Fight the Good Fight, Finish the Race, a sermon based on 2 Timothy 4: 6-8 and 16-18, preached on October 26, 2025

My friends, have you ever been overwhelmed by the problems in our world? Is that a rhetorical question? Two weeks ago, my oldest friend, Matt Buchanan (I’ve known him since I was 8), invited me to help him replace a woman’s windows. She’d been referred to him by a school social worker. Her son, a student in Marietta City Schools, suffers from multiple challenges. Unable to express himself verbally, he’s prone to violence, and often punches walls or breaks windows. With cold weather coming, this school social worker asked Matt for help. Matt, who is a carpenter, agreed. I was his assistant. He replaced three broken windows with a shatter-resistant fiberglass, while I picked up broken glass in the yard. That was the job I was most qualified to do. At one point, the son, prone to violence, came outside to sample the snacks we’d brought. When he took them back into the house, we didn’t fight him on it, not knowing exactly how prone to violence the boy was. Really, he just wanted to talk and interact. As it turns out, he’s just a kid. The real challenge we were faced with was that despite our efforts, there was still so much that this family needed. Matt replaced three windows, but unfortunately, between the time Matt went out to measure and assess the situation and the day we showed up, the kid had broken another. Since there were only supplies for three windows, to cover up the fourth, we used cardboard. Now that’s a particular feeling. That feeling may make you wish for a superhero, but none was available. It was just Matt and me. We showed up. We worked hard. Yet, because the need was so great, our efforts felt like a drop in the bucket. Sheet rock on every wall of that house had been damaged. One window was covered by cardboard. The boy suffers from a disability. His mom is sick. When we finished up, we stood on the street, and I asked Matt if he felt good about what we’d accomplished. He said he did, but he mostly felt overwhelmed by what all there was still to be done. You know this feeling. In fact, our church knows this feeling so well that coming out of the early service, a retired teacher told me that she had so many students in her classes that she’d only see for 9 weeks. How could she make a difference in their lives if they were only with her for 9 weeks, then they’d move? After a few years, she was tempted to write their names in pencil on her roll because they wouldn’t be in her class long enough to be written on the rolls in pen, yet for 9 weeks, she did her best. For 9 weeks, she worked hard, all while asking, “Have I done enough? Have I made a difference?” You know this feeling. What are we to do about the issues that our world faces? How can we make a difference? This morning, we turn our attention once again to the letters to Timothy. Tradition tells us that 1st and 2nd Timothy were written by the Apostle Paul, stuck in prison, anticipating his execution. He wrote these two letters in prison to a young Christian just starting out his ministry, and what would the Apostle Paul say nearing the end of his life and his ministry? “Dear Timothy, I hope your retirement is better than mine.” “I hope that in the end it feels like you’ve done more than added a drop to the bucket.” No. That’s not what he wrote. Instead, he wrote: Fight the Good fight. Finish the Race. Don’t worry about the outcome. Leave that in the hands of God. My friends, today is Reformation Sunday. I told the first service a whole bunch about the history of the Protestant Reformation, and I realized I was telling them too much when the third person fell asleep. For this service, let me give you an abbreviated version. The Protestant Reformation starts with a simple act of defiance. Martin Luther, a monk and scholar, read the Apostle Paul and was so amazed by the way he described God’s grace that he felt led to write down all the things that the Church was doing wrong. 95 complaints he wrote on a sheet of paper, and he nailed that paper on the church door in Whittenburg, German in 1517. What happened next had little to do with him and a lot to do with God: for example, because he complained about the church when he did, what he wrote was mass produced using the printing press. His words spread throughout Germany and into France, where John Calvin read them. John Calvin was so inspired that he wrote a book, which was read by John Knox, and John Knox took those same ideas to Scotland. In Scotland, John Calvin’s teaching, delivered by John Knox, combined with the ideals of democracy and gave birth to the Presbyterian Church. The Presbyterian Church was so meshed with democracy that as Presbyterians migrated to this country, they stirred up a rebellion, frustrated by monarchy and longing for self-government. Half the signers of the Declaration of