Hi, my name is Rick Bloodworth. This is Financial Friday, so we are going to be talking about a financial subject today, but it's going to be a little different than we normally do. Instead of trying to get into the nuts and bolts of finances and talk about specific numbers and specific strategies and things like that, what I want to look at this Friday is our attitude towards wealth, and I especially want to concentrate on one specific area. of contentment because I have found through the years that sometimes when I've had the most money and maybe even the most things that I had been hoping to get, I've been at my least content. And yet there have been other times where I've been kind of struggling to make ends meet, but I've been very content with what I have. And so I wanted to look at that today and try and figure out why it is that money does not necessarily equate to contentment And talk about the attitude that we need I believe we need, at least the attitude we can discover from the scriptures that we need that will really make the difference in life. And so, we're going to be talking about contentment today. If you were looking for something that was more specific strategies and things like that, you might be disappointed at first. First, but this really is one of the secrets to really being content. And I want to start in Hebrews chapter 13. It says in verse 5, it says, keep your life free from the love of money and be content with what you have. Well, think about that. Keep your life free from the love of money and be content with what you have. It's not saying you can't have money and it's can't, it's not even saying that you can't try and get more money. As a matter of fact, I believe one of the things that's certainly compatible with scripture is that we try and be excellent in everything that we do. But again, it's all in the context of stewardship and our service to God. And so if we're just trying to get rich for riches sake, or if we're trying to get wealthy so that we can kind of just take it easy and just do whatever we want to do That's more of a selfish perspective, isn't it? And God did not put us on this world to just lead a life of selfish pursuits to try and see what would make us happy. Solomon found that out. We've looked at this passage at different times before, but this is found in Ecclesiastes. Ecclesiastes is an interesting book because Solomon starts off by saying that everything is meaningless or everything is vanity. Well, why did he say that? He had been given by God more wisdom than any man had ever had who walked the face of the earth, with the exception of Jesus, who was also deity. He was also the son of God. But as far as mere mortals, Solomon had been given the gift of incredible wisdom more than any other person. He was also given a great deal of wealth. He was given peace during his kingdom, and so he didn't always have to worry about people coming at him from different sides. So he not only had the money, but he had the freedom to use it because he was not having to divide his attention on other things. And so in Ecclesiastes, he talks about all the different pursuits that he went after. He said he wanted to find out what was worthwhile for men to do while they lived this life. In Ecclesiastes chapter 2 he said this, in, in verse 7, I owned more herds and flocks than anyone in Jerusalem before me. I amassed silver and gold for myself, the treasure of kings and kings. Provinces. In verse 10, he says, I denied myself nothing. My eyes desired. I refused my heart. No pleasure. My heart took delight in all my work, and this was the reward for my labor. Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve, everything was meaningless. A chasing after the wind, nothing was gained. And then in verse 17 he says, so I hated life. Now think about that, especially from what we consider to be largely In the country that I live in, the American dream as being that idea of getting ahead to where you can get rich enough to where you can do anything you want. But that's not so much a dream at times as it is a nightmare. Have you ever watched closely those who have won the lottery who were not prepared to handle money. It seems like very often they immediately just go to on a wild spending spree and sometimes they can be very generous and they spend on their family and their friends. But typically what happens, especially if they've won a large amount of money, is they quit their job and they stop doing anything productive and they just start doing the things that they've always dreamed of or at least they start doing the things that they have dreamed would be wonderful to do that would make them happy and it's amazing how quickly these people can squander great vast sums of money and then end up broken and very often with some sort of an addiction that they're plagued with for the rest of their lives. And the reason is, is because they haven't learned the secret of being content. But they have learned what doesn't bring contentment, and that's great deals of money. And so, we talk a lot about financial principles on Fridays, and, and we need to, I believe, have a good understanding as far as how God wants us to handle our finances, so that we can be the best steward that we can of his resources. But by handling finances well, we often can enjoy certain types of pleasures, because we've been prudent in some things, we can enjoy others. But if we're just doing this, trying to get rich, For the sake of being rich instead of having some sort of a goal in mind of serving God to a greater extent, we're going to find out that that type of selfish pursuit turns out to be worthless. Or as Solomon said, it's going to lead to a meaningful, meaningless life to the point where you're eventually going to hate life. One of my favorite cartoons, matter of fact, probably my favorite cartoon was one called Calvin and Hobbes. It, it came out, I think, sometime in the 80s and extended into the 90s, and it was about a six year old boy who had a stuffed tiger. But when nobody else was around, he pretended that that stuffed tiger was real. So much so that, that sometimes when you're reading the comic strip, you couldn't figure out if he was really a pretend tiger or if he just waited to turn into a real tiger when everybody but Calvin was gone. But anyway, in this particular cartoon Calvin and Hobbes are watching and they see a falling star one night. And so Calvin asks him, if you could have anything you could wish for, what would it be? And Hobbes, the, the tiger says, if I could have anything I wanted, it would, I would wish for a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Well, Calvin, six year old Calvin, just comes unglued. A sandwich? He says, I would wish for a trillion billion dollars, or my own space shuttle, or my own continent. He said, what a dumb wish. And then in the next cartoon frame, you see the two of them sitting together, and Hobbes is munching very contentedly on