In all of our discussions about contentment, let us consider today the following question: When is it okay to be
discontent?
While it is not okay to be discontent with our physical
condition, it is okay to be discontent with our spiritual condition. Though we
should be content with an adequacy of food and clothing, we should not be
content with an adequacy of grace. We
should covet more grace. Never think you
have enough! The Apostle Paul, though content with so little of this world, was
not content with only a little grace. He
was continually striving for more, fighting for more, running for more. A Christian should be the most content with
where he is, yet the least satisfied with who he is.
In our discontentment over our sin however, we still must
be careful. Our discontentment over our
sin and state of grace may be out of bounds and sinful too. For example, if we are viewing our sin as
greater than God’s mercy, we have gone too far.
Consider Numbers 21:4-9.
From Mount Hor they set out by the way to the Red Sea,
to go around the land of Edom. And the people became impatient on the way. 5
And the people spoke against God and against Moses, "Why have you brought
us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no food and no water,
and we loathe this worthless food." 6
Then the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the
people, so that many people of Israel died. 7
And the people came to Moses and said, "We have sinned, for we have
spoken against the Lord and against you. Pray to the Lord, that he take away
the serpents from us." So Moses prayed for the people. 8 And the Lord said
to Moses, "Make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is
bitten, when he sees it, shall live." 9 So Moses made a bronze serpent and
set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze
serpent and live. ESV
When God sent the fiery serpents among the children of
Israel, what would have happened if, rather than looking to the bronze serpent
that Moses lifted up, they had only looked at their wounds? They would never have been healed. That sorrow for sin which drives us away from
God IS sin! There is more despair in it
than remorse. Judas was so remorseful
for betraying Christ that he confessed his sin to the Pharisees, returned the
money, and then went out and hung himself and went to hell. That was some serious remorse, but it did not
end in forgiveness. It ended in
despair. Why? Because Judas did not look to Christ and
cling to His grace and mercy! Let us be
careful, in our discontentment with our sin, that we do not forget to look to
Christ! In the words of Thomas Watson, “Sorrow in itself does not save (that would
be to make a Christ of our tears).”
When our sorrow over our sin is not relieved by the grace
of God and the mercy and forgiveness of Christ, it makes the heart out of tune
for prayer, meditation on the Scriptures, and fellowship with God and other
believers. It secludes the soul. To quote Watson again, “This is not sorrow, but rather sullenness, and renders a man not so
much penitential as cynical.”
It is good to be content with our physical
condition. It is good to be discontent
with our spiritual condition. But even
in our spiritual discontentment, we must be careful that we do not spend our
lives focusing only on our sin. We must
look to Christ and be forgiven. We must embrace
more of His grace!
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