If you live in America, there is a high probability that you struggle deeply in being found content with what you have, or what you look like, or what you own, or where you live, or even who you are married to.
In the United States you watch commercial after commercial of the next item, next diet, next hobby, or next program that is sure to change your life. You pass by store after store with thousands and thousands of items to buy. You hop onto Amazon with an even larger selection of items that can be delivered faster than you can say the word ‘purchased’. We have all seen those daily ads about the next workout app that will finally rid you of the 30 pounds you’ve gained during Covid. We have all seen the deodorant commercials that promise women at your doorstep as soon as you apply it. Or how about the beer commercials that make you believe you will have a wonderful time as soon as one is placed in your hand? You could think of a thousand more of these examples without my help.
We live in a society that promises happiness, joy, peace, and contentment pending that you purchase, spend, and consume the next product. And every single time you participate you experience a small amount of hope, followed by a shallow feeling of gratification, followed by a lack of fulfillment, followed by another pursuit in a new program or object. And around and around we go.
We all know the saying that “money can’t buy you happiness”, and many of us would give weight to that sentiment, but we believe the lie anyway. America is a pro in proliferating this lie. “Buy the bigger house!”, “Buy the new weight loss vitamins!”, “Buy the nicer car! You will be satisfied”. America has spent decades now, studying and analyzing the best ways to get people to be discontent with what they have.
But here is the problem. Man doesn’t need America’s help in feeling discontent, Man will end up here all on his own. Why? Because Man’s heart is naturally deceitful and greedy… all by itself. America is only a propagator of Man’s innate greed, which is the cause of discontentment. See what the wisest man of the old testament had to say of Man’s greed:
“Sheol and Abaddon are never satisfied, and never satisfied are the eyes of man.” Proverbs 27:20
The eyes of man, other wise known as ‘his desires’ are never satisfied. We are constantly craving, constantly searching, constantly wanting, constantly consuming, and yet we come up empty. Furthermore the same author writes:
“He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves abundance with its income. This too is vanity.” Ecclesiastes 5:10
Man has always and will always have an insatiable hunger for more. The more he consumes, the more he wants, and yet will always end up starved. These wise words come from a man, who in his time, had more money than he knew what to do with, plenty of women at his side, and authority over many lands. Yet towards the end of his life he writes the well-known proclamation “All is vanity”. We all believe the lie “eventually I will have enough”, or “Just one more”, but Man’s greed keeps him beckoning for more. Man doesn’t struggle with deep discontentment due to the society that he lives in, but rather due to the heart that lives in him.
Consider this truth. If you are a Christian, and I hope that you are, you must believe in the fall of man through Adam and Eve. What was the reason they sinned? Greed brooding discontentment. They believed the lie told by Satan that God was holding back on them, and if they ate of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil they would be ‘like God'(Gen 3:5). They knew enough to know they weren’t like God. They were not all-sovereign, and all-powerful, and all-wise and all-knowing creators…but they wanted to be. In the moment they believed the lie, they grew in greed for what they did not have. And what was the cost? The fall of the universe, the death of their souls, the overpowering entrance of evil, banishment from the garden, and a lost relationship with God. This is the result of discontentment. Sin and death.
So western culture may not be the catalyst of discontentment; that is the heart’s doing. However western culture certainly does an exceptional job at provoking greed. So I say again, if you live in America, between your heart and where you live there is certainly a very good chance that you struggle intensely with discontentment.
What will solve this unsatisfied thirst? What is the resolve for such a greedy heart? Christian and nonbeliever alike, there is a great Gospel knocking at the door! But in order to understand the magnificence of this Gospel, we must first see rightfully how God responds to the greediness of Man. Let us see what the Apostle Paul, under the authorship of the Holy Spirit, had to say:
“Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God.” 1 Corinthians 6:9-10
Do you see who is among the list of those who will not inherit the Kingdom of God? The greedy. It is the greedy who will be turned away from the gates of heaven and sent down to the hell of destruction. This is a note that all the fathers of the faith sang in harmony. Let us also hear from the apostle Peter:
“And in their greed they will exploit you with false words. Their condemnation from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.” 2 Peter 2:3.
Here in this passage Peter is warning the churches of the dispersion that false teachers were coming, and therefore he was letting them know what to look for. What does Peter say the motivation is behind false teaching? Greed. It is greed and discontentment that motivates a man or a woman to take advantage of a people through lies and schemes. But surely damning greed is only for the false teachers right? Well, let us also look to the ministry of Jesus Christ and see how he handles the eternal result of greed. Let us look at Jesus and his conversation with the rich young ruler:
As He was setting out on a journey, a man ran up to Him and knelt before Him, and asked Him, “Good Teacher, what shall I do so that I may inherit eternal life?” But Jesus said to him, “Why do you call Me good? No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments: ‘Do not murder, Do not commit adultery, Do not steal, Do not give false testimony, Do not defraud, Honor your father and mother.’” And he said to Him, “Teacher, I have kept all these things from my youth.” Looking at him, Jesus showed love to him and said to him, “One thing you lack: go and sell all you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow Me.” But he was deeply dismayed by these words, and he went away grieving; for he was one who owned much property.
And Jesus, looking around, *said to His disciples, “How hard it will be for those who are wealthy to enter the kingdom of God!” Mark 10:17-23
The reader can see here that Jesus makes the greed of Man a deciding factor in eternity. Here is a man so sure that he was good enough for heaven. Originally, he was not so worried of the day he’d be judged, but rather thought that his ticket to the heavenly promise land would be punched by Jesus. But in this interaction he was awakened to a very troubling fate, and was clued into the reason for it. More than that, he could find no ability to turn away from this dreadful end.
