There is only one way to sustain faith, which is a contentment in God, and that is list,

list, list, list, to God's description of how surpassing is the worth of Jesus Christ.

How do we fight the unbelief of covetousness or discontentment?

This is the question John Piper answers from 1 Timothy 6, 6 to 12 in this episode of Light and Truth.

This sermon was originally preached at Bethlehem Baptist Church on October 30, 1988.

The way to fight sin in our lives is to fight unbelief in our hearts.

The way to fight sin in our lives is to fight unbelief in our hearts, or to put it positively.

The way to pursue righteousness in our lives is to pursue faith in our hearts, or to fight the fight of faith as Paul calls it here in verse 12.

Let's go at covetousness this morning.

In our text, in 1 Timothy 6, I believe we have a very clear definition of covetousness, even though the word is not used.

I know that, but the reality is all over the place in this text, and we have a description of the battle against covetousness as a battle of faith or a battle against unbelief.

Let's take those one at a time and point that out from the text.

First of all, the definition of covetousness. I'm going to draw it out of verses 5 and 6.

The situation here in verse 5 is that there are some people in the community who are evidently cashing in on godliness somehow.

Maybe they're putting out some really juicy albums of evangelical pop music or something.

I don't know. There's evangelicalism is big business in America today, multi-billion dollar business.

And evidently, it had its roots way, way back. Some people here were considering godliness means of gain, worldly gain.

Paul is going to play with some words here and cashing in on their words with verse 6, and he says,

there is great gain in godliness with contentment, with contentment.

Now, here's my definition of covetousness on the basis of that verse.

covetousness is desiring other things so that your contentment in god diminishes.

covetousness is a loss of contentment in god with a corresponding rise of desire for other things besides god.

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