And would you please now stand for the reading of God's Word as you're able and turn in your Bibles to 1 Timothy 6, verses 3-10. 1 Timothy 3, verses 6-10. It's page 934 if you're using the Pew Bible. Before I read, let's pray. Gracious Heavenly Father, thank you for your condescending love wherein you stoop to speak to us in language and in characters that we can understand. We thank you that you have committed your word to writing so that not only those who lived in the lifetime of our Lord Jesus, but those who live long after can know what he said, can know what he would have us do, what we must believe concerning him. So Father, as we consider this morning contentment and what it is that you want your people to strive after in the Christian life, would you please, by the blessing of your spirit, teach us to do it. and empower us to do it. In Jesus' name, Amen. 1 Timothy 6, beginning in verse 3. Teach and urge these things. If anyone teaches a different doctrine and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and a teaching that accords with godliness, he is puffed up with conceit and understands nothing. He has an unhealthy craving for controversy and for quarrels about words which produce envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions, and constant friction among people who are depraved in mind and deprived of the truth, imagining that godliness is a means of gain. But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. But if we have food and clothing, with these we will be content. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. It is through this craving that some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pangs. Amen. The grass withers, the flower fades. You may be seated. I got a text message earlier this week from one of the missionaries that we support in St. George, Utah, Ben Coppers, missionary to the Mormons. And he's actually very good. At least once a quarter, he will text me and say, Spin, how can we be praying for the saints of Westminster? And I told him that we have an inquirer's class that's going right now. It's going very well. We're thankful for the folks that are in attendance. when we had a Reformation party that was coming up, and at any one time in our church, we have somewhere between two to eight women pregnant. And you can pray for our expectant mothers. And our family, we have four children, and there was just a baby shower yesterday, praise the Lord. And if you are a woman and you've had children, then you know very well that your pregnancy cravings can be odd to those that are not pregnant at that time. The typical pregnancy cravings are things like chocolate, fruit, or ice pops, anything cold. Sarah really liked sour or bitter things. But there are some women who prefer boiled eggs with horseradish, mushrooms glazed in garlic and dipped in custard. That was one I found online. And there was one woman several years ago that had this insatiable appetite for roadkill. Thank goodness her pregnancy was only nine months, right? And that was not a staple of her diet. But cravings. Men, what is it that you crave? When you're taking your wife out for dinner, do you crave a steak dinner? Do you like Mexican? Do you like Italian? Everybody has their own unique cravings. And the same goes for false teachers, the apostle Paul says. These men have a very peculiar and a very particular palate for two wicked things. I focus in on this word craving because you see it twice in the text. Look at verses four and 10 with me. He, the false teacher, has an unhealthy craving for controversy and quarrels about words. And then verse 10, it is through this craving, this craving of money, of mammon, as the King James puts it, that some have wandered away from the faith. They have an acquired taste for two very particular things, and these will be our two points this morning. It's the same appetite that false teachers had then, and they have it now. And so Paul tells us to be on guard. As he picks back up from chapter one, his identification of the false teachers afoot in Ephesus. Two points this morning are going to be these two cravings. First, the craving for needless controversy, verses three to the first half of verse five, and then the craving for worldly gain, verses five to verse 10. Now you remember that Paul had warned the church in Ephesus, that's to whom he is writing, he's writing to Timothy, who is the pastor of the church in Ephesus. He reminded them all the way back in Acts chapter 20 that there would be such men in the church, and by extension, there would be men like this in the church throughout all time. Paul writes in Ephesians 20 verse 29, I know that after my departure, fierce wolves will come in among you, not sparing the flock, and from among your own selves will arise men speaking twisted things to draw away the disciples after them. Therefore be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease, night or day, to admonish everyone with tears. Paul put out the bolo. He said, be on the lookout for these false teachers and for their hungering for our first point, controversy. These men are attracted to controversy. Now the baseline we see for what marks out a true teacher from a false teacher is given to us in verse three. If anyone teaches a different doctrine and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness, he's puffed up with conceit and understands nothing. So we're gonna