Love That Is Satisfied – 1

Turn to God’s Word in Hebrews 13. Hebrews 13. We will continue our series in Hebrews. We come to verses five and six. My hope this morning is that if you are here and your heart and your soul are restless or anxious—especially about money or material matters, or if you are fearful about the future, however that may look—the text that we are looking at this morning will help us realize that if our heart is rightly fixed on Jesus Christ, then we can be content. There is a contentment in Christ for the believer that sets them free from bondage and fear. Set free—the fear of your heart lifted because of Christ.

Hebrews 13, let us read from verse 1 again. “Let brotherly love continue. Be not forgetful to entertain strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares. Remember them that are in bonds as bound with them, and them which suffer adversity as being yourselves also in the body. Marriage is honorable in all, and the bed undefiled; but whoremongers and adulterers God will judge. Let your conversation be without covetousness, and be content with such things as ye have. For he hath said, I will never leave thee nor forsake thee; so that we may boldly say, The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me.” Amen. We will end the reading at the close of verse six.

What you have heard is the word of the eternal God, which you are to receive, believe, and obey. And the people of God said, Amen.

Let us bow together in prayer. Lord, help us this morning. Please help us this morning. May Your word help us to be still—to be still and know that You are God. And amidst all the changing seasons of life, we find ourselves at times on the mountaintop and then suddenly in the valley. Let us be conscious that the God of the mountaintop is the God of the valley. We pray for the peace that only You can give to Your people. So help me, in one sense, to get out of the way of Your word. May the Spirit take the truth and communicate it with power so that Your people feed on green pastures. Give power then by the Holy Spirit, we pray, in the name of our Lord Jesus. Amen.

In one of his well-known lectures—in terms of how commonly they are viewed by believers today—R. C. Sproul speaks of his time in college in which he had some extra hours that he needed to make up and took a course on hymnology. In this course he had a professor who loved to speak of his passion for classical music and make frequent references to Handel, Bach, Mendelssohn, and so on, trying to elevate the value, the worth, and the dignity of that music.

In the course, Sproul mentions that he would turn to the opposite—that which he despised and really disliked. Some of what he really disliked was some of the music within evangelicalism, music commonly sung within churches as he was familiar with it. He would address the fact that these things lacked the quality or whatever. The one that he highlighted as being most obnoxious to him was the hymn or the song—a gospel song you might call it—“In the Garden.”

Now, the young people here may not know that piece. I know it even though I did not grow up in the church because some of the early albums that my mom listened to when she was converted included these old George Beverly Shea recordings and other old singers who would sing pieces like that. So I was familiar with the piece he was referring to. I also understand the sentiment of the professor. I get that there is an oversentimentality in the music and even in some of the language.

What Sproul pointed out was that the refrain in that piece—“He walks with me, He talks with me, and He tells me that I am His own”—is fundamentally something that every believer seeks to experience and be reassured of.

He walks with me, He talks with me, but most notably, He tells me, “You are Mine. You are Mine.” We crave that. If there was one experience that we could covet from the disciples, it would be to have the risen Lord Jesus Christ by our side and saying, “You are Mine. You belong to Me.”

The Hebrews, being addressed by the apostle in this epistle, needed to be reminded that Christ was theirs. Some of them had suffered tremendously. Back in chapter 10 we are told that they took joyfully the spoiling of their goods. They accepted—the alleviating of their goods, the diminishing of their material status—and they accepted it joyfully for the cause of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.

They had been, no doubt, hurt in many respects. Confiscation of their goods may have been part of the threat, or perhaps they had lost their work, which was most likely. They also suffered shame within the community—being ostracized from it—and they had endured loss. Under that strain, the loss of material goods, they were beginning to struggle. Therefore, the exhortation in the call to brotherly love in Hebrews 13:1 includes this admonition: that in your love for the brethren let your whole life be free from a covetous spirit. Indeed, be content with such things as you have.

