Great Gain With Few Sorrows

00:02 Greet you this morning in the name of Jesus. Would you turn in your copies of the Scriptures to 1 Timothy 6? We're coming to near the end of our series in 1 Timothy, and I'd like to look at chapter 6 this morning, verses 1 through 10. I've titled the message, 00:22 "Great Gain with Few Sorrows." How many would like to have that as your life testimony? Amen? "Great Gain with Few Sorrows." And well, that's what this Scripture this morning will talk to us about. 00:37 Chapter 6, verse 1, "Let as many bondservants as are under the yoke count their own masters worthy of all honor, so that the name of God and His doctrine may not be blasphemed. 00:49 And those who have believing masters, let them not despise them because they are brethren, but rather serve them because they are benefited; those who are benefited are believers and beloved. Teach and exhort these things. If anyone teaches otherwise and does not consent to wholesome words, 01:10 even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which accords with godliness, he is proud, knowing nothing, but is obsessed with disputes and arguments over words from which come envy, strife, reviling, evil suspicions, 01:28 useless wranglings of men of corrupt minds and destitute of the truth, who suppose that godliness is a means of gain. From such withdraw yourself. Now godliness with contentment is great gain, for we brought nothing into this world, and we assert, 01:47 and it is certain, we can carry nothing out, having food and clothing with those we should be content. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and asnare, and into many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition. 02:05 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness and pierced themselves through with many sorrows." Hence you get the title of the message, "Great Gain," in verse 6, 02:25 and "Few Sorrows," contrasting the many sorrows of the greedy in verse 10. In his autobiography, Just As I Am, Billy Graham recalls the story demonstrating true greatness is not defined by wealth or fame, but by character and by godliness. 02:45 He tells a story about a vivid illustration of this in one of the islands of the Caribbean, and one of the wealthiest men in the world, and especially for sure in that region of the country, invited Billy and Ruth to come to his lavish home for lunch. 03:01 He was 75 years old, and throughout the entire meal he seemed to Billy and Ruth very close to tears. His testimony was, "I am the most miserable man in the world. Out there is my yacht. I can go anywhere I want to. I have my private plane, my helicopters. 03:22 I have everything I want to make my life happy, yet I am as miserable as hell." They talked, prayed with him, trying to point him to Christ who alone gives meaning to life. They went down the hill to a small cottage where they were staying, and that afternoon a local pastor visited them, 03:43 came to call. He was an Englishman, and he was also a widower who spent most of his time taking care of two invalid sisters. He was full of enthusiasm and love for Christ and for others. 03:58 "I don't have two pounds to my name," he said with a smile, "but I am the happiest man on the island," and had experienced what Scripture calls great gain without a lot of sorrows. Proverbs says that the blessing of the Lord didn't make us rich, and he addeth no sorrow with it. 04:17 Favorite verse of Sister Reader, who was a part of our church out in Oregon, the first church where I pastored, a little mission church, Sister Reader, whenever you'd ask for a testimony, Proverbs 10:22, "The blessing of the Lord didn't make us rich, and he addeth no sorrow." Well, if I had the key to success this morning, 04:37 I would be remiss if I didn't share that with you. And we do have the key, one of the keys, the dynamics of success here today. And I would be remiss, as the Apostle Paul would have been remiss, if we don't remind each other where great gain lies. 04:55 It's not whether our economic standing has little or much. In fact, the songwriter, we used to sing the song, "Little is Much When God is in It. Labor not for wealth or fame. There is a crown, and you can win it if you go in Jesus' name." So we know it's not about whether we have a little or much, 05:14 but it is godliness with contentment that is great gain. A contentment which is a feeling or a show of satisfaction with one's possessions, status, or situation. Now if I would ask you this morning, how many of you are content? Probably many of us would raise our hands. 