Contentment for Anxious Age
Contentment is available to you today. Three proverbs on wealth, generosity, and God.
When you picture someone who is content, who comes to mind? Maybe you picture a hippy who is carefree and doesn’t really have any ambition. Perhaps you picture a monk of some form who is meditating. Maybe you can even picture yourself at a certain time in your life.
I remember the most content I have ever felt. I was in Sri Lanka with my wife. We were missionaries and we got some time away. We were staying up in the mountains of Sri Lanka and booked a hotel overlooking the valley, and I woke up and felt at peace, at ease, not a care in the world.
You probably have some experiences like this, however frequently or infrequently. Maybe it was a honeymoon, or it is the feeling of being at home with your parents, or it was a time in life where things just seemed easy and carefree, like college. I think contentment is one of the greatest gifts in life. But it is infrequent and feels fleeting. We keep chasing it. We hope the next bill we pay off, or raise, or season of life will be less busy, less anxious, with more contentment.
We see in Proverbs that contentment is available to you today. But it is not going to come through having enough money, self-esteem, relationships, or what have you. It only comes through knowing God.
I want to explore and explain three passages from Proverbs and all of them deal with money. Why money? Money is one of the biggest things we place our hope for contentment in. Jesus knows this. This is why he connects money and anxiety in Matthew 6. And so as people who seek to grow in wisdom, we need to hear from God’s word on the matter of money and how to find true contentment.
First: Give Your Firstfruits to the Lord
Proverbs 3:9–10 — “Honor the Lord with your wealth and with the firstfruits of all your produce; then your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will be bursting with wine.”
The firstfruits are the part of the harvest which are the choicest selections. They are the best and most ready to sell. This is the part of the crop you harvest first. With our finances, you can think of it with this same firstfruits concept. We’re talking about the total amount, not leftovers, to the Lord. This is a very important concept.
When my wife and I first got married, we didn’t understand this. Instead, we added up all our expenses, made a budget, put money into savings, and then looked at our finances and said, “Well, this is what we can give from.”
The firstfruits concept flips it on its head. The idea is that you should give your first and best to the Lord and let that determine the rest of the budget. If that means you cannot afford Netflix, then you don’t have Netflix. This is the type of giving that honors the Lord. We go to the Lord with our first and best, asking what he might require of us in our finances. This is a big part of our 10/10 initiative—a two-year initiative to dedicate ourselves to the Lord in all areas of our lives, including our finances, where we’re simply asking him, “What do you want from me, Lord?”
And there’s something deeper happening when we do this. Money is formative. In Matthew 6, Jesus teaches that where your treasure is, there your heart will be also. Your heart follows your money. Not the other way around. So when you give your first and best to the Lord, you are not just doing it to honor him but you are relocating your treasure and training your heart. Some may wonder why they lack affection for the Lord, and it is reasonable to ask: where is their treasure? Is it aimed at honoring the Lord, or is it held back? Because as you give, you are shaping your affections for God.
What is the promise in this passage? That if you give your firstfruits to the Lord, then your barns will be filled with plenty and your vats will be bursting with wine. This is a challenging message, because it is important to stay biblical and not get into weird manipulations about giving. Some who preach a prosperity gospel promise health and wealth if you give to their ministries. That is not what we’re talking about. But in reaction to the prosperity gospel, we also don’t want to veer into the poverty gospel, where people think that being poor is the goal, or that our giving and dedication to the Lord has no impact.
Instead, we aim to trust God’s providence. We believe that he will provide and does provide. And when we are faithful to him in giving of our finances, he will meet our needs in ways we didn’t think he could. There are countless stories of this. When our family decided to operate from this firstfruits principle years ago, we were astounded at the various blessings, the full barn, so to speak, that we experienced afterwards.
Remember, in Proverbs we are looking at wisdom literature, not law. We shouldn’t make this text out to be a type of guarantee. Instead, the wisdom principle is that God has designed the world such that when you are generous toward him, he has promised to take care of you. We see this in the Sermon on the Mount, where Jesus teaches us to seek first the kingdom of God, and all these things, including food and clothes which Jesus knows we need, will be given to us.
So the principle is to give your firstfruits to the Lord. But what should our relationship to money be like? If we’re going to be content in our money, then how we think about our money matters.