Though the rich young man thought himself bound for heaven, Christ shows him that the greed of his heart would result in the decline of the Kingdom of God. Jesus gives him the call to follow if he only sell all of his possessions, but the man could not throw off such a weight, and Christ gave him no assurance of salvation. God does not bear with greed. God not only hates greed, he punishes it. Let us look one more time to the words of Christ in a parable:
“And he told them a parable, saying, “The land of a rich man produced plentifully, and he thought to himself, ‘What shall I do, for I have nowhere to store my crops?’ And he said, ‘I will do this: I will tear down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, “Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.”’ But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?’ So is the one who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich toward God.”” Luke 12:16-21
Here it can be seen that the greed of the heart is not just present in a constant striving for more, but the inability to be charitable toward those in need. Christ makes it clear in this teaching that the greedy will be punished by God. In the same night the man comes up with the idea to keep all to himself, that he may retire early, God requires of him his life. Why did God not wait for the man to act on his desire? It is because the man’s heart is the the issue, and the issue is greed.
The Bible is nowhere close to silent on the issue of greed and discontentment in Man’s heart, or how God views it. Once more we see Paul in 1 Corinthians 10: 9-11 comment on the discontentment of man and its consequence:
“We must not put Christ to the test, as some of them did and were destroyed by serpents, nor grumble, as some of them did and were destroyed by the Destroyer. Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come.” 1 Corinthians 10: 9-11
Here, Paul is making reference to the Israelites in the wilderness during the days of Moses. The Israelites could not be pleased by God in all the blessings he had provided them due to the greed and discontentment of their hearts. So what does Paul say God does? He destroys them. Harsh language, I know, but scripture wants to make clear that this is an unacceptable state of the heart before God. So if Man is prone to be lost in greed and restlessness; if this is the natural state of the heart, and if God finds it just to deliver such a soul to destruction and hell; what is Man to do?
If one understands the gloriousness of the Gospel, friend, it will cut right to the heart, and revive the soul. If you look upon the truth of the Gospel and see it clearly, and believe in it, it will take a heart of restlessness, greed, discontentment, and anxiety, and cause it to beat to the rhythm of a new drum. If you come and hear the Good News of Jesus Christ, it will take the of insatiable hunger of your soul and feed it a feast fit for a heavenly king. Come here the words of Christ to a woman in thirst for love:
A woman from Samaria came to draw water. Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (For his disciples had gone away into the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask for a drink from me, a woman of Samaria?” (For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” The woman said to him, “Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob? He gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did his sons and his livestock.” Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
Jesus knows the woman’s discontentment, and offers her a solution. It is not a rehab program, nor a self help book. It is not a new diet, hair replacement, or a new style. It is not a career change, or a ted-talk on how to love yourself more. God in Christ does not even give a command to be more thankful or grateful! Christ tells the woman that anyone who takes what Christ gives, will never be found wanting again. He tells the woman that what he gives, digs itself deep into the soul and overflows unto eternal life!
So what does Christ give?
“But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.” Mark 10: 43b-45
Christ gives his own life. He came to provide his own life as a ransom for many. That he would give up himself, that others may be given eternal life. Jesus Christ brings the Good News from heaven, that though man is sinful, though man in his heart is greedy and discontent and deserving of the wrath of God; Jesus Christ would bear the punishment for his sin. That he would be the object of God’s wrath on our behalf. That if anyone would believe in and trust in Jesus Christ and make him Lord of their life, their sin would be given over to Christ and Christ would carry it on their behalf.
And not only would Christ give his life for Man by taking on the sin of unrighteous men and women, but more than that, he would give them his perfect righteousness. For Christ lived a perfect life in obedience to God, being completely content in God, and without greed in his heart. And by his perfect life he provides his righteousness to sinful man that God would view him or her as perfectly righteous, and without any blemish or stain of greed. As the apostle John said:
“You know that he appeared in order to take away sins, and in him there is no sin.” 1 John 3:5
This is what Christ came to accomplish. To take away the sins of those who believe in him, and if they are found in him, are covered by his righteousness and are found in him where there is no sin. So though man is sinful, God views him without, by the precious sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Christ has surely died for the sinner. As the apostle Paul says:
“For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly.” Romans 5:6
If one understands the Gospel rightfully, They will respond in parallel to Christ’s words:
“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.” Matthew 13:44
“Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it.” Matthew 13:45-46
If one sees clearly the Gospel, they will find themselves in need of nothing except the treasure of God’s grace found in Christ Jesus. If one trusts and lives in the Gospel of Christ, what shall always be further diminished is a heart of greed and discontentment, and in its place be found a growing heart of thankfulness and contentment in Christ. A believer knows and grows in understanding of the treasure he has found. A treasure of more worth than anything of this world. It surely is a drink that quenches the thirsting soul. Let us be encouraged by the Apostle Paul when he says:
“Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death” Philippians 3:8-10
Paul found that Christ was worth losing everything for, more than that to even suffer on Christ’s behalf! This was the worth of knowing Christ and being given the gift of his life. This is what revives the restless heart. The Gospel, when kept at the forefront, extinguishes any greedy fire in the heart; whether in the believer who struggles with forsaking the things of this world, or the unbeliever, who for the first time, sees the solution to his hungering soul and repents of his discontented heart and turns to Christ.
There is even more offered in Christ that should really overwhelm our hearts with thankfulness to the Lord; whether it be having been given every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places (Eph 1:3), or being found all the more content growing in godliness (1 Tim 6:6-7). Let it be, however, the core of the Gospel that dismantles any discontentment festering in our hearts. And let it be the Gospel of Jesus Christ that we preach, bringing a greedy and coveting society to believe and be found content in Christ and his grace.
Thinking Rightly 