CONTENTMENT
DR. JIM DIXON
PHILIPPIANS 4:10
1 TIMOTHY 6:6
JANUARY 9, 1994
“Autarkeia” is the biblical word, the Greek word, that has rendered “contentment.” Many people think that contentment is the opposite of ambition, that it’s antithetical to hard work, that contentment somehow produces lethargy or laziness, but that is not true of this word “autarkeia.” That is not true of the biblical concept of contentment. This word “autarkeia” refers to the absence of anxiety or fear. It refers to the absence of frustrated desire. It refers to an inward peace that transcends outward circumstances. The world seeks this contentment.
This morning, I would like us to examine two ways in which the world seeks contentment, and then I would like us to contrast those with what the Bible has to say. First of all, the world seeks contentment through detachment. This is the way of the East. This is the way of Eastern religion, seeking contentment through detachment. This is certainly the path of Buddhism, and to some extent, it is the path of Hinduism as well.
In the Gita, the Bhagavad Gita, which is one of the most sacred writings of Hinduism, Krishna teaches Arjuna that if he is to find contentment, he must detach himself from all feeling and emotion—from love and hate, from joy and sorrow, from pain and pleasure. Detachment, he says, is the path to contentment.
Now, I think all of us can see that certainly detachment can enable us to avoid pain. This is true in frivolous things as well as more serious things. Last weekend was a very bad football weekend for me. I’m a UCLA fan. My father went to UCLA. My brothers and I attended UCLA football games for many years. Of course, UCLA was in the Rose Bowl and they lost to Wisconsin 21-16. They made 500 yards but were only able to score 16 points. They had six turnovers and five fumbles. That was frustrating.
Then last Sunday, the Broncos, of course, lost to the Raiders and that was frustrating. John Elway threw for 370 yards, had a career game, and yet the defense couldn’t protect the lead. Contentment would not be the word to describe how I felt after the Bronco game. But I think we would all agree that if I were detached from the Broncos or detached from UCLA, I would have had no pain. Is that not true? If I didn’t care about the Broncos, like many of you, I would have had no pain. But you see, you’re attached if you’re a fan. I mean, if you’re a fan, you’re attached and you have the pain and the happiness that comes with winning and losing and victory and failure.
Now, on a more serious level, this is true in love. Some of you have lost people you love. I know this to be true. Some of you have lost your wife. Some of you have lost your husband through death, perhaps through disease or through a tragic accident. Some of you have lost a child. Some of you have lost a husband or a wife through divorce, and you feel the pain of that. Now, if you had never loved, if you detached yourself from the risk of love, you could have spared yourself the pain. That is true.
Friday night Barb and I went and saw the movie Shadowlands. It is a movie about CS Lewis, who was perhaps the greatest Christian writer of the 20th century. It’s a great movie, tremendous love story, well acted. I was disappointed. I felt like the movie did not convey the depth of CS Lewis’s faith and the triumph of that faith over the sufferings of life. But it was a great love story. And the movie conveyed so beautifully the risk of love, that if you choose to love, you can experience great happiness, but you also open yourself up to great pain. It’s all part of the deal. It’s all part of love.
Of course, if you detach yourself, you can avoid a lot of pain. And this is true in many ways in life. There is a psychosis that some people experience called schizophrenia. It’s the ultimate in detachment. It brings a certain kind of contentment. Some schizophrenics have entirely detached themselves from reality.
There was a period of time when I worked in conjunction with my education at a mental hospital. I worked at Camarillo Mental Hospital in Camarillo, California. I worked in the schizophrenic ward. I saw a lot of men and women there who had completely detached themselves and they had no pain, or so it seemed. They lived in an inner world. You would see their lips moving, but there was nobody there. Sometimes you could hear them talk, but no one was there. TVs would run up on the walls of the schizophrenic ward, and sometimes you’d see people looking up at the wall, but not where the TV was. There was a gymnasium and a wonderful Olympic swimming pool but nobody there, because these people had withdrawn into an inner world. They were safe in that inner world. The psychological records showed that most of these people had experienced incredible pain at some time in their life and they just couldn’t bear life. They couldn’t bear the real world, and they just withdrew. They just withdrew into an inner world, a safe world, detached world.
I think all of us could understand that. There are times when we’d like perhaps to just detach ourselves from the risk of life and the risk of love and find the measure of contentment that that might bring. And yet, this wouldn’t be the way of Christ. It’s not what Christ has taught us. Whatever contentment detachment brings, it’s not the contentment of Christ. You see, Christ did not detach himself from our world. He came into our world. He loved us. He clothed Himself with our humanity, and in His love for us, He died for us. He experienced the pain and He said, “Greater love has no one than this, that they lay down their life for their friends.” He has given us an example that we might follow in His steps. The priest and the Levite on the Jericho Road detached themselves from the pain of an injured person. But the good Samaritan did what Christ demands and he reached out in love. The Eastern message is contentment comes through detachment. That is not the message of scripture.
