Let us open together in God's word to the New Testament book of Hebrews and chapter 13. In Hebrews chapter 13 we'll be looking at verses 5 and 6 this evening. We'll go ahead and read for context beginning in chapter 13 and verse 1 and we'll read through verse 6. And just by way of reminder, as we have entered into chapter 13 of the book of Hebrews, we are doing so and entering into a very application-focused section. Not that there hasn't been application throughout the book, but the author of Hebrews is really trying to impress upon his audience and us that Jesus is better than everything. He is the greater sacrifice. He is the greater priest. He is the greater temple. Look to Him. Don't look at anything else. Keep looking unto Jesus. He is the author and the finisher of our faith. And now as we come to Hebrews 13, we're dealing with these practical implications. Okay, as those who recognize who Jesus is and in light of who He is, what He has done, and by faith in Him, who we are as His people, how do we live? And that's what this chapter is really dealing with, these parting instructions on how to live as Christians together in the church and in the world. And so we'll begin reading in Hebrews chapter 13 in verse 1, and again we'll read through verse 6. Let us hear now the word of God. Let brotherly love continue. Do not forget to entertain strangers, for by so doing some have unwittingly entertained angels. Remember the prisoners as if chained with them, those who are mistreated, since you yourselves are in the body also. Marriage is honorable among all and the bed undefiled, but fornicators and adulterers God will judge. Let your conduct be without covetousness. Be content with such things as you have. For He Himself has said, I will never leave you nor forsake you. So we may boldly say, the Lord is my helper. I will not fear. What can man do to me?" Thus far the reading of God's holy word. Let us pray. Our God, we delight in Your Word. We love Your Word. Love you as our God. We we love the reality that you have given us These precious promises these truths by which we can live We ask that you would impress these upon our hearts tonight that we would truly know what it means The promise that you have made to us that you will never leave us or forsake us and that we would all be able Together to boldly say to you that you are our helper that we will not fear for what can man do to us? And in all of this we pray, in Jesus' name, amen. And so we have in this text, particularly in verses 5 and 6, we have some contrasts or some opposing forces. And we have some forces that we might say are attracted to one another. And as I thought about this, I thought about magnets. I don't know if you've experienced this. I did as a kid. I'd go over to my grandma's house and she had these magnets. I think they were for the refrigerator. But I always grabbed them and I either did one of two things. I would try to, when they were opposing, I would try to push them together. And you know what happens when you try to push magnets together, especially if you're a kid, you don't have a lot of strength. You get close and then, oh, nope, and you get close, they don't go together. I would either do that or I would try to put them under something and move the magnet and pretend like it was moving on its own. But the point is, is that there is an opposing force. And if the magnet's strong enough, I don't care how much you push against them, they are going to repel one another. But then if you get two magnets that attract, you have to work to keep them apart. And so keep that in mind because we're going to deal with three words that begin with C tonight. The first is covetousness. The second is contentment. And the third is confidence. And what I hope you will see is that covetousness and contentment are like those two magnets that repel each other. Covetousness and contentment, they don't go together. They repel one another. Where covetousness is in the heart of man, contentment will not be found. Where contentment is, covetousness has been expelled. But then, I want you to also see that contentment and confidence are like those two magnets that they just attract. They go together. Because where you find contentment, true contentment, you will find confidence in God and His promises. And that's what we're going to look at tonight. And it's important to look at this. In fact, the text begins, let your conduct be without covetousness. Your conduct, your manner of life, the way you live, the way you think, the way you act. Let it be without covetousness. Now, covetousness, I will submit to you, is like a disease that seeps into man. And if it is not dealt with, it will destroy him body and soul. It's a serious thing. I mean, Paul, in writing to Timothy, in 1 Timothy 6, verses 6-10, he says this, But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful loss, which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith, and in their greediness have pierced themselves through with many sorrows." That's pretty serious, isn't it? I mean, think about it. They fall into the temptation of the snare. They drown themselves in destruction and perdition. They stray from the faith and pierce