Independence were Presbyterian. So many Presbyterians fought in the War for Independence that many in England called the American Revolution, the Presbyterian Revolution. Those Presbyterians started half the Ivy League. They formed schools. They laid the groundwork for American Democracy, but remember it started when Martin Luther nailed his 95 complaints to a church door. The echo of that first defiant act still resounds throughout our world today. The author Eric Metaxas recently wrote a biography of Martin Luther, titled, Martin Luther: The Man Who Rediscovered God and Changed the World, which begins with this introduction: In 1934, an African American pastor from Georgia made the trip of a lifetime, sailing across the Atlantic Ocean, through the gates of Gibraltar, and across the Mediterranean Sea to the Holy Land. After this pilgrimage, he traveled to Berlin, attending an international conference of Baptist pastors. While in Germany, this man became so impressed with what he learned about the reformer Martin Luther that he decided to do something dramatic. He offered the ultimate tribute to the man’s memory by changing his own name… not long after the boy’s father changed his own name, he decided to change his [young] son’s name too, and Michael King Jr. became known to the world as Martin Luther King Jr. Let me stop right there to summarize what I just told you: Martin Luther’s defiant act set in motion a movement that led directly to Martin Luther King Jr., but it started with one man nailing 95 complaints to a church door. Martin Luther didn’t change the world. He just fought the good fight. He just ran his race. The outcome can only be explained by the power of God, who takes our feeble, faithful efforts and magnifies them. One act of faithfulness can change the world. One act of love does resound through history. We are not weak, but powerful, so on this Reformation Sunday, I want to read to you a poem written by Marianne Williamson: Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God… We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, Our presence automatically liberates others.” Today, as we remember what is called the Great Reformation, know that what we celebrate is not just an important event in the past, but the impact one person can make when he dares to believe that the Good News of Jesus Christ is relevant and worthy of proclaiming loudly and defiantly. It may take years. It may start with a mustard seed, but mustard seeds grow, and so the Apostle Paul did not end his life wondering if he had made a difference. Instead, he celebrated what he had done while leaving the results in the hand of his Creator, and so he wrote: I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. I am already being poured out as a libation, and the time of my departure has come. I love that image of being poured out because it’s the opposite of a vampire. This time of year, vampires are all around us. Kids put in those plastic teeth with fangs and wear capes to look like vampires, but always all around us are people who act a little like vampires in the sense that they look out at the world and think to themselves: Whose blood might I drink? What’s in it for me? What can I get out of this? That’s no way to live. That’s not how we were created to be. We were created to give and to be poured out, yet to go on pouring ourselves out for the good of the world, we must remember that our call is not to fix the world but to fight the good fight and to run our race. That’s what the judge told my friend Moc Lee. If you know Moc, don’t think he got into trouble. He was hearing from a judge because he was called to do jury duty. He had to cancel lunch with me a couple weeks ago because he was on a jury for 10 days. I felt so sorry for him. When we got our lunch rescheduled for last Friday, I told him so, but he told me that as soon as I have a chance to be on a jury, I should seize that opportunity because it will make me feel better about the world. When he said that, I got really interested. Right? He told me that, “There were 12 of us deliberating this case for six hours.” That was after 9 days of listening to arguments in the courtroom. Rather than rush to get out of there, they deliberated for six hours. “Do you know how good I feel to live in a community where 12 strangers care that much about the defendant and the accused, two strangers whom they don’t even know?” he asked me. And he’s right. They fought the good fight. They ran their race. That’s what we’re called to do whether we are preachers, teachers, or members of a jury, but Moc got stuck worrying over what would happen next to the victim, and how the defendant would be punished, but the judge told the jury to focus on their role in this process. Their job was to give them a fair trial, and so they did. Fight the good fight. Finish the race. Leave the rest in the hands of God. Amen.