Now, there’s another means of contentment, and that is through what some would call satisfaction. This is the message of the West. This is the message of the Western philosophies, that you can only find contentment through satisfaction. The word satisfaction comes from a Latin word which means “enough.” You can only find contentment if you get enough. This is the message of the West. You’ve got to have enough. And if you get enough, you can be content. If you get enough money, if you get enough power, if you get enough pleasure, if you get enough success, if you have enough accomplishments, if you can just get enough, you’ll find contentment. This is the message of the West.
Of course, who defines what is enough? There’s a joke that is sometimes told. I’m sure many of you have heard it. It is about a Trappist monk. The Trappist order is the most severe order in the Roman Catholic Church. Trappist monks take extreme vows. They’re vegetarians. They take vows of solitude and hard labor. They take vows of silence. The story concerns a man who became a Trappist monk and he took a vow of silence and he was told he could only speak two words a year.
At the end of the first year, being faithful in all things, he was brought before his superior and his superior said, “You can speak two words.” And the man said, “Room cold.” The superior said, “Well, okay, we’ll look into that.” Another year went by, and the man was faithful in all things and he was brought before his superior and told he could speak two words. And the man said, “Bed hard.” And the superior said, “Well, okay, we’ll look into that.” And another year went by and the man was faithful in all things again and brought before his superior and he could say two words. And he said, “Food bad.”
And another year went by. And finally, at the end of that fourth year, he came before his superior and was told he could say two words. And he said, “I quit.” And the superior said, “Well, good riddance. You’ve done nothing but complained since you got here!”
I think we would all have to admit we all complain. I mean, we all complain and we have a whole lot more than a Trappist monk has, right? We have a whole lot more, and yet we all complain.
Some of us are kind of like black holes. When you look into the heavens at night and you see all those stars, perhaps you see something of the glory of God. Astronomers tell us that stars are constantly being born in the heavens and they’re constantly dying. Stars are born through nuclear fusion and there’s a period of time where stars remain stable. Nuclear fusion continues at the core, and this stability may last millions, even billions of years. But ultimately, all the hydrogen is burned up and depleted and the star begins to expand and may become what astronomers call a giant star or even a supergiant.
But that’s not the ultimate destiny of a star. A star may become a white dwarf star. It might become a nova, it might become a supernova, or even a special kind of supernova called an exploding star. Now, when a supernova explodes, if the residual mass is less than three times the mass of our sun, then it becomes a neutron star or perhaps a pulsar. But if the residual mass of an exploding supernova is greater than three times the mass of our sun, then it becomes a black hole. A black hole is an object in space—ominous; black because its gravitational force is so powerful that even light cannot escape. And a black hole is insatiable, and never gets enough. It just sucks matter into the void. Some black holes are so massive that their mass is thousands of times greater than our sun’s mass. Some black holes are so powerful that their radiation can be detected from 16 billion light years away.
People are like stars. Some people become black holes. They’re insatiable, never getting enough. Cleopatra was like that. She had all the wealth of Egypt. She wanted all the power of Rome. She was a hedonist. She had tremendous sexual desires. She had a temple where she kept male prostitutes. She really believed in money, sex, and power, and she could never get enough. Insatiable. And ultimately, in 30 BC, she committed suicide at the age of 38. There’s no contentment in the quest for satisfaction, no contentment in seeking enough.
Of course, most of us are not like Cleopatra. Most of us reach a point where we have enough. Most of you can get enough money. Maybe you don’t have it yet, of course, but theoretically, there’ll come a time. I think most of you believe when you’ll have enough, perhaps you’ll have enough success. Perhaps you’ll have enough pleasure. Perhaps you’ll have enough accomplishments. But you see, the incredible truth is—and this is really profound, but it’s true—that even if you get enough like the rich man in his barns, there’s no real contentment there because, biblically, contentment is a spiritual reality, and materialism and hedonism just can’t fill the void. Biblically, how do we find contentment?
What I’m going to say to you I think is not a popular thing. Maybe some of you won’t like it, but I believe from scripture, contentment only comes through submission—submission to Jesus Christ. It’s the only way to find contentment.
One of my favorite passages in the Bible is Matthew chapter six, where Jesus said, “Do not be anxious about your life—what you shall eat or what you shall drink, or about your body, what you shall put on. Consider the birds of the air. They neither sew nor reap, nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them all. And are you not of much more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add one cubit to your span of life? So why are you anxious saying, what shall I eat? What shall I drink? What shall I wear? The nations seek after such things and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and He will provide you with all you need.”
Now that statement, “Seek first the kingdom of God,” that’s the key to contentment. That’s the key to the absence of anxiety and fear. That’s the key to the absence of frustrated desire. That’s how you find the inward peace that transcends outward circumstances, seeking first the kingdom of God. And that word kingdom is the Greek word “basileía,” and it means reign. We must embrace the reign of God in Christ. Submission to His lordship. He is King of Kings and He is Lord of Lords.
In that same chapter, Jesus taught us the Lord’s Prayer. In the Lord’s Prayer we express submission as we say, “Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done.”