Then the author reminds them of this text or this language that permeates the Old Testament Scriptures: “I will never leave you nor forsake you; so that we may boldly say, ‘The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me.’” The actions of others and the threats they posed were stifling the lives of those who professed love and affection for Christ. Particularly—and perhaps this is the main focus of the context—these threats were extinguishing expressions of love toward the brethren. All the threats were causing them to hesitate: “Well, we have lost a lot, and we need to be really careful here.” Now there is a lack of expressing love to the brethren around them.

And so, under the strain and the danger, they would begin to clamor over what remained in their possession. With the fear and threat of external forces, it was choking their love for the saints. As we have looked through these opening verses of Hebrews 13, we have seen love that is steadfast—serving (v. 2), sympathetic (v. 3), sanctified (v. 4)—and we now come to a love that is satisfied in verses 5 and 6. I trust God will help us to understand what is before us, and it will be of encouragement to you to be delivered from the warning of the text and to know the liberty that there is for those who are in Christ—that there are certain worries others possess from which we are delivered because we belong to Christ.

There are three main points here. First, a satisfied love renounces covetousness. Second, it rests in God’s care. Third, it responds with courage.

First: a satisfied love renounces covetousness. “Let your conversation be without covetousness.” Covetousness—the real sense of covetousness is to recognize that it is not about your wallet. It is about your worship. It is not just about the money. It is about how you come before and live before your God. It is an error for us to simply say, “This is about how much I have, how much I keep, or how much I give away.” There is more to it than that. God does not treat covetousness as a small thing. This is huge. It is not something we are to sanitize and see as “one of the respectable sins of the church.” God calls it idolatry.

In Colossians 3:5 the apostle says, “covetousness, which is idolatry.” It takes the place. What it does is substitute the place that belongs to God in our heart and put there something of His creation. The Creator is to have His place, and we substitute that with the created. It is idolatry.

Now, if you read the Authorized Version and you read the word “conversation,” of course that refers to behavior. It is not talking about our speech; it is the whole manner of life. The word has narrowed in its meaning over time. He is dealing here with your whole manner of life, which is to be without covetousness. Your whole way of living is to be delivered from it. The word “covetousness,” which I mentioned a few weeks ago, means delivered from the love of silver. That is the sense of the Greek word. It is one of those compound words again: a love of silver, which implies that man can have a love for silver, a love for the material, a clamoring after the material—and he needs to be delivered from that love. So your whole life then is to be free from the grip of that false love.

Now there are two things to note in renouncing covetousness. First, note that covetousness corrupts the heart. It corrupts the heart. That is the concern of the apostle. It is the same concern I have as I read this—realizing this is a legitimate problem that believers face: the encroaching influence, and perhaps even the subtle existence, of covetousness within the heart. It corrupts.

If you remember back in chapter 10, verse 34, I think this is key for us to remember what helped them. Hebrews 10:34 says, “You had compassion on me in my bonds, and you took joyfully the spoiling of your goods, knowing in yourselves…” Here is why at that time they did not feel the loss the way perhaps now the threat of it was coming upon them. What was it? What was their mind and heart?

Instead of focusing on what they had and what they were losing, it was knowing within yourselves that “you have in heaven a better and an enduring substance.” That’s key. It takes faith to rise and say, What I have that isn’t here—what I have there is better and enduring. I’m laying up treasure in heaven where neither moth nor rust corrupts and where thieves do not break through and steal. And so they understood that.

The overwhelming sense of what they had laid up in their eternal future governed how they felt about the loss in the present. While others were naturally inclined to say, “Oh no, look what we’re losing,” they were saying, “What of it? We take joyfully the spoiling of our goods, knowing that we have in heaven a better and an enduring substance.”

So that helped them, which of course was something of the spirit of Moses as well. When you come into chapter 11, you have these themes that come across if you’re paying attention. They had lived it out already in relation to the apostle, willing to suffer, and then he makes reference in all the lists of those individuals.

In Hebrews 11—remember Moses. Moses had all that this world could ever offer in Egypt, and he was willing to embrace suffering for the reproach of Christ and esteem that as better riches than the treasures in Egypt. He had access to treasures in Egypt—position and status that gave him access to the wealth of one of the wealthiest nations of that era. He turned away because Christ meant more.