05:34 I hope all of us would raise our hands. And there's a fine line between being content and being satisfied, between having no motivation to improve life and being satisfied with where we're at. But Scripture says that we should be content with godliness. Godliness with contentment being great gain. 05:56 I want to share with you this morning three levels of contentment, and then how to build contentment into our lives. Level one is found in verses one and two, contentment on the job. Contentment on the job. If I asked you this morning, how many of you are content with your job, your workplace? If you were a slave, 06:18 a bondservant, a little bit different than we have today, and you'd ask a bondservant, "How are you content on your job? Are you working to the best of your ability?" We don't know what kind of response we would get. But that's a very real, important part of this passage. The second level of contentment is contentment in the faith. 06:40 Contentment in the faith. And we'll talk here about, as Paul does in 1 Timothy, about some false teachers and false doctrines that had again reared their ugly head and needed to be dealt with. 06:53 And a season of discontent will lead a person into error, trying to find something to satisfy the soul rather than the Word of God, the truth of God's Word, and His relationship with God. And then third, there is a contentment with our possessions. 07:15 Contentment with our possessions. And how do we build that into our lives? So contentment on the job, verse one and two, he says, "I want you to, as bondservants under the yoke, count your own masters worthy of all honor." Now we would say today, 07:35 if you were under the yoke and if you were a bondservant, rebel. Rebel. Take matters in your own hand. You don't have to put up with this. Get out from under this situation. Do whatever you have to get free. But the Apostle Paul says to this people, "If you're under the yoke, 07:54 count your masters worthy of honor." And so that the name of God and His doctrine may not be blasphemed or slandered or spoken against. That God's Word would be honored, and that Christ's name would not be shamed or slandered. Now if you happen to have a believing master, that's good for you. 08:15 That's good for you. And don't despise them through a sense of familiarity because they're a brother in Christ. But also serve them because of the position that they hold, and because of what your servant will do to enable them to give and to benefit others. And so service is the name of the game, 08:36 and honor is its byproduct, or vice versa. And so one of the things that has perplexed people, and maybe even me a bit, is why did not Paul and the early apostles just preach to overturn the social order as it was with slavery in the Roman Empire? 08:57 Rather they taught their people to submit to their leaders and to their masters. Why would that be? It's so foreign from our mentality today that slavery has to be and must be abolished. 09:13 Well, I'm not here to promote slavery this morning, but maybe to give a little bit of an understanding of what was taking place in the culture. The Roman Empire was up to 20% of the population were slaves, were indentured servants, up to 20%. So if you had 50 million people, 09:32 that would be about 10% of 10 million slaves. And for the slavery to exist, there was also, as it is today, a lot of racial unrest, racial tension, hatred, anger, and class warfare, 09:52 just similar as it is today in relation to racial tensions. And this was deeply embedded in the Roman culture. Insomuch that if you were a fugitive, when you were caught, you would either be executed, or the possibility would be that you would have a brand placed on your forehead, 10:12 the equivalent to what we would call an F for fugitive. And so that evermore you would be labeled as a fugitive from justice and from your role in society. 10:25 And so when the Gospel was introduced into this culture, it was not introduced to overturn immediately all of the social institutions. And it would have shot itself in the foot, actually, because it would have turned the masters against the Gospel, 10:44 and even worse than what it was. And so it would have become a haven for runaways and would have fanned the flame of racial hatred and class warfare. And so ultimately, as Christianity became ingrained in the culture, it did overcome slavery, and that was a good thing. 11:05 But it did so in a way that was organic from the inside out, which leads us to believe Jesus did not come to impose a new social order on the culture. What He did was to come to save sinners and change people's lives from the inside out, and that then would bring forth a change of culture and a change of environment. 11:28 And so what we have today is people who want to press social and cultural change from external force. And one day that will happen when Jesus comes to set up His kingdom. That will be a different matter than. It will be imposed by King Jesus. 11:45 But in the meantime, the change that is to happen socially and economically and culturally is a change that happens as people's lives are changed. And so He says, "One of the ways you can tell whether a person's life has changed is that there's a new attitude toward the master, toward masters." And so He says, 12:06 "Do this so as you're not disrespectful to your masters, or in our setting today, your employers. And if you're working for an unbeliever, you certainly want to win him for Christ. 