The Days Are Surely Coming, a sermon based on Jeremiah 31: 27-34 and 2 Timothy 3: 14 - 4: 5, preached on October 19, 2025

Just last week, columnist David French celebrated revival movements right here in the United States of America, yet wisely, he cautioned us to remember that there is a difference between a revival and a rally. He’s right about that. There is a difference between a revival and a rally. A rally, like a high school pep rally, is a celebration of what is right about us and what is wrong with our opponents, while a revival is always sparked, not by a self-righteous cause or a quest for victory, but a call to repentance. A revival causes one to look deep inside himself, and so the hymn that so defined the Billy Grahm Crusades was always: Just as I am, thou wilt receive, Wilt welcome, pardon, cleanse, relieve. Because thy promise I believe, O Lamb of God, I come, I come. I’ve told you before that I’ve answered the alter call, not once, not twice, but at least four times because even though I repented, I always retained that capacity to be tempted by sin, so I’ve gone forward to be washed in the blood of the Lamb again and again and again and again. I’ve felt that desire to be saved, so I know by the stirring I’ve felt in my own soul that revival begins not with the assurance that my cause is righteous and that it’s my enemy who needs the correction, but revival begins with the conviction that I must repent and be forgiven. There’s a difference between a revival and a rally, for a revival begins with repentance. In the months leading up to the Civil War, preachers in the North declared that God was on their side and would ensure the victory of their cause, while in that same moment, preachers in the South declared that God was on their side and would ensure the victory for their cause. That’s a rally. On the other hand was President Abraham Lincoln, who humbly said, “I just hope to be on God’s side.” My friends, I tell you that we must be wary anyone who stands from the pulpit or the podium declaring that our cause is just and that our enemy is evil, for the time is coming when people will not put up with sound doctrine, but their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own desires. Who will tell them whatever they want to hear, and they will turn away from listening to the truth and will wander away to myths. Those are words from our second Scripture lesson, and I hope that you know that those days are not just coming, they are already here. Already, there are too many preachers in our world who spend all their words telling their congregations what they want to hear rather than what they need to hear, which is a tragedy because revival begins not when we’ve been told that we’re just fine and our neighbors are the ones who have it all wrong. Revival begins when we stop pointing out the speck in our neighbor’s eye to deal with the log lodged in our own. Revival begins with repentance. Revival beings with that simple prayer: Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner. My friends, you can tell the truth from the lie. While there may be those who will tell you whatever you want to hear, remember that the truth hurts while the lie goes down easy. There’s a great story told by author Anne Lamott. She was attending a women’s Bible study, and the leader asked the women to think of who has been like Jesus to them. “Who has been Christ like in your life?” she asked them. The first woman described her grandmother, who lived in a small house that was right on her way home from her middle school. In those days when she was a middle schooler and things weren’t going her way, she’d feel a nudge to stop by her grandmother’s house, and like magic, the moment she walked through the door, her grandmother would be pulling chocolate chip cookies from the oven. “We’d sit and talk, and she was like Jesus to me”, the first woman said. The second woman told the group about her golden retriever, always happy to see her when she walked through the door, which was such a comfort after her husband died. Around the table they went. Wonderful story after wonderful story, until the last woman at the table spoke. She had a different take on the question because she saw Jesus in a slightly different light. “Who has been like Jesus to me?” she began. “That’s a difficult question because based on what I read in the Bible, it has to be someone who was so honest with me that I wanted to kill him.” My friends, that’s the correct answer. And I want you to know the truth about the love of Jesus because the days are surely coming, indeed they are already here, when people will harm you by telling you what you want to hear rather than what you need to hear. Think with me about the friend who sat you down to talk about your drinking. Think with me about the friend who wouldn’t co-sign on your bologna. Think with me about the doctor who sat you down and told you that if your diet doesn’t change, you’ll have type 2 diabetes. One of the funniest things I’ve ever heard Fran Hammond say, and it’s hard to pick because I’ve heard Fran Hammond say so many funny things, was one day a friend of hers was telling her that her doctor had the audacity to say, “You need to lose a little weight.” “What am I going to do, Fran?” her friend asked. “Sounds to me like you need to get a new doctor,” Fran said. That’s funny because it’s the wrong answer. The voices who tell us the truth love us enough to tell us the truth even if hearing it makes us what to ring their necks. The one who tells you the truth loves