THE TWENTY-FIRST SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST
CONTENTMENT Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ! Amen! Toward the end of today’s Old Testament, God says that it would be a good thing for you to “accept [your] lot and rejoice in [your] toil.” Stated another way, God wants you to rejoice and be glad about your hard labor “under the sun.” God also explains to you here that, when you accept your lot and rejoice in your hard labors, “this is the gift of God.” Dear Christian friends, 1. God is speaking to EVERYONE in today’s Old Testament, and not merely to employers or employees. Many Christians go off to work every day and work hard—toiling “under the sun”—in order to bring home money and support their families. If you are one of those people, God is certainly speaking to you when He says today, “rejoice in your toil.” Employed people are not the only people to whom God speaks in today’s Old Testament. God is speaking to EVERYBODY when He says, “rejoice in your toil.” For example, • Stay-at-home mothers often cringe when they are asked, “So, do you work or do you stay at home?” This sort of question suggests that stay-at-home moms do not actually work. Spend a day with one. Stick around all week, if you have the strength. God says to stay-at-home moms in today’s Old Testament, “rejoice in your toil.” • Many Christians are of age to be in the work force, and yet cannot enter the work force on account of their health. Weaknesses in the body, struggles in the mind, or other complications prevent a nine-to-five work day. It would be foolish for us to think that people with handicaps or disabilities do not work hard. People with such challenges actually must work harder every day than most other people, simply to get through the day. In today’s Old Testament, God says to people who have struggles in their bodies and their minds, “rejoice in your toil.” • Many young Christians likewise toil and labor in various ways. Some struggle with school; others struggle with a bad situation at home or school; most of them struggle to figure out who they are and where they belong. All of childhood—especially the teenage years, but all of childhood—could be thought of as the hard work and long toil of learning how to be an adult. God says to you children in today’s Old Testament, “rejoice in your toil.” • Retired Christians likewise feel the weight of “toil under the sun.” Many Christians retire from wage-earning, only to take more responsibilities in the extended family, the congregation, or the community. Many retirees feel like they work harder now than when they were in the work force. No matter what your age or your stage in life, you can probably agree that each passing birthday also requires a greater commitment to keeping your body from falling apart. God says even to retirees in today’s Old Testament, “rejoice in your toil.” 2. No matter who you are or where you are in life, God is speaking to you in today’s Old Testament. It would be very easy for you to become personally offended when God says to you, “accept [your] lot and rejoice in [your] toil.” It would be especially easy for you to take offense at God’s Words if you do not feel happy about your life, or if you do not enjoy the toil of your daily labors—however unpaid or underpaid those labors might be. When God says to you, “accept [your] lot and rejoice in [your] toil,” He is NOT being a domineering and demanding overlord who wants you to suffer in silence. Rather, God speaks these Words to you so that you will think of your place and situation in life as a good gift from Him. The Word for this is CONTENTMENT (Job 36:11, 1 Timothy 6:6). • God is fully aware of how hard you wage-earners need to work in order to put food on your table. God also knows that more money in your wallet is not the solution. Why? Because, as you heard in this Old Testament, “He who loves money will not be satisfied with money… When goods increase, they increase who eat them.” Stated another way, God knows that, if you double your income Monday, on Tuesday you will have every penny of it committed, and by Wednesday you will still feel like you do not have enough money. God promises you in His Scriptures that He opens His hand and satisfies the desire of every living thing (Psalm 145:16). God has sworn to you on an oath that you are worth way more than the birds of the air or the lilies of the field—and even Solomon was not clothed as beautifully as they (Matthew 6:29). Stated another way, “accept [your] lot and rejoice in [your] toil.” • God is not the least bit surprised that some of you struggle with afflictions of body and mind. God’s entire creation is so thoroughly drenched with sin that it only makes sense that we would feel the effects of sin in our bodies and our minds. God has created both your body and your mind; God knows every ache in your body and every shadow in your mind; God has lovingly and graciously allowed this cross to come upon you, so that you may follow Jesus. Jesus Himself has said to you, “Take up your cross and follow Me” (Mark 8:34). And again in today’s Old Testament, “Accept [your] lot and rejoice in [your] toil—this is the gift of God.” • Teenagers should not pretend that they are thirty years old. Retirees should not pretend that they are thirty years old. Forty-three-year-old pastors should not pretend that they are thirty years old. If God wanted to fill the world with thirty-somethings, He would speak and it would be so. God as not done that. God has given to each of us a lot and a place in life. For example, o God wants some Christians to be old women, so that they may teach younger women what it means to be a Christian good woman (Titus 2:3-5). The same can be said of old men, too. o God wants some Christians to have more money so that they will show love their neighbor, and God wants some Christians to have less money so that they will be loved by their neighbor (Luke 3:11). o “And what more shall I say?” (Hebrews 11:32). God wants adults to care for children, intervening for them and “bringing them up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord” (Ephesians 6:4); God wants young men to respect the old, honoring them in their old age (1 Peter 5:5); God wants employees to work hard for their employers (Ephesians 6:5-8) and pastors to lay down their lives for the sake of the sheep committed into their care (1 Peter 5:1-4; John 10:11). o Even beyond all that, God even wants Christians to feel various limitations of body and mind. God wants this so that His Christians will have no choice but to abandon the sin of self-confidence and to trust Him alone for every grace and good (2 Corinthians 12:7-9). God calls ALL us to be content with what we have and content with who we are. This is because God has lovingly created each of us to be who we are with what we have (Ephesians 2:10). “Accept [your] lot and rejoice in [your] toil,” says the Lord, “this is the gift of God.” 3. The Word for this is CONTENTMENT. Contentment is possible ONLY by the gift and miracle of our dear Lord Jesus, “who is God over all, forever praised!” (Romans 9:5 NIV). Your Lord Jesus Christ purchased and won contentment for you in His death and resurrection. What I mean is this: • Some people feel discontented because of the sins, the injuries, or the regrets of the past. Jesus Christ shed His blood and died on the cross, washing away all the sins, the injuries, and the regrets of your past! This is what the Lord Himself promises and says personally to you: For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His steadfast love toward those who fear Him; as far as the east is from the west, so far does He remove our transgressions from us (Psalm 1-3:11-12). • Again, some people feel discontent because of their fears and worries of the future. Jesus Christ rose from the dead! In so rising, your Lord Jesus secured for you an eternal future than can never be taken away from you. This, too, is what the Lord Himself promises and says to you: According to his great mercy, He has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in the last time (1 Peter 1:3-5). • For other people, neither the future nor the present causes their discontent, so much as their dislike for the here-and-now. Jesus also has powerful promises and great comforts also for you, so that you may likewise embrace and hold fast to His gift of contentment. From His Sermon on the Mount: “I tell you,” says Jesus, “do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all” (Matthew 6:25-32). Boil down all these divine Words and what do you have? Simply this, spoken lovingly to you by your God; spoken to you in mercy and in peace: “accept [your] lot and rejoice in [your] toil—this is the gift from God.” _______________________________________________ Sermons mailing list [email protected] http://cat41.org/mailman/listinfo/sermons