Free: The Righteous Give Freely
Proverbs 11:24–28 — “One gives freely, yet grows all the richer; another withholds what he should give, and only suffers want. Whoever brings blessing will be enriched, and the one who waters will himself be watered. The people curse him who holds back grain, but a blessing is on the head of him who sells it. Whoever diligently seeks good seeks favor, but evil comes to him who searches for it. Whoever trusts in his riches will fall, but the righteous will flourish like a green leaf.”
The first part of this passage gets at what Proverbs 3 discussed as well: the one who gives freely, those firstfruits, will experience the blessing of the Lord, but those who withhold what they should give will suffer want. They will be hungry. Why does this happen?
Well, it’s very practical. If you are a person who blesses others, you will be blessed in return. Think about it. If you go around encouraging and being generous with others, it typically comes back to you. The world just generally flows this way by God’s design. Again, not a guarantee, and we shouldn’t give in order to get but that’s just how things happen. What you’re doing when you’re a person of blessing is not so that you can get blessings from others, but because you have a higher trust than in riches or even yourself. You trust in the Lord.
And then the warning comes at the end. If you trust in your riches, then you will fall. But the righteous will flourish like a green leaf. The contrast is between the righteous and the unrighteous here. The righteous bless freely. Those who do not bless freely trust in money. Jesus taught this principle in Matthew 6:24:
“No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money.”
The natural question here is: how do I know if I am a person who trusts in my riches? Well, the answer is in the Proverb. Are you a righteous person, a person of blessing and generosity or does giving bum you out? Are you glad to give and wish to be the type of person who can bless others generously? I think too many Christians focus on the bad, what to avoid, rather than the good in here.
When we focus on not being someone who trusts in their riches, we are typically even more anxious about money. We start psychoanalyzing every financial decision: “Am I trusting in riches by saving money? Am I trusting in riches by wanting to earn more money?” And it just becomes a spiral of spiritual anxiety. Instead, we should have in our minds a goal to be a righteous person, one who gives freely and blesses, and have that vision before us and pursue it.
This is very challenging in our day. We live in a very rich age, in a very rich nation, in a very rich city. There are many people who put their trust in riches. They are very proud of their riches and are not generous. For many Americans, it is about getting theirs and making sure they are taken care of first not seeking first the kingdom of God.
In our consumeristic age, this is very tempting, and it is a temptation we should avoid. Many of the issues our nation faces would be fixed if the people of our nation were to seek first the kingdom of God instead of pinning their hope on their savings account, or gas prices, or the stock market. This is not to say there are no real challenges that people face financially. These are hard times. But in all of it, we should be a people who seek first the kingdom of God.
One of the surest signs of trusting in riches and not blessing is debt. Sometimes debt is unavoidable, like getting a home or a car or a church building, for that matter. But consumer debt is out of control, and our national debt is an indictment on this nation. Debt is often tied to not being a person of generosity, because practically speaking, when you are in debt you are not as able to be generous. This is not to condemn those who get into debt. There are many people who get into debt from mistakes or forces outside their control. And I am not a financial advisor. But as a pastor, I am simply saying it becomes harder to seek first the kingdom of God while you are in debt, because you are not able to freely give as much.
So we give our firstfruits to the Lord, and we are to be like the righteous who give freely, not like the miser who trusts his riches. How does all this connect to contentment, as Jesus did?
Fixed: Neither Poverty nor Riches
Proverbs 30:7–9 — “Two things I ask of you; deny them not to me before I die: Remove far from me falsehood and lying; give me neither poverty nor riches; feed me with the food that is needful for me, lest I be full and deny you and say, ‘Who is the Lord?’ or lest I be poor and steal and profane the name of my God.”
It is not wrong to gain wealth. The Bible does not teach that money is the root of all evil, but that the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. This is what Proverbs 11 was getting at with trust. As Christians, our goal is not riches. It is also not poverty. The goal is God.
But if everyone would like to make more money, then how can we have God as the goal as we pursue wealth and wealth creation? Because when we naturally want to make money, that is not in opposition to the goal being God. You can glorify God in making money.
The point in this Proverb is that we recognize that in both poverty and riches there is temptation to dishonor the Lord and not seek his kingdom first. In poverty, we are tempted to profane the name of the Lord. How? By breaking his commandment. We will be tempted to steal. And in riches, we begin to question if God is really necessary, because we can live like gods now.