So this theme is important, even in this epistle, as they are dealing with the context. Again, this is in the 60s. You have Nero rising in his power and his threats. You have the political influence of the Jews in the synagogue working more to distinguish Christianity from being merely a Jewish sect so that the protections of the Jews would not apply to those who follow Jesus Christ. All of this is happening, and it is bringing an increased threat; it is causing them to be more fearful. You can see what the apostle is endeavoring to shore up within their hearts: Do not be fearful. Do not be taken away by this. Be careful. Remember, remember, remember Moses. Remember how you have already suffered joyfully because you know you have a better and an enduring substance. Remember Moses, who also followed this path and turned away from the world and all that it had to offer because Christ meant more.

When we do not keep that in mind, then we get corrupted. One of the fears in the context is that it would corrupt the love of the people of God toward their brethren. They would not then help as they should. We all make the same assessments, do we not? Even with our brethren in Jamaica, we start asking ourselves, What can I afford? Or maybe we just simply say, I cannot afford it. Someone else will do it. Someone else will do what needs to be done. That was not the mind of the widow, was it? She gave of what she had.

There is a condemnation of the widow of Israel at that time in that this widow was in such a state that no one was caring for her; there was not the application of care for widows as would be expected. There was a sense in which that widow was an emblem of the corruption of the religion of the Jews. Nonetheless, it bears out; you see her heart. She did not just say that the wealthier would take care of the need. She gave what she could.

So we have to make that assessment in expression of our love for our brethren. When covetousness takes hold—when our manner of life at any point becomes overwhelmed, or when covetousness supplants the soul—then we do not really love. We struggle to love our brethren as we should. We must be careful about that. Be careful how it influences how we view others and how our heart responds to their needs. Covetousness can lead us into a spirit of comparison, do we not? Look at what they have. I do not have that. We make comparisons like that. We may even judge our service to God based on our perception of what others have and what they should do versus what we have and what we should do. “I get a pass here. They have more. They should do this.” So be careful about how it comes in as we live in what is undeniably a prosperous day.

It does not take much reading of history to look at how the average person sitting here today lives and recognize in some ways we live with equal or—in many respects—a higher standard of living than royalty in the past. Go to the Biltmore and look at all the things that were brought in that were required in building that mansion. Everything was cutting edge; it required a hundred people to keep the whole place running. It is commonplace now. A little over a century later, we just take it for granted.

Yet we compare ourselves—we look at what we do not have; we are always seeing what is absent. So be careful. Because here is the thing: it corrupts that love—the love that Jesus says, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” So this is a testimony; your love for others is part of what I will use to show the world the distinction between you and them.

When we are overcome with covetousness, we cannot love our brothers and sisters as we should. Hospitality (v. 2)—it costs. Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers. I think to myself, “Well, I will entertain my friends. I will make the sacrifice for my friends, but these people that I do not know—I am not going there.” They are exhorted, “No, no, no. Remember the Christians, the professing Christians that you do not know. Remember them also. Show love to them.”

Covetousness will also stop us from going to those who are in affliction or in prison. We will not go because we are afraid to identify with them. Again, our love will go to those who are our neighbors and whom we know—our family—but that brother or sister who is imprisoned, it does not extend. The cost of going there—maybe having to make the trip, taking away from our job and employment, suffering that kind of loss to make the trip to see them—covetousness would say, “No, I cannot afford it.”

Even in relation to marriage—the lack of brotherly love within the marriage bond and union—the coveting. What is the breaking of the seventh commandment? First, an expression of the heart. Jesus says, “If you look with lust, you have already committed adultery in your heart.” There is the marriage of the seventh commandment to the tenth—the coveting in the heart, coveting your neighbor’s wife. That is the heart posture. It is not love.

