Michael Templeton's sermon on 'Contentment in the Life of a Christian Woman' emphasizes the pursuit of contentment through faith, drawing on John Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress and 1 Timothy 6. The sermon contrasts Christian contentment, which is rooted in faith and trust in God's promises, with worldly contentment that ignores God. Templeton warns against covetousness, highlighting its potential to lead to eternal destruction. He suggests that contentment is a battle of faith, urging listeners to actively fight against covetousness by embracing God's promises and warnings found in scripture. The sermon calls for a deep engagement with the Word of God, advocating for its role in building faith and achieving contentment.

So I get the privilege to talk about contentment and Jason and I talked for a few minutes this morning, maybe two or three minutes. Not much at all, but As I listen to Jason preach, there's so much overlap in what you're going to hear me say. So much overlap that even, I'm focusing on answering a couple of questions. And the last question that I'm going to focus on is how do we pursue contentment? How do we foster it?

How do we build it? So hopefully the repetition will be really helpful for you. I want to begin my time tonight by recounting a portion of John Bunyan's Pilgrim's progress. And I want to pick up well into Christian's travels. He's on the King's Highway heading for the celestial city, having escaped the city of destruction.

I think a lot of you know this story well. He's with his good friend Hopeful and their feet are tired and sore. And before them off the king's highway is what's called a by-path meadow. And Christian leads hopeful off the path, convinces them to cross and go off the path. They run into vain confidence, and in vain confidence they watch him fall into a pit and perish and are tired and weary.

And you all know, most of you know who comes along when they fall asleep. Giant despair. Giant despair from doubting castle comes along and takes them prisoner and he repeatedly beats them. He repeatedly beats them and after the first couple of beatings he says, here's halter, here's knife, here's poison, just end your life. Otherwise I'm going to come back and give you another beating.

Hopeful his good friend, Christian's good friend, talks him out of ending his own life. Giant despair comes back and he's ticked. He's upset. He expected to come back and find both of them having picked their method of ending their life. So what does he do?

He beats them worse, almost to the point of death. He takes them out and he shows them bones, just trying to overwhelm them, fittingly, with despair, with discouragement. And it doesn't work. Let me end the introduction to my talk tonight by just reading the exchange between Giant Despair and his wife and then hopeful and Christian. I'm quoting here from the book.

And with that, Giant Despair's wife replied, I fear, said she, that they live in hopes that some will come to relieve them, or that they have picklocks about them, by the means of which they hope to escape. And, and sayest thou so, my dear, said the giant, I will therefore search them in the morning." Well, on Saturday, about midnight, Christian and hopeful began to pray. And they continued in prayer till almost break of day. And now little before it was day, good Christian as one half amazed, break out into this passionate speech. "'What a fool, ' quoth he, am I, "'thus to lie in a stinking dungeon "'when I may as well walk at liberty.

I have a key in my bosom called Promise, that will I am persuaded, open any lock in Doubting Castle, and then said, Hopeful, that is good News, good brother, pluck it out of thy bosom and try." And then Christian pulled it out of his bosom and began to try at the dungeon door, whose bolt as he turned the key gave back. And The door flew open with ease, and Christian and Hopeful both came out. And then he went to the outward door that leads into the castle yard, and with his key opened that door also. And after he went to the iron gate, for that must be opened too, but that lock went desperately hard, yet the key did open it. They then thrust open the gate to make their escape with speed, But that gate, as it opened, made such a creaking that it waked giant despair, who hastily, rising to pursue his prisoners, felt his limbs to fail, for his fits took him again, so that he could by no means go after them.

And then they went on and came to the King's Highway, and so were safe, because they were out of his jurisdiction. Were out of his jurisdiction. There is no other escape than the endurance of hope and the key called promise. Listen again to Christian, What a fool, quote he am I, Thus to lie in a stinking dungeon When I may as well walk at liberty. I have a key in my bosom called promise, that will I am persuaded open any lock in Doubting Castle.

