking meaning in all he goes about
He desires to understand it all, from beginning to the end
He labors to quench uncertainties raised by constant doubt
But apart from God in Christ, it’s just a chasing of the wind

Meaning comes from outside of us, and is never ours to make
Wisdom is a gift of God, given to those who seek his face
“The Wise” are ones who handle all for their Redeemer’s sake
Who understand that creatures must keep the creature’s place

Let us talk briefly then about this idea of meaning that the Preacher, speaking with the voice of a covenant outsider, finds so elusive.

To arrive at meaning would be to arrive at something that can serve as a lens through which all of life can be understood and then ordered. To arrive at and find meaning in any one thing would mean that one thing would become the organizing principle by which every thing would find its place.

Illustration — Puzzle.

You have all these disparate puzzle parts. What you need in order to bring them all together into a meaningful whole is some kind of universal by which the different parts can be understood. This is what the teacher is looking to find as he looks at matters through the eyes of one outside the covenant.

As we begin to examine Ecclesiastes again, we emphasize again that only in the covenant … only as in Christ can we find meaning. Because Christ is the answer to our sin problem, Christ is the answer to our epistemological problems. Those in Christ can find meaning in all that the teacher couldn’t find meaning in, because in Christ they have a person who can bring all the different parts of our lives together to make a meaningful whole. Because we are united to Christ “in whom are all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge hidden,” (Colossians 2:3) we can find and have meaning.

The problem of man outside of Christ who desires meaning is that he is seeking to find meaning all the while defying the one, who alone, can give meaning.

And through the voice of the teacher man outside of covenant with God continues to look for meaning.

As we come to this section (1:12f) we note

I.) The Task The Teacher Set For Himself

The Teacher takes up the task of knowing and understanding all of reality.

Here he speaks as one who is both inside and outside the covenant I believe. I say this because to this day the task of those in the covenant is to take and have dominion as Stewards under God. So, when the teacher says that he gave himself to “Seek and search out wisdom concerning all that is done under heaven,” I take him to say that he is taking up God’s charge to take and have dominion.

However, keep in mind, that even fallen man can not escape this dominion enterprise since dominion taking is an inescapable concept. Those outside of the covenant could theoretically as well take up the task of Seeking and searching out wisdom concerning all that is done under heaven.

So the comment here about seeking and searching could be taken up by those by faithful and faithless. And there will be many times that the Teacher speaks with the voice of the covenant breaker about the lack of success of finding meaning in this task, and there are periodic times that the Teacher speaks with the voice of the covenant keeper about the success in finding meaning in this task.

We must applaud the Teacher’s aim here. He seeks to understand all that is done under heaven. There is in this man no compartmentalization of reality. He seeks to understand all things in light of who God is and alternately to show that there is no understanding of anything apart from presupposing God.

That this task to understand all of reality and to not compartmentalize life into things governed directly by God and things governed indirectly by God, is consistent with what some of our wise men have told us in the past,

” … The field of Christianity is the world. The Christian can not be satisfied so long as any human activity is either opposed to Christianity or out of all connection with Christianity. The Christian … can not be indifferent to any branch of earnest human endeavor. It must all be brought into some relation to the Gospel.”

J. Gresham Machen

In similar tones Abraham Kuyper could likewise say,

“Oh, no single piece of our mental world is to be hermetically sealed off from the rest, and there is not a square inch in the whole domain of our human existence over which Christ, who is Sovereign over all, does not cry: ‘Mine!'”

This is the way the preacher is viewing the matter. All of life, and all things in life must be brought into relation to the Covenant. As Biblical wisdom applies to all of life, the Teacher takes up the task of knowing all of life.

We might add, as a kind of aside here, that this task to seek and search out wisdom concerning all that is under heaven is why, historically, Christians have always been HUGE supporters of Christian education. It also explains why it is the case that wherever the Gospel has been planted and taken root, literacy soon follows. Christians, being dominion takers, have always understood that dominion begins with the kind of learning that the Teacher sets out to undertake.

II.) The Source Of This Task Taken Up

The source of his task is God.

“What a heavy Burden God has laid on men, by which they be exercised.”

Many have thought that this statement is a statement of despair.