make a distinction here, as Paul does. He says that the baseline, that the standard for a good teacher is that his teaching agrees in content with the sound words of Jesus and a teaching that accords with, that is consistent with and ends in godliness. For teaching to be true, it must be either something that Jesus has said himself or has said through his apostles. And it's that latter sense of the word, Jesus speaking through the apostles, that Paul seems to have in mind here. He's not saying, stick only to those Words that Jesus said verbatim, and then you can take my words or Peter's words as pious advice. No, he is claiming that even his words, as he's writing to the Ephesians, that his words are nothing other than the words of Jesus Christ himself through him. Now if that sounds a little bit self-aggrandizing or a little bit interesting or arrogant on Paul's part, remember what Jesus said of his disciples. Luke 10 verse 16. The one who hears you, hears me. The one who rejects you, rejects me. The one who rejects me, rejects him who sent me. So to reject Paul is in effect to reject Jesus. And for that to be the case, the content must be sound. It must be consistent with what Jesus has said. That's the first mark of a true teacher, that it accords and agrees with the sound words of Jesus Christ. And the product, what it promotes, ought to be godliness. The true end of teaching is true living, both in the speaker himself and in the hearers. Now, of course, we know that there are sad instances where men preach orthodox theology while behind the scenes their life is anything but orthodox. Nevertheless, the rule of thumb, or as far as things typically go, is that when a man is teaching the Word of God, he's modeling it himself and he is exhorting his hearers to bear those fruits that are consistent in keeping with repentance. So a church that preaches the gospel, the characteristic mark of its preacher and of the hearers of the members of the congregation should be the fruits of the Spirit. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. godliness, godlikeness, conformity to the character of Christ. That is one of the definitive marks of the people of God, consistent with his character. But these false teachers do not meet either criteria. The marks of the false teachers are that they are puffed up with conceit, and they understand nothing. They understand nothing. If anyone teaches a different doctrine and does not agree, they do not agree, it's heterodidaskalon. It's other teachers, strange teachers. If they teach something foreign to Jesus Christ, and if it's not consistent with godliness, then you are to ignore it. Because such a man, if he continues down that path, he is both prideful and he is ignorant. Paul described these false teachers in a similar way in chapter 1, verses 6 and 7, you remember. Certain persons, by swerving from these, have wandered away into vain discussions, desiring to be teachers of the law without understanding either what they are saying or the things about which they make confident assertions, prideful and ignorant. There's a helpful rule of thumb for biblical interpretation. Maybe you've heard it before. It goes something like this. If you, in your personal Bible reading or in the Bible study, see something in scripture that not a soul in 2,000 years of church history has seen before you, chances are you are wrong and not everyone else. This is a rule that needs to be repeated to every first-year seminary student who takes one class of Greek. If you see something in the Greek text that Daniel Wallace or Bill Mounts or all of these studied exegetes have not seen, they're not wrong, you are. If no one other than heretics like Hippolyon Arius or Arius or Eutyches said it, then it isn't. And for you to think otherwise is a demonstration of arrogance, of stubbornness, of being puffed up and ignorant of your subject. And when men are puffed up, when they are prideful, they're not willing to back down, Paul says they have an unhealthy craving for controversy and quarrels about words. They're factious. They're pugilists, pugilistic men, always dividing the room, always blowing up the Bible study and steering it towards the issue of the day or a matter speculative or controversial, are never one to shy away from chest-thumping and to show how superior they are on their very narrow area of interest. And what does such a factious spirit produce but five cursed fruits? Envy, dissension, slander, evil suspicions, and constant friction. Envy. The man or woman is envious of others. They see them as competitors. This is competitive spirituality. I need to know more than you do. I need people to look to me as the authority on this matter or that matter and not you. And so there is this gamesmanship. And then it ends in dissension and strife. A trail of broken relationships. This person, while they claim to be pursuing truth, are just leaving a body count. They're sowing seeds of division to the left and to the right. And one of their favorite tactics is slander. They spread known lies about those that they perceive to be their enemies, weaponizing their words against them. And then they have evil suspicions. They're looking over their shoulder Distrustful always, thinking that their brothers and sisters in Christ are enemies. And then they have constant friction. That person that just seems to rub every person the wrong way. Right? They're