themselves through with many sorrows. And Paul, writing to the Ephesians, says this, but fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness, let it not be even named among you as is fitting for saints. And he goes on with this warning, this you know that no fornicator, unclean person, nor covetous man, who by the way is an idolater, has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. And so we have to really check ourselves here. We have to have what I might call a heart check and ask ourselves which of these two, covetousness or contentment, defines our conduct in the world. Because the call here is clear. Let your conduct be without covetousness. But it's interesting as warnings are given in Scripture about coveting. They're closely tied to idolatry, we saw that, we'll see that again later, but also to immorality. We've already seen, as we looked at marriage last week, that the marriage bed is to be kept undefiled, that fornication and adultery is not to be done. And here closely tied with those sins is the sin of covetousness. We might look at it like this, as we're seeing the applications that are being made to our lives as Christians. The first four verses of Hebrews 13 are dealing with our relationships with others and how those should be conducted. When we come to verses 5 and 6, it's our relationship to stuff and how that relationship should and should not be conducted. But what I want you to see as we think about this is simply this, that when we are confident, when we are confident in God's provision, we will be content with our possessions. When we are confident in God's provision, we will be content with our possessions. And I want to look at the reality of covetousness, that it will rob us of our contentment every time. I want to look at the way then, secondly, how confidence, particularly confidence in God, His provisions, His love for us, His promises, will lead us toward contentment. And so first, let's look at the reality that covetousness will rob us of contentment every time, no doubt about it. And we have to ask ourselves the question, what is covetousness? We're told here, let your conduct be without it, without covetousness, but what is it? The Greek word behind this is another word, and this is interesting because we've already been dealing with these words that begin with philo. We've talked about Philodelphia, love of brethren. We talked about philoxenia, love of strangers. And this word that is translated here, covetousness, is the Greek word philoagouros, or lover of money. And of course, everything that money can buy. This is not simply a desire. There are godly desires for things that we may want. I make a Christmas list. I don't accuse myself of coveting. It depends on my heart, I suppose. There are things that we desire and we work for, and that's good. But this is talking about a love of money that is inordinate. This is the same thing that was said of the Pharisees. Luke 16, verse 14. The Pharisees were called lovers of money. And here's what Jesus said to them. He said, you are those who justify yourselves before men, but God knows your heart. Again, it goes back to the heart. They were lovers of money, God knew it, they justified themselves before men. So this is a lover of money, but what does it really mean? Now, this is a bit of a lengthy definition given by John Owen, who, if you've ever read any John Owen, he's not the easiest to read, so forgive me if I read this and you say, what did he just say? But it's a very good definition, and I want to read it to you. He says this, covetousness is an inordinate desire. with a suitable endeavor after the enjoyment of more riches than we have or than God is pleased to give unto us, proceeding from an undue valuation of them or love of them." In other words, what he's saying is this is a desire that is beyond a normal desire for things that we might want. Those desires are not bad as long as they're not sinful. This is an inordinate desire. And this is a pursuing after that desire. That's the suitable endeavor. Pursuing after what? The enjoyment of more riches than we presently have. But also he adds, or then God is pleased to give unto us. And that recognizes that what we have is what God is pleased to give to us. And to want something other than what we have is to want something that God is not pleased to give to us. And that's not good for us. It's like telling God, God, you're wrong. You're not giving this to me, but I know better and I want it. Think about the first sin. Was there covetousness? Was there an inordinate desire for something that God had not been pleased to give to man? Yes, there was. They wanted to eat of that fruit because they wanted to know as God knows. And I want to address church leaders here because this same language, lover of money, is found in qualifications for both elders and deacons. They are not to be lovers of money. Not to be lovers of money. This is closely connected, as we saw earlier, with idolatry. In fact, Paul in Colossians 3.5 says covetousness, which is idolatry. He identifies covetousness with idolatry. Because when you covet something, you are not trusting in God who provides, in His timing, in the limits that