Instead, what may be being communicated here is his beginning premise.

It may be the case that by talking about this “heavy burden God has laid on men” what the Teacher is communicating is that his investigations must have a God centered orientation. If “fearing God” is a conclusion that he ultimately comes to, (12:13-14) then this heavy burden of God laid on men, that he mentions, is just the recognition that in all his knowing he has to presuppose God.

In this “heavy burden of God” statement the Teacher is acknowledging God from the outset as the one who is the source of his task and the one, in whom alone, his task can find traction. So, this heavy burden imposed by God is imposed for a discernible reason … it is imposed to challenge man’s self proclaimed autonomy from God.

We would also say though that for the one outside of the covenant the attempt to understand all of reality apart from God is indeed a “heavy burden of God.” Even though the idolater might seek to find meaning apart from God such an attempt is still a heavy burden God has laid on men.

And the book continues from here both as one who speaks as one trying to escape this burden of God by knowing autonomously and one who embraces this divinely sanctioned burden by knowing as one who thinks God’s thoughts after Him.

These words … “What a heavy burden God has laid on men” thus become a sort of thematic string we find throughout the book. To quote Michael Kelly from his commentary “The Burden of God”

“Each major section of the book … shows this theme returning again and again in order to underscore God’s absolute predominance over the life of man. It is this fact with which humanistic man in his wisdom does not wish to reckon, but which the book will make plain that he must. Man in his rebellion would dispense with God. the Teacher’s purpose is to make clear that man’s life in the world is without foundation if he refuses to reckon above all with God. Because man stands under God’s curse he must be made to take account of the fact that it is God Who is both the cause of the condition that troubles his life as well as the solution.”

And so to the covenant breaker this heavy burden imposed by God is a burden that will break him and send him flying into despair, but to the covenant keeper this heavy burden imposed by God is bearable because the work of finding meaning can be successful to the one in covenant.

III.) The Beginning Conclusions Regarding This Task

In vs. 14-18 we find a beginning conclusion regarding the task taken up.

I believe that the Teacher’s observations are pointed at the one outside of covenant. The teacher is making some conclusions about the wisdom of man apart from God. He is telling us some truths regarding humanistic wisdom — that is the so called “wisdom” as it exists apart from God.

Because of fallen man’s depravity his wisdom

15 (What) is crooked cannot be made straight,
and what is lacking cannot be counted.

Until this burden imposed by God, upon the one outside of covenant, is relieved by viewing all matters in light of God, his wisdom will be lacking in ways that cannot be counted as well shall see as we move through the book and he is a thing crooked that cannot be made straight.

Vs. 16 – 18

16 I said in my heart, “I have acquired great wisdom, surpassing all who were over Jerusalem before me, and my heart has had great experience of wisdom and knowledge.” 17 And I applied my heart to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also is but a striving after wind.

18 For in much wisdom is much vexation,
and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow.

These verses can be spoken from the position of both one within the covenant and one without the covenant.

As spoken from the perspective of the one outside the covenant it is the logical conclusion of all the searching he might make. “Wisdom” and “knowledge” gained apart from God frustrates and fails and is seen as a chasing of the wind.

As spoken from one inside the covenant it is an admission that there is a powerlessness in his wisdom because even though he might expose the vanity of the one outside the covenant he is unable to do anything about this so called “wisdom.” And so with the increase of this knowledge comes a increase of sorrow.

Really … truer words have seldom been spoken. If God has been pleased to give his saints a unique insight into his reality more often then not there is a frustration that has to be worked upon all their lives. The frustration is born of not being able to clear the fog in others so that others can see what God has opened up their eyes to see. There is for the one inside the Covenant then, a sweet melancholy, we might call it that is driven by the frustration of being given by grace alone wisdom only to see it refused by so many others with all the attendant consequences.