So covetousness corrupts the heart. It also competes with Christ. It is a rival affection. The whole spirit of covetousness is a rival affection. Our Lord Jesus says, “You cannot serve God and mammon.” You cannot. Not that you should not try to keep balance—it’s not that—but you cannot serve both. That means you have a choice to make here. Every day, in your whole manner of life, let your conversation—let your whole life—be governed by a question: Am I serving God or mammon? You make a choice. You choose to serve God. It does not mean you do not have a job or a salary. That’s not the point. Do not go into the ridiculous. In the choice to serve God, it means that’s where the allegiance is. When serving God might undercut salary or limit income or dictate loss in other ways, I will serve God. I serve God.

It also means that He has control of all our material things. We conscientiously give to Him: “Here’s our stuff, Lord. Here it is—Yours—because I serve you, not the stuff.” It’s good to do that.

At the start of my time in Bible college—when you are limited and I still was working—I was working for my wife at the end of college. She had her own business, and I was doing work for her. It puts certain limitations. In Northern Ireland, the first two years are full Monday through Thursday. You cannot say, “Can I take this class at a separate time? Can I do a night class?” No—it’s all or nothing. So you have to cut yourself off. You walk away.

I remember getting before the Lord; it is so vivid, and it is strange the things that stick in your mind. I fell before the Lord, looked at the bank account, and saw all the things that lay before us for the next few years. I said, “Lord, it is all Yours. It is all Yours—every penny of it; it is all Yours.” There was not a whole lot. I was not presenting Solomon’s offering at the temple, let me tell you. It was a very small offering. It was just like, “Lord, this is all Yours.”

About the second or third week—Alyssa had just been born. You’re adjusting. I was sitting in a roundabout and thought the person in front of me had gone—the traffic was not coming; they moved forward. I thought they were gone. I checked again, and as I did, before I looked in front of me, I stepped on the accelerator a little too soon and bumped into the lady who was still sitting in front of me when I thought she was gone. I did a little damage to their car and destroyed the radiator in our car. The whole bill was probably around $1,000 or $1,200.

I remember going, “Lord, what are You doing? What are You doing?” I went back to the prayer. I remember getting on my knees and saying, “Lord, it is all Yours. If in Your wisdom putting this money to car repairs makes sense, then I accept it. That is fine by me; it is Yours anyway.” And so—just the relief. He orchestrated it; He is governing. I am not blaming Him. He allowed that all to happen. I could have easily looked again or whatever. I said, “Every penny is Yours; it is all Yours,” and just rested that He would provide—which He did, powerfully, marvelously, through our time in college.

So again, covetousness does not only corrupt the heart; it competes with Christ. You cannot serve God and mammon. Make a choice: one or the other. America says, “Go, serve mammon, and God is a little bit on the side.” No—God says it is all or nothing. All or nothing. Some of you have struggled with this. Our Lord Jesus addresses the issue of money and its relationship to our heart frequently because it is such a problem and we struggle with it.

Choose God. Do not let your life be ruled by a rival god. Love God. Put Him first. The love of silver needs to be abandoned. Instead, look to Jesus, as we went back to the previous chapter. Look to Jesus. Do not look at what you lack. Look to Jesus.

Now, that does not mean you are lazy. You cannot look at Jesus and then be lazy. You say, “I look to You, Lord; I want to imbibe Your spirit.” No one ever worked as hard as Jesus Christ. No one ever worked as hard as Jesus Christ. When you look to Jesus Christ, it is not an excuse to do nothing. He worked. He never stopped. His meat was to do the will of Him who sent Him. He was constantly laboring. And so are you. You are to labor and work. But it is looking to Him, worshiping Him, and remembering the enduring substance you have.

Just some practical helps as you resist competition in the heart. Three things:

First, quickly eliminate the initial stirrings of any sinful desire. Do not wait for the act. Act at the thought. Repent at the thought. When the thought comes—the thought of comparison, the thought that it is not fair that I do not have this, the thought that you should keep all things to yourself—suppress it at the thought. Do not let it be expressed in words or actions. Do not let it become a philosophy in your life. Eliminate it right there. Eliminate it at the word “if.” End it. Eliminate it there. Please, beloved—do not say it is harmless. No—it will control; it will grab hold. Govern and say, “Yes, you will serve me”? No. Quickly eliminate the initial stirrings of any sinful desire.