you enough to tell you that you have some work to do, while the one who tells you that you’re doing just fine and that you don’t need to change may be benefiting from your brokenness. I don’t want to be broken. I want to be free. I want to live. I want to have joy, and today I declare to you that joy comes from gratitude, which is rooted in our ability to keep what we need while giving the rest away. That’s ironic because I used to think that I’d finally be happy when I have enough. Then, I finally realized that it’s never enough. I have some work to do because in our house, we’re subscribed to Netflix, and Hulu, and Disney Plus, and Apple, and Amazon Prime, and Paramount Plus, and HBO. If you’re looking for something good to watch, I can tell you, yet I can also tell you that I still sit in front of the TV with all those streaming services thinking, “There’s nothing to watch.” Likewise, we order groceries and fill the refrigerator. If that refrigerator gets too full, am I the only one tempted to buy another? We have two cars, then Lily started driving, so we bought a third. Last Friday, it was my job to clean the bathrooms, which took me forever because unlike our first house, we now have more than one. Last week, I walked into the worst bathroom I had to clean. I’m not going to tell you whose it was or where it was, I just want you to know that I walked into a bathroom last Friday morning that was especially nasty because the sinks were clogged, wet towels had been sitting in the corners, and the trash can was full. It reminded me of the Dead Sea. Did you know that reason the Dead Sea is dead is because water flows into it, but nothing flows out? And so it is for us as human beings. If we only accumulate without giving, we die. There is no more miserable person than the one who thinks only of herself. We weren’t made to take and take without giving. The apple tree doesn’t eat its own fruit, yet how many of us accumulate wealth without sharing it with those who are in need? My friends, if you spend more money on your storage unit than you give to the church, than I have an opportunity for you. I used to feel weird about preaching about stewardship. That was before I realized that this pledge card is our ticket out. If you just google “How many times does Jesus mention money?” you’ll see that He mentions it 288 times, basically one out of every ten verses in the Gospels has Jesus talking about money. Why? It’s because the truth is that it’s better to give than it is to receive. However, that’s not what everyone wants us to hear. The days are surely coming, indeed, they’re already here, when everyone around you is telling you that what you need is more. You need to have more and buy more and spend more, yet C. S. Lewis tells the story of a young boy who wanted to buy his father a Father’s Day present. Knowing he didn’t have anything, his father gave him $10.00. The boy ran down to the store, and some candy caught his eye. It wasn’t much, so he put it in his basket. Then he saw a new baseball, which he needed, and $10.00 was a lot of money. His father wouldn’t mind. Little by little, the boy ended up spending $9.00 on himself, and he bought for his father just a card. A $1.00 card. That’s all the Father asks for. Providing us everything that we have, our Heavenly Father only asks that we take the time to return 10% as a sign of our thanks, and as a means for us to gain our freedom in this culture of greed, selfishness, and materialism. If you look at your credit card bill and are spending more money on streaming services than you’re giving to the church, then it’s time to make a change. Let us all change, that revival begins among us here at First Presbyterian Church. Amen.

Seek the Welfare of the City, a sermon based on Jeremiah 29: 1, 4-7 and 2 Timothy 2: 8-15, preached on October 12, 2025

What we’ve just read as our second Scripture lesson is a personal letter. It’s part two of a personal letter that tradition tells us was written by Paul, that legendary leader of the Christian faith, who, when he wrote this letter, was nearing retirement. It was a forced retirement. He was imprisoned. He writes to Timothy, who was just getting started, and so the books of our Bible 1st Timothy and 2nd Timothy are full of advice from Paul to Timothy, and the portion of 2nd Timothy that you just heard begins with advice of the most common Christian wisdom. Paul’s admonition to Timothy: “Remember Jesus Christ” is among the most basic of Christian principals, and so I ask you: Do you remember Him? Plenty of people forget about Jesus, or maybe they never really knew Him to begin with. Remember Jesus Christ with me this morning so that we do not use His name in vain. Remember with me Jesus who spoke Aramaic, which is a language that so few people spoke in His time, so that when He traveled outside His hometown, people immediately knew where He was from. Have you ever had that experience? In college, I took a trip to New York City. There, I told a man that I was from Georgia, and he responded, “I know.” Jesus was born in Bethlehem. He was raised in Galilee. At that time and in that region, the locals spoke a language called Aramaic, which was sort of like a redneck version of Hebrew, yet not everyone remembers that about Jesus. In fact, in 1924, the Governor of Texas, Miriam Ferguson, in an effort to end the teaching of the Spanish language in public school, was quoted as saying, “If English was good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for Texas school children.” Remember Jesus Christ, who