12:20 And if you're working for a believer, you want to make him as successful as you can so as to enable him to contribute to 12:32 the kingdom of God. Rather serve them because, verse two, those who are benefited are believers and beloved. Teach and exhort these things. 12:44 These are beloved brothers in the faith." And so treat each other with honor, as we've seen a theme through the last several chapters of the book of 1 Timothy. 12:56 So be content with your employment or even your social standing, and seek to serve Christ where you have been planted. If you're a master, serve Christ as a master. If you're a bondservant, serve Christ as a bondservant. 13:16 If you're a free man, serve Christ as a free man. And serve others and honor others. So then we see contentment in the faith, verses three through five. Contentment in the faith. "If anyone teaches otherwise and does not consent to wholesome words, 13:36 even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ into the doctrine which accords with godliness, he is proud." And so the word wholesome words mean healthy words or sound words. So He's giving us sound doctrine, sound words, healthy doctrine from the lips and heart of the Lord Jesus Christ, 13:56 and the doctrine which accords with godliness. In other words, this that He's teaching is consistent with godliness, and we will do well to represent God by being godly, to honoring the Word of God and doctrine, the teaching of the apostles that they have taught, 14:15 and not coming up with some newly discovered teaching to make a name for oneself. We have, for some reason, in some places, we get... I don't know. We should never get bored with the Gospel. But some people that are out there looking for something more, 14:37 because maybe the Gospel has never really taken root in their own lives and fascinated them with the Gospel of Jesus Christ, they're looking for some other newfangled teaching or doctrine. And so they get bored with the Gospel. They get bored with the Word of God. 14:58 And so they try to find something that nobody's ever seen before. Have you ever met somebody like that? "I'm going to find something in here that's never been seen before. Then I can maybe write a book, or I can make a lot of money, or I can gain a following so I can have a lot of people listening to me." Instead of just saying, "We're going to stick with the old-fashioned Gospel of Jesus Christ, 15:20 the Word of God, 15:21 and let that be our 'claim to fame' or our defining characteristic as a Christian." What happened in the early church, in the Greek culture, was there was wise men. They were considered wise by the people who would listen to them, and by themselves, by the way. 15:43 They were called sophists. And they would roam the country as itinerant speakers and philosophers. And they would tell stories and wise tales and teach on any subject that their crowd wanted to hear. They were wise men, wise speakers. And they were much in demand because you might learn something that you never knew before. 16:05 "Oh, this man is so smart. He's so wonderful and so intelligent." And so they would draw a crowd, and they would make it open that, "What do you want to hear today? What would you like to know?" And so then they would begin to take suggestions from the audience of what they wanted to hear spoken about. 16:23 And the goal of these speakers was to 16:30 teach people how to speak and to argue intelligently and to make good arguments. They were the equivalent of what we would call today a movie star, a celebrity. These were the first century, second century, third century celebrities. 16:50 They were the wise men. And some of them, if they were really popular, would draw thousands to their lectures. And their thirst was for praise, applause, and a large adoring crowd. And that's who he's, I think, addressing here in verses three through five, 17:11 tantalizing the ear, tickling the ears, giving people what they want to hear so that they can gain wealth and popularity. Now this inevitably would come into the church because the church, in the early church, was less formal. And oftentimes the church would have just the spontaneous, 17:33 if anybody had a word, you see this in 1 Corinthians chapter 12 and 14, if anybody has a word of wisdom, a word of knowledge, a testimony, a teaching, a song, a reading, whatever, the floor would be open for that, similar to maybe our testimony time, but even more broad than that and informal than that. 17:53 And so if someone had a word, they were free to give it, which opened the church wide open for these kind of characters to come into the church and promote their shenanigans and their wisdom, 18:08 and their false teachers to gain a platform and a certain celebrity status to spread their false teaching. And so Paul is addressing this when he says, "These people are proud when they speak against the apostles' teaching, and when they speak against the Word of God, or contrary to the Word of God. 18:28 They are proud, verse four, knowing nothing, but is