Secondly, learn from the scriptural examples. Did covetousness help Adam and Eve? What did they lose through having a covetous heart? They plunged themselves and all their posterity into sin and misery.

Did it benefit Achan? “I will just keep this Babylonish garment to myself.” Did it benefit him? Exposed by God, he and his family lost. How painful was their loss.

Did it benefit Judas? He saw that sacrifice—Mary broke that precious alabaster box. It could have been sold for 300 pence and given to the poor. One of the gospel writers says, “This he said not because he cared for the poor, but because he had the bag.” He wanted his own little portion. Immediately upon seeing that, he went and took counsel with the religious leaders and agreed to betray the Lord for 30 pieces of silver. He got his little cut.

Covetousness. What did he gain from it? Pangs of conscience later. He came in and tried to give it back. “I betrayed innocent blood.” Folly.

Ananias and Sapphira—what did it profit them? Barnabas had land, sold it, and gave it. Ananias and Sapphira sold land and kept back a little. They were struck dead.

Covetousness—you think it’s a light thing? Death: Adam and Eve; Achan, death; Judas, death; Ananias and Sapphira, death. The cause is covetousness unconquered by the grace of God. You need to conquer this. I need to conquer this. Every time it rises, we need victory.

Early—kill the first risings of any simple desire. Learn from the scriptural examples. Then refuse to let covetousness rob you of what matters. Refuse to let it rob you of your family and of what really matters. Excessive love of material things begins to govern, and we start to lean into success and justify more success. Many men have had this lament at the end of their lives: “I wish I had given more attention to my family. I succeeded materially, but I wish I had given more time to my family.” That is what false gods do—they rob you of everything that truly matters to you.

Secondly—again—satisfied love renounces covetousness; it also rests in God’s care. Satisfied love rests in God’s care.

Time is hastening away from me. I may have to come back to this, and if that is the case, that is fine. However, you have the positive command: “Let your conversation and your manner of life be without covetousness, and be content with such things as you have.” Let what you have be enough. Let what you have currently be enough.

This is so practical. When Melanie and I got married, we had relatively speaking nothing. She had just finished her degree and had just gotten married and paid for that. We had nothing—really nothing. We furnished our first home with hand-me-downs. My grandmother was replacing her refrigerator, and we did this mishmash of items from everywhere. The old broken sofa set that I’d looked at for years in my own home—my mom donated it to us in our need. The thing was broken, uncomfortable, terrible. Instead of getting into debt or making decisions we couldn’t justify, that’s how we lived. For years we lived that way. In fact, we still do. Most of the stuff in our own home, still to this day, we look on Facebook Marketplace for things other people don’t want anymore. Instead of thinking, “I want the best, the finest, and be the first,” perish the thought. Be content. Understand where you are.

Too many people today are living on T-bone steaks when they’re on hot-dog budgets. What are you doing? You’re looking at others. Take your contacts and stick yourself in some other country and all of a sudden you’d be content. It’s all relative. Let what you have be enough.

A word to parents: sometimes parents forget. Parents look at their children and want the best. “Why don’t you buy a new car? Your car broke down the other day. Why don’t you buy a new car?” What they have done is this—they are now in their sixties, comfortable, and able to buy a new or nearly new car. They look at their children and expect the same thing.

Go back and remember what you were doing when you were twenty-five. You were not driving a new car. Remember the context in which they live and do not burden them with aspirations they cannot meet. If you want to buy them a new car, go ahead—I will not begrudge you. But be careful. Building wealth is slow labor. Be careful with your aspirations.

Note what it says: “Be content with such things as you have.” God’s care is seen in His provision. “Such things as you have” are what God has given you already. “Such things as you have” are what He has permitted in His sovereignty to grant to you. He is sovereign in this moment. What you have is what He has bestowed upon you. Be content with that. Do not accuse God wrongly as if He has made a mistake. Be content with what you have.