He has set upon your life. You're going outside the bounds of what God has said is good for you. And here's the reality, a covetous person is never satisfied. We might think that the answer to being covetous, to having a desire, is to fulfill it. We logic it out that way, don't we? Okay, I have this desire, I want it, and if I get it, I'll be better. I see that with myself. There are things that I've desired, I get them. And then I realized, guess what? They really didn't satisfy. Or I get them and I use them for a little bit and then all of a sudden, they're in the closet or wherever it is. In fact, we ought to look at what we later give away and say, did I really even need that in the first place? And it brings about all sorts of hardships. It's more stuff to pick up, more stuff to clean, more stuff to insure, more stuff to care for. Let me put it like this, covetousness is like, when I was in IT and I did computer programming, you would build loops into your software that would run. But if you didn't put an exit, it would keep running. And when that program ran, it would just, you know that annoying circle that happens on your computer? That's what would happen. You're stuck in the loop. That's covetousness. You enter in, you think that what is set before you is going to satisfy, but you end up in a loop that continues spiraling downward. Or we might also put it like this. You get on the hamster wheel of covetousness. You're going to run and run and run and spin and spin and spin, but you're going nowhere. And so we cannot deal with covetousness by gratification. In fact, one commentator put it this way, gratification is not the path to satisfaction. Gratification is not the path to satisfaction. Now, we think that it should be, right? That's where we fool ourselves. It's not. Gratifying your desires is never going to lead to satisfaction. It may be temporarily satisfactory, but it will not ultimately be satisfactory. So what though leads us into covetousness? Because there's something behind. Now, you might say, well, what leads us into covetousness is a desire. Yes, that is true. But there are some desires that are good. What leads us into an inordinate desire? into a desire that leads to coveting. And here's how I would answer that. I think two things. The first thing is a lack of confidence in God to provide. We don't think God's going to provide what we need. Now it's interesting, earlier I read from 1 Timothy chapter 6. I didn't know if you catch this, but Paul says that there are two things in this life that we need to be content. Food and clothing. He doesn't say how much. To be content, you need your next meal and one pair of clothing. Too many clothes. In fact, a great system. This is not even in my notes. You're getting this for free. Take your clothes, turn them around, hang them around. Six months later, which hanger hasn't been touched? You don't need that. You're never wearing it. I'm not saying it's anything wrong. Don't go reduce your wardrobe to one thing. Don't go down to bread and water. But the reality is that we can be content with a lot less than we presently have. And yet we find the need for more than we presently have leading us into the temptation to be covetous people. And that's the warning, isn't it? It's easy to be led down this path. So it's a lack of confidence in God to provide, but it's also a lack of satisfaction with what God has already provided. You see, it's key here. Not only is covetousness than wanting something that we don't have, but it's not being satisfied with what we do have. It's the age old, I want a new toy, but you never play with the toys that you have. That's what covetous is. And really, maybe you've heard of, when we think of social media, maybe you've heard of FOMO, fear of missing out. I've gotta be online because I might miss something. I think that we ought to say, with regard to covetousness, there is a fear of going without. That's really what it is. We're afraid we're gonna go without something, and what does that say about God that says, God, you are going to allow us to go without something that we need? And He never will. And so, That will lead us to covetousness. We don't have confidence in God to provide. We don't have a satisfaction with what God has provided. But then what is the cure? And make no mistake, this covetousness is a disease that comes by nature into sinful man. It is not fully eradicated even after faith that we still struggle with the old man. We can live as Christians not being wholly given over to it. You know those passages that talk about those who cannot enter the kingdom of God, those who are wholly given over to covetousness, not those who fall into it periodically. But it's a struggle, and we need to know what God provides for us as a cure for covetousness. And the text says it here. Let your conduct, that is your way of life, be without covetousness. That's the negative, but here's the positive. Be content with such things as you have. Present tense. Such things as you presently have. Be content with them. Now this contentment is not something, I heard this from a teacher who was doing a great class on marriage and that I've taken some individuals through, but