You know, if every day we could begin the day by saying, “Thy will be done,” that’s the submission that brings contentment. Thy will be done. And it’s not just a passive, “Que sera, sera.” When you say, “Thy will be done,” you’re not simply saying that you trust whatever He brings, but you are expressing your submission to His will and your desire to seek it. Through this submission comes contentment.
You know how in Psalm 23, the Psalm begins by saying, “The Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want.” In the living Bible, it renders that, “The Lord is my shepherd. I have everything I need.” And that’s close to the Hebrew. But if you really want to be right in the Hebrew, you should render it this way: “The Lord is my shepherd. I have everything I want.” Not everything I need, everything I want. And how can that be? How can you have everything you want? Well, you see, if you’re really submitted to the reign of Christ, if you really feel, if you really believe, “Thy will be done,” then whatever His will is, that’s what you want and that’s contentment.
Now, there is a beautiful passage where Jesus said, “Come unto Me all you who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take My yoke upon you, learn of Me, for I am gentle and lowly of heart and you will find rest for your souls.” Again, the key is in that expression, “Take My yoke upon you.” See, that yoke is the yoke of submission. The same word was used for the yoke that was placed on animals and even slaves. Jesus said, “Take My yoke upon you.” That’s how you find rest. If you take only your own yoke, if you submit only to yourself and your own will, you’ll never have contentment. It is only as you take His yoke upon you. Submission to His reign and His lordship, that’s how we find contentment.
I look back to a moment in my life years ago (and I’ve shared it in times past) when I was on a beach in Santa Barbara. It was a moment of submission to Christ in my life. I had so many things I wanted. I remember at that time in my life, it was just after college and I had so many things I wanted, so many things I desired, and I didn’t have any of them. I wasn’t making anything come true. Everything I wanted I didn’t have. And it was just a moment on the beach in Santa Barbara. It was in the wintertime. I was by myself, and I gave myself anew to Christ and I said, “Lord, I give up. I’m yours. I can live without a girl. I can’t live without you. I’ll be single the rest of my life if you want me to. I’ll go where you want me to go. I’ll do what you want me to do.”
Submission. I can’t describe the contentment that I had in the days and weeks that followed. And yet, I’ve learned as life goes on that I need to make that commitment again and again and again because I keep getting in the way. I’ve learned as life goes on that I need to make that commitment again and again and again. I need to submit anew to the reign of Christ or contentment just doesn’t come.
You know, there’s some interesting mythology that has surrounded the relics that relate to the passion and death of Christ. This mythology was developed by the early church. They believed that the cup that Christ used at the Last Supper, which some called the Holy Grail, somehow if anyone could get that cup and drink out of it, they would find the life of Christ, eternal life. They believed that the spear that was thrust into Christ’s side after his death at Calvary, that spear, called the “Spear of Longinus” (because he was allegedly the Roman soldier who once had that spear), if anyone could get that spear, they would have the power of Christ. That’s why Adolf Hitler sought the spear of Longinus. It’s a historical fact. And they believed the robe that Christ wore before his crucifixion (for which the soldiers cast lots) if anyone could just get that robe, they would have the peace of Christ. If they could wear the robe, they would have the contentment of Christ.
Lloyd Douglas, in his book called The Robe, which Hollywood made into a movie, portrays that belief that if anyone wore the robe they’d have the peace of Christ. And of course, it’s all bogus. I mean, it’s all a lie. You can’t get the peace of Christ through the cup or the spear or the robe, but only through Christ Himself, only when we embrace His reign, when we come in submission to His Lordship.
This is not the same as the submission of Islam. Islam means submission, but Islam knows nothing of Christ, nothing of the grace and mercy of Christ, nothing of the atoning sacrifice of Christ, nothing of the friendship that we have with Christ. This is submission to Jesus Christ. And He is the way, He is the truth, He is the life. He says, “Peace I leave with you. My peace I give unto you. Not as the world gives, give I unto you.”
I want to conclude by taking a look at a little passage in the Gospel of John, where Jesus appears to the disciples by the Sea of Galilee. He’s resurrected, He’s alive, and in His resurrection body, He appears to the disciples and He has breakfast with them by the Sea of Galilee. What a breakfast that must have been. And then, after breakfast, He took that walk with Peter. They just took a walk by the Sea of Galilee. Jesus told Peter, I think, a very difficult thing. Jesus told Peter how Peter was going to die. Jesus told Peter that Peter would die a death of crucifixion. That had to be hard. Remember how Peter then turned around and saw John following them. And Peter said, “Lord, what about him? What about John? How’s he going to die? What’s going to happen to him?” Jesus said something so important. That’s the key of the whole deal. Jesus said, “If it be My will that he remains until I come again, what is that to you? You follow Me.”
Keep your eyes on Christ. Don’t enter into comparison. You’ll lose your contentment if you begin to compare. You’ll never have contentment. Just focus on Christ and follow Him. Embrace His reign. Submission. Thy will be done. That’s the key. Let’s close with a word of prayer.