didn’t speak English, who was raised in a backwater town and spent most of His life, approximately 85% of his ministry, within 12 square miles of clay on the plains of the Gennesaret on the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee in what today we call Palestine. Without any form of mass communication other than word of mouth, with no social media presence whatsoever, Jesus of Galilee became the most influential human being ever to walk the earth. What unfolded on 12 square miles of clay forever changed the world, so before you go thinking that you need to head on to the big city to really live and to expand your sphere of influence, remember Jesus Christ. Remember Jesus Christ, who was influential but did not make a career out of being an influencer. Do you all know that term? It’s possible these days to make a living by developing a presence on social media. You put your brand out there on the internet. You share your opinion or your exercise videos, and once you gather enough followers, marketing companies will pay you to promote their products, and so I tell you that this sermon is brought to you by Cokesbury preacher robes, the best robes to preach in. I’m just kidding about that. I’m not trying to become an internet celebrity. Jesus wasn’t. Remember Jesus, who spent most of His life within 12 square miles of clay. Remember Jesus, who walked around marketplaces full of people yet noticed the individuals. Do you remember that there was a crowd of people and one woman who had been bleeding for 12 years? She reached out and touched His robe, and Jesus turned towards her out and spoke to her. He called her daughter and said to her, “Your faith has healed you.” Rather than use a bullhorn to preach from, He spoke to people. He looked into their eyes. He made people feel seen and loved. Remember Jesus Christ. I’ve just read a book that Denise Lobodinski gave me called Theo of Golden. Have you heard of it? Theo of Golden is about a man from out of town who walked into a small-town coffee shop. On the wall of that coffee shop, he notices portraits of the regulars. A local artist who spent much of his time in that coffee shop started drawing the people he saw around him and was trying to sell the portraits by putting them on the coffee shop wall, only no one had bought any of them. This man, Theo from out of town, couldn’t believe it. How could no one have bought such beautiful portraits? Surely these works of art should be hanging in homes, sitting on bedside tables. They should be enjoyed by the people so beautifully captured by the artist, and so one by one, he bought the portraits and delivered them to the people whom the artist had drawn. Gift by gift, these people were changed. That’s the whole plot of the book. I won’t tell you how it ends because I hope you’ll read it. And for every copy sold this morning, I’ll be receiving $1.00 in proceeds. I’m just kidding, but I do hope you’ll read it because it’s a beautiful book illustrating the truth of how much of a difference one person can make when he slows down to notice the people in his neighborhood. Remember that Jesus spent 85% of His ministry within 12 square miles of clay. What kind of a difference can you make in this world? What kind of a difference can you make if you simply notice the people in your neighborhood? If you simply show kindness and remind them that they are forgiven and loved by God? From 12 square miles, Jesus changed the world. Remember Jesus Christ. Thinking about Jesus this way reminds me of a woman I knew named Nancy Oliver. Nancy was a local celebrity in Columbia, Tennessee where we lived and where I was a pastor for seven years before coming here to Marietta. Nancy walked up and down Church Street. She would walk into First Presbyterian Church to get a cup of coffee, and she’d always try to grab a copy of our church directory so that she could solicit our church members. These days, scammers try to cheat you out of your money through email. Nancy Oliver did it the old-fashioned way. She wasn’t perfect, but she was kind. Once, while it was raining, our church secretary put the potted plant that sat on her desk outside the church so it would get some good rainwater. Nancy picked that plant up and took it to the bank, where she gave it to her favorite teller. That was half a kindness, right? She would visit the staff and the bank. She would visit us at the church. She would also sit with the staff at the funeral home. My point here is that Nancy wasn’t particularly kind, but she was kind enough. She wasn’t educated or influential, but she took the time to talk to people, and when she died, I was one of three pastors who officiated her funeral. She had two soloists and a crowd of people in attendance because when we take the time to be present, getting to know the people in our 12 miles of clay, even if our only kindness is stealing someone’s plant to give it to a bank teller, we will make an impact. Don’t think you have to go to Washington, DC to change the world. Don’t think you have to go on a mission trip to Tanzania to be a missionary. Don’t think you have to see your name in lights to see your name in the Book of Life. Do justice. Love mercy. And walk humbly with your God right here, right now. Turn off the TV, get out of your car, give up those habits that isolate you from the world outside your doors and remember again that there are people around you whose names are worthy of remembering and whose faces bear the image of our creator God. Every single one of us has a calling. Every single