obsessed with disputes, arguments over words from which come envy, strife, reviling, evil suspicions, useless wranglings of men of corrupt minds and destitute of the truth, and who suppose that godliness is a means of gain." These were not nice men, 18:49 even though they looked like they were extremely intelligent and smart. Paul gets to their heart when he says, "They're conceited," much different than what we had in our Sunday school lesson this morning of humility. These men were not humble. They were not trying to find out what the Bible says, what God says, what God's Word is, what God's will is. 19:12 They were promoting their own agenda. And that became obvious because of their morbid interest, one translation says, or an unhealthy craving for controversial questions. They were out to stir things up with disputes and quarrels and arguments and envy and strife and dissension and quarreling, 19:32 abusive language and slander and malicious talk, which created evil suspicions and constant friction in the church. They were depraved in mind and had been robbed of the truth and were totally, verse five, governed by temporal values, 19:52 the values of the world, the values of popularity and prosperity and wealth, thinking that godliness is a means to financial gain and measuring God's blessing strictly in terms of prosperity and wealth. Doesn't sound much different than much of Christianity today. 20:14 Amen? And so he says, "This is not to be. These men need to be exposed. They need to be identified for what they are. And they need to be... You need to withdraw yourself from them, from such withdraw yourself." Listen, if you hang around with false teachers, you're going to come to a position of embracing false teaching. 20:36 And that's the way it is. You hang around what you want to become. If you want to become rooted and grounded in the Word of God, you hang around those that are rooted and grounded in the Word of God. If you want to find something to tickle your ears, you find somebody that'll teach you what you want to hear and tickle your ears. 20:55 But what you listen to will be what you become unless you are very strong in knowing what the truth is and can then use that truth to identify the false things around us to expose them. But most of all, it's good to just focus on the truth. So he says, 21:14 "Godliness now with contentment is great gain. 21:18 Be content with the faith as it has been delivered to us by the apostles and in the Word of God." We don't need to have something that is new and newfangled and different and for the sake of being different. 21:37 And we live in a day and an age where people think they need to deconstruct their faith. I don't know if you've heard of that term or not, deconstructionism, where we're going to deconstruct our faith and get down to the bare bones of what the faith is, and then we'll reconstruct it in a new way. 21:57 Well, be very careful with that. The Bible never tells us to deconstruct so we can reconstruct. It says, "He that hears these sayings of mine is like and does them is like a man who built his house on a rock." He didn't deconstruct his house. He built his house on the rock. 22:17 And then the winds came and blew, and the rains pounded, and the house was saved. And it contrasted with those who thought they had a better way of doing construction and built on the sand. So these people, even today, ask how they can profit financially. 22:37 How can we gain more power and influence? How can we gain a following? How can I stir up trouble? Instead of striving after the character of godliness and striving to represent Christ in a godly way of godly character, it is all about them. 22:57 Now, I used to think that maybe what we have today in social media, where everybody has a platform and everybody has a podcast and everybody has a blog and a vlog and all kinds of things, maybe that was something different. But according to Barclay, as he outlines the culture of the day, 23:16 this was the social media thing that's been going on for a long time. It's just it wasn't happening digitally. It was happening face to face and infiltrating the church. From such withdraw yourself. 23:27 The man with the bad attitude should not be associated with, nor should the man who rejects sound doctrine, nor should the man who tries to stir up trouble by pitting people against each other in the local congregation. From such withdraw yourself. 23:49 May I remind you this morning that there are many things that money cannot buy. It cannot buy wisdom. It cannot buy understanding. It cannot buy knowledge. It cannot buy a virtuous wife. It cannot buy a good name. A good name is rather to be chosen than great riches. 