always at odds with somebody. And you feel that you need to walk on eggshells around them. What do we do? How do we avoid this spirit of the false teachers, those men who have a craving for unnecessary controversy. Well, first, I think we do need to say that there is a time and a place for polemics. That's for negating false doctrine. We should do that. But it is certainly not all the time and not over every little thing. Listen to John Bunyan, John Bunyan and the way that he approached controversy as a gospel minister. I never cared to meddle with things that were controverted and in dispute among the saints, especially things of the lowest nature. Yet it pleased me much to contend with greater earnestness for the word of faith and the remission of sins by the death and sufferings of Jesus. But I say, as to other things, I would let them along because I saw that they engendered strife, and because they neither in doing nor in leaving undone did commend us to God to be his. Besides, I saw my work before me did run into another channel, even to carry an awakening word. To that, therefore, I did stick and adhere." In other words, Pick your battles. Better yet, pick only those battles that Jesus picked. What did Jesus go to the mat for? When He contended for the faith, what did He contend for? It was the gospel. It was about life and righteousness in Him. It was about justification by His grace through faith in Him alone. It was of the resurrection, for sanctification, for the pursuit of holiness, for a life that agrees with its profession. You do not see Jesus getting sucked into the controversies of his day with the Pharisees over theological minutia, over how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, or exactly how much cumin, mint, and dill to tithe. He doesn't squabble about petty matters. He had bigger fish to fry, and so too do we, church. Too many Christians think that it is their job to just engage in friendly fire. Frankly, the harder work, the best work, the more challenging endeavor is this, to present the gospel in all of its parts with persuasion, with compassion, with humility and boldness to those that are not already persuaded of it. That's the harder work, and that's why Jesus has you here, not to argue in our holy huddles about this verse or that verse, which even if you are right, has little to no consequence. It changes very little. And so we are to stick and adhere to the gospel, to major on the majors. And as time permits, and with charity and humility, we can talk about the minors. But that's what these men are doing. They're majoring on the minors, and in so doing, they are disrupting the church's peace and its purity. I do want to say as a minister, I'm thankful for you all, because I do feel that even though there is perhaps some theological diversity of points of minds, you all live very well with one another. We don't have the post-millennialists and the amillennialists sitting on opposite sides of the sanctuary, right? No, we're brothers and sisters in the Lord. And so we can live, even despite diversity on some of these matters, so long as we are stayed upon Christ. So these false teachers, they have a craving for controversy, and the people of God are to have a distaste for controversy, for needless controversy. If you need to contend for the faith, you'll know it. It has to do with Jesus, it has to do with sanctification or justification, you go to bat. Other than that, it might be good to stay your hand and to listen, to pause. They have an insatiable appetite for controversy, always salivating for some strife, but there is a second craving that these men have, and we find it in the second half of verse five. They imagine that godliness is a means of gain. that godliness is a means of gain. That is a worldly gain. Our second point, craving for worldly gain. Why do they think this? Why do these men think that the get-rich-quick scheme of their day is go and be a preacher? Go and be a religious worker? Well, remember the context, the historical context. Religion in Ephesus was lucrative. in the city of Ephesus, they had the cult of Diana. And so the cult of Diana, you had this massive temple, you had temple prostitutes, you had a bustling pagan industry built around this worship center. And on Paul's second missionary journey, he gets in trouble with the union, he gets in trouble with the silversmiths of the city. And they say, you know what this Paul's doing? He's going to run us out of a job because now as people are giving up their idols, they're not buying silver idols from us anymore, so we need to get him out of town. He is hurting our bottom line. So religion would make one prosperous in this city. So they had prosperity preachers. They had professional ear ticklers and charlatans that would go around and, you know, they'd carry around the hat, and you would pay them to tell you a good word, to tell you what you wanted to hear. Prosperity preachers abounded in the world then, and they still do today. And I won't spend any time naming all the names that get rich on the backs of the poor. You know them well, and I don't think anybody here is terribly inclined to believe what they preach. Men with silver tongues and with gold on their minds, Paul says that these men are going to make shipwreck of their faith in time. Even if they are preaching Christ now, given long enough, they'll serve their real God, which is