Sunday Sermons
Wanting More
Long ago Paul noted, “But godliness actually is a means of great gain when accompanied by contentment” (1 Timothy 6:6). Mark Chamberlain wrote, “Have you discovered ugly truths that you never suspected? Has your perfect job turned dull and tedious? Is your dream house becoming just another place you have lived? Have you become disillusioned and concluded that enjoyment cannot live up to its promise? Have you come to believe that pleasure is unsustainable?” (Wanting More the Challenge of Enjoyment in the Age of Addiction p. x). Yet Paul said there is such a thing in this life as contentment, which is a sustainable joy or happiness. He also noted that such is great gain! Notice that the contentment mentioned in this verse is linked with godliness rather than with worldly possessions. “The Christian can be self-sufficient because his sufficiency is rooted and grounded in God’s all-sufficiency and rests with assurance upon God’s providential care. Such contentment naturally belongs to true godliness. Paul knows that man is only satisfied in God; and therefore devotion to God is the first condition of this true satisfaction, and contentedness with an earthly lot the second. Such godliness is a very different thing from the mercenary concept of false teachers” (Hiebert p. 112). “He is declaring that in contrast to the mercenary attitude of the false teachers, ‘godliness accompanied by contentment’ is greater riches than all the offerings collected by the false teachers. Paul himself had learned such contentment (Philippians 4:11-13). Godliness of the right kind, then, with no selfish thought of its being used as a steppingstone to wealth or worldly acclaim, but coupled with a pure conscience and peace of soul, will furnish satisfaction far beyond anything this world can offer. This is great gain” (Reese p. 273).
The adjusting nature of greed
“The truth is, we cannot simply enjoy life more by accruing more goods and goodies. Just as the float in a toilet tank rises with the water level to seal off incoming water and prevent overflow, our expectations seems to float upon our rising prosperity and shut down our pleasure with each step up we take. The long-term satisfaction levels of former lottery winners provide perhaps the most compelling demonstration that pleasure and enjoyment can fade despite even dramatic jumps in prosperity. Many people are surprised to learn that those who have changed from average wage-earners to millionaires in a day don’t rise to a new level of life enjoyment and then remain there perpetually. Instead, they are ecstatic initially, enjoy life more than usual for a few weeks, and then typically report a happiness level that has returned to whatever it was before their big win. An annoying and unfortunate side-effect accompanies their new enjoyment setpoint, however: Lottery winners typically give lower enjoyment ratings than the rest of us do to the mundane, day-to-day activities of life” (pp. 5-6). The Bible notes the same principle, “He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves abundance with its income” (Ecclesiastes 5:10). Did you notice the word “abundance”; man cannot be satisfied with an abundance of any earthly thing.
Too much honey
“Have you found honey? Eat only what you need, that you not have it in excess and vomit it” (Proverbs 25:16). “A parable of the fatal difference between healthy appetite and greed. Since Eden, man has wanted the last ounce of life, as though beyond God’s ‘enough’ lay ecstasy, not nausea” (Kidner p. 159). “Too much of anything, regardless of how good it is, can be revolting”(Alden p. 183). Yet the devil tries to convince us that “more” is always better. Sadly, how many people in the world can no longer enjoy the simple pleasures of life because they can’t be content with the wonderful blessings that God has already given them?
The intensity trap
“No matter how far we jack up the intensity, our appetite simply rises to just above whatever new level we have reached. Because of this, stimulation must be constantly increased to match our voracious appetites. This is the nature of the intensity trap, and it can escalate into what I have labeled ‘the cycle of addiction’. Even as we pursue and seek it, satisfaction eludes us because our needs expand at an even quicker rate. Appetite is forever exceeding stimulation’s expansion” (p. 23). “Sheol and Abaddon are never satisfied, nor are the eyes of men ever satisfied” (Proverbs 27:20). The grave or death is personified as having an appetite. Seemingly it always wants another live person dead. In like manner, the eyes of man are never satisfied. People constantly want to see new things (Ecclesiastes 1:8). “The comparison of restless eyes to the grave is probably intentionally sinister here; cemeteries are full of people who died still thinking wealth could bring them happiness” (Alden p. 193). Only in Jesus Christ, can the restlessness of man find any real satisfaction (Matthew 11:28-30; John 4:13-14; Philippians 4:11-13). The person who has given free reign to their lusts must come to terms with the reality of this verse. If you determine to search for happiness apart from God, you will never find it.