24:09 A virtuous woman, her price is far above rubies. Who can find her? You have to go a long ways to buy a good wife. No, they're not for sale. They're not for sale even if you had rubies. The soul of a man is not for sale. And if we try to make merchandise out of souls, we will all lose. 24:31 For what shall a man profit if he gained the whole world and lose his own soul? There are spiritual realities such as that little pastor who didn't have two cents to rub together, two pennies, two pounds to his name. He was happy. He was serving God. 24:49 He had found the secret and the key to satisfaction in life, which is a relationship with Jesus Christ and a place to serve in the kingdom of God. So we have contentment with our jobs, contentment with our faith, and then we want to look at, lastly, contentment with our possessions. 25:10 Now, this gets a little bit closer to home, does it not? It's not hard for us. We can understand the thing about contentment with our jobs. It's a little different than slavery, but we can get a hold of that principle. By and large, we're content with our faith. But this is probably where we struggle more with this passage, 25:31 and that is contentment with our possessions. That's the P word, possessions. 25:40 So he says, "For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out." You do realize that, do we not? We didn't bring in... We didn't come with a wallet and a thousand dollars attached to our belly button. No. We came with nothing, 26:01 nothing, and maybe born into a family with nothing, like some of us when we were having our children. We had nothing, and they had nothing. And not only did they not bring us anything to help raise them, we didn't have anything to raise them with. But God provides. 26:21 God provides. God has provided. And the joy that a child brings when they come into a home and into a family is also great gain. And we welcome them, and we bless our children, love our children exceedingly. But we find out that we didn't come with anything. 26:40 And when we leave this world, we'll leave it all behind. Now, I did hear of a man one time who installed an ATM at his gravesite. This is a true story. 26:52 He installed an ATM at his gravesite so that his children would have to come to the grave to visit his grave to get their inheritance out in portions so that they'd come and get a little bit and then come back and get a little bit and come back and get a little bit. And that way, he'd get them to the grave to remember him rather than give him all in one some. Supposedly, that's a true story. 27:11 I heard it on the news one time. But he didn't take it with him. He just rearranged the place where his descendants would get it. Now, this being content with our possessions does not mean that we become lazy or complacent. It doesn't mean that I don't care about my surroundings and possessions. 27:30 It doesn't mean that I don't try to better myself. 27:33 But why would I want to better my stuff that I have if it's for the purpose of contributing to the kingdom of God rather than for personal pleasure and gain? 27:47 So he says, "Having food and clothing, with these we shall be content." We need to rejoice with others rather than envy others and be satisfied with the things that we have. Our focus is to be on the kingdom of God. 28:06 And our material possessions are means to contribute to the kingdom of God. Job said, "Naked I came from my mother's womb, and naked shall I return. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord." If God took it all away today, would we still be able to say, "Blessed be God?" It all belongs to Him anyway. 28:28 Hebrews 13, verse 5 is the basis for our contentment because he said, "Let each one of you conduct... Let your conduct be without covetousness." Covetousness being the opposite of contentment, obviously, covetousness, greed. "Be content with such things as you have, 28:49 for He Himself has said, 'I will never leave you nor forsake you.' Therefore, I will not fear what man can do unto me." So it is the abiding presence of God through His Holy Spirit, the person of Christ living, biting, 29:03 and resting within us and beside us and above us and beneath us and around us that is the basis of our contentment, the godly character that needs to be developed within us. What does he say about those who lack contentment? Verse 9, 29:23 "But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation." Now, it doesn't say the rich fall into temptation, but those who desire to be rich. In other words, their purpose in their sole purpose for existence is to make money and things and stuff. 29:43 "They fall into a temptation and a snare and to many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition." Wow, that's quite a warning, is it not? That's quite a warning. Some of the people in scripture, characters in scripture could have, should have heeded that warning. 30:04 Gehazi, Elijah's servant, Elijah, 30:10 yeah, Elijah's servant, he was tempted with this stuff. 30:16 And so was it a man that came down to wash in the Jordan River? 30:27 Naaman. 30:28 Naaman, yes. Naaman came, and he brought some clothes, and he brought a bunch of stuff for Elijah. And he said, "If you just heal my leprosy, then I'll give you all this stuff." And he said, "No, I don't want your stuff. I don't need your stuff." Well, Gehazi had a different idea. He thought they needed this stuff. 