CONTENTMENT EQUALS GAIN

I Timothy 6:6 “But godliness with contentment is great gain.”

John Ortberg, a Christian author, lives in Chicago with his wife and three small children. As you might guess, when they go out to eat, there is only one place they ever want to go, "the shrine of the golden arches." He said his children seem to be convinced that they have a McDonald’s-shaped vacuum in their souls.

He said the kids always want the same thing. And you know what it is, the same thing your kids want and my kids want and it’s a combination of the food--about which they really don’t much care -- and a little prize. It’s not much of a prize, really, just some cheap little plastic thing. But in a moment of marketing genius, the folks at McDonald’s gave it a particular name. They call it the Happy Meal. It is "the meal of great joy." You aren’t just buying chicken McNuggets and a tiny plastic toy. You’re buying happiness.

He says that every now and then he tries to talk them out of it. He tells them to order whatever they want and he will give them a dollar so they can buy their own toy and everyone will come out ahead. But the chant goes up, "We want a Happy Meal. We want a Happy Meal." Other customers stare at the heartless father who won’t buy his kids the meal of great joy.

So, he buys them the Happy Meal. And it makes them happy, he says, for about a minute and a half. The problem is that the happy wears off. He says that you never hear of a young adult coming back to his parents and saying, "Gee, Dad, remember that Happy Meal you gave me? That’s where I found lasting contentment and lifelong joy. I knew if I could just have that Happy Meal, I would be content for a lifetime, and I am. Thank you. There’ll be no need for therapy for this boy. ” In fact, the only one that Happy Meals bring real happiness to is McDonald’s. You ever wonder why Ronald has that silly grin on his face? Twenty billion Happy Meals, that’s why.

Now, you would think, kids being fairly bright these days, that sooner or later they would catch on to this deal and say, "You know, I keep getting these Happy Meals and they don’t give me lasting happiness, so I’m not going to be a sucker any more. I’m not going to set myself up for disappointment any more." But it never happens. They keep buying Happy Meals and they keep not working.

Now here’s the question, only a child would be so foolish. Right? Only a kid would be so naive as to think that contentment could be acquired through some kind of external acquisition. Right? But the truth about human beings is that as we grow up, we don’t get any smarter; our Happy Meals just keep getting more expensive. And the world around us tells us that happiness is always just one more Happy Meal away.

The Old Testament sums it up in the word Covet. An unquenchable desire for more. Galatians 5:20 calls it “selfish ambition.” The Greek word literally means “to grasp for more and more.”

Why does scripture warn us against wanting more and more? One obvious reason is because it damages our priorities. When we want something more than we want anything else, including God we have a problem. Our priorities are out of whack and when our priorities get rearranged we fall into many traps. We run after the wrong things and stop pursuing God. Stuff becomes the most important things in our lives. Our priorities get rearranged.

Well what’s the cure? How do we become content people and put an end to this obsession for more? Or at least make an attempt to curb it. We need to realize that stuff is not going to fulfill us. Happiness is not found in the accumulation of things. Of bigger houses, bigger cars, better stuff. In our souls, we know that things can’t bring happiness so how come we still look for fulfillment in those areas?

If we are caught up in coveting, in driving for the accumulation of things, at some point we have to ask ourselves the question, why? Why are we trying to get it all? What do we think it will bring us? Why do we work 12 hour days, all to accumulate things?

The Bible says the secret to contentment is to focus on Christ and to seek first the Kingdom of God, and everything else will take care of itself. Make a decision that you will serve the Lord instead of things. He will make you truly happy.