their pockets. They think that godliness, the show of godliness, is unto earthly gain. But Paul corrects their teaching and he takes it and then he flips it up in his head and he says, actually, you know what, you're right. Godliness, true godliness, with contentment is great gain. What these men meant in purely materialistic terms, that being religious, that godliness, that people can see, An external show of righteousness, it's going to help your bottom line. Paul says, actually, it is of great gain, but not materialistically, but spiritually. Paul spins their words to a spiritual purpose. Godliness with contentment is great gain in this, both in this life and that which is to come. While there may be those who make a good show and do attain wealth in this life, it is, at best, wealth in this life only. That's all they have to show for it. They've already received the reward. True godliness, the kind of godliness, the inward integrity of heart, a heart that loves Jesus Christ, the one that God is pleased with, if that heart is married with contentment in things material, It is great gain both in this life and that which is to come, not because you will receive everything that your heart desires materially, but because you will be able to be content, whether you have much or little, because in all times and in all circumstances, you have Jesus Christ. That is the great, like a superpower of the Christian. How Paul could say in Philippians 4.13, I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength. What was that thing that Christ gave him strength to do? It was to be content in all circumstances, even as he's penning that letter behind prison bars. He's content even there because Christ is with him there. And so too can you be content, Christian, wherever you are and whatever your condition. Paul riffs on an Old Testament teaching to support his point. He says, for, in verse 7, we brought nothing into the world, and we cannot take anything out of the world. His mind's going back to Job 121, after Job has been stripped of every earthly good that a person could want, of family, of material possessions. Job, you think, would be primed to curse God. But instead, he says, naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord. Basically, what that means is how you come is how you go. How you come into the world is how you go. You came in naked and without so much as a penny to your name, and you will leave in that same exact way. Whether you're made of 12 figures, like the world's richest man is now, hundreds of billions of dollars, or if you are made of no figures, we will all appear before the judgment seat of Christ with nothing in our hands. However much you made in this life, all accounts are going to be zeroed when we draw our last breath. Paul's logic then is why would you spend your life toiling for that which does not satisfy and clinging so desperately to that which doesn't satisfy you in this life and you cannot take with you into the next? Don't spend the best of your time and energy on those things that will perish. But be content with God's material provision of your needs. And spend the time instead laying up for yourself treasures that are in heaven, where Christ is and where he keeps them for you. You need to look at the world with an eternal mindset. As the Puritans would say, don't use more of the world than you need to. Don't get stuck like a fly gets stuck to wallpaper on the things of this world. Because that's where a lot of people go wrong. As we'll see in a moment, it's not money itself that is the root of all kinds of evil. It is the love of money. It's being stuck on it. It is pursuing it for its own sake. But the people of God, if the Lord has blessed you materially, then we are to use these things for a heavenly purpose. We leverage all of our gifts and our graces for the glory of God. And to just be concrete with it, Paul says, look, here's your baseline for contentment. Here's what, as a preacher, he says, look, as long as we have food and we have clothing, we will be content. Philippians 4.13, I've learned to be content in all circumstances. So the Greek here is covering. So Paul probably has in view a shirt on his back, a roof over his head to cover him, and then food in his belly. And with these, we will be content. Now, certainly you have to balance this with the instructions he gave in chapter five, where you do provide for the needs of those in gospel ministry. And yet, gospel ministers are not to have a hunger for money, but their meat and their drink, like that of Jesus, is to do the will of Jesus Christ, to do the will of the Father. The minister is to live somewhere, and I would say every Christian, somewhere in that uncomfortable middle where you have to have faith in God. Proverbs 30, verses eight and nine, give me neither poverty nor riches, feed me with the food that is needful for me, lest I be full and deny you and say, who's the Lord? It's like the wilderness generation, right? They go to the promised land, they forget God. or lest I be poor and steal and profane the name of my God. There's no intrinsic virtue in being poor. For poor people, we'll often think about how to get money that they don't have, but then for the rich, there's no intrinsic value in being rich per se, because then when they have the money, they just jealously guard it. Lord, keep me in that middle where I don't forget you, because