30:46 And so when Naaman was healed and went back home, on the way home, Gehazi decided, "I'm going to go get some stuff." And so he went back and concocted a story. So he lied to Naaman. He lied to himself, more lying when he got back when he lied to Elijah. 31:04 And Elijah then judged him with the leprosy that Naaman had to come on him and his descendants forever. It was greed and covetousness that was a snare to Gehazi's soul. Ahab, his lack of contentment was a snare to his soul. 31:23 The destruction of Naboth's life. "I want your vineyard. Give me your vineyard." "No, I don't want to give you my vineyard because it's part of my inheritance." And God says, "We're not supposed to give away our inheritance. Keep it in the family until the year... If you can't, then it comes back in the year of Jubilee." "So I don't want to give you... 31:43 I don't want to sell you my vineyard, Ahab." And so Ahab became complicit in Jezebel's scheme to have Naboth murdered, and then they could take his possessions. Greed, covetousness, a snare for his soul and drowned him in destruction and perdition. It brought calamity to his house. 32:05 He said, "I will take away your posterity. I will cut off every male descendant, and the dogs will eat whatever belongs to Ahab and dies in the city, and the birds will eat those who die in the field." How would you like to have that judgment placed on you and your family? Because of greed, covetousness, and a lack of contentment. 32:25 Laban and Jacob, their relationship was destroyed because of the lack of contentment, a lack of honesty, a lack of integrity. Laban changed Jacob's wages 10 times. Jacob told him, "You changed my wages 10 times. 32:39 You have not been honest with me because of your greed." Achan destroyed his family because of his greed in the midst of battle and disobedience to God's commands. 32:52 Judas, one of the greatest examples of getting a snare to your soul and being drowned in perdition and destruction and being pierced through with many sorrows, Judas took the everlasting destruction and damnation of his soul for 30 pieces of silver. 33:10 May we be reminded this morning that Paul says in another passage of scripture that covetousness is idolatry. And Jesus said, "You cannot serve God and Mammon." You can't do it. It cannot be done. So those who would be rich, they have a craving for riches. Verse 10, 33:29 "The love of money is a root of all kinds of evil." The love of money, the love of money, "for which some have strayed from the faith in their greediness and pierced themselves through with many sorrows." Remember what Proverbs 10:22, "The blessing of the Lord did make it rich, 33:48 and he addeth no sorrow." Well, these folks will fall into temptation, a snare, a trap, of senseless and foolish and harmful desires, ruin and destruction, of wandering from the truth, and of being pierced with many pangs, griefs, and pains, some of them eternal. 34:10 One of the most 34:13 devious and deceptive cultural movements that's happened today in the last 30, 35 years is the introduction of legalized gambling through the lottery, the lottery. It's called the curse of the lottery. There's a lady, a writer by the name of Leah Munsey. 34:34 I don't know anything about her, but she testifies this. Recalls one of the earliest moments of memory was her mother buying a lottery ticket at a supermarket. Her testimony was, "When I was young, my mother was always talking about the lotto. Around the kitchen table, she'd tell us what she'd do with the millions. 34:54 Buy a large farm with chickens. Fly us to Mexico. Solar panel the roof. The odds of winning the multi-state Powerball jackpot are 1 in 292 million. You have a greater chance of dying from a falling coconut, which is 1 in 250 million." Despite this, 35:15 she writes, "Americans spend $71.8 billion on lottery tickets in 2017. The bulk of this revenue was generated by the poorest of Americans, the poorest people. 35:28 It is an exploitation of the poor because it promotes a get-rich mentality, which many see as their greatest hope of getting out of poverty." And so they go deeper and deeper into poverty because of it. 35:42 According to a study conducted by Cornell University, the lottery is the most aggressively advertised in impoverished communities, particularly in minority and rural white neighborhoods. This exploitation leads to the desperation hypothesis. 36:00 Those in the direst of financial circumstances turn to the lottery as a Hail Mary strategy. It's going to throw it out there and hope it lands. It is a source of hope for those in despair. A 2019 survey found that 75% of lottery players believe that they will win. 36:20 A study also found that people who made less than $30,000 a year were more likely to pay to play the lottery for financial stability. 1 in 3 Americans with incomes below $25,000 believe that winning the lottery represents the most practical way for them to accumulate several hundred thousand dollars. 