Discontentment is like lying in a stinking dungeon. For the child of God, you we were created to walk at liberty, and the key to get out of the stinking dungeon is taking hold of the promises of God in His word by faith. We're gonna be looking tonight, we're gonna be looking at 1 Timothy chapter six, and the whole premise of what I wanna encourage you to, What a privilege to be here and to speak to my daughters, to speak to brothers that I love, to speak to other young ladies that that as a as a brother as as a uncle of sorts my love grows for so many of you what a privilege it is for me that to look you in the eyes and tell you to hope in the promises of God. Don't lie in the stinking dungeon of discontentment, but to hope in God and His promises. Before we read 1 Timothy 6, let's pray.

Oh Lord God, I want the power of your Spirit to come and to help us. Help me to preach, help my brothers and sisters and some that are on the outside looking in. Oh may the Spirit blow in our midst. Oh, may the beauty of Jesus Christ be so enticing tonight that some are born again. And I pray, Father, that some that are discouraged, some that are struggling with the path that they're being called to, O Lord, I pray that great hope and contentment would undergird them tonight.

That they would be renewed by hearing the Word of God. Lord please come, I pray for your help now, in Jesus' name, Amen. First Timothy chapter 6, starting in verse 6, Now godliness with contentment is great gain, For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and clothing with these we shall be content. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition.

For the love of money is a rude of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness and pierced themselves through with many sorrows. But you, O man of God, flee these things and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, gentleness." Verse 12, fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life to which you were also called and have confessed the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. I want to start, there are three sections of how I'm going to approach this tonight. The first one is just to do a general kind of flyover of verses 6 through 12. I have no intentions of trying to work verse by verse through verses 6 through 12.

I want to do a flyover and kind of spring off of the thoughts in verses 6 through 12 to answer two questions. The first question is to define, just like Jason did, Christian contentment. I'll probably drop Christian just like he did, but know that contentment, like He defined hope, he gave you some examples, you know, contentment in the eyes of the world is, you know, lathered up on the beach or sitting in the mountains. It's fine and dandy, but the difference between the world's ideal of contentment in the Christians is couldn't be different. The world's ideal of contentment has absolutely nothing to do with God.

And our idea of contentment has no meaning without God. So even though I don't keep saying Christian contentment, that's what I am assuming just to put that out there. The second question that we'll end with is to how to pursue this. I want to end probably not giving you four practical ones, probably just one summary practical one, which is actually one of Jason's four. Again, I told you some repetition will be present tonight.

So back to just doing a general flyover of 1 Timothy chapter 6, 6-12. In these verses, Paul is teaching us that there is great gain in godliness with contentment. He starts out in verses 7-8 from a practical standpoint. He starts out in 7 through 8 basically saying, you can't take it with you. You came into the world, how did you come into the world?

As a baby and naked, with nothing. And when you leave the world, you're not going to take anything with you either. Paul starts out by, it just practically makes no sense. Makes no sense for you to live your life not content with just the bare necessities. Because if you live your life pursuing contentment in things other than the bare necessities, you're going to leave it all behind.

You've just wasted your life. So he starts out really, really practical. And what does he tell us is his list of things that we should be content with in verse 8. What are they? There are two things there.

Food and clothing. Food and clothing. His list of what we should be content with is pretty minimalistic. Food and clothing. This is a total side note.

Well, not total, but it's a side note. Is everything beyond food and clothing extra for you? We'd probably want to throw in shelter. It's nice to have a roof over our heads, but is, but is every, let's add shelter in your mind and your heart is being fed, being clothed, and having a roof over your head, is everything over and beyond that just extra? Or have you become in our cushy, super wealthy society to think that about 50 other things are necessities for you?

I know your dad's in the room like feast and famine sometimes, we know and we get push backs. We feel that. So dads, be mindful. Be mindful of the amount of good things that we give to our daughters. We want to bless you and give you lots of good things, But with Paul, is food and clothing, is that your necessities, or have you piled on a bunch of other things to that?

