Chapter 4 :
Contentment
Fear of loneliness and suffering
Part Five
1 Tim 6:6 “Godliness with contentment is great gain”
Paul, who was single, is a great example of someone who was content with Christ and Christ alone. He understood that ‘godliness with contentment’ was GREAT gain. In fact, like was saw in chapter one, Paul wrote in Phil 3:8 that “I consider everything else as worthless when compared to the PRICELESS gain of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.”
We’re swinging back to the first chapter and summarising all that we’ve gone through in the first three chapters. In chapter one I spoke about Christ commanding us to have Him as our treasure, and that this command is actually to give us Joy that marriage can’t. In chapter two I spoke about how Christ and the Kingdom should be our primary and main concern, and how this is also what gives us joy and love. In chapter three I focused mainly on love so we can perhaps dispose of the idea that love is to be experienced and practiced with a partner only, and that perfect love is higher, more desirable and greater than romantic love.
Here I hope to bring it all together – to show that these truths will help us as singles to remain consistent and content, not be shaken by loneliness or temptations, the world’s opinions, and realise Christ’s enabling power to give us joy, love, peace IN suffering rather than merely taking it away. I’m saying this because our first response to take away our loneliness is to find a partner. Even though many still feel lonely in marriage! Therefore, why pursue marriage to give us our ultimate joy when it really can’t ultimately satisfy us, and dispel our loneliness? Secondly, I’m saying this so we can come to the realisation that it is perfectly normal to feel lonely at times, but that a constant sadness and bitterness about it is not God’s plan. God’s plan is also not to merely bring you a partner so you can be happy and no longer lonely. This is because a partner actually won’t help. What we need is God himself, the perfect love and joy.
Paul, who remained single in life, never once complained about it. In fact, he wrote about how much he enjoyed it in 1 Cor 7. He loved being single. He was content no matter what the circumstances. Was he an exception though? I don’t think he was. I think he was an example of the kind of contentment we are able to have in Christ. The glory of God was His central focus and passion. This is what sustained Him through suffering. This passion for God is what gave Him great joy – he was happy to go through tremendous suffering for Christ. And he DID go through much suffering, more than just the loneliness and temptations of living as a single. But Christ was his joy and God’s glory was his passion and focus. This is because he pursued the Kingdom first – and the Kingdom is what glorifies God in this world.
2 Cor 12: 10 “Since I know it is all for Christ’s good, I am quite content with my weaknesses and with insults, hardships, persecutions and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.”
Paul was happy to go through all of this ‘for Christ’s sake’ (as the NIV translation puts it).
Why? Well, as I said. Christ gives us joy. Christ gives us love. Christ was Paul’s absolute and all. He was Paul’s treasure. Paul wasn’t worried about marriage or kids or the like – he was concerned about the glory of God. So we see, that God uses the single life to glorify Himself. It is not just marriage that is used for God’s glory, but singleness too. If our passion in life is for God’s glory, then we should live out our single life with vigor and gratitude and in the Joy of the Lord. Not because we have to, but because God’s glory is our passion.