36:40 Then, in turn, only makes America's poorest even poorer. Munsey continues, "My mother estimates she spent $3,000 on lottery tickets in her lifetime." "You can't win if you don't play," she said. 36:56 But I tell her, "You can't win if you do play." The lottery did not ever and will not ever provide her with a ranch or solar panels or vacations. The beacon of false hope can be seen at the top of every California lottery ticket, a sun shining above the chosen numbers. It is golden, radiant, looming, and it is blinding. 37:20 I had a good friend of mine when the lottery started, became legal out in Oregon. By the way, this has happened just in the last 30, 40 years where legalized gambling has become normalized in our culture and accepted among Christians. 37:38 The moral vices of the past have become the 37:45 moral opportunities of the future, the promotion of the future. My friend walked into a little country market, and they had just started selling lottery tickets. And so the cashier asked him, "Mr. Underhill, would you like to buy a lottery ticket?" And he said, "I stopped. I looked her in the eye, and I said, 'Ma'am, 38:05 he who gambles and wins is a thief. And he who gambles and loses is a fool. I'm neither.'" Have a good day. I've never forgot that. I've never forgot that. 38:23 You rob from the poor in an attempt to get rich on the backs of the poor. And it also has the addictive quality where people become addicted to not only lottery, but to all other forms of legalized gambling. 38:43 Another writer says, "The Powerball lotto is a legalized multi-state form of gambling in the United States and pays the most enormous jackpots to very few who purchase winning tickets." Jack Whitaker won $315 million in 2002. Whitaker had plenty of money before the win, 39:04 having built a $100 million equipment company from scratch. This is what happened to Whitaker. At first, things went well. He tithed on his winnings and was generous to a variety of charities. He reportedly gave a home, an automobile, and $40,000 in cash to a woman who sold him the ticket. Would you like to have that kind of things to give away? 39:24 Well, hold your horses. All his philanthropy, however, was not enough to curb Whitaker's destructive behavior. Within a few years, he had been robbed, involved in sex scandals, bounced checks at casinos, and named in several lawsuits. The worst was still to come. 39:42 He is reported to have given his teenage daughter a $4,000 a week allowance. Whitaker received his worst blow when the girl, perhaps the person he loved most in the world, was found dead from an apparent drug overdose. The cause of all his troubles was the Powerball curse, according to him. 40:04 Now, what is the antidote to greed? It's contentment. And how do you get contentment? 40:14 You get contentment by gratitude, gratitude, gratitude, which is a strong feeling of appreciation to someone or something for what that person has done to help you. An appreciation, a strong feeling of appreciation is what gratitude is. 40:34 I'm going to give you five in the time that remains here, five ways to build gratitude into your life. Number one, look for good. God is working good in the lives of His people. Amen. 40:53 We know that all things work together for good to them who love God, to them who are called according to His purpose, not to them who want to get rich and pierce themselves with the struggles and trials and Powerball curses of the greedy world around Him. But those who give their life to God's purposes, 41:13 we can look for good around us and find it every time, even when we're going through the midst of hard times. We are faced with a choice. Do we look for the negative, or do we look for the positive? Do we look for the blessing, or do we look for the oppression? 41:32 Now, it takes a conscious choice to say, when something is going wrong around us, to say, "I'm going to dwell on the good and not on the bad." But that is a choice that we make in our hearts and in our minds and with our eyes. What do we look for? 41:49 And I urge you to build appreciation into your life by looking for good. Number two, look for God in your circumstances. Look for God in your circumstances. 42:04 Second Thessalonians 1:11, "That God will fulfill all the good pleasure of His goodness and the work of faith with power. That the name of our Lord Jesus Christ may be glorified in you." Again, Romans 8:28, some translations translate that all things work together for good. Some translations say that we know that in all things, 42:25 God works for good. So what are we looking for? Are we looking for the negative? Are we looking for the positive? Are we looking for God, or are we looking for trouble? What is our focus? Number three, look for God for how God could use this test, 42:45 this lack, this need, this struggle. How would God want to use this? You've heard me say it before, not just what would God want to teach me, but what does God want to make me in the midst of my difficulties? 