Illustration — C. S. Lewis — The Last Battle

Aslan raised his head and shook his mane. Instantly a glorious feast appeared on the Dwarfs’ knees: pies and tongues and pigeons and trifles and ices, and each Dwarf had a goblet of good wine in his right hand. But it wasn’t much use. They began eating and drinking greedily enough, but it was clear that they couldn’t taste it properly. They thought they were eating and drinking only the sort of things you might find in a stable. One said he was trying to eat hay and another said he had got a bit of an old turnip and a third said he’d found a raw cabbage leaf. And they raised golden goblets of rich red wine to their lips and said “Ugh! Fancy drinking dirty water out of a trough that a donkey’s been at! Never thought we’d come to this.” But very soon every Dwarf began suspecting that every other Dwarf had found something nicer than he had, and they started grabbing and snatching, and went on to quarreling, till in a few minutes there was a free fight and all the good food was smeared on their faces and clothes or trodden under foot. But when at last they sat down to nurse their black eyes and their bleeding noses, they all said:

“Well, at any rate there’s no Humbug here. We haven’t let anyone take us in. The Dwarfs are for the Dwarfs.”

“You see,” said Aslan. “They will not let us help them. They have chosen cunning instead of belief. Their prison is only in their own minds, yet they are in that prison; and so afraid of being takers in that they cannot be taken out. But come, children. I have other work to do.”

For one inside the covenant who cares about people what else can there be but a finding that

18 (For) in much wisdom is much vexation,
and he who increases knowledge increases sorrow.

How can one who has seen God’s reality and has been given grace to have insight into meaning not have much vexation with much wisdom and much sorrow with their increase in knowledge when they look at people surrounded by a reality that is a smörgåsbord of meaning and who instead merely see life as meaningless turnips, straw, and donkey juice?

Conclusion

Re-cap

Next Week

The three avenues of meaning that the Preacher examines that we want to touch on next week is the search for meaning in pleasure, work and wisdom.

I.) The Pursuit of Meaning in the Context of Pleasure

II.) The Pursuit of Meaning in the Context of Work Achievements

III.) The Pursuit of Meaning in the Context of Wisdom

Return to Covenant Position

“Thou Shalt Not Covet”

We spent last week looking at the prohibition against coveting. We noted that coveting was to have inordinate (sinful) desires … desires that are not in keeping with God’s revelation. We made a point to teach that God has made us as humans, to be a people with passions, and so it is not the passion itself that is sinful but rather it is the twistedness of the passion that is sinful. We want things that are not ours to be had such as another man’s wife, property, life, position. We cited some examples of coveting in Scripture. We talked about the idea that coveting may very well be the sin behind all sin. We learned together that coveting goes from simple inordinate desire to the next level when the simple sinful inordinate desire becomes a plan to fulfill that sinful desire as engage our reason and will to follow our passion. We considered, in some detail, the relationship between the 1st and 10th commandment. Finally, we spent just a little time talking about cures for coveting, reminding ourselves that the greatest cure for sin is gratitude for the fact that Christ has put to our account His 10th commandment keeping righteousness.

The primary meaning of the tenth commandment is this: Anyone who sets his unwavering desire on his neighbor’s house wife, employees or animals will not be able to keep his hands off. Unwavering desire will give birth to planning premeditation with an intent to strike. Coveting, therefore, lies somewhere between the disposition of desiring something that is not ours to be had and the deed to procure that something. The deed is condemned by the commandments 1-9, but the tenth looks behind those deeds to the passionate heart and to the steps people take to implement the plans. As we have said, coveting is the sin behind the sin. It is the disposition behind the action. It is the root that produces the fruit.

This week we want to look at the “Thou Shalt,” that corresponds to this 10th commandment “Thou Shalt Not.” Remember, we have gone to great lengths to teach that the 10 commandments includes a “Thou Shalt” for every “Thou Shalt not.” And the Thou Shalt for “Thou Shalt Not Covet,” is “Thou Shalt be Content.”

If coveting is the presences of inordinate sinful desires that are followed through on and pursued then contentment is the absence of sinful desire and an ability to find satisfaction and sufficiency in where God has placed us at any given moment. Contentment does not mean that we do not seek to better our situation, or to improve upon our lot, but it does mean that in any given situation in which divine providence has brought us into at any given moment we are able to find a certain tranquility.

Before we get into this sermon much further, I must tell you, that I am not a master at this matter of contentment. When it comes to this matter I see my sin. I am too often anxious about the future. I saw that in myself again with all that happened with Ella’s birth. I too often covet, because of my pride and self-centeredness, a more prominent place and more influence and more possessions. So, if any of you come underneath the conviction of the word, you come underneath the conviction of the word this morning along with me.