Again, that's just a comment on that. He then gets deadly serious in talking about coveting. I can't talk about contentment tonight without talking about coveting. He gets deadly serious and he says that coveting can lead you and I to destruction and perdition. And this is so much more than just wreck your life.

This is so much more than just mess up your job. Maybe you get really greedy and you do some underhanded thing at work and you get fired. This is eternal destruction and perdition. If you girls, brothers, If we get eat up with coveting other things as the pattern of our lives and we die that way, we will go to hell. It's antithetical for the Christian to be consumed with a life of coveting and wanting and just lusting after more things.

The Bible's full of warnings to professors of religion. Hebrews 12, 14 talks about a holiness without which we will not see the Lord. Matthew 7, 23, Jesus' terrifying words to people that come to Him as if they're His. And what does Jesus say to them? Depart from me, I never knew you.

Matthew 24, 14, tells us who will be saved, those that endure to the end. And lastly, Romans 8, 13, if you live according to the flesh, you will die. I don't care how much you read your Bible, how much time you spend at church, I don't care who your parents are, I don't care if your dad is a deacon or an elder. If the Bible teaches us in 1 Timothy 6 that if you lead a life full of coveting and lusting after other things. That being the general pattern of your life, that it will lead you astray, that it will drown you in destruction and perdition.

Paul again, and just kind of giving a general flyover of 6 through 12 in teaching us about contentment We we can't help as I just said to consider covetousness Covetousness let me define covetousness to you Covetousness is desiring other things so that my contentment in God diminishes. Let me say that again. Covetousness is desiring other things so that my contentment in God diminishes. A loss of contentment in God with a corresponding increase in desire for other things. And some of the younger ladies around, older, seesaw, think of a seesaw.

Like we can't talk about contentment in God without talking about covetousness. Because as your contentment in God increases, your covetousness, your wanting and lusting after other things other than God decreases. Lastly, in verses 6-12, looking at verse 11, Paul tells us to flee these things. There in verse 11, but you, O man of God, flee these things and pursue righteousness. And he lists out some other characteristics.

Leaving it there would leave us constantly on the run. Is that the answer to pursuing contentment? When we see the things of the world out in front of us and we feel the pull, We feel them like the sirens, like calling, come over here and find your pleasure in these things. Is the answer to stick our fingers in our ears and just, I mean, I'm thinking that's, I think that's a scene in Pilgrim's Progress as well, but sometimes it may be appropriate. Like I tell my sons, I tell my older son, not necessarily JJ, in certain situations, go around and run the other way, son, flee.

Paul tells us here to flee these things, but he doesn't leave us running as we seek contentment. He hones in on the good fight of faith in verse 12. In verse 12 he says, fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life. And put to death, I'm not reading the text now, I'm just saying, when we fight the good fight of faith, we lay hold on eternal life and put to death the beast of covetousness. If you've talked to me much at all, you know I really enjoy listening to John Piper's preaching.

So big disclaimer here, like I have benefited tremendously from a lot of the visual ways that he talks about attacking sin. And he talks about attacking this sin of covetousness, like this lion. He talks about lust that way as well that it's it's really helpful for me it may be terribly distracting to you if it is forgive me but if it's helpful for you then join me in thinking about as we talk about being content of picturing covetousness, like personifying it as this lion that is out to eat your lunch and to destroy you. So let's move on. Well before we move on, just to summarize 6 through 12, if you collapse them, Let me say that the summation of it is, don't be covetous, but fight for faith.

Don't be covetous, but fight for faith. Have you ever thought about contentment as a battle of faith? I never have until I studied for this. I've never thought of being content as a battle that I'm going to win by fighting for faith. Often, I'll compartmentalize the idea of faith something in regards to justification, But I've never thought about it in this way.

It's been so, so helpful to think about being content as a fight of faith. The battle against covetousness is a battle against unbelief. So what is Christian contentment? Christian contentment, I want to say say Christian contentment in God is faith in God, is trusting God, is laying hold on God and the promises of His Word in all that Jesus is for us. Christian contentment is contentment in God as faith.