The poor and the rich have similar temptations, like a mirror: in both situations, you can trust money. You can be a greedy poor person who worships money, or a greedy rich person who worships money. Both trust in riches. The author of this Proverb knows this. What is the goal instead? To honor the Lord. The goal is God.
This is the key to contentment: to keep your eyes fixed on the Lord. In any and every circumstance, whether poverty or riches, if we keep our eyes on the Lord, seeking first his kingdom, that is where contentment comes from. “But pastor,” you say, “my financial needs are very great.” They may be. But in them, do not profane the Lord, do not distrust him. “But pastor,” you say, “what need do I have of God when I can do whatever I want with money?” That is more dangerous, because that is the attitude of an atheist. And if you begin to think you do not need God, you will sin greatly.
The destination of all those who do not trust in the Lord but instead worship money is hell, rich and poor alike. The rich man is in grave danger if he does not live generously, blessing others, because he can numb himself to his real need for salvation through pleasure, leisure, and consumption.
The author of this Proverb is so persistent on this matter that he says he wishes the Lord to give him neither poverty nor riches. Instead he asks for just what he needs, the food that is needful for him. This, of course, is what we pray in the Lord’s Prayer: that the Lord will give us our daily bread. This is not just a spiritual matter of sustenance when we pray (although it is that, in the bread of life, Jesus Christ) but a material one as well: that God would meet our material needs today.
But this brings up an important question around contentment and money: If the answer to our discontentment is to know God and trust God and love God, if the goal is God, then how can I achieve this goal?
The Answer Is Jesus Christ
You cannot achieve the goal of God on your own. You are dead in the trespasses and sins in which you walk apart from Christ. Jesus, the Son of God, was the greatest gift ever given. He came, lived, died, rose, and ascended into heaven, where he is now seated at the right hand of the Father. He died the death that you and I deserved for our sins. That is the only path to the Father, through the Son.
In order to achieve the goal of God, in order to seek first his kingdom, you must know the King. And not just know about him, like some information about Jesus. You must give him your faith and loyalty and devotion. You must belong to Jesus, and the only way to do that is by repenting of your sins, your covetousness, greed, and worship of money, and putting your faith in Christ for salvation.
Out of this, you get God. You are brought into communion with the Trinity, so that you have access to the throne room of grace, you are unified with the Son, you are given the Holy Spirit, and you are grafted into the church, the body of Christ.
Listen to how Scripture grounds contentment:
“Keep your life free from love of money, and be content with what you have, for he has said, ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you.’” — Hebrews 13:5
We have the reason for contentment right there. It’s not a number in a bank account. It’s the presence of God. Contentment is the fruit of having a God who has promised to never leave.
If you are looking for contentment, this is where you find it. It won’t be found in the fluctuations of the market or the size of your bank account. It can be found in Christ alone.
A People Who Change Things
The church is the body of Christ, filled with people who have made this decision: who seek the kingdom first, who pray that God’s kingdom come and his will be done on earth as it is in heaven. This kind of people lives out these principles that we see in Proverbs. We are people who give of our firstfruits, who freely bless, who hunger for righteousness, and who trust in the Lord.
That kind of people changes things with their money. They are generous, magnanimous even; they bless others and seek to be a blessing. And they are very disruptive to the world’s agenda, because they do not go along with economic schemes as the be-all and end-all of life. In fact, if we saw a mass revival in America, it would almost certainly bring about an economic revolution of sorts, because you would have a mass group of people who are not buying the lies of the world when it comes to money. Of course that is not to speak as if there would be some sort of unbiblical socialist revolution but instead a turning away from trusting in riches and a turning toward seeking first the kingdom of God.
Christian, if you are looking for contentment today, then you must remember Christ. Turn to him in your desperation. Are you anxious about your finances? Are you stressed about making ends meet? Are you worried about the economic outlook? Remember that we aim for righteousness, and that we must not serve money. We must seek first Christ’s kingdom, and he has promised that he will take care of the rest. Christ has promised to take care of you, to bless you, to prosper you. Turn to him. A first step in walking in repentance can be giving today. We give freely as ones who have been blessed. Not out of obligation or begrudgingly like a miser. We give because we have been given much and we know that where our treasure is, there our heart will be also. Store up your treasure in the Lord.
This sermon was preached at The Well Church in Boulder, CO on May 31, 2026. To listen to this sermon go here. To watch this sermon go here.