that's the most important thing. It's not the bank account, but it is Jesus Christ. And to rivet this into their minds, to the minds of his heroes, to Timothy and all of his contemporaries, Paul cites some negative examples. What happens when you don't do this? What happens when you don't pursue godliness that is married with contentment? Verse 9, but those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into a bear trap. into many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. You have the image of quicksand there. They're running headlong after material things, and it ends in destruction. It plunges them beneath. Discontentment leads to further discontentment. And it's the desire to be rich, you see, and it's the love of money that leads to these issues. If the Lord materially blesses a man, Like Abraham, like the patriarchs who were wealthy men, each in their own right, they are to give to the Lord. But when you're in it for the money, when you're in it only for what you can get and you think not about what you can give, what are some negative examples, scripturally speaking, that come to mind of men who for their love of money wandered away from the faith, verse 10, and pierced themselves with many pains. Well, Judas Iscariot comes to mind, who considered 30 pieces of silver as more valuable than the Lord and giver of life. What about the rich man? Rich man and Lazarus that Dr. Master preached on two weeks ago. who was so wealthy that he had gates guarding his house and to keep riffraff like Lazarus from coming inside. He had his reward in life, but God was not willing that he should even slake his thirst with a drop of water in his death. But about the rich young ruler, All of these I've kept since my youth." Jesus puts his finger on his idol and says, now go and sell everything that you have and give it to the poor. And that man walked away from Jesus for he had many possessions. His feet followed his heart. What about Achan in the Old Testament? Who chose instead the gold and silver and hid the stuff under his tent. and in so doing forfeited the ability to go into the promised land. Jesus warned us. He warned us about the allurement and the enticements of earthly wealth. Mark 8 verse 36, for what does it profit a man to gain the whole world and forfeit his soul? What will it profit you? What will it profit you if you gain everything if you got everything that you ever wanted, if you got more than you ever wanted, but you left your soul and neglected your soul. As we close, I'd ask you this morning, what kind of returns are you after? Everybody invests. Everybody invests spiritually. There's tons of people who are behind in their retirement savings and their portfolios, and people will just lament. But every single human being invests spiritually. The question is, where are you putting your spiritual investments? What's your portfolio look like? Do you have half of it going towards the things of this life and half towards the things of God? You see, listen instead. If you would confess this morning, you'd say, my portfolio is far too diverse. This is not good financial advice, it's good spiritual advice. Put all your eggs in one basket, friends. Put your eggs in the basket of Jesus Christ. Hear his invitation. Hear his invitation to you that if you look to him, If you look to him and you say, I will not forfeit my soul, but I will entrust my soul to Christ. Listen to what he says. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me and eat what is good and delight yourselves in rich food. Incline your ear. Come to me that your soul may live. This is the great gain of godliness. This is the kind of contentment that you can enjoy if you come to Jesus Christ in saving faith. This is what you stand to gain if you're willing to cast aside all that the world has to offer and accept the free offer of the gospel this morning. It is held forth for you even now, even if you have rejected it up to this point. Christ invites you to come. And if you have Christ, then whether you be rich or poor, sick or healthy, if you find that your times are marked by plenty or by one, you are never wanting, you are never lacking a savior that loves you, and who has blessed you with promise upon promise that he will provide for all of your needs if you would seek first the kingdom of God. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. His love knows no beginning, it knows no end, There is no ebb. There is no flow. He cannot start loving you. He cannot stop loving you. He never started. Just an uninterrupted steady stream of love for his people. That's yours in Christ. That's what you have this morning. And that is what you're to crave. That's what we are to crave. and the only thing in which we will be satisfied, not by the things of this world, not by needless controversy, not by one-upsmanship, not by worldly gain, but the true gain of godliness, that is communion with Jesus Christ, who is his people's savior, now and forever. Amen. Let's pray. Father, we praise you. We thank you. We ask, Lord, that You would feed us now as we approach Your table, that we would be satisfied in Your love, that as we taste afresh the goodness and the grace and the glory of our Savior, Father, that You would lift our hearts to see Him, that we would crave and yearn after more of Christ, that we would look forward to the day, and we would enjoy Him to the full. In Jesus' name, amen.