one of us is called to serve the Lord, to live our lives for His glory. Do not sleep through this life when God has called you to be a blessing. Remember Jesus Christ, who spent 85% of His 30-some years within 12 square miles of clay yet He shaped eternity. He died before turning 40 yet a more complete life has yet to be lived. You don’t have to live to 100 to make an impact. You don’t have to go to a big school to be somebody. Just slow down and notice the people around you. Remember Jesus Christ. When we left Columbia, Tennessee, the home of Nancy Oliver, my friend Jim Grippo told me a story. He said that a moving truck pulled into a gas station. A man got out of the truck and started filling the tank. An old man sitting outside the convenience store asked, “Where you from?” The moving truck driver said, “We’re coming from the most wonderful place. Full of people we loved. We hated to leave. Do you think we’ll like it here?” The old man said, “You’re going to love it. This town is just like the place you left.” An hour later, a second moving truck pulled in for gas. While he filled the tank, the old man asked, “Where you from?” The man filling the tank said, “We’re coming from a place we’re so glad is now in our rearview mirror. It was full of people we’re so glad to forget. I hope this place is different. Is it?” The old man said, “I hate to say it, but this town is just like the place you left.” My friends, the Palestine of Jesus’ day was full of crooks, infidels, sinners, and the unclean. Remember Jesus, who saw them as the children of God. Avoid wrangling over words, which does no good but only ruins those who are listening. Do your best to present yourselves to God as one approved by Him. Be a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly explaining the word of truth, which is the Good News of Jesus Christ, that He came into the world not to condemn the world but that the world might be saved through Him. May He live through you, and may your spirit be lifted, remembering His power and his might to redeem and save. Amen.

For the Love of Money, a sermon based on1 Timothy 6: 6-19, preached on September 28, 2025

A great preacher named Fred Craddock loved to eat at Waffle House. “It’s a great place to get a BLT,” he said. “You have to take a shower after, but it’s a great place to get a BLT.” One afternoon, after he finished his BLT, he asked his waitress for a cup of coffee, which she brought over with a smile. “Two creams, please,” he requested. She patted around, looking for the right pocket. “I can never find anything in this capricious apron,” she said. “Capricious?” Dr. Craddock asked. Finally finding the creamer in her capricious apron, this waitress laid six, not two, creamers on the table, which was more than Dr. Craddock asked for or needed, and so Dr. Craddock took the two he wanted, handed back the remaining four, but the waitress protested, saying, “Better to have and not need, than to need and not have.” “First capricious and now this,” Dr. Craddock responded, “Are you a waitress or a philosopher?” Then realizing he was in an important conversation with a woman capable of debating the metaphysical issues of human existence, he insisted that she take the four creamers he was not going to use, saying, “Better yet is to take what you need, and then give the rest away.” I don’t know how many times I’ve thought about that exchange. I know I’ve told you about it before. I bring it up today not to get you thinking about going to Waffle House after this worship service. Remember, today is the church picnic. Don’t go out for lunch today. I tell you this story to get you thinking about what you have, what you want, what you need, and that great quest we are all on, even and especially Mick Jagger, that is the quest for human satisfaction. I can’t get no, satisfaction. Gonna try. And I try. And I try. And I try. I love that it was Mick Jagger singing that song because he’s rich. Still, he sang the words: I can’t get no satisfaction, offering us the great irony of having enough money to buy whatever you could ever want, while satisfaction still lies out of reach. A rich man lamenting his fruitless quest for satisfaction is the perfect image to complement our second Scripture lesson from the book of 1st Timothy for, as this letter claims, those who want to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. You can’t buy contentment. To find contentment, you must be in touch with what you need and give the rest away. From the book of 1st Timothy, we hear the warning: the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. Yet, there is great gain in godliness combined with contentment. Godliness combined with contentment. We know that the perpetual pursuit of more, the inability to be happy with what we have, is a reality in our world of excess, materialism, debt, and superficiality. These issues are not new, although envy and covetousness assault us from every side, perhaps more than ever, in this 21st Century. Today, we cannot escape the billboards trying to sell us something. We are constantly exposed to pictures of people who appear to be having more fun than we are, going on luxurious vacations and sitting in fancy cars. Watching TV with my wife, Sara, every evening I see the same commercials again and again produced by drug companies that have a way of convincing me that I suffer from symptoms that I don’t actually have. Do I have restless leg syndrome? I don’t know. Maybe I do? Am I tired of living with dry and itchy skin? Maybe I am? Certainly, I suffer the plight