43:05 That which happens to me that I would be tempted to be ungrateful, to be complaining, to be oppressed, depressed. I can look to and say, "God, what do You want to do in my circumstances?" Number four, give thanks for what you have. 43:28 In everything, give thanks, the scripture says, in everything. In the midst of death, in the midst of disease, in the midst of disaster, in the midst of economic downturns, in the midst of persecution, in the midst of you fill in the blank, 43:47 whatever you're going through, in everything, give thanks. Oh, give thanks unto the Lord, for He is good. Colossians 2:7 says, "We want to be rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving." And again, that is a choice. 44:09 It's a challenge, but it's a choice. Number five, bring your needs to God in prayer. Bring your needs to God in prayer. The Bible says, "Ask, and it shall be given to you. Seek, and you shall find. Knock, and the door shall be opened unto you." Matthew 5:6 says, "For your heavenly Father knows what you need before you ask. 44:32 He knows that you need all of these things." What things? Food, clothing, shelter, the basics. You may not have two pennies to rub together, but you got a place in God's family. You got a place in the kingdom. You got a place to serve. You've got a God who is good, and you've got opportunities around you to be a blessing. 44:52 You won't be a blessing with a bad attitude. Number six, express appreciation to others for the way that they serve. Oh, what would it be like if we would express appreciation to someone else who has served us or who has served others? 45:13 Philippians 1:3, "I thank my God upon every remembrance of you. But I rejoiced in the Lord greatly that now, at last, your care for me has flourished again." He recognized that the Philippian church had blessed him in so many ways and that they were blessing others, 45:32 and he wanted to bless them by remembering them in prayer. And every time that they were brought to mind, there was this warm place in Paul's heart for the Philippians, and he expressed appreciation to them for it. Oh, gratefulness, friends, gratefulness will take us a long, long way towards contentment. I close with this. 45:52 There was a man by the name of Jeffy Froe. He did as a school psychologist, and this is what he found as he looked in young people at the benefits of gratefulness. By the way, I was just doing a little reading the other day about the thing of boredom. 46:14 There was ever one thing I hated to hear my kids say is, "I'm bored. 46:19 I'm bored." We hear it all the time. "I'm bored." How can you be bored when there's so much stuff to do? Well, there are a lot of reasons for boredom, but one of the reasons for boredom is there's too much opportunity. 46:35 There's too much stuff to be had, and there's too little appreciation for what we do have. Boredom, you realize, when you do it, look at the studies, boredom is an American Western problem. People that are in other cultures, third world countries, don't talk about being bored, 46:55 and they have much less stuff to occupy their time than what we do. Well, how about trying being grateful, being grateful instead of being bored? And this is what he found. We found that grateful young adolescents, ages 11 to 13, compared to their less grateful counterparts, 47:17 are happier, more optimistic, have better social support from friends and family, are more satisfied with their school, family, community, friends, and themselves, and give more emotional support to others. They're also physically healthier and report fewer physical symptoms such as headaches, 47:39 stomach aches, and runny noses. Gratefulness, contentment. Oh, isn't that what the scripture said? Then you add godliness onto that. Godliness with contentment is great gain and few sorrows. Then he said, "We found that grateful teens, ages 14 to 19, compared to the less grateful teens, 47:59 are more satisfied with their lives, use their strengths to better their community, are more engaged in their schoolwork and hobbies, have higher grades, and are less envious, depressed, and materialistic." Even the pagans get that right. How much more we, 48:18 as Christians, should take these words to heart today, that godliness with contentment is great gain. 48:29 But he who would be rich, there's a lot of sorrows that await you on that road. Let's pray. Lord, thank You for this reminder this morning, reminder to me that the key to joy and satisfaction, a key, 48:50 is gratefulness, contentment. Looking beyond our negative experiences and feelings to that which is lovely, beautiful, truthful, honest, just, to see God at work in our surroundings, 49:10 even in times of pain and sorrow. God is at work. We are grateful, and we want to express that to You this morning and to one another. Lord, would You build us in this area of life. Lord, if You see greed in us, 49:29 Lord, would You point that out to us so that we can repent of it and that we can be forgiven and be a generous people? And we'll give You the glory and thanks in Jesus' name. Amen.