a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, while Calvin is just sitting there with a little black cloud over him. And Hobbes says, I got what I wished for. Well, there's, there's something in this silly little cartoon as far as a truth that I believe we can learn how to be a little bit more content in life. And that's just to enjoy the simple pleasures of life. They don't have to cost a lot of money. As a matter of fact, they don't have to cost any money at all. You can enjoy a sunrise or a sunset. You can enjoy your family and your friends. You can enjoy. Just sitting down and reading the Bible and finding out great truths from that. There's all sorts of peaceful things that you can have during the day, little interludes that, that you can just sit quietly and enjoy a beautiful view or, or just sit and contemplate good things. You can learn to be content without spending a lot of money. You can be content even with a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, even while there'd be a lot of people that would turn their nose up at that and think they needed steak and shrimp and all the, all the rest of the things that go along with that. You see, when we talk about being truly wealthy, We're not talking about the physical things. We're talking about a mindset. I think there's been a lot made of the millionaire mindset through the years as far as them having a a type of a focus that, that allows them to go in pursuit of wealth and get that wealth. And that's fine if that's what you want to do, I suppose. But if you just want to do that for physical reasons, it's going to be pretty empty. Even wise men do that sometimes. Even the, the wisest among us will sometimes think that, that getting a lot of money set aside is the secret. to happiness, but, but it's not. Now you can be really poor and be miserable just because, just because of your your, your circumstances. I'm not suggesting that there is any virtue in being poor because being poor is going to bring certain struggles that will cause you maybe to not be as good of a steward to God as you could, if you weren't continually having to, to scrape and scratch just to get by. But if you're scraping and scratching just to get money, then that's the other end of the spectrum. That's not going to be something that will please you or God either. We want to enjoy what we have. We want to be prudent with what we have. That's one of the reasons why we talk about so many financial concepts, because I believe that, that if we can learn the right way to handle our finances and the, and the right way to handle the different assets that we do have, that this will allow us to be better in our service to God. And by, by doing so, I think there is a certain degree of contentment that comes with that. What was it that, that Paul said in Philippians? He had learned the secret to to contentment in all circumstances, whether he was well fed or hungry, whether he was rich or poor, whether he was free or in prison. And, and the secret was that he could do all things through Christ who strengthened him. contentment came from that peace of mind, knowing that if you seek the things of God, if you seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, that everything else you need will be provided to you, including the things that you can rightfully hope for that will bring you to God. the proper pleasures that God will allow us to enjoy. He didn't put us in a beautiful world with all sorts of varieties of, of everything from colors to, to flavors, to to, to different views. He, to, he didn't put us here just to, to, to not enjoy ourselves. He wouldn't have given us good things if he didn't want us to enjoy ourselves, but he wanted us to recognize these good things as being blessings that came from him. And, and if we keep that in mind, as we go through this life, then we can enjoy with great thanksgiving, the things that God has given us to enjoy, the things that are not sinful that are proper for us to enjoy. And we can learn to be content with what we have instead of always being discontented because we want just more and more and more. I do want to say there's nothing wrong with being wealthy. God certainly gave Solomon wealth. Solomon just misused it and that made him very discontent. On the other hand, he gave Abraham and Isaac and Jacob great wealth. And they learned to be content with that because they focused first upon God, and then they got to enjoy that wealth. So again, wealth is neutral. Wealth is something that can lead you closer to God if you have such a mindset, or it's something that can certainly lead you farther away from Him if your mindset is physical. But you and I can learn to be content with whatever situation we have. And once we do that, once we learn to enjoy life's simple pleasures, From just sitting down in the morning enjoying a sunrise with a cup of coffee or whatever your favorite beverage is, as long as it's not a sinful beverage, if you can learn to enjoy that, if you can learn, if you can learn to enjoy just sitting down and reading a bit from God's Word and thinking about how that can make your life better and how you can apply it to your life so that you can help make other people's lives better There's just all sorts of little moments that you can enjoy that will lead to great contentment. And sometimes that's just sitting down to a good peanut butter and jelly sandwich and appreciating the fact that God has given you so much variety in life and so many blessings that you can enjoy all sorts of things. Next Friday, I'm sure we'll start looking at the nuts and bolts of finances again, and we'll probably look at the different numbers of different things. But for this week, I just wanted to focus on the idea of being content, because when it comes down to it, the reason that we do try and handle our finances well is so that we can be better stewards and better servants of God, and that will lead to contentment. But just getting stuff for ourselves to be used for selfish purposes, well, that might lead to fleeting moments of pleasure. It did for Solomon. But in the long run, we're going to look back over the vast timeline of our life and we're going to realize that it was meaningless because we didn't learn to be content with things that were godly. Are you content with what you have? If you are, I believe this will move you on to bigger and better things in everything you do in life, including your finances. But until you learn to be content as a servant of God, it doesn't matter how much money you're going to get. You probably are going to be discontent in your life because your focus just isn't in the right place. But when it is correct, ah, it's a good life, a content life, a happy life, and then someday there'll be heaven. Well, that's it for today. I appreciate your watching, and I hope you'll come back next time, but until then, I pray that God will richly bless your efforts as you seek to serve him to the very best of your ability. Thanks for coming by.