Of course contentment, as we shall learn, is not something that one can merely switch on a button in order to achieve. Contentment is something that we learn throughout our Christian life and walk. We wee that in the passage in Philippians that we read this morning.

Phil. 4:10 But I rejoiced in the Lord greatly that now at last your care for me has flourished again; though you surely did care, but you lacked opportunity. 11 Not that I speak in regard to need, for I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content: 12 I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. 13 I can do all things through Christ[b] who strengthens me.

This then brings us to our first point in contentment. Like all Christian virtue, contentment is a learned trait.

Being Redeemed sinful beings we spend our lives, if we are honest with ourselves, seeking to master our lusts so that we control them and they do not control us. This ability to master our lusts is something that is learned over time by God’s grace.

Even the great Apostle, St. Paul, admitted that this contentment was something that he had to learn. And we are given a glimpse into his learning process in II Corinthians

7 And lest I should be exalted above measure by the abundance of the revelations, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I be exalted above measure. 8 Concerning this thing I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might depart from me. 9 And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 10 Therefore I take pleasure in infirmities, in reproaches, in needs, in persecutions, in distresses, for Christ’s sake. For when I am weak, then I am strong.

We don’t know for sure what Paul’s thorn in the flesh was. Some have humorously quipped that it was his Mother-in-law. Others have more seriously suggested that it was something physical, perhaps vision problems. This could be consistent with his speaking about “his infirmities,” and with other hints that we get in Scripture about his vision problems. With the reference to a “messenger of Satan” some see it as some kind of spiritual turmoil. Whatever it was we know that the Apostle struggled with a lack of contentment concerning it. He coveted relief. And who wouldn’t covet relief? If it was eyesight problems who wouldn’t be discontent over creeping blindness.

And yet we see in this passage that Paul learns to be satisfied with God’s grace. St. Paul speaks that way again to the Philippians. He tells them that “he has learned in whatever state he is in to be content.”

And we remember that St. Paul is saying this, likely in prison, chained to a Roman guard on each side of him.

So, we see here that contentment is a state of mind, arrived at by confidence in the Lord Christ, in which one’s desires are confined to one’s lot whatever it may be at any given time. (1 Tim. 6:6; 2 Cor. 9:8). In this situation in which St. Paul is in we find a man who has found the sufficiency for the situation in Christ. Because of divine grace St. Paul is nonplussed about the his circumstance. He has learned, because of his confidence in God’s providence, to be the master of his situation and circumstances and has learned how to not let his circumstance and situation be his master.

Would that we all would pray God that we would be given this ability. Just imagine how God would be glorified and how our stress levels and anxiety would be reduced.

Scripture even marries the idea of God like character with this ability to be content,

6 Now 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 clothing, with these we shall be content. 9 But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition. 10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness, and pierced themselves through with many sorrows.

Many saints have made shipwreck of their faith because of their inability to be content.

We see other examples of this contentment in the Apostle’s life.

22 Then the multitude rose up together against them; and the magistrates tore off their clothes and commanded them to be beaten with rods. 23 And when they had laid many stripes on them, they threw them into prison, commanding the jailer to keep them securely. 24 Having received such a charge, he put them into the inner prison and fastened their feet in the stocks.

25 But at midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the prisoners were listening to them.

St. Paul, along with Silas, had learned to not let their circumstances dictate their behavior. Because of God’s grace they were masters of their circumstances and so could sing and pray to God.

And yet having said all this, we are not teaching some kind of fatalistic resignation to what transpires in our lives. We are not teaching, and we do not find in Scripture that our Christian religion is to be some kind of opium that makes us pleased with injustice.

Christianity, is not, even in the doctrine of contentment, intended to make people resigned to being ill used or to work in them a “whatever will be, will be” attitude. Contentment does not say, “be satisfied with wickedness and so work not to advance the Kingdom of God in the face of opposition,” but rather it says that wherever we are in the immediate moment of working to advance God’s Kingdom, we have needs to be content with God’s providence.