This was particularly difficult for the Jewish mind. Property was tied to a sense of covenant favor with God; in the loss of the material there was an inclination to think there was a loss of the favor of God. Think of their forefathers—they were spewed out of the land and taken into captivity because of unfaithfulness. These are Jews losing materially. They were thinking, Is this a loss of divine favor? That is why he has already reminded them, “You have in heaven a better and an enduring substance.” You know you are meant to be like Moses and recognize that Christ is of greater riches than all the treasures of Egypt.

“Such things as ye have”—let your own life assess in your heart such things as ye have. What do you have? Start looking at what you have. The hymn: “Count your blessings, name them one by one. It will surprise you what the Lord has done.” What have you?

Above all, the focus of this epistle is this: it is not just that they have their daily bread or means to exist in the world. They have the promises of God; they have Christ as their own. They have something their forefathers only looked toward and is now their possession. Abraham left Ur of the Chaldees seeking for a city. They have now, in Jesus Christ, the way into that city—the assurance that it is real.

Lord Jesus taught us, “If ye being evil know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him?” At least in part, you give good gifts even though you are evil. Even though you are corrupt and fallen, you bless your children with good things. How much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts—indeed, the Holy Spirit?

What is the gift of the Holy Spirit? Fundamentally, God giving of Himself. Such things as you have—what do you put at the top of the list? I have God. I have God and Jesus Christ living and dying and rising and ascending and ever living to pray for me. I have God. Because of that, I am in His family. I have the spirit of adoption whereby I cry, “Abba, Father.” I have an enduring substance. I have so much.

So contentment is not saying, “I will not pray for lawful needs.” You can pray for lawful needs. You can bring those matters and put them before God and say, “Lord, help.” I know a man who, in a season of great financial trial—through no fault of his own—spread his bills out before the Lord, laid them all out, and got down on his knees: “Look, Lord, you are going to have to meet the need here.” There is nothing wrong with praying that way.

Contentment is refusing to accuse God when He withholds what we expect. Learn like Paul: “Whatsoever state I am in, therewith to be content.”

Time is gone. We will come back to this. I want you to think about this just before we close. Covetousness is a real rival to the Christian life. It pays no respect of persons. It does not care whether you have wealth or are in poverty. You might think it’s a sin of the wealthy—or of those in poverty because they want more—but it will come in any season of life. Resist a sense of entitlement before God and do not let it extinguish your love for His people. He has no time for that. He wants you to love His people because He gave His Son that you might have life—wealth you could never accumulate even by your best effort: the wealth of perfect righteousness before God. You cannot work that wealth; you cannot acquire that. You’re a sinner. Jesus Christ was sent by the Father in condescension to sinners—sent that He might live and die for us. Through faith in Him, we are credited with wealth untold. He who was rich, for our sakes became poor, that we, through his poverty, may be rich.

So we give because we already have wealth untold in Christ. May He be our treasure.

Let us bow together in prayer. I encourage you this morning to take a moment and pray for the grace to ensure Christ is truly the one you serve—that you have love for Him that exceeds every other love. That may mean you do not do as well in life as you might. It may mean sacrifices. But no man has ever regretted putting Christ first, nor has he ever regretted having a balanced appreciation for what is material, loving and caring for his family, and giving them the attention they need.

Oh, may the Lord help us. God, this is challenging for us, and we need grace to live it out consistently. We have obligations—even material obligations—to our wives and children. We pray that Thou wilt help us to recognize, as was warned to the children of Israel, that the Lord giveth thee power to get wealth. Help us then to seek first the kingdom of God, to put Thee first, to have no rival to Christ, to live in the shadow of the cross and in the light of His bleeding and dying, to make our decisions and serve our brethren.

Hear us in this. Forgive us for our shortcomings and recover areas of weakness. Continue then to enable us to live according to Thy will. And may the grace of our Lord Jesus, the love of God the Father, and the fellowship of the Spirit be the portion of every child of God now and evermore. Amen.