this teacher talking about contentment, he said, this doesn't come in the base package of Christianity. It's not like you become a Christian and all of a sudden you get an email with an attachment, open this up, here's your contentment. Paul says, I had to learn to be content. We just don't come out of the box as Christians, regenerated, and all of a sudden we're the most content people in the world. No, we have to learn to be content. Paul said that, Philippians 4.11, not that I speak in regard to need for I have learned in whatever state I am to be content. And what could Paul say? Right in the Corinthians he says, I am one as having nothing and yet possessing all things. Wow, as having nothing and yet he possesses all things. Now, we're going to get to how we get there. Because at this point you may be saying, all right, I understand that fulfilling my desires is not going to be the cure for coveting. I understand that it's something that needs to be learned. But I'm not with you, Paul. Having nothing, yet possessing everything? Seriously? That's what he says. And fulfilling those things with which we covet will never lead to contentment. So what will lead to contentment? And the text brings it out here. The text goes on in the rest of verse 5 and verse 6 to go to the Word of God and quote His promises. That is what's going to bring contentment. When we go to the Word of God and we see His promises made to us, His people. As one commentator put it, he said, the world's infection, speaking of covetousness, the world's infection will spread to us and our children if we do not use God's antiseptic. This antiseptic is exposing ourselves less to the world's mind, through media, and exposing ourselves more to God's mind, preached word, reading of scripture in good Christian books, and spiritually strengthening friendships. Accompanying everything with prayer. And let me say something to that. As he points out, we need to expose ourselves less to the world's mind. Now, I am not anti-technology, I am not anti-social media, but what I will tell you, as I reflected upon this, a lot of social media, a lot of things that are out there, even though they are not necessarily sinful, they are what I might call covetous producing factories. Because what are they showing you over and over again? Things you don't have that others have. And marketers are not stupid. And our kids are watching these over and over and over again. I'm not saying to you parents, go home, trash them all, and never let them watch another thing. But we've got to be diligent to educate our children that this is the world's messaging, that this will make you happy, that this will bring you contentment. But it will only lead in the opposite direction. It will lead to covetousness. It will lead to you getting on that hamster wheel and never finding any contentment. And so we have to be careful and I'm not just talking about our kids. Do you think that we as adults are susceptible to that? Absolutely. It's out there. So I want to look then if covetousness is that which will rob us of contentment and we cannot then resolve the temptation to covetousness by filling or feeding the beast. What do we do? And the second thing that I want to look at is to know that confidence will lead us toward contentment. And what is the confidence that we have? It's not a confidence in ourselves, it's a confidence in God. It's a confidence in what He promises us. We have a confidence that God will never leave us or forsake us. That's what the text says here. For He Himself, this is emphatic in the Greek. He Himself has said, God Himself has said. Remember back in Hebrews in chapter 6 verse 17 what we learned about God's faithfulness? It says, Thus God, determining to show more abundantly to the heirs of promise the immutability of His counsel, confirmed it by an oath. that by two immutable things in which it is impossible for God to lie, we might have strong consolation who have fled for refuge to lay hold of the hope set before us. God takes an oath and God cannot lie. And so in Hebrews 13 and verse 5 we see He Himself, this God who cannot lie, has said to you, I will never It's a strong word. Leave you nor forsake you. Now this is a quote, it could come from Deuteronomy 31 verse 6, it could also come from Genesis 28-15, but I think it probably comes from Joshua chapter 1 and verse 5. Because in Deuteronomy and Genesis we have others speaking this, but in Joshua chapter 1 and verse 5 we have God directly speaking it to Joshua. And of course the text says here, he himself said. And remember Joshua is getting ready to go out, he's going out against all of the enemies that they're going to face in the land of Canaan. He's leading God's people. And what does he hear from God? In verse 5 of chapter 1, he hears this, No man shall be able to stand before you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you. I will not leave you or forsake you. I will not leave you or forsake you. And the text here in the Greek is, in both of them, is a double negative. I will no not leave nor no not forsake you." That sounds weird in English. But I'm telling you there are five negatives in this one statement, I will never leave you nor forsake you. It is the strongest way possible to say this is an impossibility. There is no way as God that I will ever leave you or forsake you. And of course forsake here, Paul uses it in 2 Timothy 4.10 to speak of those who had forsaken him, who had left him. But here's the question that we need to answer. Why is it that God can make this promise? Why is it that God can promise to us that He will never leave us or forsake us? Because do we deserve this great blessing? Absolutely not. In fact, what we deserve is for Him to say, depart from me. Because we've already forsaken Him by our sin. But here's the beautiful truth. The reason that God makes this promise, I will never leave you nor forsake you, is because of what Jesus Christ cried out on the cross in Matthew 27. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Know that. God can promise that he will not forsake sinners because the one who knew no sin took the place of sinners. and cried out, God, why have you forsaken me? That's a powerful reality of the gospel. That's why we can take this sinners though we are with great assurance and say with Joshua and others, this is what God is saying to me because I am in Christ, because of what Christ has done, because Christ took my place and he was forsaken by God on that cross as he took my sin upon himself. God has said to me, I will never leave you nor forsake you. That's what God won't do. But we also have a confidence in what God will do. Verse 6 goes on, because we know God will never leave us nor forsake us, we see that we can respond and boldly say, and the Greek here can also be translated, we may with confidence say, that's where this confidence come in, we may with confidence say, the Lord is my helper. So what he won't do And will never do is leave us. But what He will always do is He will help us. As we read earlier from Psalm 118, this is a quote out of Psalm 118, verse 6. And as we think about this promise that God is our helper, we also ought to think about Psalm 23, 1. The Lord is my shepherd. But what comes after that? The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not You see how that's tied to contentment? Because the Lord is my shepherd who has promised, I will never leave you or forsake you, but I will help you, therefore I shall not want. And that's not saying I'm going to get everything I want, but it's saying that I'm going to be content with what I have. Because I have something beyond what I have in my hands. I have a shepherd who has me in his own hands. That's where true contentment comes from. True contentment doesn't come from what we possess, but from who possesses us. The reality that this is who God is, the one who will never leave us or forsake us, the one who has promised to help us in every way. And I think that the greatest consolation here, as we think about what God says, I'm not going to leave you and I'm always going to help you, is that we are not alone. We are not alone. We are never alone. God is always with us. And when we feel down, when we feel alone, the temptation is to deal with that by building up our self-worth with things. But that's contrary to what is being taught here. We don't have to build up our self-worth because our worth is found in who God says we are, not what we own, not what we do. I'd put it this way. We don't find security in what we own, but remembering who owns us. I will never leave you or forsake you. I will help you. And that gives us the confidence to go forth. Not only boldly saying, the Lord is my helper, but go forth in courage. I will not fear what can man do to me. You see, this confidence is that nothing can rob us of our position in Christ. It would be one thing to hear God say, I will never leave you nor forsake you. I will help you. Oh, but you've got to be worthy of it. Or, oh, but you may lose it. But here we see that God's word is so sure that we can say, I will not fear. What can man do to me? Jesus spoke of fear. Remember he said, do not fear those who kill the body? but cannot kill the soul, but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell." The idea here is that we, as those who God loves in Christ, as those to whom He has promised that He will never leave or forsake us, we do not fear His judgment, but we do reverence Him. But because we reverence Him, we do not fear man. And I think in the context here, the greatest thing that we can take from this statement, I will not fear what can man do to me, is this reality. Man may be able to do a lot to us, but the one thing that man cannot do is he cannot change God's plan for us. He cannot change God's plan for us. And there's a comparison here between God and man. What can man do to me is contrasted with what can't God do for me. I will help you. I can provide you with everything you need. It doesn't matter what man can do. Or to put it this way, there is nothing that man can do to us and there is nothing that God cannot do for us. And that's a great comfort. And that enables us to go forth, and again going back to verse 5, to let our conduct be without covetousness, to be content with the things that we have because guess what? We have the greatest treasure of all time. We have God Himself. And