God’s providence dictates the immediate moment, but obedience to God’s revealed word dictates our action for the next moment. So we can, at one and the same time, be content with what God has for us in the existential moment while still seeking to improve our situation by God honoring means.

It is a delicate balance but one that we find in Scripture.

For example, We read in Acts 16 where Paul and Silas were unjustly beaten with rods and placed in a filthy prison. And yet they sang and praised God. We know the story of how God released them via a earthquake and their bringing the Gospel to the jailer.

So, early in the account we see their contentment, yet later in the account we see them demanding justice. Their sense of contentment did make them fatalistically resigned to what others had unjustly done to them.

35 And when it was day, the magistrates sent the officers, saying, “Let those men go.”

36 So the keeper of the prison reported these words to Paul, saying, “The magistrates have sent to let you go. Now therefore depart, and go in peace.”

37 But Paul said to them, “They have beaten us openly, uncondemned Romans, and have thrown us into prison. And now do they put us out secretly? No indeed! Let them come themselves and get us out.”

38 And the officers told these words to the magistrates, and they were afraid when they heard that they were Romans. 39 Then they came and pleaded with them and brought them out, and asked them to depart from the city. 40 So they went out of the prison and entered the house of Lydia; and when they had seen the brethren, they encouraged them and departed.

So, being content, did not mean for St. Paul, not holding people accountable for their wicked actions. It did not mean not insisting on justice. Their Christian contentment was not a opium for the people. Christian contentment is not the same as pagan stoicism. The Christian at one and the same time can be content, thus putting off the vices of greed, avarice, envy, anxiety, and covetousness while at the same time pursuing the virtue of God’s justice, and contending for the overthrow of those Kingdoms that oppose God’s Kingdom. They can at the same time be content without being passive, mealy mouthed, and ineffective.

Contentment has the ability to navigate to a place where one can say that one is not mastered by a difficult circumstance that one might find oneself in. This is what St. Paul is saying in vs. 11-12,

12 I know how to be abased, and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. 13 I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

The gift of contentment had him managing the highs and lows, the lack and surfeit of life. Whether in abundance or in lack the Apostle was content w/ God’s sufficiency.

Our instinct is to think that the virtue of contentment is only difficult in times of lack. Can we be content when we are set aside and even mocked, or will we become bitter and plot sinful vengeance? Can we be content when we our shoved aside and insulted while the wicked flex their influence and authority without building sinful resentment. Contentment is difficult during times of lack and during times of being set aside.

But St. Paul gives some indication that contentment is something that is needed also in times of abundance. Are we independent and satisfied with God and His providence when our circumstances are positive or abundant or do we suddenly find ourselves at that point forgetting God and thinking that “it is by our hand we have gained this position?”

St. Paul says it is the gift of contentment that gives him ballast against poverty and insult but also against being swept away by abundance and surfeit into abandoning a right estimation of God’s providence.

We should be content in all things and remember our Proverbs,

8 Remove falsehood and lies far from me;
Give me neither poverty nor riches—
Feed me with the food allotted to me;
9 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.

Tips to Contentment

1.) Mindful of and confident in God’s providential ordering of all things (Ps. 96:1, 2; 145),

2.) Finding our satisfaction in Christ and the greatness of the divine promises (2 Pet. 1:4),

Whatever may come our way in terms of everyday life, nothing can separate us from the Love of God in Christ. If we keep our minds saturated in that truth, discontentment and covetousness will be far harder to get a grip on us.

3.) The ability to practice gratitude.

No matter how difficult matters are, we must remind ourselves of the many ways that God has blessed us.

4.) A knowledge and confidence that God will one day right all wrongs

II Thess. 1:6 since it is a righteous thing with God to repay with tribulation those who trouble you, 7 and to give you who are troubled rest with us when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, 8 in flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God, and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.

5.) Reminding ourselves that we are not deserving of any that we think we are deserving of.

“Thou shall not covet your neighbour’s house; thou shall not covet your neighbour’s wife, or his manservant, or his maidservant, or his ox, or his ass, or anything that is your neighbour’s.”

There are not two commandments here though interestingly enough those in the Roman Catholic Church and our brethren in the Lutheran Church number these as two different commandments since there are two “Thou shalt nots,” in the passage before us. The Reformed community, and Protestantism in general, as well as the Orthodox church community ha not agreed with this counting style because the NT itself combines the commandment as one.