We see this in our text in 1 Timothy 6. We also see it in the Gospel of John. Let's turn to John chapter 6. John chapter 6, Just looking over the chapter, what happens? What happens at the beginning of chapter 6?

Jesus feeds a bunch of people, 5, 000. He walks on the sea And then the people come looking for him, and what does Jesus say to them? Why are they following Jesus? It doesn't say that, I don't think it says that they're explicitly following Him for that reason, but Jesus answers them and says, I know why you're following me, because I gave you bread, and it filled your belly. And what does he say to them?

He says, don't labor. Don't labor for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life. I'm in verse 27. Which the Son of Man will give you because God the Father has set his seal on him. But jump down to verse 35.

In the context of trying to define what is Christian contentment, and I'm arguing that contentment is faith, is trusting God. You say it. I believe you you don't do it You tell me you tell me that this is the right thing for me to do I'm gonna trust you and I'm gonna believe it. I'm gonna do it you You tell me that you'll give me exactly what I need, I'm going to believe you and I'm going to trust you that you're giving me exactly what I need. So in the context of defining Christian contentment as faith, Look at verse 35.

I look at verse 35 as another place to support this ideal, to support the ideal that Believing in Jesus, faith in Jesus Christ leads to contentment. Listen here in verse 35, and Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life. He who comes to me shall never hunger, and he who believes in me shall never thirst." Do you hear the last part of that verse? He who believes in me shall never thirst. Has anyone ever drank even the best soda, Jason?

Has anyone ever drank anything, girls? Young ladies, mercy, Have you ever drank anything that satisfied your thirst forever? And you've never been thirsty since then? Have you? Izzy, Have you done that?

No. What Jesus is telling you, if you believe in me, you won't ever thirst again. The Lord Jesus Christ tells you ladies, tells us brothers, that if we believe in Him, the thirst of our hearts will be satisfied. That's why I'm arguing That faith and contentment, contentment is faith. It's a fight of faith to be content, ladies and brothers.

Faith is an experience of contentment in all that Jesus is for me. It is an experience of heart satisfaction in all that Jesus is for me. This is the exact opposite of coveting. See, think of coveting in comparison to verse 35. Jesus telling us, if you believe in me, you will never thirst.

And then think of coveting as that lion slobbering and just salivating like this beast that's been let out and escaped that hasn't ate for days. Again, I like that visual picture of that, of covetousness being like that. And then the comparison is contentment and satisfaction and I won't ever be hungry or thirsty again if I go to God in Christ in faith. So the next question that I want to try to help answer is if if contentment is a is a fight of faith how do we fight? How do we How do we pursue contentment?

Sisters, brothers, fathers, daughters, contentment has to be actively pursued. You're not going to lock yourself up in your room and find contentment. You may actually do what he says. If you go lock yourself in your room and you get down on your knees and you grab hold of God and cry out for him to help you to trust him, to help you to trust him in his word. It's an active fight.

And I want to tell you tonight that the fight is the fight of faith. How do we pursue contentment is the question. You can pursue it. You can, I may have convinced you that that's the necessary pursuit of your life ladies but don't mess up and and pursue this by anything other than faith you can pursue it by works how do you how do you pursue contentment by works And when I'm when I'm thinking now right in this context of talking about contentment I'm thinking of morality, of holiness, of living, trying to live a life where you find satisfaction and meaning Not just this debauched life, but this the satisfaction and meaning even even thinking of this more morality the the pursuit of contentment or or righteous living unempowered by faith in the liberating, all satisfying promises of God, you can't pursue it without faith? There's a lot of pagan moral people in the world that God gets no glory.

What I'm trying to get at is you've got to find the connection between contentment and faith in God. God is only glorified when he is trusted. Pursuing contentment, I keep saying this phrase over and over again and the Sometimes discouraging reality of teaching is, you're probably going to forget most of what I say to you tonight. But I want to say a few things over and over and over again so that I increase my chances of you not forgetting those things. But contentment is a fight of faith.