I think Paul sums this up well in Romans 8.31, if God is for us, who can be against us? That says it. What can man do? Absolutely nothing. So therefore, we don't have to run after all of these things. We can truly be content with what we have in the present moment. Now, what might a covetous person and a content person look like? What might this look like as it works its way out in our life? Well, I would say that a covetous person is one whose mind is not at peace. They're never fulfilled. A covetous person is one who complains about what they don't have. A covetous person is one who compares his or her life with the lives of others. And a covetous person is one who worries about future supply. But contrast that with one who has learned. Remember, we have to learn this. We're all in the school of contentment, we might put it that way. A content person is one whose mind is at peace, who has a gracious frame, who has learned to be joyful no matter the circumstances. A content person is one who doesn't complain about what he or she doesn't have, but is constantly focused on what he or she does have, particularly in Christ. A content person doesn't compare his or her life with the lives of others. And a content person is one who doesn't worry about future supply. They know that God, who promises never to leave them or forsake them, who promises to help them, cares for the sparrows, and He'll also care for them. And so we can live with great comfort and contentment. And this is really what I want to press upon you and encourage you to look to God, to take these promises and in Christ make them your own. God is saying to you, Christian, I will never leave you or forsake you. So you can boldly with confidence say, the Lord is my helper, I will not fear. What can man do to me? Take those words and maybe this week just meditate upon them. Memorize them. The Holy Spirit will bring them up at times when you need them. Because there are, as we talked about, remember I began with the three C's? Covetousness, contentment, and confidence. Covetousness and contentment, they're like those opposing magnets. They're not going to go together. They're not going to dwell in the heart of a person simultaneously at the same level. It's kind of like, you know, a seesaw. As covetousness goes down, contentment goes up. As contentment goes down, covetousness goes up. There's a reality that they will not coexist in the same heart. I've had one commentator put it this way. We think about covetousness and contentment. He said, covetousness is born of doubt. In other words, doubt that God will or has provided what I need. But contentment is the child of faith. Faith that God has promised and God will provide. And this is something we all need to hear because covetousness, let me put it this way, covetousness is bound up in the heart of a child by nature. And guess what? When it comes to this, we're all children. Don't think that you're beyond struggling with the temptation to covet. Don't think that you're one advertisement away Of thinking, that's what I need, and I'm not even going to pray and ask God if that's what he desires that I have. It's reality. It's an infection that seeps into the heart of man through the influence of the world that tells us to be happy, we need more stuff. But again, it puts us on the hamster wheel of covetousness. And to exit that when you get going fast, it's going to hurt a little bit. It's better not to get on it at all. So how do we fight it? How do we fight covetousness and growing contentment? Well, let me tell you, you don't fight it. You don't fight it by just simply fulfilling your desires. Covetousness will never be done away with by simply appeasing it. But you also don't fight covetousness by your own self-discipline or willpower. That's a losing battle. But here in Hebrews, chapter 13, verses 5 and 6, we see God's plan. God's plan is that when we are tempted to covet, that we remember our covenant-keeping God who said, I will never leave you or forsake you. We say with confidence, the Lord is my helper. I will not fear. Particularly, I will not fear going without what I think I need. For what can man do to me? And I can tell you this, when we are confident in God's provision, we will be content with our possessions, whether they be a lot or a little. Because we have God. Or to put it another way, when we are confident that God has us in His hands, and that no one can snatch us from His hands, we can be content no matter what we have in our own. And that's what I want to encourage you to do, is to look upon God and His promises. And to realize that you have everything, everything in Him. And realize then, maybe we can go back to what Paul says, as having nothing yet possessing all things. If you're a Christian, you can say that. I may have nothing, but I possess everything because I have Christ. Amen. Let us pray. Our God, teach us to be content. Guard our hearts from covetousness. Remind us of your promise to us, that you will never leave us or forsake us. Remind us of your help that you give us, that you will be there for us in every situation. Teach us not to fear man, but to fear you, our God. And we ask this in Jesus' name, amen.