Romans 7:7 What shall we say then? Is the law sin? God forbid. Nay, I had not known sin, but by the law: for I had not known lust, except the law had said, Thou shalt not covet.

The same unified speaking of the 10th commandment is seen in Romans 13 as well. So, it is a small thing but this is one of the differences we would have with some other “Church” communities.

As we consider coveting we would note that while 6-9 (Murder, Adultery, Theft, False Witness) all have to do with the act. The 10th Word has to do with the sinful inclination behind the sins of adultery or theft or idolatry.

Indeed it would not be too much to say that coveting is the sin behind all sin, if we understand coveting to include that we sin in order that we might satisfy our coveting for ourselves to be preeminent in all things.

We see clear connections of coveting in Scripture that allows us to see the sin of coveting in its obvious manifestation

Genesis 3,

6 And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.

Achan’s sin,

Joshua 7:21 when I saw among the spoil a beautiful mantle from Shinar and two hundred shekels of silver and a bar of gold fifty shekels in weight, then I coveted them and took them; and behold, they are concealed in the earth inside my tent with the silver underneath it.”

Ahab desiring Naboth’s vineyard (I Kings 21)

These three are perhaps three of the most obvious examples of coveting with find in Scripture. But I would contend that coveting (misplaced sinful desires) is the sin behind all sin. It is the sin of motivation that drives the behavior that violates God’s Law.

Even the primordial sin of all sins was connected to coveting. Satan fell because he acted on his coveting of God’s position,

Isaiah 14:13 You said in your heart,
‘I will ascend to heaven;
above the stars of God
I will set my throne on high;
I will sit on the mount of assembly
in the far reaches of the north;[a]
14 I will ascend above the heights of the clouds;
I will make myself like the Most High.’

So the argument might be made that in coveting you have the prohibition against the sin of disposition that is always present before the actual act in willful sin.

Listen to James on this

James 4 From whence come wars and fightings among you? come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members? 2 Ye lust, and have not: ye kill, and desire to have, and cannot obtain: ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not. 3 Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts.

So, with the 10th commandment we find the mother lode of sin.

Indeed, it may not be a stretch to see the 1st and 10th as bookends having a certain symbiosis.

What is the consequence every time of taking other gods? Answer — Coveting.

What is the consequence every time of coveting? Answer — Taking other Gods.

The 1st commandment gives you the theocentric beginning of Sin. The 10th commandment gives you the anthropocentric beginning of sin.

This is why, I believe there is such a close connection between greed and idolatry in Scripture. If we understand greed as a subset of coveting then God establishes the same close connection between coveting and idolatry that I have established here,

Colossians 3:5 Mortify therefore your members which are upon the earth; fornication, uncleanness, inordinate affection, evil concupiscence, and covetousness, which is idolatry:

5 For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God.

Clearly there is an intimate connection between coveting and idolatry and I suggest that they are much the same sin viewed alternately from the Theocentric and the anthropecentric perspective.

So, every time you meet someone guilty of coveting you meet an Idolater and every time you meet an idolater you meet someone guilty of coveting. The violation of #1 and #10 go together like marriage and children. They are bookends.

Moving on, when we talk about the desire that is implicit in coveting we must make distinctions here.

Keep in mind that it is not desire itself that is coveting.

God has built us to be a people who desire and so our goal in dealing with coveting is not to somehow (as if we could) cease desiring.

Were we to pursue that course of action in conquering covetousness — the course of action that would have us seeking to eliminate all temporal desire — we would by necessity become Buddhists. Buddhism teaches the necessity to have freedom from everything temporal and the complete suppression of all desires. The desireless person who is free of everything temporal as arrived at Nirvana.

(Buddhism, of course, is a contradiction in as much as it teaches you to desire the end of desires. Buddhism teaches one to pursue the end of all desire and yet in teaching that is sets up as the chief desire the end of all desires. Even if one is successful as a Buddhist, one fails.)

It is not proper desires that God prohibits in the 10th commandment but improper desires.

An improper desire (a coveting) is when you desire anything but God and His Kingdom so much that its fulfillment becomes God to you. But as our temporal desires find their proper place in the context of God and His revelation those desires are perfectly God honoring.