of all of us who live in this consumer culture that wants us spending more money rather than being satisfied. Remember that the rich man sings, “I can’t get no satisfaction,” because satisfaction cannot be bought. Instead, we read in our second Scripture lesson that there is great gain in godliness combined with contentment. How can we learn to be content? We can’t while we suffer from persistent want, while we want what we can’t have, while we don’t know when to stop our quest for satisfaction, while we want what isn’t even good for us, and within those desires is the root of all kinds of evil. Of course, it’s not wrong to want. The deadly sin is not hunger, but gluttony. The sin is not intimacy, but adultery. Our God knows that we have needs and desires, yet there is a limit set, and the ability to live within that limit is the path of contentment. When was the last time you felt it? I mean really felt contentment. The week before last, I was in Scotland with several members of the choir, and near the end of the trip, someone asked me what my favorite meal had been. Now, this is Scotland. A beautiful place, known for quaint villages untouched by the march of time. A region known for majestic highlands, warm and caring people. A region known for rich Presbyterian history but not known for the food. I had some great meals there, but the meal that stuck out in my mind was not the best meal I had but the worst. One evening, we ate in a hotel. The waitstaff was small, so there were 30 of us and three of them. Everything was coming out in a rush. First, there was shrimp topped with a puddle of mayonnaise. It was so much mayonnaise that it was like mayonnaise pudding. Then came a hamburger that tasted like it had just come out of the microwave. I don’t want to complain, but that burger is seared into my memory. This one bad meal overshadows the rest of my culinary journey. I had haggis, black pudding, and a soup called Cullen Skink that might be the best soup I’ve ever had, while I could even now taste a microwaved hamburger that deserves to be forgotten. Why can I not forget about the burger? Why is it easier for me to remember the worst meal rather than the best? Along these same lines, Sara and I were at dinner with friends last summer. We talked about the opposite of pet-peeves. “We all know what little things drive us crazy. What about those little things that bring us joy? That’s the opposite of a pet-peeve.” Can you think of one? Or is it easier to think of what puts you on edge? What drives you nuts? What gets on your nerves? How far out of reach is satisfaction? Where is contentment? What can you do to find it? Is it easy for you to enjoy the trip, or are you quick to fixate on the food that was all wrong? Do you know that you love the feeling of leaves crunching under your feet? My wife, Sara, loves to crunch acorns while she walks. Once, a little girl told her that she was ruining those acorns for the squirrels who needed their shells intact, so they’d stay fresh through the winter. Sara doesn’t care. She loves the feeling of crunching them and says that this way, the squirrel can have an easy snack while he’s working on his winter stores. My point is simply this: There is great gain in godliness combined with contentment, and there is so much danger in fixating on what you don’t have, for the grass is not always greener on the other side, and those who can’t learn to find contentment will be on an eternal quest for more that never reaches satisfaction. Let our song be, “You can’t always get what you want. But if you try sometimes, you might find, you get what you need.” A story I love to tell is one about a woman who lost her husband. Her pastor came to visit a month or two after the funeral. From the look of the home, she had hardly left. The pall of grief hung over the place. Upon his arrival, this woman offered her pastor a glass of water. That was all she had because she hadn’t been out to buy groceries. What was the point? She led him out to the sunroom on the back of the house, which was different from every other room. While dust covered the living room and while dishes piled up in the kitchen, the sunroom was covered in sunlight, and blooming African violets covered every surface. She told him that she began growing them years before. Her husband’s mother taught her how. After the visit, she offered him one, which he accepted, but asked if he might deliver the violet to a man in the church newly widowed, whom he was on his way to visit. A week later, this newly widowed man wrote the woman a letter, thanking her for the violet, telling her that it was a bright spot during a dark time, which lifted this woman’s spirits so much that she took out her newspaper, read the obituaries, and sent an African violet to every person in the community who was mourning a loss. Step by step, violet by violet, her own broken heart was healed. She washed the dishes in the sink. She dusted the living room. She came back to life, for the way to satisfaction is taking what you need and giving the rest away. My friends, we live in a culture obsessed with more, and I’ve been the victim, thinking to myself that I’ll finally be happy when we can buy a bigger house, and a new car, and then maybe an investment property, yet if that were so then why would the rich man sing, “I can’t get no satisfaction?” I tell you, our culture has no idea where to find satisfaction. If you want happiness, true and abiding contentment, learn the discipline of keeping what you need while giving the rest away. Amen.