Overloading
“The body’s natural pleasure chemicals make everyday life interesting and enjoyable. However, this exquisite system is also a delicate one. It provides us the capacity to enjoy life, but its existence by no means guarantees that it will forever operate optimally. In fact, our enjoyment system operates on a ‘use it wisely or lost it’ basis, just as so many of our other capacities do. People who flood their pleasure systems with intense stimulation essentially overload the circuits, spoiling to some extent their future capacity to enjoy the more natural doses that result from what once were enjoyable activities. We pay a long-term, sometimes permanent price for immediate rewards that are artificially or improperly induced” (p. 23). Paul noted that greed brings with it temptation, snares and many foolish and harmful desires which plunge men into ruin and destruction (1 Timothy 6:9). Then he said, “For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil, and some by longing for it have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs” (1 Timothy 6:10). One of those griefs is we can become desensitized. We can expose ourselves to so much violence and gore by watching various movies that we no longer have any empathy when someone suffers. We can turn human sexuality into thrill-seeking where we can no longer appreciate human touch or a mere kiss. “Eventually, forget about ecstasy, the addicted individual can’t even feel normal without the excessive behavior or the drug. This is the paradoxical nature of the cycle of addiction: We add more and more stimulation only to find that it does less and less for us” (p. 25).
Callused and hard to please
“When we act as though the intensity or quality of stimulation is the key to enjoying life, we lock ourselves in a vicious cycle and become like dogs chasing our tails. Instead of more enjoyment, our tactic leads to less. Yesterday’s pin-up poster becomes today’s magazine ad, and today’s thrilling blockbuster becomes tomorrow’s yawner. Whenever an activity is pursued for the sheer thrill of it, it seems that in that very indulgence we lose some of our capacity to be thrilled, and even our capacity to enjoy generally. We become every more callused and hard to please” (pp. 26-27). Thus, Solomon marries wife number 700 and is still not happy (1 Kings 11:3; Ecclesiastes 2:11). “No matter how good we have it, we can quickly adjust to the status quo. It is easy for our feelings to shift from appreciation to contentment to complacency to entitlement. Then, once we reach entitlement, it’s not difficult to take that next step to actual resentment. We feel as if we don’t have enough. We want more. We deserve more. We need more, and we shouldn’t have to wait for it. These are the seductive lies appetite tells us” (p. 14). We see this graphically played out in the city of Sodom. The men in that city seemed to have all the pleasure they wanted but when they were challenged or told that two men were off limits all of a sudden they were filled with resentment and anger (Genesis 19:9). A modern paraphrase of Romans 1:26-27 reads as follows, “Refusing to know God, they soon didn’t know how to be human either—women didn’t know how to be women, men didn’t know how to be men. Sexually confused, they abused and defiled one another---all lust, no love” (The Message Bible).
The age of addiction
The Roman Empire was addicted to the blood-lust provided in the Roman arena, in fact, Cicero, a member of the Roman Senate, could see the direction his society was headed, “The daily spectacle of atrocious acts has stifled all feeling of pity in the hearts of men. When every hour we see or hear of an act of dreadful cruelty we lose all feeling of humanity. Crime no longer horrifies us. We smile at the enormities of our youth. We condone passion, when we should understand that the unrestrained emotions of men produce chaos. Once we were a nation of self-control, and had a reverence for life and justice. This is no longer true. We prefer our politicians, particularly if they swagger with youth and are accomplished jesters and liars. We love entertainment, even in law and government. Unless we reform our fate is terrible” (Caldwell, A Pillar of Iron, p. 322). Chamberlain observes, “Ultimately the Roman rulers could not support the habits they helped create. They could no longer put on a show that topped the last one, and the people were no longer content to settle for less. The system, depending upon ever-escalating intensity, collapsed in upon itself” (p. 32).
Modern applications
· We are seeing more and more violence and immorality on Television. Even commercials are becoming more and more graphic.
· There are more and more violent and graphic video games.
· We are witnessing a culture that is both bored and hardened. More marriages end in divorce due to boredom, more people say that their lives lack excitement, and more people complain about their work than perhaps ever before. It seems that everything is extreme these days.
Producers and entertainers often claim that they are pushing the envelope of acceptability from the motivation of artistic merit or as being a champion of free expression. The truth of the matter is that many of them are pushing the limits from the motivation of capturing ratings, making money, and staying on top. Sadly, many in the entertainment industry are all in a mad dash to reach the bottom.
Gratitude
In view of the above truths we need to be thankful that we have not been automatically given everything that we thought we could not live without. Self-control is so important because instead of keeping us from fun, it actually enables us to enjoy the simple pleasures of life. Next time you are tempted to opt for immediate sinful gratification remember that such a choice will only reduce your ability to enjoy the everyday blessings in this life. Being content with our blessings is far more priceless than the actual value of what we do possess. The real blessing is not the object, but the right attitude towards what we have.