So, not all desire is coveting though all coveting is desire (misplaced).

The prohibition then against coveting is not a prohibition against being passionate and desirous. It is a prohibition against being passionate and desirous about the wrong things, or if you prefer, it is a prohibition against being a passion and desire that does know its proper place.

The kind of passion and desire that is acceptable before God, our Savior, lies in placing our passions and desires so that they are in service to the desire and passion to glorify and serve the Lord Christ, which should be the animating passion and desire of all other Christian passions and desires.

The Scriptures teach us that God and His Kingdom is to be our ultimate desire.

Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and all these things shall be given you.

Let us press just a little more beneath the surface regarding this matter of coveting.

Calvin and other Reformed men distinguished between the idea of passing desire for something which they did not count as coveting and the desire that wasn’t passing but give birth to plans on how to secure the thing to be desired.

For example — Very recently in the Midwest there was a former Pastor convicted in a court of law of seducing several women in his congregation. He will be going to jail. Now, that Pastor at some point, obviously had a desire but that desire could have been confessed as sin and resisted without the kind of harm that came to be to the women, his family, himself, and the Church. But instead the passing desire moved into concrete planning along the way. According to Calvin and others, it was the planning out wherein the covetousness lay. What is happening with the planning is that the will co-operates with what otherwise might have been a mere fleeting desire (still sin in itself) in order to work together to disobey God.

And, in order to reinforce what was said earlier this is obviously Idolatry as well as covetousness, in as much as the idol god in charge is now the self and not God.

So some of the older writers suggested that there are stages of desire and James 1 might be appealed to for that,

13 Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man:14 But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed.15 Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin: and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.

You see the lust starts with being enticed and it moves from being enticed to full conception and once you have lust conceived sin in birthed. The full conception part would be the planning part and the birth of sin would be the act itself.

So, a desire is nursed, the will is surrendered to the desire; a plan is developed to satisfy the desire and the plan translates the desire into a deed. According to Calvin, the commandment focuses on the first two stages of desire.

However it must be said here that there is outward behavior that is being condemned by the 10th commandment. The planning itself is a outward behavior. In the illustration given earlier about seduction, a plan was made, there were arrangements made and matters attended to that led up to the actual act itself and all of that previous action was outward acts which were sin.

Contrary to Calvin, it is better to hold that all inordinate lusts as coveting and are necessary to be repented of and the sooner the better. The minute a covetous desire for something that is not ours to be had we would be wise at that very moment to confess as sin and ask for contentment.

__________________
Cure for coveting

1.) Admit your inordinate desires to yourself

That may sound funny but people lie to themselves all the time. They have desires that they know are inordinate and yet they will not admit that to themselves and so since they will not admit that to themselves they follow through on those inordinate desires.

2.) Confess your covetous inordinate desires as sin to God and ask both for forgiveness and for the ability to put off these sinful desire and to put on Christian contentment.

3.) Talk back to yourself. We see this kind of behavior in the Psalms frequently. One example,

Psalm 43:5 Why art thou cast down, O my soul? and why art thou disquieted within me? hope in God: for I shall yet praise him, who is the health of my countenance, and my God.

The example here has the Psalmist talking back to himself regarding his discouragement. But the principle holds true across the board. We need to talk back to ourselves when we see matters in ourselves that are not right. We need to remind ourselves that we are a Christian people and that certain desires, behaviors, and internal dispositions are not meet for a Christian people. We need to remind ourselves of God’s promises and and of God’s sufficiency.

Once you’ve admitted these inordinate desires take yourself in hand and remind yourself that the getting is never so pleasurable as the wanting. Remind yourself that sin is always a cheat and that the fulfilling of your desires never delivers that which it promises.

4.) Praise God for what He has provided and return to seeking first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, being confident that God will continue to give you what you stand in need of.

5.) Thank God for the forgiveness that we have in Christ. Yes it may be true that we are great in coveting … that we struggle with coveting … but we can be confident despite the covetous desires we see in ourselves we stand as beloved by God because of the acceptability of our Elder Brother — The Lord Christ — who has put to our account His 10th commandment keeping righteousness.