If contentment at its essence is a faith and trust in all that Jesus is for us, where do we find this? If I'm telling you, ladies, in order for you to find contentment, you've got to find faith. Where do you find this? Where do you find this? How many times have you read or heard the Ephesians chapter two?

You're not going to muster this up. You're not going to muster up faith. You're not going to find it in a corner. You're not going to dig down deep and pull it up. Faith, first and foremost, faith is a gift of God.

And even the ongoing increase of your faith, girls, is a gift of God. Even after you're justified by faith, you're not going to muster up and earn an additional helping of it. God has to graciously give it to you, but don't forget that faith, more than anything, magnifies God. God is ready to back up the dump truck on you and unload faith on you. But where are you going to find it?

What does the Bible say? Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God. Faith, Romans 10-17 says, Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God. So my answer to the question of how do you pursue contentment, it's by faith You lay hold of the warnings and the promises of God in His Word for you. Let me say that again.

How do we pursue contentment? You by faith lay hold of the promises and the warnings of God that you're primarily going to find in His holy Word. And I answer that, you lay hold of by faith, because you heard what Jason said earlier. Like, I know people, close, close people. And they read the Bible, They read the Bible every day.

And I look at his life and I'm... There's nothing there. So don't hear me encourage you to go read the Bible and think that's the solution. As we've said to you, you can read it really unprofitably. But as you read it, like earnestly read it.

Earnestly stop, like Jason said, and pray and ask, Oh, oh, make this real to me, God. Make this true in my life. Like have you ever read the Bible that way? What encouragement I want to give you girls, so many of you girls, every Sunday you listen to fantastic preaching. You listen to fantastic teaching at home, many days of the week.

Some of you probably have personal devotions. Like, are you milking those for every ounce that you can get out of them? Or on Sunday mornings, do you come in, like Jason said, chewing your gum and taking your hat off, or just light and flip it? Like, Are you earnestly coming into situations where you're hearing the Word of God and going hard after having your faith built? This is where you're going to have your faith built.

This is where you're going to have your faith built. This is where you're going to find contentment. I mentioned laying hold of the promises and the warnings. The battle for contentment is being aware and believing the warnings that God puts forward to us of Covetousness. Luke 12, 15, just to cover some of those, Jesus says, take heed and beware of covetousness for one's life does not consist in the abundance of the things that he possesses.

The parables of the soils. The parable of the soils, You guys know this one really well, don't you? Jesus tells the parable and the sower goes out and throws the seed And one of them is the rocky ground, the other one it references thorns. What do those thorns represent? Cares of the world, Delight enriches the desire for other things.

Right now, this very minute, as you're hearing the word of God preached, Satan is coming after you. He is coming after you saying, did you see that cheesecake that they brought in? Or, man, I want a cup of coffee. Or, I'm really tired. And we all feel these things.

This is not whack you over the head, shame on you for thinking about those things, but we've got to realize that this fight of faith, this pursuing contentment, you won't find it if you're lazy. You've got to actively fight this fight of faith. And every time you hear the Word of God, you have got to just help me, help me to get everything I can out of this. I want to end on talking about the promises. I mentioned that that How do we pursue contentment?

We by faith lay hold of the promises and take to heart the warnings that are in the Word of God. As I prepared for this, I think it was maybe Tuesday night or Wednesday night. This doesn't happen that often. It may be an indictment upon my own soul. But it was late And I was meditating and thinking on this, and I went to Psalm 119.

Psalm 119. And I'm going to read part of that. And then I went to Psalm 46 and And then I found myself Going off and finding Psalm 46 set to some music and and and it was Glorious I felt like I felt so Emboldened like like I could take on anybody. That's the way I felt. Psalm 46, Wait till we read that one.

That's what I'm talking about. Where are you going to build your faith in this God ladies? Where are you going to build your confidence? You go to places like Psalm 46 and you Read about a God that makes the mountains melt. And He fills your heart with fire.

And you're ready to take on the world. And that may mean you're ready to wake up the next day and deal with eight kids that feel like every second it's a diaper, it's an argument, it's a spanking. I don't want to just stay in the clouds. I was looking in the eyes of my girls eating pizza before tonight. And I was looking in your eyes.

And I was like, what am I going to put into you that's going to allow you mercy to to find Contentment to fight it Because we know how hard the devil comes after us in our own sin Brothers we have got I was I was so convicted as I thought about preparing for tonight. What a great opportunity I get to teach my daughters. I've got to do more. I've got to I've got to pour the Word of God into your life or or he's gonna have you for lunch. The devil is.

I know it's not on me. It's not on James. It's not on Jason or Josh or Gary or Brian or Taylor. It's Chris, it's Roy, it's like, I'm not saying like, feel this crushing weight. No, it's, we have the power of this God behind us.

But wow, go hard after pouring the Word of God into your daughters. This is their only hope. This is our only hope. Psalm 119, just as an example, I'm just about out of time. Psalm 119, I'm going to read verses 33 through 40.

And here's a practical application. Take your Bibles, girls. Take your Bibles and read your Bible like this. I'm not saying like I've got it down pat, but something like this. And you come to Psalm 119, it's already like a prayer.

It's already saying, teach me, oh Lord, teach me the way of your statutes and I shall keep it to the end. Give me understanding and I shall keep your law. And like Jason, pause, oh, help me. Teach me this, make this true in my own life, God. Not read Psalm 119 verses 33 through 45 and go to your Bible reading plan and check it off and move on to the next day.

That can be very unprofitable. Bible reading plans are great. It gives you exposure. I'm not just trashing that, but you've got to have both. Make me walk in the path of your commandments, for I delight in it." And verse 36, in particular application to contentment and covetousness, when that line of covetousness comes in grab hold of verse 36 like a sword Incline my heart to your testimonies and not to covetousness turn away my eyes from looking at worthless things and revive me in your way." And cut his head off.

I mean, like, get visceral with God's Word. Like, I know you ladies. I know there's battles there. I wrote down just some thoughts. This is a revelation I know for all of you.

I'm not a woman. I don't really, I'm learning to how to understand as I've lived with my wife, but we're guys like, we're different creatures. So often it's like, where are you all from? We're different. So I write these down.

I think there's things you struggle with. I've got enough girls in my house that I think I have a good un- Bane Beauty. How are you going to fight that one? I know you struggle with it. I won't pick on my girls right now because I love them too much.

But I know you ladies struggle with this. How do you attack that one? How do you attack that one? How do you attack jealousy? Look at what she has.

Look who she's with. Or she's married. She has this. What about strife? Anybody know what it's like?

Where does strife come from? Covetousness. Little girls, you see it really played out. Miriam wants what that one has and she goes over there. Like Jim's told me before, I don't know who it came from, but she'd rip your arm off if she could to get it.

Fear. Anxiety. Mothers with lots of children overwhelmed, how are you going to fight these things? How are you going to fight these things and find contentment in the midst of these things? And my encouragement to you tonight is that you will find it by fighting for faith.

You'll find it by fighting for faith and you find faith by laying hold of the promises of God in His Word and taking heed to the warnings in his word. Inherit to contentment is putting to death the lion of covetousness, fighting the fight of faith. Have the sword of the word of God, ladies, in your hands, head and heart. And when this lion of covetousness appears at the door, with his mouth drooling like a beast, starved who has not eaten for days, fight him by faith with the word of God. Take the promises of the word of God and cut his head off.

Like he will eat your lunch if you try to fight it with anything other than faith in the promises of God and His Word. Let's pray. Oh Lord, give these ladies, give my brothers, give me, oh God give us a love for your word like never before. Oh, may it be like food and water to us and and may it be food and water that causes us to find the thirst and the hungers of our hearts satisfied like never before. Help us, I pray, particularly for my brothers, that you will help my brothers hold forth the Word of God to their daughters.

I pray that they would first model and demonstrate a passionate love for the Word of God that's alive. Oh, and that God you would use this to cause these young ladies in our midst to be mighty pillars in our churches, in our communities, in our families. Oh, oh make our daughters content by faith in you. In Jesus name I pray, Amen.